Sri Panwa Resort - Phuket, Thailand

To describe this establishment as luxurious is only the beginning, for this place cannot be dismissed using merely one adjective. Firstly, lets start by stating that this sort of place is far beyond this families usual price bracket when it comes to holiday destinations. We were only able to do so with the extreme generosity of our Malaysian friends.

Despite being imposters in the world of the well heeled, Lina and I (just the two of us) made a creditable attempt to blend in. I did this by packing every nice shirt in my wardrobe. There were no ripped shorts, t shirts or jeans, a first for me as I recall. So we lounged by our private pool in our Luxury Villa, listening to the Bose sound system aired to every room. We awoke to a panoramic sea view behind the glass walled bedroom, as we lounged on the oh-so-comfortable king sized mattress.

Impossible to ignore was the service. At these sort of places you can genuinely let it go, just leave it to them. And I mean everything; checkout, checkin, it really was the full pampering package.

So comfortable were we that not once did we set foot outside the resort. Not once were we tempted. In fact we became so used to the style that Robin Leach introduced us to in the 80’s show ‘Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous’, that it was something of a letdown when we arrived at Phuket airport for the return leg to Kuala Lumpur. It’s a downright shoddy airport in need of a substantial upgrade given the status of Phuket as one of the more popular tourist destinations in the region. The place was crawling with sunburnt, package Russian tourists, downing plastic cups of duty free liquor before the long trek back to Siberia, perhaps steeling themselves for the 6 months of urban freeze that awaits them.  Then there were the Australians. Three generations commonly represented in various stages of tanning, resembling human pelts with eyes and painted eyebrows.

2011 Rugby World Cup

What a 6 week period its been.

This competition has been much anticipated by New Zealanders around the world. Personally, I've had my ups and downs when it comes to my support of Rugby Union and the New Zealand All Blacks. I grew up with it, played for many years, and  have wonderful memories of watching the All Blacks, nervously, through the 80's and 90's.

I've been a critic of the commercialism that has enshrouded All Black rugby since the start of professional Rugby in 1996. Of course its been inevitable and I don't begrudge the modern player the right to earn a wage playing the game. But its fair to say I've blown hot and cold.

However, I was completely swept away with it. A couple of years ago, if someone had asked me want I wanted to see happen with NZ hosting the RWC, I would have spoken about the fact that we need to be good hosts. To go along to the games such as Georgia VS Namibia, despite the Rugby on offer being of a lesser standard than could be viewed at any club ground on a Saturday afternoon. It was all this and more.

For goodness sake, I saw New Zealand blokes in the ground on the night of the final Vs France, clutching the silver fern emblem on their black jersey with tears rolling down their cheeks. Unheard of a mere 10 years ago in a society where keeping a tie on ones emotions and toughing it out have been one the mainstays of the culture.

We won after 24 long years, putting to bed the chokers tag that has been round our necks all this time.

Sounds of Kuala Lumpur

This was taken on the patio at home during the evening call to prayer. Accompanying is the melodic din of the car alarm in the background. Ahh, the sound of the city........

Turn up the sound.

Money, Money, Money

It's never to early to get the young ones proficient in handling 'the green stuff'. One of the many extra mural courses available to school age Malaysians.

Adventure Pastimes

The first time I realised that I am afraid of heights was in 1994 when I bungee jumped for the first and last time. New Zealand is well known as the ‘adventure capital of the world’. I have met those abroad who assume that apart from playing Rugby and admiring the scenery, we spend our day’s bungee jumping, white water rafting, and other such adrenaline sports that cater largely for international tourists.


Whilst on the subject of international perceptions of New Zealand, following is a conversation I have had many times whilst living abroad.

‘Where are you from?’

‘New Zealand’

‘Ahh, New Zealand. It’s beautiful’

‘Oh, you’ve been there?’

‘Err, no,... but I’ve heard its lovely. I’d love to go one day’.
 

Regarding my bungee jump, I was not cajoled into doing it. Quite the contrary, it was following my suggestion that I found myself strapped to an elastic cord 47 metres above the ground, trembling as my previously shy and retiring sense of self preservation began to raise its cowardly head. To call my experience a bungee jump is to be disingenuous. It was more accurately, a bungee knee-trembling-plummet. I had always imagined leaping forth into the air, all embracing of the sensation that comes with free falling from such a distance. This did not happen. After being convinced by my captors on the high platform, whom I had paid $147, that the best course of action was not to be unstrapped and return more conventionally to the earth, I decided, jelly legged, to collapse from the platform to the ground below. I was terrified.

Given all this, it may seem somewhat strange that I volunteered for the Skytrex adventure circuit. It’s a series of flying foxes, ladders and aerial obstacles negotiated at the height of 17 metres. Of course, we were all strapped in and attached with what appeared to be very safe devices. The fear of user error was always foremost in my mind however as I double, triple and quadruple checked my harnesses at various points.

