Mencandat Sotong

Kuala Terengganu
Saturday 21 June 2008

April to July are normally the season for "mencandat sotong" and people from all walk of life would come down to Terengganu. It has been one of the Terengganu state tourism yearly activities and people could join in by paying certain amount of fee.

Squid Jigs

"Mencandat sotong" is simply catching squids using a simple line or fishing rod with few squid jigs attached to it. The heaviest jig would be attached to the end of line acting as the weight when throwing it to the sea. The jigs have to be dropped until reaching the sea bed, which is normally around 20 to 30 feet deep. Upon reaching the bottom, the line has to be retracted about 1 feet. From that onwards, we have to play the line with upward-downward movement until we feel the bite. Upon feeling the bite, we have to pull the line faster and land the squid on the deck.

This activity is quite costly when in a small group. We have to rent a boat ranging from class C to B. Class C boat can accommodate up to 10 people while class B up to 20 people. The rental for class C boat is in the region of RM200 to RM400 per trip (from 4 pm until 8 am the next day) while class B boat in the region of RM400 to RM600. If we require a simple dinner and breakfast on the boat, an additional fee of RM10 per person would be charged. All the fee is subjected to negotiation when making the reservation. Some operators would provide ready squid lines sell at RM16 to RM20 per piece. Catching squids doesn't require fresh bait but it attract to the boat light and the jigs would normally in the shape of small fish or shrimp.

Our entourage departed LKIM Jetty, Chendering at 5pm and was fortunate enough when nearly all of us managed to catch some squids and had good experienced of mencandat sotong. First timer would normally has either good or bad experience. They either experienced seasick and ended with vomiting for few times or catching the succulent big squids. Few of my friends had succumbed to the seasick and to kill the dizziness, they were all dozed off with the help of gentle swaying of the boat.    

Landing a long and big squid would be a dream to all of the squid catchers. Satisfaction could be seen on their faces with broad smile, even though they could buy it much more cheaper at the market. With less sleep, aching back and low catches; would not deter the "mencandat" lover to come again during the next "mencandat" season.

Mission To The Moon

On every July 20, NASA would celebrate the first step by mankind on the lunar surface. It was on July 20, 1969 at 10.56 p.m. EDT, Commander Neil Armstrong set his foot on the lunar surface after descending the ladder of Lunar Module Eagles and proclaimed "that's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind," followed by loud cheers and applause on earth.

Mission to the moon becomes reality with the successful liftoff of Apollo 11 on the morning of July 16, 1969 with astronauts, Commander Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins sat atop Saturn V at Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Centre, Cape Canaveral. After one and a half orbits, Apollo 11 gets a "go" for what a mission controller called "Translunar Injection" or in other words, it's time to head for the moon. Three days later the Apollo 11 was in lunar orbit. A day after that, Armstrong and Aldrin climbed into the lunar module (LM) Eagle and began the descent, while Collins orbits in the command module Columbia.

When the LM landed at 4.18 p.m. EDT only 30 seconds of fuel remain. Armstrong radio, "Houston. Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed." The mission control erupted in celebration as the tension breaks.

The celebration of Apollo 11 continues for months and years. I was 8 years old then, studying at Ahmad Primary School, Pekan, Pahang in Standard 2; when the LM Eagle landed on the moon, I was unawares at that time. As any other kids, we were happily playing hide and seek, shooting the cards collection stacked in the middle of a circle with a neatly woven rubber band and throwing slipper over a bunch of rubber bands on top of tin can, not knowing that the first human had sat foot on moon. At that time not all people owned TV set and in my neighbourhood only one person owned its (I have forgotten his name but he is a headmaster). We would normally on Sundays night, congregated in front of his house to watch the P.Ramlee's movies. The neighbour would take out his TV to his verandah and switched on for the kampung folks to watch it. Together with my sisters and uncle, we would bring along the mat and tit bits. Usually we would place the mat in between the coconut trees not far from the TV set. The picture was in B&W and at that time, I can never imagined that someday we could see it in colour and sleek in size, not like those day bulky in size. The neighbour's porch filled with hyperactivity; children chasing one another to find nice spot, teenager chit-chatting at one corner while uncles aunties too squeezing in to watch the "premier show."

