School Holiday is here!

Its the time of the year again where the kidz will be bored to death. It's the year end school holidays again. I have no plans in mind. Annual leave pun dah negative one. 30 hari cuti satu tahun pun tak cukup kena hutang cuti tahun depan....ish...ish...ish....

This reminds me of a story.....My dad works a lot and he would drag the whole family wherever he goes if it coincides with our school breaks. Kill two birds with one stone....but I enjoyed whatever the quality time we could steal Abah away from his work. Being the Head of Special Branch for Kedah at the time, he had to visit several towns between Malaysia-Thai boarder and Southern Thai. And it happened at the right time when both my sister and I were on school break. End of that year, I was off to the States to continue with my studies.

We traveled in a small entourage of 4 Pajeros and our first stopped was Padang Besar. I knew we did not have any passport with us but after clearing out several official paper work we passed the customs and immigration. All cars were thoroughly checked, inside, outside and beneath. I think we did a little bit of shopping while dad had to attend a briefing by some police officers. After lunch we continued our journey to Songhkla. It was long drive. Upon arrival we were greeted by Uncle Aziz, who is the Malaysian police envoy in Songkla. We stayed at his official residence. Uncle Aziz also happens to be my dad's relative. He has been stationed in Songhkla for several years and married to a Thai lady. They have a very hard working domestic staffs who is always there at your service.  If you wanna have you clothes washed, just leave them outside of your room and by evening, it will be all pressed and folded on your bed. I still remember a maid called Pern whom used to take me ride on her motorbike. 

Songkla is situated on the coast of the Gulf of Thailand. Since it was my first time there, I was very surprised that they have a beach. Samila Beach is well known for its white sandy beach, shady pine groves, and the statue of a mermaid that is Songkhla’s symbol.

Somehow when this picture was taken, I felt like I was in Copenhagen...hmmmm....berangan. There is no specific history of the mermaid on Samila Beach. It is just a famous landmark.

Samila Beach. During the day it is a bit quiet. Please correct me if I am wrong, there is a golf course which is walking distance from the beach. Whats a working trip for Abah without a round or two of golf with his buddies. But one instances really surprised me....everyday at 6 pm the town will play the Thai National Anthem and does not matter wherever you are, you will stand to pay respect.

During this trip dad gave me a new wrist watch, a Charles Jourdan. I still have it until today.

From Songkla we travelled to Hadyai, Yala, Baling, Golok and then to Kota Bahru. Again dad had a round of 18 holes of golf and after one week trip we were back in Kedah.

Victor Harbor

I cannot recall how long was the trip but the moment we arrived in Victor Harbor we stopped at a Fish & Chips shop for lunch take-outs. Then we drove to Port Elliot, which is about 15 minutes drive from Victor Harbor. There, we stayed in a summer house belonged to a family friend which was named Panorama.
 
Yes, indeed the panorama from our accommodation was beautiful. It is on top of a hill where in the morning its windy and by the evening it gets chilly. You can also see the open beach and hear the sounds of the waves. Though we had to walk downhill to get to the beach, it was worth the journey. Just on the bottom left of the hill, is a public beach and it is  called Horse Shoe Bay. We stayed about a week and visited Victor Harbor's town, Granite Island, a river boat ride along the lower Murray River and of course the beach. The water was cold even though the sun was right on top of my head. Seagulls were every where and funny watching them spread their wings and flying against the wind. It looks as though they were stationery.The beach somehow reminded me of the opening scene from Grease, you know the part when Danny and Sandy met the last day before end of summer. “Love is a many splendor thing” was playing in the background. I would have paste the video here but my children reads my blog so some scenes are not suitable for young viewers...hehehe...


Soon as we arrived we unpacked and dig in the fish and chips we bought earlier,...emememmm simply delish. Australian fish and chips are simply the best.

 Victor Harbor town is small and the people are very friendly. It is easy to walk around and hopped from one shop to another. I bought my first Aussie cassette by Icehouse here and played over and over again on my walkman. Icehouse is a popular Australian rock band of the 80's and 90's, and their album, Man of Colours was the highest selling album in Australia by an Australian band.

 In Victor Harbor Town. There was a small carnival going on...and shops closed early, I can't exactly remember, may be 6 pm.

 

Aunty Azizah and me on Granite Island.

Just right across the town and connected by a bridge is Granite Island and has a number of amazing rock formations. Granite Island's attraction is the large colony of penguins. These penguins took shelter on the island at night, then in the morning they will leave to hunt for fish before returning by sunset. We circled the island by foot and in the late evenings you can see penguins resting or walking around the rocks. They are small and so cute.

By night things are pretty dead. We stayed in most nights and used the quality time to bond with each other by playing Luck Plus (card game), backgammon, or just chit chatting.

There was once that we made 'Lepat Pisang' or Steamed Banana Pancake. Since banana leaves were not available to wrap individual pancakes, we improvised by wrapping in square shapes of foil paper instead. Pretty interesting and it turned out alright minus the beautiful smell of the banana leaves. It was edible...hahaha those good old times.

On P. S. Mundoo cruising along Lower Murray River. This trip to Victor Harbor was joined by Sam, a friend's of Jeremy from school. We boarded the paddleboat to experience this traditional form of travel and find out more about riverboat history.