After the first few platforms I began to breathe a little easier and at one point towards the end of the course I even enjoyed the sensation of throwing myself off a ledge. It’s a fantastic facility out at Shah Alam and I would highly recommend it. It’s a bargain price as well; 45RM, incredible value, so check it out at http://www.skytrex-adventure.com/index.php.

Mint in the Garden

Plug For 'Allo Expat Malaysia

Its a challenge for anyone to move to another country.

Luckily there are some very useful online sources that provide advice. One of these that I found most useful when I was trawling the net back in New Zealand looking for info on this strange, unfamiliar place called Malaysia, was http://www.malaysia.alloexpat.com. It has everything from immigration to leisure tips and includes a discussion forum for any specific questions.

2011 Rugby Awards

It is the end of the Rugby Union season here and after his first full year of Rugby, Isaac was the proud recipient of the Royal Selangor Club 2011 Junior Section Best Forward Award at a glittering ceremony (by the pool - this is the tropics afterall) in KL last week.

It can be difficult keeping the little tykes interested in my home country's winter code, when played in 35 degrees. Words of encouragement and some bribery go a long way.

The new season starts in September. Preseason training will commence shortly following a few weeks to freshen up. We don't want the under 6's to complain of burnout.

While We're on the Subject of Fruit

Those lovers of fruit, particularly of the exotic variety, may be familiar with the variety pictured below. Being a former 'kiwi kid' I have weetbix for breakfast of course. Generously layered over is papaya, usually purchased from the TTDI wet market.

These babies however are from our back yard. They need to get a tad more yellow and then they will be right and ripe for picking.

I'm Back - Here's the Durian



Hmmm...Tastes like chicken



These suckers are hard to get into



All that thorny goodness

Behold, Durian as it's finest

I hate other blogs that appear to be going swimmingly, then all of a sudden, on the whim of the writer, are discontinued; abruptly and without a reason given.

Did they arrive at a sticky end or, more likely, just move on to the next novelty? This has happened to my blog, and I will bore you with no excuse. Today.......(cue dramatic music)...it is resurrected!

And I will start with a few photos of a durian buying and eating expedition.  This legendary fruit, I have managed to avoid for the past 3 years. With the visit of my parents last month however, I decided it was the perfect opportunity to break the durian barrier hence it was included in the tourist trail that we followed during their stay.

The verdict: very creamy, rich, sweet, with a hint of peppery tinges. The infamous smell was most definitely exaggerated in my opinion; merely a very plant like, altogether organic odour.

Graeme's Leaving Party

Another manmum is leaving these shores hence a party was held at our place. Here are all the manmums that attended.

Mountain Biking in KL

Living in KL, one thing that I don’t automatically associate with the lifestyle here is getting into the jungle. Sure it’s all around; little pockets have managed to tenaciously hold on against development, however ultimately KL is your typical big city. An urban jungle as opposed to the green tropical one that it was 150 years ago. Perhaps that’s why it was such fun to go mountain biking in one of these mini jungles tucked in between a couple of major highways.

It was an all kiwi affair with Damian and Paul, who kindly lent me his spare bike starting with a short road ride from Paul’s place in Sri Hartamas to the track entrance. For the next 2 hours we slid (there had been typically prodigious tropical rain overnight) and grunted our way through some technically challenging terrain interspersed with some nerve jangling, white knuckle downhill hooning. Despite it being many years since my last mountain biking experience (about 18 I suspect, which ages me terribly) I had only one spill, with no major damage done. So the question is whether to make the investment in the machinery, after all these things don’t come cheap?

Save Our Maids

This story was front page news on the main English daily in Kuala Lumpur, The Star.

For those of us raised in countries where domestic maids are not a matter of necessity, this article will seem ludicrous and funny in the most non intentional way. There are some real crackers here. I especially like the line about 'parents sacrificing quality time with their children in the weekends (mall hopping presumeably), and doing household chores'. This is not a laughing matter here in Malaysia, a country with a massive over reliance on foreign cheap labour. The reason why Indonesia has decided to ban sending maids here is that relations between the two nations are very strained currently and the Indos want to hit the Malaysians where it hurts.

Easy answer Malaysia - Pay your workers a decent wage!!!

DISCLOSURE:  We have a maid! (A lovely Filipino lady, see previous post). She is home for a holiday and I'm counting the days till she returns. Cleaning toilets is very overrated.

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2011/1/10/nation/7765421&sec=nation

Monday January 10, 2011



Maid shortage worsens with Cambodia running low


By JOSHUA FOONG


joshuafoong@thestar.com.my



PETALING JAYA: Some 35,000 families are being forced to do a “huge balancing act” as the shortage of foreign maids turns critical with supply dwindling down to a trickle.