As we watched the news with hundred of voices around us, it's suddenly died off, as if we were in a vacuum with total silence. All eyes were sharply focused on the TV. We were equally astonished, amazed and unbelievable when we heard that a rocket called Apollo 11 piloted by humankind is orbiting the earth and then human beings called Neil Armstrong performed the moonwalk.

"Wow!!! It is true people can fly to outer space and landed on the moon," I kept saying to myself.

Every night when I gazed at the moon, I never thought that human like me can walk on it. It was just like a bomb exploding in my mind breaking the unthinkable into pieces. I suddenly realised that a lots of things around me needs to be explored. Images of people walking on the moon becomes a normal sight. The school also started to instill and cultivate the children's interests by organizing essay writing and drawing competition. Images like Aldrin saluting the American flag, Aldrin descending the LM ladder, Aldrin walking on the moon and the LM Eagle were deeply etched in our mind and this images were popularly drawn by us during the drawing competition.

The Apollo 11 event is really a paradigm shift for me. From a playful boy to a more committed student during the classes. I pay more attention and stay focus when teachers teaches us. I wanted to excel in my studies and reached the apex of knowledge. UM commonly known for University of Malaya, is the uni I wanted to enrol. No other uni could replace it and alhamdulillah, I was there for 3 years doing my first degree.

I had made a promise to myself that one day, I would step my feet at the Kennedy Space Centre, Cape Canaveral. I wanted to feel the atmosphere of the mission control room, to sight the launching pad, to touch the control panel and to learn more about the said mission to the moon.

Seafood Galore at Penang

It was in the year of 1982. We were then still a varsity students in MU. University of Malaya Student Union (UMSU) was invited by USM Student Union to present our views and opinions on topic that I had forgotten. Anyway just forget about it, what I would like to share is our experiences during the journey to and fro (KL-Penang-KL). We had decided to rent a car and four of us will go to Penang. Khalid Ibrahim, the Vice-President of UMSU (now Dr Khalid Ibrahim, Director of Sg Buloh Hospital) will lead and deliver the keynotes address. The other student leaders were Zakariah Md Sam, the Exco-Special Functions Bureau, Ragunath Kesavan (now the President of Malaysian Bar Council) and me, the Exco-Publication Bureau.

We started our journey at about 9.00 pm after filling up the petrol tank. It has been the norm of car rental companies in Malaysia to leave the petrol tank nearly empty. The hirer has to fill it whereas in the countries like US and NZ, the car's petrol tank is full when taken by the hirer. The hirer when returning the car has to fill up the tank full. It is very convenient to the hirer and paying the petrol according to the usage only. OK, let's reminiscent the journey. At that time, PLUS North-South Highway doesn't exist. We had to use the old federal road from KL passing thru' Rawang, Kuala Kubu, Serendah, Behrang, Trolak, Tanjong Malim (old toll house), Slim River, Sungkai, Bidor, Tapah, Kampar, Ipoh, Kuala Kangsar, Taiping, Parit Buntar, Bagan Serai, Bukit Mertajam, Butterworth and then took a ferry to Penang Island. It was one hell of a drive. Zakariah and me were the designated driver as both of us have a valid car driving licence. Zakariah being an experience driver took the wheel first. We discussed a lots on what to offer to the audiences when Khalid deliver his speech. From one topic to another topic we dwelled and soon the quorom was getting smaller. One by one has had fallen to sleep as all of us were very confident with Zakariah's driving skill. I too felt to sleep and only woke up when we reached Butterworth. It was already suboh and we could hear the azan from the nearby mosque. After performing the solah, we joined the queue to embark the ferry to Penang Island. The cold morning breeze was refreshing enough and ignited our soul with new energy level. From the quayside, I could see the fishermen's boats being swayed by the waves and the sound of waves were very soothing to my ear. My tranquillity was suddenly been disturbed by a loud siren from the approaching ferry. All of us scrambling back to the car waiting to embark when the gate open.

