Vacation from hell!
March 3rd, 2008 by wooly
We’ve all had it before - the vacation from hell. I just recently had mine. We returned to KL for the Chinese New Year holidays. It has been 2 years since we went back to KL together as a family. I was looking forward to some real R&R to meet up with friends and just spend some spill out time with family. 3 weeks of being back, wearing shorts and T-Shirts … and a trip to a quiet tropical island … ahhhh ….
Nope! Going back during the major festive season for that is just way wrong for that purpose. We touched down at midnight, and it was quiet at night. That’s a really wonderful feeling - but that was the last of it. The next day we were out visiting my wife’s family already. The day after that it was the 29th day, and we had our reunion dinner (did it 1 day early). Then it was the 30th day - New Year’s Eve - more visits. Then CNY day, of course more visits. Then 2nd day - we did our traditional balik kampung to Ipoh.
However, all these were expected and I didn’t think much of it - but by the 9th CNY day of visiting another friend of relative, especially of the wife’s side where I end up sitting like a dunggu, I had enough. The only thing that kept me sane was the promise of the island vacation to Redang.
Instead of Redang, I book for Lang Tengah - the smaller island next to Redang. I’ve been there once 7 years ago, and I was stunned by its unspoilt beauty of clear emerald waters and white sandy beach. It was exactly what the post cards looked like.
Seeing that I’ve always felt guilty that I enjoyed such beauty, but my parent’s hadn’t chance to do so all this while, I decided to take them along. And since I now have a family with a 6 month old baby and a 4 year old kid, I even didn’t spare the dosh, and booked into the best resort on the island and in the deluxe rooms.
Off we go! Then it started.
First, one of the tuppet valves in that crummy Proton Wira of mine cracked, and luckily enough there was someone to fix it on that Sunday. It cost a bomb of course, but what the heck - safey first right. That added a 5 hour delay to the journey, and we arrived in Kuala Trengannu at 11pm. The only thing we did was to check in the hotel for the short sleep.
We were to go to the Merang jetty by 11am the next morning. We arrived early just to be sure, and when we arrived the jetty was quite empty. It was the last few days of the low season before the peak season starts.
I was quite pleased that there were no crowds yet. The weather was beautiful. What I didn’t take into account were the winds and the sea. It was still rough. Instead of the normal 1.0 to 1.5 metre waves, my guess is they were about 2 ~ 2.5m. From the calm jetty I couldn’t imagine how rough could they be.
They were rough. We boarded the speedboat. I didn’t think there was any danger. But we didn’t managed to make the right approach out to the deep sea. A stray breaking surf wave slammed right to the front of the boat, and flooded the front part of the boat. Everything was soaked, including us. Once we broke out to the deep water, it was relatively safe, but the ride was really rough.
The only thing that mattered was my 6-month old baby, and of course I held him tight throughout the 1 hour journey. Although we were not in real danger of capsizing the boat, the initial pound from that stray surf was enough to put everyone on edge.
I saw my camera bag splashed with water and was ready for the worse. When we arrived on the island, everyone was un-nerved. We were wet, and all our bags were wet. When I opened my camera bag, I was pleasantly surprised that my investment in an expensive proper camera bag paid off - the camera survived being zipped up in the splash proof bag.
But what I forgot was the smaller Canon S2-IS camera, which I use mostly to shoot videos. It was in my knapsack, and I forgot about it being in the front of the boat as all I could concentrate on was holding the baby tight.
For the journey, that bag was submerged in a puddle. No water proofing could’ve saved the contents. It would have been saved had it had a splash, but no - everything inside was dead - the camera, my password generator, battery charger - but luckily I didn’t bring my other usual electronics - the iPod and the external hard drive.
So - the Canon died - but that was not gonna stop the vacation. We’ve arrived safely on the island and the vacation was to begin in proper. My wife immediately remarked how beautiful the place is and already she wanted to extend another night to 3 nights on the island.
Nightfall … kunk! — The generator went dead. No aircon. Mosquitoes. Crap … My initial upbeatness was finally starting to erode. But the final straw to classified it to be the trip from hell had to be when it was time to go back to the mainland.
I’ve already requested that a larger boat need to be arranged given that there are kids and it is not safe on the speedboat since they cannot hold on properly. It wasn’t until that I offered to pay for the upgrade that it was changed to a larger boat.
Even with the larger fishing cruiser - the ride back was rough, and my wife threw up. That was how rough the seas were.
Lesson to be learned - you will not get R&R when you go back to your hometown during a festive season! However, after this harrowing trip, I really have much more appreciation for the seas and the sailors who sail them. If those 2 ~ 2.5m waves seem big, I can just imagine how much more scary it would be for those who have to ply the big open ocean routes and meet up with waves like what you saw in the movie ‘The Perfect Storm’ - 25m wave!
In case you want to know - the resort was D’Coconut Lang Tengah. If it wasn’t for all the mishaps, it would’ve been a great place. But definitely I wouldn’t recommend it as a family place. And for the dollars and cents sense of the manager of not arranging a larger boat seeing full well there were senior citizens and infants - and not even warning us of the potential rough transfer ride, I give it a E- rating.
… I rented the car from the local AVIS in Beijing. For documentation, they wanted:
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