Our Muar trip

For the past 3 days, since Jan 31, we have been in Mt Ophir and Muar on a short holiday trip together with my parents. We went with a choir group from Singapore and were invited to join them because having more people on the trip drives down the costs.

The waterfall at Mt Ophir was interesting but the part where we walked up to, took us about 35 minutes, it wasn't that impressive. And there was lots of rubbish around even though there were plenty of bins. Don't look like anyone was using them. When we returned to Singapore, we read a report that 3.5 tonnes or 3,500kg of rubbish are collected everyday at Mt Ophir! WOW!

Yesterday, we went to a palm plantation near the Mt Ophir resort we were staying at. And that was interesting seeing how the leaves from a palm tree were cut down, how the buffalo transports them and all. We went to an orchard too and a mini zoo but the animals look abit sad and not very well-kept, like the ostriches who had pulled their own feathers out.

To ring in the new year, we attended a party organised by the resort owner. But we spent 2 hours from 9pm listening to this rock band who unfortunately looked like they were caught up in a jamming session than a performance because intially, they were facing the audience and playing their music but as it got on, they were just facing each other and jamming away. That was when it got boring. By 11pm, Phill and I were tired and went to the room to watch tv (which mostly had channels broadcasting Malay programs). Come midnight, there were fireworks which went on for a while and we just looked at it from our room.

Last night, we went to Muar (which is about an hour's trip) to listen to the choir performance by the Singapore group and one from Muar. We were put on this very old bus which was quite dirty and the seats reclined to 70degrees when the bus was moving. Everything looked like it was falling apart. Even we could see parts of the road cos the floorboards moved. I was abit concerned we were going to be on the ground anytime. The performance was interesting and Phill was interviewed by a Muar newspaper reporter who wondered why there was a Caucasian audience member. He basically asked why Phill was there and if he enjoyed the performance (Phill said yes).

In all, it was a good trip although I had to keep in mind it was really a economical and budget trip and though I was disappointed with the resort room cos it was perhaps better described as a chalet style room, the food at the resort was good. I enjoyed it even though an ex-colleague had warned me it wasn't good. What I couldn't put up with, unfortunately, was the state of the toilets in the entire trip (except the ones in the resort). Some were enough to make me lose my appetite but I'm sure there's worse, like the ones in China.....*shudder*