It was way past 6 am and the sunrise had started to emerge with stream of orangish light in between the blue skies. It was such a panoramic sight and sadly I couldn't capture the moment, as I have had forgotten to bring my camera. All of us were standing near the railing, enjoying the wind blew in gusts across our faces. The sound of wavelets rubbing the ferry made me sleepy as if I was taken into another dimension. Once again the loud siren abruptly woken me from the spell of wavelets melancholic sound.

Upon opening of gate, we immediately disembarked the ferry and drove to Gelugor area. We were high and low looking for the USM signage. Our programme was supposed to start at 9 am and we still have an hour to locate the campus. Finally we reached USM campus on time and was ushered to a lecture hall. Khalid started to deliver his speech and in the process exaggerated about how closed the MU students with Prof Diraja Ungku Aziz (then the VC of MU) that we affectionately addressed as Pak Ungku. During the Q&A session, Khalid was lambasted by USM student on his remark addressing MU VC as only Pak Ungku. They perceived it as rude (kurang ajar) and no respect to VC. Khalid smillingly explained that all MU students can approached the VC and jog together around the campus without any protocol. All of us called him Pak Ungku without a qualm and not Prof Diraja Ungku Aziz.

As we had ample time to explore Penang Island, we decided to drove around the island to places such as Fort Cornwallis, Botanical Garden, Batu Feringhi, KOMTAR and lastly Gurney Drive for our early seafood dinner. All of us chose our pick from an array of fish, prawn, squid and crab. Zakariah chose a kilo of crab. I told them a kilo of crab would just stuck between the teeth (buat lekat celah gigi aje) and finally ended up with 3 kilos of crab cooked in sweet & sour sauce. The siakap (seabass) fish was steamed while the squid was fried with dried chilli and cashewnut. We ate as if we had not eaten for ages and I ended up feeling drowsy. I told them I could not drive the car as I felt giddy (mabuk seafood konon), dizzy and drowsy. I do not want to endanger my friend's life. I could even drive overboard into the sea. Zakariah had no choice but to drive the car and I ended up sleeping soundly all the way back to KL. I reckoned they must kutuk me alot and made fun of me. Till todate they still remembered this incident and would LOL when reminiscent about our trip to Penang.

When we reached the famous Bukit Berapit, Zakariah reminded all of us that the petrol was low and needed to refuel. Simultaneously, all of us said still can go on. Nobody were willingly to fork out their RM for the petrol at the moment. All of us seem have had forgotten about the mysterious and mystical stories related to Bukit Berapit. It was already 3 am and if we were stranded out of fuel, nobody would help us. However, we were so adamant and would only refuel when the indicator near zero. Leaving with no choice, Zakariah continued his driving until he shouted petrol on red alert and we were dead worried looking for petrol station. Outside was so dark with forestation along the road. All of us were cursing ourselves for being sticky and stingy. "O God, we had been unkind to ourselves, please forgive us," whispered us in our heart. From afar, we could see a dim light and our andrenalin gushing so fast when the car started to glide on the road. It was in deed a petrol station and our car came to complete halt on the dot, just beside the petrol pump. Ahhhhh, alhamdulillah, what a relieved ! While waiting for the car to refuel, Zakariah throw out his tantrum, "Lahabau kau orang, nasib baik tak habis tengah hutan." We just laughed and laughed but deep inside, I thanked Allah for the good fortune bestowed on us.

