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A much-needed holiday :: 28th February 2004

I never really realized how much we (more accurately, me) needed a holiday away from the daily routine of life. I never realized how much a holiday would do to the spirit, the soul….and the sanity of a mother, father and children. Until we actually went on a holiday.

It wasn't intended to be much of a holiday because we first planned attend a friend's wedding some 5 hours' drive away from home in the East Coast of Malaysia, in a place called Kuantan. 5 hours! It was supposed to be a one-night-tinghy with no frills, no fun and no beach. Turns out, dad had others plans in mind….THAT HE DIDN'T SHARE WITH MOM!

We didn't just pack and go for anyone. This was a close friend we used to call 'boss' when both my husband and me were in the Banking Line. Back in those days when we didn't need help in losing sleep and hair over stupid memos about raising someone else's credit line. Back in those days when I had to worry FOR clients cause I was going to sue them because they couldn't pay back the money they owed the Bank. This boss of ours was always very kind, long-winded and covered for us when we made mistakes, were late in delivering our reports, so, we regarded him more as a friend than a boss, in reality.

On the first night, we were pampered with a large hotel room that could easily house 10 - 12 people if some of them didn't mind sleeping on the floor. In our culture, that is usually OK with most of us, so, it was a pretty large room. The kids had tons of fun in the hotel room in itself cause they had ASTRO (Cable TV service) in the room and the kids entertained themselves (kakak too) with Disney Channel.

My attempt to bring them down to the ballroom for the wedding dinner was futile cause one was crying, the other one was running around like a headless chicken. On top of that, Jared was constantly trying to lift my DRESS (from bottom up) for a feed. That little tot has no concept of shame and his timing is horrible! To those unfamiliar with breastfeeding, it means revealing most parts of your body for public viewing!

Anyway, after some deep contemplation (which lasted no more than 10 seconds), I tucked Jared under my arm, pulled Joshua to his feed and dragged all of them (with kakak) back up into the room where they would be comfortable. Food was a problem cause the kids are so used to eating home-cooked food that even Lobster or Shark's Fins did not appeal to them at all. Joshua disdainfully looked into my bowl of Shark's Fin soup and literally spat into it and said, "Yuck, mommy. I don't like the soup" - and he had an inelegant piece of Shark Fin sticking out the side of his mouth. They ended up eating room service food that we had to force down their throats.

The swimming pool was the highlight of our stay in MS Garden, Kuantan cause it was large. There, I met a guy who was from the city himself too. We sat down and talked a bit and both shared our opinions about the rooms here. Man, and we dare call the hotels in the city of Kuala Lumpur and Petaling Jaya 5-star when the rooms here is the size of 2 rooms and a bathroom in PJ / KL? Shame on us!

After the dinner, kakak and me innocently thought that we were going haul our asses back to PJ and KL where the kids would get to finally eat NORMAL food. No siree, daddy and his friend, Nicholas (more like our friend from the Banking industry as well) decided that 1 night in Kuantan was not enough and we were heading up to Cherating.

At this point, Kakak was literally pointing an accusing finger at me and in her Indonesian slang said, "I thought you said ONE NIGHT?". Not that she didn't like a holiday but we packed 1 night's worth of clothing, milk, diaper and food for the kids, didn't we? Oh bother! Fine, I suppose we could wait until Jared's diapers sunk to his knees before we change him. We might just make it for 2 nights. And we can recycle the pajamas since they are generally clean.

Cherating. Let me tell you something: Cherating has got the most beautiful beaches I have seen in my life. Well, discounting the fact that the only other beaches I have seen were in Penang and Port Dickson - which means it doesn't count cause they don't even have as much sand as I have in my backyard to count as beaches

The distance between the beach and the water was so short, I would jump straight into the water without much effort. Yes, there really WASN'T much beach in the…beach?

But Cherating is a different story. The wind is strong, the air is dry and smells of real salt water, the waves were huge, the water was blue/green, the beach was massive. There's the only word I can come up with to describe the length of the beach there. There was so much sand and the beach is really quite clean and the sand is actually whitish/beige in colour…as compared to the ones in Penang and Port Dickson where the sand was either black/brown or muddy. The beaches in Cherating is the kind of beach one would expect a beach to be.

