OFF THE ROAD

Finally! i'm back to the comfort of my queen sized bed, orange walls and internet access after almost a week on the road. My 5-day trans-Peninsula tour started at 1am on Wednesday as Gav and i headed to JUUP (kiss in thai..) CLUB Johor Bahru to setup for a cancer stick event, then back to KL and i was off to Penang (ALONE!) after spending less than 20hrs in KL... of which 16 were spent in the office or carrying out work related tasks. From Penang it was off to Seberang Prai at 11pm. Here's where it gets real bad.. due to the St.Anne's Festival in Bukit Mertajam, it was impossible for me to get a hotel room (even in the smallest of motels..). So, i made the decision at 4am to head straight to Taiping and the rest of the crew can meet me there the following afternoon after they check out from Prai. Reaching Taiping at around 5am, i only managed to put my head down on a hotel pillow at 9.45am. 9.45am!! Who would've guessed that all the hotels including cheapo motels to the Taiping Golf and Country Club Resort would be fully booked for that night!! Unable to keep my eyes open any longer, i decided to head back out to the North South Expressway where i noticed a hotel attached to the Bukit Merah R&R stop. I'm a fuss pot when it comes to hotels... my team at 360 would gladly tell the world about it... this GRAND PARADISE HOTEL (located along the north-south expressway at selected rest areas) takes the cake for being the worst hotel ever! GRAND PARADISE? oh my.... it was a good thing i was dead tired, as i hit the bed fully clothed and fell asleep in a blink of an eye. The facade and clean lobby of the hotel hides its dark seedy truth... the room not only smelled like a week old wet t-shirt wrapped around a giant ashtray, but the carpet was sticky and stained and mini fly-like bugs hovered around the shower stall.... utterly revolting! My life was saved by the rest of the crew as they had managed to secure the last 4-rooms at Panorama Hotel Taiping. i checked out as fast as i could and made haste back towards Taiping town once again. Panorama isn't the Bvlgari Bali but it sure felt like it after spending a few hours at the previous dodgy dump...

Taiping is a really nice scenic place to visit, with rolling green hills and home to Maxwell Hill and the oldest Lake Garden in Malaysia. Little did we know that a concert (organized by ThreeSixty) in this quiet serene town would attract close to over 20 plus thousand people!! where in the world did they come from??
Continuing with the road tour... after packing up in Taiping, we headed off to Ipoh to resolve some major issues with regards to next week's scheduled concert in GIANT, Sunway City Ipoh. And now... i'm finally off the road, back in Petaling Jaya for the next few days... whew...