Last weekends we organized a family trip to Redang, the island paradise that I’ve been quite a few times, when it comes to Redang, it is always an expectation of bright sun, crystal clear sea, and white sandy beach. In another word – everything that Redang Island Resort is not.
the chalet style rooms at Redang Island Resort
Redang Island Resort is not without its plus points. It is relatively close to the airport and they provide free transfer. You never need to see the beach or get your feet wet to get to the place.
Touted as a 3 star hotel with 98 rooms, the resort usually place you in a block of 4 rooms, with mostly wooden interior that’s masterfully painted in the dullest color imaginable. If you are here to relax your colored eye sight, it is the place to go.
For a resort that is situated at the tropics, the room also comes with air conditioning that takes an hour to reduce one Celsius, be thankful to the ceiling fan provided.
Outside the room, expect a lawn and garden that would fit right in any primary school too, very nostalgic.
beach? what beach?
For those who hates beach, this is the perfect place to be. The hotel is built within the jungle at the southern tip of Redang island, on a small hill. To get to the beach, you’ll have to track through some challenging terrain. Climbing down perhaps 50 meters or so, you’ll be rewarded with a small and pretty dismay beach facing the busy harbor. The water is slightly clearer than those in Port Dickson though.
The swimming pool is actually better than the beach, and the swimming pool was quite bad.
For food, there’s a single restaurant at the hotel, I didn’t check if McD would deliver though. Oh, food isn’t included in the package (RM 250 per room via booking.com).
If you want to incorporate a little bit of drinking at night, rest assure that the bar does offer beer for RM 18 per can. No cocktail, whisky, wine, or any of those nonsense.
Other activities offered by the hotel includes a round island trip (RM 800 for up to 7 pax), and even snorkeling (RM 35 per trip or RM 45 for 2 trips, etc.). Bicycles are also available for rental, and I’d think is quite essential as the room and lobby is otherwise a bus ride away.
I would however, advice against their jungle tracking offer since you can just do that by going down to catch a glimpse of the beach.
In short, if you want an experience at Redang that you would expect being in a cheap hotel at Fraiser’s Hill minus the cool temperature, this is the place to go.
It wasn’t the type of holiday we expected, hence we checked out after an hour and went to Redang Holiday Beach Villa, and everything got back on track.
P/S: Berjaya Vacation Club: thanks for the sleight of hand. You got us this time.
If you fancy a tablet, now is as good a time as anytime to get one. Celcom is again running the I LOVE TABLET FAIR at GoMobile 2012. Go check it out at KL Convention Center Hall 1 & 2 (Booth 91) on 11-13th May 2012 from 11 am to 9 pm.
Here are some of the deals you’ll find there:
Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 from RM 1,228
With subscription to
Save up to RM 790 and comes with free Samsung goodie bag
Samsung GALAXY Tab 7.0 Plus from RM 668
With subscription to
Save up to RM 851 and comes with free screen protector worth RM 99
Samsung GALAXY Tab 10.1 from RM 888
With subscription to
Save up to RM 831 and comes with free desktop stand worth RM 119
With three different sizes of tablet, there’s definitely one that fits you snugly, but if a phone is what you’re looking for, here are some deals worth checking out too.
Sign up for Celcom Broadband at the fair and you’ll also get up to RM 120 rebate (RM 10 x 12 months) and free volume quota for 6 months. For music lovers, if you download and activate Musicube app on any Android devices or iPhone at GoMobile 2012, you can enjoy:
Visit www.celcom.com.my/smartphones for more information.
For those who aren’t in KL, I LOVE TABLET FAIR 2012 is also coming to a location near you:
For those who can’t be bothered to read, the following short video (less than 3 minutes) illustrates my experience at Bersih 3.0. I also previously attended Bersih 2.0 and wrote about it here.
Bersih 2.0 (the body, yes it is confusing), has 8 demands, they are:
we took the train to pasar seni, saw national laureate A. Samad Said
I believe that our country really needs a change to the right direction, the demands of Bersih would prove to be a huge step forward. I participate in Bersih rallys to show support for these demands.
outside bar council
As access to the city is mostly blocked, a few friends and I took the train to Pasar Seni, one of the points of assembly for Bersih. We arrived at around noon and already there was quite a large crowd. Spotted the national laureate A Samad Said.
outside bar council
We walked from Pasar Seni to Bar Council to Masjid Jamek and ultimately stopped at Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman right in front of Swiss Hotel. For the most part, the atmosphere was that of a festivity. People singing Bersih Bersih, and there was even a jamming session going on.
