Sunday, September 23, 2007

so much of Visit Malaysia


i have a question - why is it more expensive for us (locals) to travel to places within Malaysia than travelling overseas ah??

i went to the Underwater World here in Sentosa Island, S'pore and guess what, the ticket for an adult is less than S$15! i don't remember how much exactly 'cos my uncle paid for my ticket but i think it's still bloody cheap. provided you don't convert lah of course.

if you were to compare to places like the aquaria in klcc, and the underwater world in p. langkawi, i'd think the ticket here in s'pore is much cheaper. and remember, there are definitely more things to see here than those back in m'sia.

i was welcomed by many many sea turtles at the entrance and boy, they're huge! they look healthy and very much 'alive' as compared to the ones i saw back in p. redang. my boyfriend paid for a trip to p. redang early last month and the two or three baby sea turtles we saw in a tub was so damn pathetic. is this how they attract tourists and promote the importance of conservation? by showing them sad looking sea turtles and also, some dead & preserved ones??

here in sentosa, i can't help but feel hopeful. as in, yes, these creatures are near extinct but hey, there's still hope. and even the unborn baby sharks in uterus are displayed. they don't just use dead specimens mind you, but alive ones instead. you can very well see the unborn baby shark breathe and swim in the extracted 'womb'...that is what i call - hope. not pathetic, dying or dead creatures. we also get to touch and 'pat' the stingrays, sharks and puffer fish. lotsa activities. and it's a good way to get children and people to learn to love and care about these creatures. by touching, we become 'attached'. we tend to fall in love more easily. hence, we see it as our responsibility to be involved in conservation.

i don't know about you but after touching stingrays, i'd swear not to eat them anymore. even though they're not endangered. so i guess it's a good way to create awareness through this kinda human-animal interaction.

again, my less than S$15 is well spent. i enjoyed my visit tremendously. couldn't help but smsed my bf, "can't believe i see more sea turtles here in s'pore by just paying 15bucks...so much lesser than what you paid for in redang really!"

of course, this is just an example. another would be places like phuket, koh samui etc. it's cheaper to fly to thailand and laze in their beautiful beaches than to swim to our own dying corals in tioman or redang. you'd probably fall out of holiday mood too when you see floating plastic bags in our seas...i don't want to be reminded how i end up doing the 'cleaning' by picking up floating plastic bags in redang, really. that was supposed to be my holiday!!!

a friend from the States actually laughed the idea of paying (close to RM500) to hike up mt kinabalu. he said, "it's absurd to pay to climb a mountain!"...and yeah, i think so too. it's not as if we needed special equipments like those people use to climb everest etc. and we end up paying a few thousand (including air tickets) to east malaysia as well, which is more than what we pay to places like bali...

visit malaysia sucks. and no, i don't regret saying that.

psst, not trying to say the redang trip wasn't fun. i had fun of course, else he'd kill me ;-)

5 comments:

KahJoon said...

WHAT? RM500 to hike up mt. kinabalu? i was planning to just do that during the coming holidays and this information really puts me off now. mt. kinabalu, i'm not goin anymore..bluek.

yeah, it's kinda pathetic to compare our country's tourist attractions to other countries' one. all those rubbish floating around are because of the third world mentality that malaysians have.

i'm not so sure about the more expensive issue because i don't think that malaysia's tourist attractions charge that much after all. maybe one or two lah but definitely not all.

what i like the most is the cheap food and 24 hours availability.

i hate to admit this but the most shameful thing for me as a malaysian is the state of our public transfortation. the buses, LRT are sucky. cabs even worst. they fleece tourists and even locals too.

小燕子 said...

yeah..when i went to mt kinabalu was in may..suppose to be the peak season..but if you're planning to go, i suggest you go in a bigger group..cheaper...

if you ask me, i'd rather pay for trip to places like bali, phuket etc than to visit places like redang, tioman, pangkor..'cos you end up paying just as much if not more!

as for public tranportation, you're right...the cab drivers here are polite, use meter, and well, educated. the bus drivers also help look out for you if you are not so sure about your destination...the bus drivers back in kl are just good at one thing...screaming and cursing...busses are not properly maintained too...

oh well...no use building the biggest airport or tallest building if we can't even correct or improve the basic of all stuffs...public toilets included...

Mc Chaoz said...

I have something to say but, sorry ah, kena baca. Later I will comment. But I agree with KJ about the public transport services. Yes they are working to make money but they try to make more money without thinking about the consciousness. For example, taxi drivers cheat the meter rate.

amy2kyo said...

Hmm, Visit Malaysia. I think that is only applicable for tourists, as in foreign ones.

Don't you think Malaysians are extra-nice to people from other countries, so that they can gain profit from their business? Don't you taxi drivers are extra-nice to them, so that they can extra-charge?

I've visited Bali, my first time to tour in a foreign country. The Kuta Beach is so much better than those of Malaysia's. Why? Because it's way way way much cleaner! Why? Because they have rubbish collectors. Why? Because they want to keep the beach clean.

Do we see this in Malaysia? No. Why? Because not much people are willing to take up this job.

I don't know about other places around the world. Have yet to be touring. But I'm going to Bangkok soon, I'll share the experience when I got back here. Heeee.

Anyway, that's all :)

Carmen N said...

Oh! Must tell all of you this bit of news... predictable but still infuriating to me.

As you all probably know, I write for a Malaysian magazine, Off The Edge (OTE). Apart from writing, one of the things I also do is curate an art gallery within OTE. It is a print art gallery but we have done some pretty "radical" things in the past.. now, I myself would not call them radical but certainly, the bosses and the Ministry of Home Affairs thinks so because we have already been cautioned a few times for the so-called "controversial" art that we have published.

Remember that all publications in Malaysia have to adhere to their publishing license, which is administered and tightly controlled by the Home Ministry (KDN).

Now, with that background in your head, recently, we did a Re-Visit Malaysia Year Merdeka 50th anniversary issue of OTE. In that issue, in our gallery (called GWW or Gallery Without Walls), a Malay artist by the name of Ise had a work that was essentially a tongue-in-cheek sarcastic-ironic look at VMY. But it is art so, no words or anything, just pics.

Of course, KDN has issued us a new warning... we've already had 2 so if we have 3, OTE is in danger of being shut down.

In any case, I am highlighting the story only to show you that any criticism of VMY, however TRUE or VAGUE or ARTISTIC... cannot be accepted by the govt. SO, this, in my view, is why we never progress--because the govt cannot only NOT bear to listen to criticism but also that it refuses to let other Malaysians read/see this critique.

Sigh.