It’s A Wonderful World

Visit-ed Terengganu 2008! August 28, 2008

Last week was fantastic! 🙂

Went to Terengganu with the fam as it was the school holidays. Pushed off for Redang in the early hours of Thursday so that we could make it in time for the 3 p.m ferry.

I’ve always loved family trips. Not the sit-in-the-car-for-7-hours-straight part though. Just the ones where Fattah makes a stupid joke, Umaimah and Raudhah making noises (just to annoy everyone), Farhanah “sharing” random (and most of the time boring) facts that she has just read somewhere, Rashid fake-laughing evertime someone asks him something, Mak & Ayah joking around and me, taking pictures of absolutely everything 🙂 It would be our last family outing for awhile as the 3 of us will be going back soon 😦

It’s been awhile since we travelled the east coast. We chose Redang this time around because Rashid and I are involved in this programme, the Jantung Sihat Sokmo Health Promo Programme, in KT on Saturday (will get back to that later).

I’ve been a city folk all my life. Born and bred in KL (and proud of it I might add 😉 ) But eversince I came home for the summer, I’ve noticed that KL is getting more and more congested. And I’ve only been away for 9 months! I’d hate to think of what it’d be like in 10 years time, let alone 5. My point is, after being “traped” in urbanisation for quite some time, it’s really refreshing to be able to break away from it all for a few days. the tranquility and calmness definitely won’t fail to captivate you. Not to mention the scenery and ambiance (romantic sungguh! 😉 ). Subhanallah. I don’t know how people can witness all these tremendous beauties and still not believe. You can’t help but be amazed (check out my photo gallery for pictures).

Sadly though, I noticed that the only place that was well-kept was within the hotels vicinity. From the jetty, we had to take a shuttle bus provided by the hotel that would take us up to it’s building. Along the roads, we passed by schools, housing areas and other community centres. It was a shame to see that the roads leading up to these tourist centres were not properly taken care of. Developing it is one thing but making sure that it was well kept was another. Considering the fact that it is, after all Visit Terengganu Year and Redang being one of the most popular tourist attraction in Terengganu, i wonder what the government is doing in terms of spending the money allocated to build up tourist spots. I mean what’s the point of developing new tourist areas if the existing ones are not properly taken care of right? I just hope the government are using the money for what it’s supposed to.

Back to my story,

Friday morning, we managed to go snorkelling for a bit. It was so much fun. Saw fishes, corals and tried our very best to locate nemo 😀 Spent some time under the sun, something that I’ve been lacking of for the past year. (tapi tak jadi gelap macam Farhanah :p)

Somehow, I have always been afraid of the underwater world. It’s not the creatures and habitants that scare me, it’s the thought of being alone, like in an abyss surrounded by total darkness and nothingness that seems endless. I’ve always hated being alone, dunno why.

That same afternoon my brother and I took the ferry back to KT to join the rest of the team for the Jantung Sihat Sokmo Programme. It was a health screening programme aimed at increasing awareness about cardiovascular risks co-organized by IMAM, IJN and UiTM.  After 2 months of hardous planning and several tensed up meetings with IJN 😉 , the big day finally arrived. I must say that this project is one that I am very proud of. It was a privilage for me to be part of such a great team. To think that we basically did everything from scratch and to see it finally taking place made me so happy 😀 Alhamdulillah it was a huge success. More than expected came and aside from a few glitches here and there everything went well 🙂

I learned a lot of things while taking part in the planning of this programme. Met a lot of people and experienced a lot of ups and downs. I guess at the end of the day, what matters most is your intention. Your nawaitu. InsyaAllah if you do things for the right reasons, Allah will always make the path easier for us. And being part of a great team definitely helps as well 😉

As I said before, I learned a lot of things during the programme. One of them is about the mentality of Malaysians, at least some of us. Let me tell you a story..

Jantung Sihat Sokmo Programme, Health Screening, Glucose & Cholesterol Station.

As the test for cholesterol would need atak kalau nak mintak cepat sikit few minutes to produce results, there was a long waiting line. The YB whom we invited to officiate the programme was giving a speech. Nevertheless, the health screening was still going on.

Pakcik: Saya buat screening tadi. Dah lepas station BP dengan BMI. Tengah tunggu dalam line untuk station yang nih (cholesterol/glucose). Tapi kene layan YB. Kejap lagi bile YB balik saya pun kene ikut. Macam mane? Mintak cepat sikitlah. Mintaklah orang IJN nih, mesti tak kesah punya..

Me: Urmmm..ktorg memang tak kisah pakcik, cuma makcik dengan pakcik yang lain nilah. Kesian jugak dorg dah tunggu lama..takut dorg je yang tak suka nanti..

Pakcik: Whateverlah!

Me: (tergamam)

YaAllah pakcik…nasib baiklah mak ayah saya ajar jangan kurang ajar dengan orang tua kalau tak, lepaslah mulut saya nih (you know I’m pissed when I rojak my bahasa). One thing I’ve noticed about some Malaysians, (and this comes from various experiences lining up in Immigration offices, airports,etc) is that we are not ashamed and do not have any disregard for other people. All we care about is ourselves. We have to finish this fast! Need to get back to work soon, nak balik cepat. So the solution? Try to find a way to cut the que. If you have a valid reason for it, then fine. By all means go ahead. But when you disregard the fact that other people have the same rights as you do to be treated equally, to be given the same chances, that’s when you’ve crossed the line. At least in my books. If you think you have other things to attend to, errands to get back to as soon as possible, what makes you think that other people don’t? Why do you deserve it more than these people?

I’ll give you another example.

On our way back from Terengganu, there was a road block. Cars were queing up as it was the last day of school holidays and everyone was going home. Everything was fine when one car started to use the emergency lane to try and cut the que. I should probably give him the benefit of the doubt and say that he probably had something “urgent” to get to, to allow him to use that lane. What I could not tolerate were the cars after that. Soon there was a third line over in the emergency lane. Orang-orang nih kan memang tak fikir. If it so happens that there was a real emergency and someone needs to use the emergency lane macam mane?? Selfish. Thankfully, the car in front of us, went int that lane and blocked all of them. I swear I would have gotten out of my car and shook the driver’s hand if it wasn’t in the middle of the road and we were moving.

I have never quite understood how people can sometimes be so blatantly selfish as to not care about other people at all. For me, it is one thing to look out for yourself, but in this case, how can you “step over” someone else and totally disregard them without even the slightest bit of guilt? At least show some remorse!

People say that with urbanisation. moral values become less and less important. If that really is the case, I can’t bear to think what will happen in the years to come. I just hope that there are enough people with sense in this world who will teach their children the values of living in a community.

Somehow or rather, I can’t help but think that this same principle applies to other things as well…