There were quite a lot of police everywhere, but they were content just standing at their “stations” and let everyone be. At a lorong, 2 lines of policemen seemed to be blocking the road, but we walked passed them via the sidewalk and they didn’t even blink.
jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman, duduk bantah
The crowd was massive, it was definitely several times bigger than last year’s rally. We were content just sitting under the hot sun on the street, and to us, that was it. If we can’t get to Dataran Merdeka, so be it, we’ll just around it.
For the record, I believe Dataran Merdeka was in no danger whatsoever. The razor wire and heavy presence of FRU & Police forces guarding a piece of grass from peaceful protestors was really silly.
this was as close as we got to Dataran Merdeka
By this time we had already spent over 3 hours walking and sitting around KL under the hot sun. It was almost time to call it a day, I was going to leave at 4pm, the scheduled time for Bersih to end. (unbeknown to us, the leader of Bersih already called off the rally by then)
the eyes in the sky
Then, just before 4pm, when we were some 50-100 meters from the junction between Jalan TAR and Jalan Tun Perak, tear gas canisters were shot seemingly without warning. We made our retreat, at first a fast walk, and as the effect of the gas worsen, we ran.
Later we found out that there were apparently a few guys that broke the barricade and tried to get into Merdeka Square, that was what started it all. Instead of firing teargas/water cannon only at those who broke the barrier, tear gas canister were fired deep into the crowd.
We were at least 200 meters out and still felt the gas (actually it’s an acid mix)
this was some 150 meters away from the barrier, and yet we felt the tear gas
We made our way to Dang Wangi and seek refuge at Cap Square for a while, having something to drink and then eventually left town to PJ.
For us, the rally ended. Some of my friends though, were not as lucky, a few got “trapped” near Masjid Jamek and gassed a couple times, and got ambushed and tear gassed again when they tried to go to Pasar Seni. I thought FRU was trying to disperse the crowd, but why are they preventing people from going to the LRT stations?
I’m sure you can and probably read about accounts of violence (from both parts), so I shall not repeat.
Elsewhere in Penang and Ipoh, protestors went to the fields and sat for two hours then dispersed without incident. Why was Merdeka Square not made available?
Unfortunately, face was more important than logic on that day.
Here’s my video submission for Samsung World Blogger audition:
If you want to have participate and stand a chance to win the trip to London during the Olympics, just go to Samsung Global Blogger site, and submit your own entry. Contest closes on 29th, do it now!
Together with the Superbowl and World Cup, Olympics is undoubtedly one of the events that I want to participate at least once in my life time.
Of course, by participation I do mean attending and watch in person, though competing as an athlete/player that would of course be an even more awesome, but I think chances of that happening is as close to zero as it can be.
One of the big ticket items at the Olympics 2012 is undoubtedly the 100 meter dash. I remember watching history being made by Usian Bolt when he shattered the world record and ran so far ahead of the pack 4 years ago, and imagine how it would be like to be among the crowd that day.
Events like these are among the rare ones that the crowd cheers for winner and nobody boos the opponents. Imagine the jubilation, the excitement!
Another event that is of my personal interest is the badminton singles event. Four years ago Datuk Lee Chong Wei almost break out nation’s duck but fell just short for the gold medal.
This year is probably the last chance for Datuk Lee to get it done. As the world number one, an Olympic gold medal would make him one of the best players this generation. I’d love to be there to cheer for him during the matches.
And if I find myself at the London 2012 Summer Olympics, it won’t be just watching the athletes and games. There are over 200 countries at the big party, and there would be countless number of people attending.
An idea that I have is to capture videos of as many people in as many languages as possible saying “hello Malaysia, from London 2012“, and then compile a short video from the various clips. I think that’ll make a pretty neat video. What do you think?
Remember the Samsung Global Blogger contest I blogged last week?
The contest that can get you a free trip to London Olympics runs until 28th of April, 2012, and they are looking for video auditions with these qualities:
Here’s Jamie Oliver’s take, and you can find video making tips here too.
I’ll make my video soon and wish me luck! I urge you to join too, head to Samsung Global Blogger contest page to find out more.
