A work trip to Selat Panjang, Indonesia (Day 1)

Classification :: Trip Report

At first, i thought going to Tanjung Balai was gonna be as easy as getting into a boat trip and arrive.

I was wrong. Tanjung Balai wasn't the destination as I was actually going to Selat Panjang. As Riau islands were downsouth the Singapore, but Riau Islands actually spreading all over up to Sumatera island of Indonesia. Selat Panjang I would say somewhere near Batu Pahat of Johor.

On the August 9th, my brother, Izzat sent me off to Gelang Patah as I will depart from there. I'll be going there with our boat driver, Hamzah and 3 of the Indonesian workers; Ketak, Man and Man Lambok who're going back home. We managed to catch the 3.30PM boat from Kukup (Johor) which arrived in Tanjung Balai (Indonesia) an hour later. Amazingly, the whole Indonesia's time was set the +700 GMT, which is an hour earlier than Malaysian Time.

As we were unable to catch the trip to Selat Panjang on the same day, we decided to check in to a Hotel for one night before proceeding the journey to Selat Panjang. Firstly, we had tea at the small stall by the port.

Well, as Indonesia it is, I saw to believe that a lot of poor people there, much poorer than Tanjung Pinang. People unashamely ask for money. Patheticly, some people who knew Hamzah circled him and asked him for money.

Sounds scary isn't it? It's a normal thing for Malaysians to go over Indonesia and look for workers there. Well, the local authorities look at it as a chance to make money by asking the 'coffee money' from those who were known to take back workers to Malaysia, or else, they'll be facing a lot of problems by the Immigration counters.

Hamzah just said, he went there for GIRLS. The person, who were well-known as KUMIS (for his moustache) went off and he was like keeping an eye on us.

Yeah Tanjung Balai is actually well-knowned as the heaven island of girls. A pretty java girl can be booked for one whole night as low as Rp150,000, which is equivalent to RM60 of Malaysian Currency. That cheap? My partner even told me that at night, girls would be knocking on my door but luckily they didn't as maybe they noticed that i stayed together with Hamzah in one room. It was for the safety reason as I brought in some amount of money with me.

A contact, Usop went to the Hotel and i asked for his massage service. Painful but very refreshing. After sometime, we went down for coffee, but surprisingly, KUMIS, who previously asked money from Hamzah, was still around like he was really spying on us. Crazy!

After that nice cup of coffee, we went up and get to sleep. I slept late as being conscious, of anything that might happen. As I was going to sleep, it's getting even harder as Hamzah 'sang' his snores loudly all night long.

We woke up early in the morning, had breakfast at the same place we were having tea near the port and departed to Selat Panjang by a Jet Ferry Service. It took only one and a half hour to get to Selat Panjang. I hardly felt the ferry was moving forward very fast. On the way to Selat Panjang, it dropped by the Tanjung Samak to pick up a few more passengers before continuing it's journey. I was surprised as the ferry stopped by the Tanjung Samak Port, a lot of hawkers jumped into the ferry to sell their merchandising items, which mostly food, they even followed the ferry to the next station and turned back.

Well, I was a little bit mad as then I gotta know why the Malacca Straits was dirty. One of the reason was these irresponsible food hawkers thorew off their unfinished food into the sea. Not only that, theyeven threw off the content of the dustbin into the sea as well. I felt really bad.


Around 10.30 Indonesian Time, I arrived at the Selat Panjang and now I'm going to work!

KJ answers..

Classification :: Local Politic

After resting from writing about politic for quite sometime, I'm now ready to rumble!

Honestly, as a Malaysian, I would prefer KJ to step down. I think most of the UMNO members (and I'm an UMNO members too) would love to see him step down from the Naib Ketua Pemuda UMNO position.

WHY?

He selfishly thought that people attacked him as they are not in the position to attack the PM. I don't really get it now. What's wrong with him? He's nothing to me. People wouldn't need to tackle him off his position to put Paklah down. I'm sure he knew that once Paklah goes down, he would worsely dive in to the deeper part of the river (terjun lubuk).

This is not something like Sepaktakraw, where the weakest player (who we would also call the 'lubuk') would be the strongest point of attack. Definitely wrong. This is politic. People would use the weakest player to penetrate the weakest point of the politician, and would that be him?

He should also remember when he was first elected as the Naib Ketua Pemuda UMNO, for the first time in the history of UMNO, a leader was booed. Who was that? Hehe..

As an observer, KJ is just another trouble causing item to the PM. Some people think that they were softly forced by the leadership to give KJ the mandate to be the one of the UMNO leader. As a member of UMNO, what was his contribution to the party so far to make him deserve such a high party post?

As he joined in seriously, I would say the PM had lost most of his influential colleagues (not to mention TDM himself). If he's to booed, why UMNO picked him? I'm so confused.

More confusing when he explained about all the issues which I'm going to discuss about it one by one.

An affair with the vampire

He denied the marriage with the vampire but he didn't say anything about the affair with the vampire.

ECM Libra - Avenue

He said he borrowed the money? Proof? Anybody just can say that. Right? WHere do u get the money? Someone can just say I found it eventhough he stole it.

Another issue was, after a week of the buying over process, there was the announcement of the merger of the ECM Libra and the Avenue. Come on! Avenue is a big GLC company. I wonder why would such transaction was not being monitored by the MOF? Why would we need 2 ministers in the MOF? By history, there was no such thing as selling/buying/merging of GLCs in just a week or two.

MOF is not doing their work, or... family affairs trading?

Sales of equity of the local bank (Alliance Bank)

How dare u sell the local bank to the foreign entity. How dare you..!

Sales of Pantai Holding of more the 30% to foreign entity

Again, the MOF is not doing their work. MAKAN GAJI BUTA!

Sales of equity in MV Augusta

He was trying to compare the sales of MV augusta with the Air ASIA. Even though it's a through put point of sales (Air Asia at RM1 and MV Augusta at 1 Euro), Air Asia was sold locally, instead of MV Augusta that was sold to the foreigner.

Even though he is just nobody in the government, he keep saying that he wasn't the advisor to the PM, but he has always seen to be explaining the issues that the GOVERNMENT should explain? Don't you wonder? Pelik tak?

And lately, there are even warnings to all the bloggers out there!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! I'm SCARED to death!!!!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA....!

* I'm going to Tanjung Balai, Indonesia for a few days from today. Will update as often as possible.

Dilemma...

Classification :: Personal

My life was way a lot happier for the past few months. I met new people, do new things, ventured into new business, experienced things that i could've never imagined I would do and so much more! Life is just great not to live it.

Despite of all the other sorrorities and problems around the world, I sometimes found myself living in a total different world, within other people but my world was just for me. I cared about the others but people wouldn't just give it a damn about me.

Lately, I haven't been following the local and global news as it was all the same thing over and over again. Given my time was all occupied for work, and lately for angau.com, blogging's cut from the pie of my 24 hours time has to be shrinken. I have less to write, not to say the time for me to bloghopping as I used to do few months before.

Recently, a lot of things were coming up; personal, work, family and love life.

In a much more recent happenings, I'm in a deep dilemma.

How do u guys deal with dilemmas?

* Of course it was all about the available options.