Pulau Tioman - Part 2

We were in Tioman for a week and lots of activities were done between the kampung folks and the participants. We had a series of awareness programmes in education, health and social integration. We were informed by the villagers that most of their children had stopped schooling after grade six. In order to further their study at the secondary school, they have to stay at hostel in Rompin which is located at the mainland. Most of the parents and children cannot bear the separation. They can only meet during the school holiday, which is in few months' time. Children that completed their secondary school were very few and they belongs to well off middle class families, where their parents could visited them frequently during the weekends. We tried explaining to them that education is the most important process to the children and most of the inputs were in the form of literatures. They need to improve the literacy rate amongst the villagers. I met a 16 years old boy, who had stopped schooling after grade 6 and barely could read properly. He seem to be very contented with the islander lifestyles wearing T-shirt and bermuda short, strolling with female tourists along the beaches as the unpaid tourist guide. He in fact boasted that he had free sex with tourists from all over the world. We were very sad that a young boy at that tender age had indecent exposure and on top of that he felt it was a great achievement to have an illicit relationships. I realised that we can't changed their lifestyles in short period of time. The Government should tackle this educational issue, if they want to make sure the younger generations are educated with the right knowledges and able to differentiate good or bad moral values. We also realised that not all the children have equal opportunity to complete their study. They were literally forced to abandon their pursuance of obtaining higher education when the Government do not provide the basic infrastructure in Tioman. I am not so sure whether the secondary school has been built or not to cater the growing number of children in the island. It maybe uneconomical to build another school over there but by centralise the primary and secondary under one roof would be a solution to the problem. Online classes are another way to resolve the problem and at the same times reduce the cost of development and maintenance.

On the health issue, the island was serviced by the Pusat Kesihatan cum clinic under the jurisdiction of Kuala Rompin District's Jabatan Kesihatan. We were told that the clinic would dispense medication related to fever, headache, diarrhoea, dressing of cuts and also pregnancy check-up. I wish I could elaborate more but our focus at that time was just on family planning and balance food intake. I am not so sure whether medical officer from mainland would visit the island on periodical basis. It would be great if the medical officer can visit them on monthly basis for few days and giving chances to the islanders to have their medical issues sorted out.

Relationships between the participants itself bonded well and no untoward incident that would caused our objective to be slackened. However, as a normal human being I could only plan but my cordial relationship with Aini had turned out to be a gossip amongst the participants. I was so frustrated with the gossip, as I knew very well that she has been engaged to my friend, also a participant in this project. As we were staying in the same house during the project period (same foster parent), naturally she would followed me to all the places we had the programmes. That was my straight thinking and I treated her as if she was my sister. I do not have any feelings toward her. I could still remembered the incidence at Pulau Tulai that became the apex of gossip. Pulau Tulai, an island located at the northern tip of Tioman, where the seawater was crystal clear and light green in colour. The beaches were white sandy and unspoilt. Tourists seldom go to this island as Tioman was already good enough for them. The corals were beautiful and the colourful fishes swam gracefully unperturbed by our presence. It seemed that the seabed was just 5 to 6 feet depth. Nearly all the participants that could swim including Aini were already enjoying the water. The sea was calm with gentle cool breeze and I could not resist in joining them albeit I couldn't swim. I grabbed a lifebuoy and jumped. The colourful coral fishes swam closely to me and I thanked Allah for creating this magnificient nature that I could relish it with a feeling of serenity. My tranquility was abruptly disturbed by Aini, who was an excellence swimmer. She pulled my lifebuoy further from the beaches and I started to panicky. "Abang, Aini is here. Why worry?,"she said with a smile. My adrenalin dropped slowly and started to enjoy her company. From afar I noticed that Aini's fiancee sat quietly on the beach starring at us. I could sense his frustration and sorrow. I told Aini to pull me back to the boat and accompanied her fiancee instead. My words seemed to be drown by the wind. She still tagged along and what can I do? The gossip was very disturbing and my leadership credibility could be at stake. I do not want it to prolong and I need to confront Aini before her fiancee bash me up or humiliate me in front of others.

