Asian Tiger

In the past, I envy travelling executives who flies around the world for work.  I did not have such an opportunity to do so.  My work limits me to travelling within Malaysia and most destinations are reachable by car.  Over dinners and mamak sessions, I hear stories of how busy Tokyo is and how beautiful Parisian night and how exciting New York can be.  Oh… how envious I was.  I was 20 years old when I took my first flight — and that was to attend a funeral.

Now that I myself am flying in and out the region for work, I begin to drag my feet to the airport.  The early years of flying was fun; every trip seem to be an adventure on itself. Now, it’s a chore — waking up early in the morning, taking the dreadful taxi to the airport (in itself is already a risk. Cabbies are like F1 racers), long waits at the airport and things gets worse during transits.

If only my every flight destination is to some holidays, I will be looking forward to it.  NGC’s Air Crash Investigation series is not helping either.

I own a Nokia 9500c and I am regretting I ever bought it. First off, I talk a lot on the mobile phone; often over 5 minutes. Within that 5 minutes, my ears will be smoking hot and I can feel my temple throbbing. The heat emitting from the phone is tremendous given the slimness of the mobile phone which is one of the reasons why I bought it in the first place. This is probably the slimmest Nokia I came across.

Secondly, the keypad is a little difficult to depress. Texting over its small keypad area is a little frustration especially after you have used other Nokia mobile phones such as the 6300. I find it one time too many the errors I made from depressing the wrong keys. Imagine using the predictive text function and pressing one wrong key, the result can be embarrassing.

Thirdly, since I talk a lot on the phone, the battery lasts me for only a day and I’ve got to task myself to charge it every night. If I forget to charge, I will be cussing the next day. I won’t blame the Nokia designers for the short battery life but rather on the sleazy salesman who claimed that this phone has one of the longest lasting talk time. I was downright cheated but since the salesman looks fiercer than me, I shall let this one slip.

Lastly, this mobile phone has only 1 port; for hands-free, charging and USB connection. If this one special port screws up, you might as well throw the phone away. After all that I have said and done, the sleekness of the phone and overall cool design is what made me keep it…

Or else, you may end up like me during my recent trip to Kota Kinabalu, last week.  I ended up with almost no place to sleep or wash up.

I had an extremely busy schedule last week which included an overnighter business trip to Kota Kinabalu.  My secretary had tried booking all my favourite hotels but it seems like the hotels had a vengeance on me.  Radius International was fully booked; which I can relate to because its a boutique hotel tagging a normal hotel rate. I would recommend you this hotel if you ever make a trip there.  Promenade Hotel on the other hand, did not offer me the normal rate I pay but handed my secretary a RM208++ price tag; I, of course, rejected and got her to look for other hotels.

The resourceful lady called my counterparts in Kota Kinabalu and they suggested a number of hotels but they all carried price tags to which I would consider unreasonable.  In the end, my secretary booked me into Tang Dynasty Hotel located within Plaza Wawasan for a price of RM150++.  The hotel requested for my credit card number to confirm the booking but since I was engaged in meetings right up to the night, my secretary could not catch hold of me.  In the end, she wrote me a note with all relevant information including the credit card payment.

It was late at night and I was about to catch my flight to Kota Kinabalu, so, I thought, what the heck, I’ll just forget about paying and do that when I check into the hotel.  I arrived in Kota Kinabalu just past midnight and proceeded to the hotel in an airport taxi.

After an uneventful 15 minutes, I was at the hotel reception and provided the front desk officer with my booking number.  The booking was there alright but to my horror, she said the booking was canceled at 4pm because there was not payment made.  I said it was alright and just check me into their hotel room just like a walk-in guest.  She said “I’m sorry, Sir.  All rooms are fully occupied.  I only have the Business Suite with King Size bed.”.

I protested, I lamented, I showed her my colours, I was on the verge of screaming my heads off, I didn’t believe if what she said was true or was it a business tactic to sell these exorbitant rooms.  Here I was, at 1am, tired, unclean and look like wounded prey.  An easy meal for them to sell me their expensive room.

No way am I going to be slaughtered in the middle of the night.  I told the front desk to recheck her computer and give me a cheaper room or else I will walk out of the hotel and head over to Promenade Hotel which is a stone’s throw away.  She checked her computer, then acted up a surprised look and said that there was a family deluxe room which is significantly cheaper.  Feeling really tired, I accepted.

If only I had confirmed my room early, this kind of hassle would not happen but what I hated was the questionable upselling of hotel room to me.  So, if you are going on a trip, confirm your hotel early or else….