miniature coconut trees of Kuantan

These are beautiful miniature coconut trees planted especially in places where people can walk near them or under them without endangering the people from fallen ripe coconuts. The Municipal Council must be given credits for their good thoughts on public safety and comfort.

Prominently displayed

Some of the prominently displayed billboards in Kuantan Town.

Amir Hamzah

Meet Amir Hamzah, the guy who cleans the beautifully tiled promenade of The Kuantan River every morning, collecting the rubbish left by irresponsible people who walks the promenade, day and night. Without the people the like of him, Kuantan residents would be walking in rubbish when strolling or running on that promenade.

Do they care?

This is right below our apartment.Everyone sees it every day. But does anyone care?

The management probably knows. Their action?

The owner probably knows. But the owner does not live here.

My Apartment

This is an interesting correspondence from one of the apartment owners. I have faith that the person concerned will allow me to print the correspondence in this blog. The person will be doing a great service to us all, and what the person says are exactly what most of the apartments' owners/buyers/ tenants suffer from. There is no solution currently, and one of the owners said to my wife recently "The Apartment is now just like poor peoples' residence". Maybe its like that.

I am a new member of this group. My unit is …….. I got to know about this group ……………..I read his blog. I am so glad that we have this kind of group in order for us to communicate among each other. I really hope other residents could join this group too.

I have to change the floor of my apartment because water from the toilet had absorbed into the floor and wall of the living room and the middle bedroom. I am not sure if there is any leakage in the wall. The only way I can check is by breaking the wall. Any ideas what I should do? Should I inform the management?
Who should bear the cost?

The tiles in the bathroom (wall) have come out. So, I could see that those tiles were not properly done by the developer. If I knock the wall, it's hollow. Now I have to take out all the tiles and re-put them back.

The toilet in the master bedroom has another door. If I open the door, I could see rubbish, i.e. plastic bags, papers, condoms, clothes, etc. thrown by the people who live above my unit. Because of this, my house becomes so dirty and water cannot flow freely through the rain hole. When this happen, the water
will absorb into the wall and floor, and my house now is full of fungi! Anyone has this problem too? How did you overcome this problem? I was thinking to cover the place with "overhead grill" (I am sorry, I don't know what to call it), so that if people on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th floor throw anything, the rubbish will
not fall into my "compound".

There's a water pump motor under the staircase too and the motor is making a very loud sound till I could hear it from the master bedroom.

I really hope you can help me with some of the issues above. I will attend meetings if any in the future, as I will be in Kuantan ………year.

Thank you.

Pool Repairs

When I left the apartment about two or three weeks ago I saw the notice saying that the apartment’s swimming pool will be shutdown for maintenance. Well and good, I thought, its time.

When I came back last week I saw what had been done. They have repaired the children’s swings in the children’s playgrounds., also well and good.

The swimming pool seemed to have been repaired. But on closure look I saw that the work had not been properly done. My main concern is on the safety to the pool users. I saw that the cracks on the outskirt floors have not been repaired. That is not is not too bad I thought. But when I saw the edges of the pool I was shocked. The edge had been raised (or repaired) but the sharp broken edges have not been made ‘safe’. It’s dangerous to have edges repaired like that, one may trip the edge or even cut ones feet on the sharp part of the edges. These people do not have the sense of safety.

Now I do not know if the management will approve the work of the repairs or not, but to my mind the edges of the pool are not safe.

They have got a new mosque.

Good bye to the old mosque.

Then effective from the Subuh Prayers on Friday 10 July 2009, they will pray at the new mosque built and just finished.

Yes, when I am in Kuantan, I often go and pray at that mosque, a small mosque on the outskirt of Kuantan Town, in a precint called Bukit Setongkol. Its just a small village mosque, Bukit Setongkol is just a village with majority of the population being lower middle class Malay Muslims. Though the Kuantan Town Chinese graveyard (and burial ground) is just neighbouring by less than 1 km towards Kuantan Town.

Everyone seems to be looking forward to start praying at this new mosque.

Food stall by the beach

Teluk Cempedak in Kuantan (Malaysia) has a beautiful beach. But for the local, its not the beach that they come for but the “roti canai” and “nasi lemak bungkus” that they come for in the morning (and different local food in the afternoon and at night),. They are common breakfast menu for the local (other dishes depending on the time of the day). In fact not only the local but some Asian visitors (and rare non-Asian visitors also come) especially from Singapore and from the outstation States are seen to regular the place. It’s a small eating stall, with red canvas top, situated just outside the Hyatt Hotel Kuantan (Malaysia).

The food? Passable. But the service is excellent! They have good people to take care of the customers. And the drink? All soft drinks, tea and coffee to your likings. The atmosphere? Healthy, you are right by the beach. The smiles and the laughter of the customers make you feel very at home.

When are they open? Every morning. And evening and early hours of the night. Different menu at different time. Give the place a try, and you may even like it, and may even come again, time and again.

The biggest this, and the longest that.

Typically Malaysian that is, always telling people (and the world) what is the biggest this and the longest that in the country. The disease has now come up to Kuantan Town (Malaysia).

Behind the East Coast Mall (a local shopping complex) there are rows of shop houses they call Malay Town, Chinese Town and Indian Town. Why they call that I do not know.