To add to the problem of Indonesia’s moratorium on maids, Cambodia is also facing difficulty in sending domestic helpers aged above 21.


Malaysian Association of Foreign Maid Agencies is urging the Government to seriously attend to this pressing matter and consider lowering the age limit of foreign maids to allow more maids in from Cambodia.


> Parents are sacrificing quality time with their children as weekends are used to complete household chores.

> Freelance agents are cashing in on the situation to offer “informal” ways of providing domestic help, including getting Indonesian maids into the country despite the freeze by the Indonesian government.



Monday January 10, 2011



35,000 families badly hit by shortage of maids




PETALING JAYA: Tens of thousands of families are in a lurch as the shortage of foreign maids has become more acute.

With only about 200 foreign maids arriving monthly compared to more than 1,000 several months ago, the waiting list is getting longer by the day.


Malaysian Associa­tion of Foreign Maid Agencies (Papa) estimated that about 35,000 families were in desperate need of maids with the average waiting time now stretching to more than seven months.

The problem is caused by a continued freeze imposed by Indonesia – the biggest supplier of domestic helpers – on its people from coming to Malaysia as maids since last year. Now, it has been worsened with Cambodia being unable to meet the shortfall.

On average, 7,000 maids are needed per month to replace those who go home after their contracts expire, but the number of new arrivals is less than 5% of that figure, Papa secretary Foo Yong Hooi said.


He said the problem was temporarily solved when Malaysia opened its door to maids from Cambodia, but after about eight months of high demand, the country now faced difficulties in supplying enough maids.


He said Cambodia would be able to supply more maids if the Government was willing to lower the minimum age limit of maids to 18 years from the current 21.


“The supply of maids from the country for those above the age of 21 is currently overstretched. This is because many in that age-group are already starting a family and are not willing to come here,” he added.

He said Papa had already made a formal request to the Home and Human Resources ministries last year to lower the age limit when the shortage first began to become serious.


“We do not know how much longer we can sustain with this (maid shortage),” Foo added.


A Cambodian delegation of maid agencies and labour officials is expected to arrive next week to discuss the issue of lowering the age requirement with the relevant authorities.


“The age requirement is a concern for our Cambodian counterparts,” he said.


For industry players, the more important issue was not just to find a temporary solution but to look at the primary issue – the continuing freeze of maid supply from Indonesia.


“I believe the Government has done what it can. We always welcome maids from Indonesia. The Government has made its offer. The ball is now in Indonesian’s court.


“The impasse will not end unless Indonesia lifts its moratorium on the hiring of maids,” Foo said.

Maids from Indonesia and Cambodia are sought after by many families because their monthly wage is affordable at around RM600 compared to the RM1,200 for maids from the Philippines.

Malaysia has also opened its doors to maids from Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Laos, Nepal and India.


However, Foo said, there were still some issues that needed to be resolved before domestic helpers from these countries could be brought in in large numbers.

Among the issues that needed to be addressed were related to wages and rest days.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year Everyone,

This article from the Star in Malaysia caught my attention, reviewing New Zealands annus horriblis in 2010.

Lets hope fortunes improve in Aoteoroa for 2011.

Friday December 31, 2010



Not hard to bid adieu to 2010


TALE OF TWO CITIES


AUCKLAND


BY CHARLES CHAN

AS the curtain falls on 2010, many New Zealanders will be glad to bid “good riddance” to what has surely been a rotten year, an annus horriblis.

A slew of natural and man-made disasters — earthquakes, floods, drought, fires and corporate collapses — caused a lot of misery.

The government is running out of cash, with a deficit of NZ$15.6bil reported for the 2010-11 fiscal year, the same as in 1984 when the country was broke.

Memorial service: People sitting near individual tables covered with personal items of dead miners at Omoto Racecourse in Greymouth recently. Two explosions killed 29 miners in the underground Pike River coal mine last month.


So although not broke, the National-led government under John Key is having to borrow NZ$300mil a week just to keep hospitals, schools and other essential services running.

Finance Minister Bill English said the deficit was “at the outer boundaries of what the government wanted” but was confident the country was still on track to bring the budget back to surplus by 2015/16.

Realistically, the cash-strapped government won’t be able to do much in the area of job creation, poverty and hardship alleviation.

The easy way out is to start selling off commercial assets worth NZ$52bil to pay the bills but with the general election in the new year, that’s quite an unlikely scenario.

So it’s no surprise the Christmas season hasn’t been a cheerful one for some Kiwis, particularly those families who have lost fathers and sons from the 2010 News of the Year event — the Pike River coal mine disaster of Nov 19 that killed 29 miners and contractors.

Unlike the miracle of San Jose copper-gold mine in Chile, the Pike River tragedy traumatised the nation.

