Mommified!

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

To Tioman With Love

What a wet day it is... Ma eyes juz refused to open and my body don't wanna get out of that comfy blankie of mine. Juz gotta force myself...

Today's plan: Pay up the rest of my money for the Sibu trip planned for this weekend.
I'm a bit aprehensive about going to Sibu though. After that bitter sweet trip to Tioman jus last weekend. They always, and I mean ALWAYS make holiday destinations such a wonderful thing in brochures. The picturesque sceneries, fine dining, great hospitality and well-equipped hotels/resorts. Well.. let me tell ya first hand that these promises are just bullcrap.

Tioman Trip
(I'm gonna have my say now, whether they like it or not. I hope I won't get into trouble. But then I know I won't be in trouble coz this is like a feedback to them. If they wanna improve, they should take criticisms from customers positively. And you know that CUSTOMERS ARE ALWAYS RIGHT!)

I'm gonna skip the journey part coz it's gonna be really long if i were to tell ya about the 6hr bus ride, makan stop at a flies-infested, foul-smelling warong along the road, supposedly 1 hr speedboat ride which eventually turned out to be 2 hrs cos they HAD to transit some people to another speedboat in the middle of the sea, the confusion about the place we had to go to get a shuttle to the resort, and not to mention, the old, cramped bus which rode on the bumpy road.

So anyway, I stayed in, what the travel agent told me as, a 5-star resort in Tioman. The island IS beautiful, much to our delight. The sands are white, the water is crystal clear. You could even see the fishes down below if you were standing on the jetty! Compared to the waters in Singapore, this is truly a sight! There was one time when we were swimming in the sea, my hubby realised that he had dropped our room keys from his pocket. But fret not. I found them in a matter of seconds in the neck-high waters of Tioman. How cool is that!

There were so many interesting and beautiful sceneries that will blow your mind. The pictures in the brochures, believe them. But of coz, we took a lot of pictures, like a couple of tourists we were.

However, what we were unhappy about the trip was the service we got from the people in the resort. From my experience there, I conclude that they only give good service to those who are white, speaks with an accent and have hair colours other than black. It's true! There were so many instances that I could write a book.

Example 1
We arrived at the resort at 1.30, all tired, hungry and oily-faced, hoping to have quick shower before eating our lunch (FYI, we skipped lunch. Remember 'flies-infested, foul-smelling warong along the road'?), only to be told that our room will not be ready till 3pm. What the? They promised to have it ready as soon as possible. So we decided to eat first. When we came back, it was still not ready. We had to go to the counter to check whether our room was ready every now and then. The very next day, we saw the lady behind the counter, walking across the lobby and handing over keys to an ang-moh couple personally, all smiley-faced and polite and stuff. Hmph!

Example 2,3 & 4
We were always dreading our meals at the restaurants. My hubby decided that we should eat at the restaurants instead of the warongs outside of the resort coz afraid that our stomach can't take warong food. We were greeted by a non-smiling staff who showed us to our seats. If that wasn't enough, we had to wait 30 minutes for our milkshakes and 45 minutes for our Nasi Goreng! My guess was, they had to milk the cows back there first and harvest the padi fields. That explains the delay.
Not only that, other examples include asking 3-4 times for 2 glasses of plain water which eventually came 10 minutes later, that was considered long, compared to the ang-moh couple behind us who got their plain water right after their butts touched the seats. Not to mention the dish served was not what my hubby ordered.

Sigh... So this was our experience in Tioman. A little long, but this is just some of what happened. I've not mentioned about the room, the activities and the shopping (if there were any in the first place). Maybe next time.

And if you ask me if there is gonna be a next time in Tioman, let me just say, I'll have to think hard about it.

Btw, I'll post some pics soon.

Pooped @ 10:47 AM