On our last night at Tioman, I brought up this issue to Aini. She remained calm whereas I was very nervous and felt been cheated by our cordial relationship. I kept on blabbering on her reaction toward me and also hurting her fiancee's feeling. She just starred blankly at my face without saying a word. She must have a stone cold heart. It was me who shed tears instead of her. I felt I was being made a scapegoat, when she told me that she wanted to break up her engagement. I would definitely be blamed for the break-off. On the way back to Kuantan, I tried to straighten out the situation by explaining the matter to Aini's fiancee. I told him that I do not have any feeling towards Aini and our relationship was purely superficial. He seemed to accept my explaination and I told him to settle it with Aini. While talking to him, Aini came and sat beside me. In her mellow voice, "Abang, I am thirsty" and she took my can drink from my hand and drank it. I was stunned by her antic action and so does her fiancee.

The baktisiswa project was indeed a memorable one to all of us. Three couples becomes inseparable and tied the knot after graduation. Another committee member met an island girl, fall in love and married after graduation. Aini broke her engagement and after the graduation I have not heard or meet her again. May Allah give her peace and happiness in her life.

Pulau Tioman - Part 1

Pulau Tioman (Tioman Island) is located in the state of Pahang, Malaysia. Even though I am Pahangite but I haven't been to Tioman Island. As such, I took the opportunity to organize a "baktisiswa" programme in my own state and this was way back in 1983 when I was the MPP-UM (Majlis Perwakilan Pelajar Universiti Malaya) and the President of Pahang Students Society University of Malaya. I saw there is a needs for varsity students to approach the Islanders and provides some form of assistance to them such as educational awareness programme and at the same time exposing the varsity students to the reality of Islanders routine activities. "Wow! this is a massive project and required high financial budget. I wonder if this project could kick-off," I quipped to myself and it was overheard by Zakariah Md Sam who later became the Ex-Officio of the project.

As a Project Director, I drafted the paper work, budget requirement and participant's application form. The university finally gave the green light and approved the paper work. Immediately, I formed a project committee and sub-committee of which comprised of senior and junior varsity students. Juniors involvement in the project was to train and exposed them in organizing big scale project. Eventually they would be taking over as project director or committee head for the next year project. In order to materialise the project, I have to source the project funding. University only provided about one third of the budgeted amount. I want the "baktisiswa" project to be a memorable one to all the participants.

Henceforth, Zakariah and I took time to Tioman Island to meet the Tok Penghulu and other community leaders. From Mersing Jetty, we took a fishermen sampan that could accomodate max. of 6 people. We had missed the Puteri Tioman ferry. They told us by sampan, we could reach our destination in 2 to 4 hours depending on the sea conditions. Without much hesitation, we agreed on the price and continued with our journey. It was a fine day when we started sailing but when at the open sea; it started to be rough with waves as high as 5 feet. Sea water kept pouring into the sampan and the tekong told us to scoop the water otherwise the sampan might be sinking. Sometime we were on top of the waves and minute later at the bottom. It was really scary as I don't know how to swim. We were busied scooping the water and praying hard to Allah that we reach Kg Tekek safely. Finally, we reached Kg Tekek jetty closed to 4 hours in one piece and amazingly we do not suffered any sea sick. I treasured this moment closely to my heart and I have made a promise to myself, "from now onwards I will not use a sampan when sailing in the open sea." We checked in at a chalet operated by Tuan Hj Jumaat, who is also a Ketua Kampong of Kg Tekek. Our meetings with Tok Penghulu & Tok Ketua Kampong went smoothly and all the programmes with the community was agreed upon. Our mission has accomplished. On receipt of the programme confirmation, focus was shifted to fund raising activities and transportation to Tioman.