More than a month after that tragedy, there’s still no indication when or if ever the bodies of the 29 mine victims can be recovered. The presence of dangerous toxic gases in the mine tunnels make it unsafe for recovery teams to enter.

The mine disaster has more serious consequences for the living. Debt-ridden Pike River Coal has bellied up and 90% of its 160 workers are out of work.

For the West Coast town of Greymouth in the South Island, where most mine workers spend their money on daily essentials, it’s a sickening blow to the local economy.

The other big event that captured world headlines and media attention was the Sept 4 Canterbury earthquake near Christchurch, New Zealand’s second largest city, that cost widespread damage to residential and commercial properties estimated at $5bil by Goldman Sachs.

Nobody was killed. The only fatality was a man who died of a heart attack during the 7.1 magnitude quake but more than 3,000 aftershocks have hit the area.

The latest swarm of aftershocks came on Boxing Day ranging from 3.0 to 4.9 in magnitude which sent bargain hunters fleeing for their lives as bricks and mortar crashed from buildings.

So far a total of 161,600 claims had already been lodged with the Earthquake Commission, making the Canterbury quake the fourth most-costly earthquake for insurers globally since 1970 after Northridge, California, in 1994, Central and Southern Chile in 2010, and Kobe, Japan, in 1995.

The silver lining is that reconstruction work associated with repairs and rebuilding of affected homes covered by insurance will give the local economy a much needed boost.

But in the meantime, due to bureaucratic delay and the sheer scale of repairs, many families will not be able to return to their homes for several years to come.

It’s not in the Christmas spirit to derive some satisfaction over another person’s troubles but many New Zealanders are not shedding any tears for controversial businessman Mark Hotchin.

His NZ assets have all been frozen by the Securities Commission which is investigating his role in the collapse of Hanover Finance.

The freeze order included his bank accounts and $13.5mil property on Waiheke Island and his highly-publicised $30mil unfinished mansion on Paritai Drive in the Auckland suburb of Remuera.

That collapse in 2008 has left 16,000 investors out of pocket to the tune of $413mil, shattering retirement dreams, ruining plans for holidays, costly operations and negating inheritance legacies of many elderly couples.

Hotchin is moaning that the $1,000 a week allowance given by the Commission to cover legal costs, rent and mortgage payments, and food and other household expenses, is insufficient for his needs and the seven people he supports.

The stealth displayed by the commission, activating an existing law that had been gathering cobwebs for years, took Hotchins completely by surprise, sort of like Pearl Harbour in World War II.

Usually, assets are frozen with notice of a court order following the completion of an investigation into alleged irregularities.

Some financial analysts see it as a warning from the commission that it’s prepared to play hardball to nail corporate crooks.

Hotchin, who has relocated to a multi-million-dollar beachfront mansion on the Gold Coast, Australia, intends to fight the orders and a hearing is expected in February.

In stark contrast, when South Canterbury Finance collapsed in August after being placed under statutory management, hundreds of people, including those who put their life savings in his company, staged rallies and marches in his support.

The collapse of the country’s largest finance company, triggered a payment of $1.6bil of taxpayers money to 35,000 depositors under the Government’s deposit guarantee scheme which ensures investors will get their money back with interest.

But the significance of it was all buried under the sentimental mush over Hubbard, the Timaru-based multimillionaire philanthropist who lives with his wife in a modest home and drives around in an old car.

It affected large number of rural sector loans estimated at over $250mil and poses a risk to New Zealand’s agricultural sector. This arises from the crucial nature of the rural sector to the overall agricultural industry in the country.

The real story is still unravelling but in the meantime, Hubbard who will be held accountable for approving questionable loans that led to South Canterbury’s collapse is still revered while Hotchin is reviled.

Other TV images that captured NZ’s economic woes poignantly were of tens of thousands of lambs dying in southland during the harsh winter and factory fires that put hundreds of people out of work.

Yet, despite these numbing setbacks, NZ success in sports provided some cheer.

Not often can New Zealand claim to have finished a year on top of Australia, its biggest rival, in three of the leading winter codes — rugby, rugby league and netball.

Even in soccer, it could boast a superior record at the World Cup in South Africa, thanks to a stunning unbeaten run. For the fourth successive time, New Zealand’s Black Ferns captured the women’s version of the Rugby World Cup, beating English 13-10 in a tense final.

With just the inaugural world cup victory under their belt, the ABS have a long way to go but their stunning successes in 2010 — over South Africa, Australia, England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland — make them the favourites for the 2011 Rugby World Cup which NZ is hosting in September.


Winning the Webb Ellis Cup, the symbol of global rugby supremacy, will give Kiwis some cheer in the difficult year ahead.

Just imagine that — so much hope placed on an oval ball the size of a durian.