I just found out today that in the Malay Town they have placed a big log, which I am told is one of the biggest log found in the State of Pahang (one of the 11 Sultanate State in Malaysia), the market price is about RM20,000.00 (USD 1 – RM 3.5 currently). It is now horizontal but I heard that there is a plan to erect it vertical. When will they do it, I wouldn’t know.

And in the Chinese Town, I discovered a big dragon made from empty aluminum drink tins. Empty tins? Like every thing here, everything seems to be empty. I am told that the dragon had broken a sort of record, for it being the longest dragon made of empty tins. Sounds empty to me.

And in the Indian Town, I have not discovered anything ‘big’ or ‘long’ yet.

Apartment surprise.

Surprise, surprise …………… someone decided to trim the trees in our apartment square. Not a very good job, but then trees were trimmed. I don’t know what woke up the Management to do that. They also planted new shrubs and new mini flowering plants. A good initiative.

Unfortunately however they have thrown the cut branches into the neighbouring land, making a mess just outside the apartment fencing. Have they got permission to do that? Does the neighbouring land owner know about what is happening on his land? Does the Kuantan Municipal Council approve of this throwing of ‘rubbish’ onto the neighbouring land? I don’t know.

And also unfortunately, the Management have not repaired the childrens’ swing in the childrens’ play ground nor have they look at the dangers on the edges of the apartment’s swimming pool.

Leisurely Sunday morning in Kuantan Town.

Its all happening within a 1 km radius, all these activities.

When you walk down by the esplanade at Kuantan River you see people fishing, some lucky to have a catch and many just go home empty handed or just mere small fishes. Its only a pass time anyway.

When you walk pass the town padang (field) you may see some football (soccer) matches about to be played. And the players warming up. You may even see an old man doing his morning tai chee.

In the shop houses in town you may meet or see people in the Indian eating houses enjoying their morning mean, ‘roti canai’ is their favourite. In the fruit market bananas supplier busy replenishing his bananas supply. And in the wet market fishmongers putting up their fish for sale. Nearby in the Chinese stalls, they are busy eating their breakfast of noodles.

And near the town man stadium they have the Sunday market. You can buy most household things from the market, but mostly confined to food and clothings. You might see some medicine peddlers busy talking into the microphones, trying to attract customers to buy their medicines.

Kuantan town, a leisurely Sunday morning town. Or you may spend your day by the beautiful beach about 5 km from the town centre.

we don't even know, who they are!

There are 2 categories of people that we seem to see in the apartment complex that we do not know who they are. One are the people minding the gate, and another, people who come in and out of the apartment compound, visiting, using the pool and sometime making a lot of noise at night.

The gate minders consist of a couple of Malay persons whom we know, they have been working there for quite a while. And there are also other people whom we do not even know where they come from, some say from Bangladesh, some say from Nepal, some say from Myanmar or whatever country they come from minding the gate. They all seem very strange and I personally have doubt if they can actually do their job properly. From what I observe, they do not even speak good local language. So how to expect them to mind the gate?

Worse still are the people whom we do not know, who come into the compound or using the swimming pool (for free). To the best of our knowledge, they are not tenants, may probably be related to tenants or friends of the tenants. But they seem to be freely roaming the compound as if they own the place. And some of them do not even behave properly as Malaysians. Imagine, some of them are Malay (Muslims?) swimming in the pool (for free) and making sexual advance to each other in the water. Most inappropriate. They do not realise that good families are staying in the apartments.

All in all, there is no control over access to the apartment complex and to its facilities (whatever that the apartment complex has). The non-Malaysian gate keepers are hopeless, and should not be there. And the Management could not careless, they are only interested to collect the monthly RM 150 maintenance fees (and we do not even know if there are the management cronies who do not pay such monthly maintenance fees). We have no knowledge of the income and expenditure of the apartment complex despite most of us paying the monthly maintenance fees religiously. (What alternative do we have really?)

Insecure

An old and wornout pair of slippers which I used to wear when going to mosques (and Surau) in Kuantan placed outside my apartment main entrance door disappeared a few days ago. Probably ........... just probably taken (cannot be my mistake, as my entrance door is very specific but facing a common satircase to apartements above), where I even have a shoe rack placed. It never happened previously and I believe in the honesty of people going in and out of the apartments above or even the neighbouring apartments. But with so many people whom I do not even know/recognised, and foreign hotel workers also living there, and with security to the apartments complex being very lax, anything can and may happen. Lost of an old wornout slippers may be just a start, soon it will be something else ......... pray hard that it will not happen.

Improvement to Kuantan facilities.

A place for patanque and improvement to the exercise yard at the public park in Kuantan, Pahang, Malaysia. That is an improvement to the towns' people's recreational facilities.

not maintained

The not maintained children swings in our apartment complex. Haven't the management notices? Or do they care?

Neglected swimming pool

The state of neglect of the swimming pool at Le Town Apartment, Kuantan, Pahang, Malaysia. With sunken sides and broken mosaics, and sharp edges it looks very dangerous especially to children. One of these days someone will get hurt.

Disappointed

I came back to Kuantan today, after being away for a few weeks, and when I arrived at the Apartment I found that the grass in the compound has not been trimmed, for a couple of weeks from the looks of things. I am very disappointed at the lack of such grass maintenance.

Vehicle entry

After about 10 years of living in the apartment, they now want to control vehicle entry into the apartments compound. That is good. But I wonder how are they to enforce this? Strictly or lezzairfair style.
There is mention of motorcycles (or is there?). Those are the real nusience, especially late at night or in the early hours of the morning.