We wrote to the Ministry of Defense (MINDEF) to provide us with helicopters to transport the participants and organizing committees to Tioman Island. "We are unable to provide helicopters as the fuel consumption is very high. However, we are pleased to inform that MINDEF will provide two battleships to ferry all the participants to Tioman Island from Kuantan Port," responded MINDEF in their letter to Project Director. Big chunk of our financial requirement have been resolved with the confirmation of transportation by MINDEF. All of the project committees were vehemently committed to secure the remainder portion of the financial requirement. We managed to secure the required financial obligations through selling of advertisement pages to the corporations, financial assistance from Pahang State Government and donations from high networth individuals. Simultaneously we have also interviewed the participants from various faculties and decided to have mixture of senior and junior participants of 40 people. Participants must have certain degree of knowledge about the Islanders and able to contribute in the educational awareness programme. "We are carrying the University of Malaya flag and community mission that needs to be accomplished. Please show that We, the varsity students are of high integrity, courteous, polite and respectful," this was the message that I stressed upon to all the participants before boarding the bus to Kuantan.

Our transportation KD Sri Johor & KD Rencung were on standby. Our heartbeats were thumping with excitement upon seeing the battleships ready to ferry us to Tioman Island. We were divided into two groups of 25 people each ship and my group's ship was KD Sri Johor. I met the officers of KD Sri Johor and to my surprise, I met Lt. Md Dan (my secondary school senior). We talked about our school and his career as Navy Officer at the officer's cabin. When I went up to the deck, I saw nearly half of the participants were downed with sea sick and rested at the sick bay.The sea conditions were not as bad as my earlier journey to Tioman. The ship just rocked gently on the swell and the swaying made them sea sick. One after another succumbed to the sea sick and leaving me with no alternative but to join them at the sick bay. At least I could have a good rest before reaching our destination.

We reached Tioman before Asar prayer and the Islanders had have gathered at the Kg Tekek jetty to welcome us. We were urshered to a community hall where the foster parents were eagerly waiting to welcome their new son or daughter into their family. All of the participants have been officially introduced to their foster parents and were treated with some kampung style refreshment organized by the kampung folks. It was a jovial atmosphere and all of us had good time. Noor Aini (one of the committee member) and I were adopted by En. Alias (not a true name).

Before I proceed further on highlighting my experiences, let me give some info about Tioman at that point of time. Tioman is a small island located some 36 nautical miles off the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia. If I'm not wrong, there were few villages such as Kg Tekek, Kg Salang, Kg. Mukut, Kg Juara and Kg Ayer Batang. Almost all of the villages were located on the west side of Tioman Island. Tioman had a small runaway and Berjaya Air used it to ferry their guests to their resort from KL. Ferries were from Mersing Jetty only. The only bitumen road in the island was a connecting road from the so-called airport to the only established resort on the island, The Berjaya Resort. Most of the islanders used motorbike as their mode of transport. Walking was the most popular way to go around the villages. All the islanders I had met were slim and fit except few of the old folks. About 90% of Tioman was covered with a dense tropical forest and the dark green ridges forming the backbone of Tioman. There were few chalet operators at that time such as En Nazri of Kg Tekek and En Zul of Kg Ayer Batang. The groceries and other provisions were brought by boats or sampans from Mersing. They had a small primary school with students less than 20 and Pusat Kesihatan acted as the Island Clinic.

Singapore

I still remembered very well, my visit to Singapore in 1982. I drove my uncle's car to the Republic from KL. I was a second year university student then. It was my first long distance driving in a foreign land. My close buddy, Zakariah followed me. We were supposed to attend a seminar in Johor Bharu which was organised by UMSU (University of Malaya Student Union). Both of us were a University of Malaya (UM) student leaders. It was a great pleasure being invited to address the six formers in Johor Bharu. We were actually sharing our experiences in tackling and preparing for the HSC examination. We saw the audiences were really interested and most of them were taking notes. From just narrating our experiences, we started giving some pointers and the session seemed goes well with the audiences. We were satisfied that the seminar was a success. Our objective had been met.

