Mid July Trip Home

We flew back to Malaysia in mid July after not having left Norway for the past 2 years! We spent a total of 4 weeks in Malaysia inclusive of 1.5 weeks in KL, a couple days in Miri and a 3 day weekend in Penang visiting family, the rest was spent mulling about in Pasir Puteh with really no major undertaking took place.

The KL portion was spent getting new passports, getting new glasses, checking out new gadgets for those who needed it and spending time with family in PJ. We drove to PP via the East Coast spending a couple of days in Kuantan and Kuala Trengganu visiting family along the way.

Things go very slowly in Malaysia if you are not there physically to move things along. Fortunately most of the items on the finances list got done : closed the RHB investment account and put money back into EPF, transferred some funds from EPF to children's account as well some other smaller items like update drivers licence, IC and credit cards pins etc.

The time in PP was always a dragged on affair having accomplished not very much other than the usual cleaning up of the house and fixing up a few things in and around the house. It gets frustrating at times looking at the condition of the house. Every year it seems to just deteriorate that bit more. A big change from previous years was that we finally sorted out the title with the bank after having paid off the loan almost a year ago. The deeds to the property were finally received about month after our return to Norway.

The upkeep of the Merkang house falls back onto Suryani last year after our contractor and friend found better and more profitable venture elsewhere. So now it's Suryani who manages the monthly mowing of the lawn and general upkeep. She's also been given the task of keeping the interior of the house mopped and cleaned on a monthly basis by a cleaner of her choosing.

There are a few oustanding things left still to be taken care of but then time is always short to be able to execute all of them. Installed a new water pump, swapped out the bed in Mommy's old room, cleaning up the courtyard, planted five new trees, swapped out the power board  ... the list of incomplete items are however endless : swap out the main gate, swap out the front and back doors of the back house, swap out the trellises in the courtyard and install new solar lights.

Days passed by quickly whenever we are in PP, before you realised it the time has come to make the trip back to KL again.

Tok Wan in Semerak with Tok Ngah,  Tok Mek's step son (from her last husband's previous marriage-Semerak line) and her son from her previous marriage (Machang line) respectively ... elder and younger brother of Mom's (another marriage-Bachok line). The family tree is so complicated that it almost always confuses everyone when the subject comes up.

A Cambodian shadow puppet performance in Penang that we happened to stumble upon on the weekend. The video was made for Ameer (nephew) who is a shadow puppet afficionado since childhood.

A flight on the Iflight8C in Setiu. Brought back two drones but only managed to fly one of them only once and the other not at all!

A flight in the front yard with Abe Lan and Rifqi (voice in the background). This year there was no photography session conducted at all out in the paddyfields.

We took a couple of days to drive back to KL via KT/KLIA, return the rental car, checked in to the hotel and took the train/taxi home to PJ. By the 13th of Aug we were back at KLIA for our flight to Norway via Amsterdam.

A total of 4 weeks holiday at the end of which which we needed another big rest up when we got back home!