Skip to main content

A weekend to forget and remember

If anybody out there ever try to book a room in a hotel in Ayer Keroh, Melaka, and the guy say that they have no vacancies but there is a vacancy in Lake Garden Resort, do not accept. We were at the lake Garden Resort and it was really a good place to stay if you like staying in a horror movie set. The corridors that led to our room were paved with stained carpets that I could have sworn that the stain patterns change each time I look at them. The room we got had a nice view of a wall with peeling paint. It looked so depressing that we closed the sliding doors and then realised that there are no other openings to the outside world that we have no idea what time of day it is if we did not have a watch.

The bathroom was gloomy and the sink was leaky. I do not know when the last time anybody used the bathtub. I dread the thought that we will have to step into the heavily stained bathtub to shower. The floor of the bathroom is of the same level as the rest of the room and the water leaking from the sink soon start to snake its way out of the bathroom.... wasn't that in Ju On or The Ring?

The last straw was when my wife took the "fresh" towel neatly folded on the bed, and found that it is full of brownish spots all over it.

We repacked our bags and left, and lost RM100 deposit. They offered to give us another room.... but, we already scared out of our wits... We cannot imagine staying in the room at night....

We found another accommodation just a few hundred meters from the Lake Garden Resort, called D'Village Resort. It wasn't great, but after our horrific experience... it was heaven.

The next day, we went to Serkam for an engagement ceremony. The boys and I got bored and we left for Muar. I thought of going to Kak Besah's house to maybe take a nap, but she wasn't home. So, we end up spending time touring Muar. After, lunch at Pizza Hut, I took the boys to the Mosque. The majestic Masjid Jamek Sultan Ibrahim, Muar, brought back many sweet memories. I remember the times when I will always drop by to pray almost everyday on my way home from school. The times when I "lepak" with my friends by the river behind the mosque, and once even caught shrimps there. I drove around a bit more, looking at the changes that Muar have gone through. Trying to find familiar places, and maybe bump into familiar faces. Unfortunately, the familiar places looked run down and some have even totally disappeared. And, I found no familiar faces any where.

I went through Jalan Ibrahim, to have a look at my first love's house, but where the house once stood, there was nothing there but the cement stairs that I once climbed up to visit her on Hari Raya some three decades ago. I wonder where she is now...

After that, I drove back to Serkam.... back to the present....

It was a lovely weekend after all....

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

7 Days to Live

This coming Friday, on December 21, 2012, the planet Nibiru, last seen only by the ancient Sumerians a few thousand years ago, will come around and pass so near our earth that it will shift the poles and cause a cataclysm, wiping all living things on our planet. According to Nancy Lieder, this phenomenon was first predicted to happen in 2003, but when nothing happened then, she postponed it to 2012. Ms Lieder claimed that she was abducted by aliens when she was young and later released so that she can warn all of us of the impending end of the world. Something is going to happen on December 21, some people insists, because that is the last day on the Mayan Calendar. The Mayan Calendar it seems is as accurate as the atomic clock, marking exactly the celestial events for the last 5,000 years. Some say that a meteor will fall to earth and we will then go the way of the dinosaurs. Or.... a huge solar flare occurs, engulfing and annihilating all planets in its path, earth...

Another phase in life.... hers and mine...

I have been in a melancholy mood. I have been unmotivated, wishing that I don't have to go to work. Although, I try to be the type of parent that is practical and always encouraged my children to be independent and self-sufficient, I guess I've always wanted to be there for them. Now, there is this realization that my eldest daughter, doesn't need me anymore.  Sending her to college last Sunday, it suddenly occurred to me that she will, from now on, be spending more time away from us. This is what has put me in a pensive mood. And, in a couple of years, my eldest son will leave us and then my other daughter, then finally, my youngest son. I look back at the last 17 years of raising her, I wish I had been a better parent. I wish I was had shown more patience and compassion rather than anger and edginess. I wish I had shown more composure than agitation. Maybe, that is why I find it hard to let go. I have this feeling that I haven't done enough, that I must hang on ...

Pak Mat Beca

I started school in 1971. I went to Sekolah Ismail (Dua), as far as I am concerned the only primary school in the whole universe and every kid must go there or the government will put their parents away forever. The "Dua" or Two (2), does not mean there were two Sekolah Ismails. There was only one, except that there were two sessions, morning and afternoon. When I started in standard one, I was in the morning session. Apparently, somehow, the two Ismails alternate, and I really can't recall ever having to go to school in the afternoon. Every morning, my cousin, the late Hashimah Hashim (Allah bless her soul), and I would wait for Pak Mat to pick us up in his beca, his trishaw. And, until I changed school in 1976 (that's another story to tell), Pak Mat and his beca would take me to school every school day. I know of no other way to go to school and I did not really appreciate the distance that Pak Mat had to cycle to pick us up and send us to our respective s...