Since the mission has been accomplished and still have ample time, we decided to enter Singapore. I was very elated with the opportunity. Imagine driving a car in a foreign land at the age of 21 and still a uni student. I could brag about my experience to my other varsity mates. Immediately after passing the Woodlands check point, we took a causeway to the city and enjoying the scenery. It was a leisure driving, as we were not in hurry or meeting anyone in the Republic. We saw there were still vacant land albeit high rise flat houses. It was no different with Malaysia. We were so engrossed with the surroundings and suddenly our car was flag downed by the police traffic. As usual, the policeman of Malay origin asked my driving licence and informed that I was driving exceeding the speed limit. I told him that it was only 90 km/h and this was the minimum speed limit in Malaysia. He brushed me off completely by spontaneously said "this is not Malaysia. We have our own law and our speed limit is 70 km/h." Realising that, I immediately apologised and ask him to let us go with warning. He was so arrogant and bragging about Singapore. In my heart, "why is this Malay police constable so kiasu. I have apologised and admitted on our naivety." We wanted to see his superior officer as he was so adamant to issue me with the summon. He pointed us to a Chinese man not far from us. So, we walked towards him and explained our predicament. He seem to be a nice guy and polite with us. After pleading and ensured him that we will observe the law, he let us go without giving the summon. Thank god, at last we were on our way to the city centre.

As we approached the city centre, high rise buildings and shopping malls were all over. "Parking must be a big problem," I mumbled to myself. As we seek high and low for the parking spot, I noticed a parking signage leading to a high rise building. If I wasn't mistaken it was the Peninsula Plaza, a multi-storey parking lots cum shop-offices. I was so amazed with the technology then; we had to drive the car into a car lift and lifted straight to the parking level. At the parking level, I had to park the car into a double decker lot. I saw my car was parked at the upper deck. Wow, I thought it was so advance because backed in KL, we do not have such facilities.

We took a lift to the ground floor and wandering to the burstling Orchard Road. Orchard Road was and maybe still the major tourist attraction. Lot of retails and entertainment outlets were located over here. We were just a window shopper and a wanderer in a very clean city. The streets were not littered with left-over or cigarette-end. I was so impressed and at the same time, astonished with this bizzare behaviour. I guessed the Singaporean must be well educated and trained to be environmental consciousness. It would be nice if Malaysian could emulate this values. After 28 years, with all the awareness programmes and law imposed on Malaysian, we are still lacking behind in term of street cleanliness. I guess we should introduce community services to all the offenders. All the litter offenders should sweep the street for the whole day as a mandatory punishment. This will create better awareness as humiliation is normally the best and sensible way to teach people to behave properly.

Singapore at that time was a shopping haven for most Malaysian. Everythings were considered cheap from changing alloy sport rims, tyres, branded attires & wears to can foods especially lychee. As a sourvenir, I bought a Rayban sunglasses similar to sunglasses wore by most male film stars those days. Price tag was SGD120 which was nearly 10% of my scholarship money. Deeply inside my heart I whispered, " I am now a proud owner of Rayban sunglasses." Before 6 pm, we were making our way out to Woodlands. We stopped near the flat to buy few cans of lychee and other titbits. Once again, we were caught for not placing the parking coupon and summon have been issued by HDB. As a first timer, I wasn't too sure where to purchase the parking coupon and furthermore, it was only for a short period of time. It seems that Singaporean are very efficient and effective in enforcing the laws and regulations. This serves as a very good reminder for me whenever travelling overseas, do not assume but check first "the do & don't" prior to travelling abroad.

Singapore trip have been my eye opener, to be well prepared prior to travelling. I must make sure that I understand first the cultures, rules and regulations, political conditions and weather of the said countries prior to departure.

After that visitation, I did visited Singapore again with my wife to be. Till todate, I have no intention nor urge to repeat my trip couple up with the high forex albeit with the AirAsia's tempting offer.