As this would be the first post I’m transferring from my old blog I noticed how blogging has changed since I last blogged. Bloggers nowadays seem to let the pictures do the story telling. Considering I didn’t take any pictures then, I would try and improvise.
A few years ago my boss told me I to go over to Terengganu to do a road show for Petronas. A road show is a promotion where you set up a stall and people come to look at fake mobile phones. It’s seriously stupid. We might bring 1 or 2 working demo sets but thats about it. I mean come on, the customers aren’t exactly the brightest. Some can’t even tell the fake sets from the real one. So they will be punching on the buttons and stuff and asking me why won’t the numbers appear. Need I say more? You can obviously tell that I’m no fan of road shows.
So anyway I set up the duration and date of the road show and it all seemed well. Then a couple of days before I went, the point man from Petronas called me and we had this conversation:
Petronas: you sure you want to come
*VERY LOUD SOUND OF RAIN AND THUNDER IN THE BACKGROUND*
Fawked: why not?
Petronas: it’s the monsoon season here, everywhere is flooded
Fawked: is it bad?
Petronas: quite, you might not even make it home alive
So here’s a brief explanation for those of you that don’t know about Terengganu and monsoon. Terengganu is a state. I don’t really know where exactly but when the monsoon comes, you better run for your life, or swim rather…
I’m was actually going to Kerteh to be exact. Kerteh is not very big town. The oil plant basically makes up two thirds of the town. I don’t know much about the oil industry so I’m just describing what I see. The plant is huge. The cool stuff about Kerteh is, they have to burn processed gas. So you will see torch towers along the road, that burns 24/7. I heard if the torch goes out, you better run for your life because it will explode. I don’t know how true that is. If I remember correctly it was about October or November when the monsoon season hit Terengganu, and the floods were one of the worst that particular year.
The trip to Kerteh took was a 6 hour drive. It took about 4 hours on the high way then exiting out at Pahang. From there I had to take the trunk road to Terengganu. Trunk roads are 1 lane, 1 lane up and 1 lane down. These roads are always full of log lorries, goats, cows, cow dung and dead animals. The skills needed to avoid the obstacles would even make Michael Shumacher look like a newbie.
I left for Kerteh at noon and reached Kerteh town at about 6 pm. The rain was horrible. It was like a scene that came out of the movie “The Perfect Storm”. The roads were flooded everywhere. As I have been driving for 6 hours I was tired so I decided to check in to the nearest chalet. I heard there were some good ones by the beach.
So I started driving towards the beach. I had to pass through a really small road when all of a sudden a few guys jumped onto the middle of the road to stop my car shouting and waving like an idiot. I almost killed 2 of them. But thanks to them, I’m still alive today. The sea water was already above the jetty and my car was about a meter away from the flood. On my right some dude was trying to evacuate his cow. The cow had a death wish I think, it didn’t seem to want to budge. I think it died, God rest its soul. After that I decided that it would be safer for me to stay on the main road. Anything near the beach has been consumed by the flood. Right about now I was ready to punch my boss on the nose for making me come here, if I got back to the city alive. I spent a whole 2 hours if not more searching for a place to stay. I went to the cheapest and dirtiest motel trying to find for a room, and they were also fully booked. The only hotel located right in the middle of the town was also fully booked. Booked by the villagers that evacuated their houses because of the floods.
Anyway by now I’ve decided that I wanted go back to Kuala Lumpur, drive another 6 hours while I’ve already driven a total of 8 hours. I figured if I drove double speed I could get home back midnight. So I turned my car around and started to head back on to the highway. On the way there not too far away I saw a sign board that said “Turn Left To Heaven”. Hehe, no seriously it said “Left to Awana Kijal”. Awana Kijal is a golf resort so I figured the villagers could not afford to stay there. So I took a left and headed for Awana Kijal. As soon as I got there and checked the room rates I noticed that I also couldn’t afford to stay there. I had RM350 on me. The cheapest room cost 285. That would leave me with only RM65. I needed at least RM30 for petrol, RM20 for toll and that would leave me with only RM15 for dinner and no money for nighttime extra curricular activities. I was told the nearest ATM machine was about 30KM away from the hotel.
Right about now I started cursing at everything, from the rain to the credit card company for not releasing my credit card fast enough. I was tired I gave in. I rented the room at 285. I checked in and the room looked decent. The bathroom was actually bigger than my room back home. It had a bath tub and that gave me an idea. I filled the water right up to the brink. I just love bath tubs. The bath tub was actually rather big. I think you could even call it a mini swimming pool. I filled it with shower gel and it foamed up pretty good. I don’t know why but I was ecstatic, I jumped around in the bath tub and splashing water everywhere. If they were going to charge me RM285 for the shittiest room the least I could do was have some fun. When I came out of the toilet I was in for a real shock.
The room carpet was soaking wet. The best part about hotels is you can waste water and nobody is going to screw you. I left the damn bath tub water on, the shower and taps. I must have wasted like a tonne of water that day and half of it was spilled into my room. I’m not architect but let me explain to you how you’re suppose to design the toilet. The toilet floor must always be lower than the room floor so the water doesn’t flow into the room. The geniuses that designed the room decided that it would be really funny to make the room floor and the toilet floor level. I even drew out a simple explanation for the would be architects out there reading this:
Not only was it flooding outside, it’s flooding in my room as well. At first I tried using my leg to push the water back to the toilet but it kept on flowing back to the carpet. Let me recap how many hours I’ve driven. 6 hours to reach Kerteh, a further 2 hours until I found this hotel and an hour jumping around in the bath tub. So that’s hours, 9PM. I had no choice but to try and push the water back into the toilet so the carpet could dry. I didn’t have any money on me in case they decided they wanted to fine me for destroying their room. Jail time didn’t sound too sweet at that time. I had to improvise. I found a rattan tray where they put the glasses and instant coffee on. I used that to push the water back into the toilet, that proved to be more effective than using my leg.
This was how I did it, I got down on all 4’s and pushed the water back to the bathroom like a human bulldozer. When I was done it was already 11PM and I’m so tired. I went to the hotel restaurant with my RM15 and hoped they had some RM5 fried chicken. The cheapest food they had cost RM35.
So I had to drive about 15km to the nearest and only Mc Donald’s for my dinner. I would have settled for some hawker food but the shops were all closed because of the monsoon. Monsoon rain are like rubber bullets hitting you non stop at 200KM per hour. Of course I’m exaggerating a little bit here, but they do hurt.
The following day the hotel supplied a breakfast buffet which was awesome because I didn’t have anymore money. During breakfast my boss called me and we had this conversation:
Boss: where are you?
Fawked: Terengganu
Boss: come home! It’s flooded everywhere, it’s all over the news! Come home alive!
I couldn’t afford to stay another day anyway. So after eating and drinking as much as I could I went back to my room. The nightmare was almost over. Just when I thought everything would be ok, another shocker awaited me.
As I opened the room door, it smelled like RAT PISS. The smell of damp was horrifying. I would imagine that’s how Hell would smell like. God knows how long it will take for them to replace the carpet and get that stench out of the room. Since that day onwards I have been living in fear and hiding… Waiting that one day they will give me a call and ask me to pay for damages.