The kids had a swell time at the beach. Joshua was well prepared for the concept of us going to be at beach because he's watched VCDs about his favorite cartoon characters going to be beach and making sandcastles and all that - so, he has a pretty good idea on what to expect. Jared, on the other hand, was flabbergasted. Totally and completely taken by surprise. And I love to see the excitement, fear, confusion and anticipation on his face cause it was like he wanted and loved it here but hey, this is not normal? I can see the questions flashing through his face like flash cards.

Why is the land we're walking on always sinking? How come we are allowed to walk barefoot? How come there's so much wind? What's that way yonder: water? Man, that's a lot of water we're talking about. Where's the shade? What's that swooshing sound? Yikes, how come the water keeps moving and coming at me? HELP!! Why's mommy and daddy playing in that dangerous water? Come back up please. I still love you!

Jared was confused cause he was afraid of the water…very scared cause he would whimper if we even hinted that swimming in the waves was OK. Joshua, my least-adventurous son, needless to say, thinks that swimming in the tides is a definite no-no. He would rather get his toes bitten by crabs, I suppose. So, that was fine with me cause we all (me, kakak, Joshua and Jared) all made sandcastles and dug holes and plugged the holes back in on the spacious beach. It's like there's endless amount of playdough here on the beach, huh? I wonder if Play-Doh is actually even known here in this part of the country.

Daddy and Nicholas played (as we watched in envy) in the water. I took only a few advancing steps towards the water when I hear Jared crying, "Mommy! Come! Come! Come! Ccccoooommmmmmeeeeee!". His instincts rung out telling him that mommy's in danger and it's his job to save mommy from inevitable misfortune if she steps into the malicious water.

We rented an apartment at this hotel called "Holiday Villa" and it was fine and dandy. But I conked out at 10pm (way before my kids resigned for bed that night) and didn't have the chance to enjoy the apartment itself.

But I made up for it in the next hotel we stayed in.

Awana Kijal Now, this is what I call a real treat of a resort! It you are from Malaysia and plan on visiting the East Coast, you cannot not go to Awana Kijal - even for a quick look. The place is fit for the Royalty. You see, after checking out from Holiday Villa, we fully intended to go to Awana Kijal for a quick look because we have heard so much about it from friends. We also wanted to fill our stomachs, you see. So, there we go.

The moment we stepped into the place, we were smitten.

The guys, my husband and Nicholas, started discussing whether we should stay there for…you know, just ONE MORE NIGHT. My maid and I exchanged knowing looks but considering the fact that the place was heavenly, we were not going to argue. Even if we were low on the supply of food, milk and diapers for the kids.

The pool had a playarea for the kids right smack in the middle plus it was massive in size. The shallow part was shallow enough for the kids to paddle in and play around in the play-area. The deep part was deep enough for the adults to enjoy a good swim.

So, we rented another suite cause we have already pampered ourselves with suites the nights before. We're not going to downgrade ourselves this time, are we? Anyway, the suite was actually a two room hotel that had 2 TVs - one for the kids (Disney Channel, here we are again!) and another for the bigger kids (Football, Hallmark and Discovery Channel was the idea).

because we couldn't find food to cook but we would have if we found the ingredients). Both rooms led out to a very big lawn outside with a personal Jacuzzi. When you the gate and step out, there was a playground for the kids, Giant Chess set (and I mean GIANT), the swimming pool and a little further down was the BEACH!! Yes, it was unbelievable cause we had a beach right outside our doors. AMAZING!

At night, we went outside to the beach and listened to the sounds of the waves PLUS the songs coming from the beachside pub they had just beside the beach. The guys were obsessed with kite flying and my husband was not satisfied with their failed efforts at kite flying. So, they decided that to save themselves some face and time, they did it at night.

The next morning, we went swimming again in the pool and then went to the beach for a short time.

All in all, the trip was an amazing one although the ride back was less than pleasant, really. None of the kids slept on the way back…yes, we had to keep them occupied in a constrained area for the whole painful 6 hours of the ride.

Tiring it was but to tell you the truth, it was all worth it.

:: Marsha ::