May 2017 – Page 2 – TV Smith's Blog

Choo Choo To Hat Yai

Choo Choo To Hat Yai.

My lovely, beautiful and adventurous friend Marina Zakaria (@marinazakaria on IG) took a train (ETS) from KL Sentral to the northern border town of Padang Besar. It took about 5 hours, Marina (in own pic shown here) recommends the Platinum class which is RM 106 one way and faster with fewer stops. From Padang Besar, it is another one hour by taxi van ride to Hat Yai town. The electric trains no longer makes the choo choo sounds of olden days steam locomotives.

Sadly, Lonely Planet introduced the town as “Hat Yai has long been a favourite stop for Malaysian men on their weekend hooker tour”

Besides red lights, I know there is also great food and cheap shopping. I last visited the town a long time ago by flight.

Inspired by Marina, I hope to visit Hat Yai again by rail to meet my Hat Yai based friend Egg or Woranon Thitinunthakorn (@iameggg on IG). He is the active founder of the startup TuberThailand, the co working space and startup community promoter in Hat Yai. I should have introduced him to my friend, the similarly inclined Kashminder Singh when Egg visited me in KL the last time.

In researching hotels in Hat Yai, I found many good deals. I created a hotel deals page for the city at:

http://www.mycen.my/hat-yai-hotel-deals-finder/

#hatyai #thailand #mycenhotels #ets #ktm #train #padangbesar #klsentral

The Man On The Hill

Another hotel-related story, this time about a man who has a town named after him – Gohtong Jaya.

I had many friends working on the hill resort at one time or another. One of the most fascinating anecdotes I heard, was that they feared getting sacked by the late billionaire owner, if they mistreated guests. The owner hated it when a staff member looked down on a illiterate country bumpkin or village people. They may not know how to press the confusing lift buttons to get to rooms in the world’s largest hotel, at one time.

Owner and founder Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong himself didn’t finish his education being a school dropout. He arrived in Malaysia from Fujian, penniless, and set out to build to build an empire to become the country’s wealthiest man at one time. It was touching to hear about a tycoon remembering his roots and to impart a culture of treating poorer people respectfully Staff remember him fondly as he taught them about humility and to treat everyone with respect and empathy.

Employees were also fearful as there were like a million Lims and anyone one of them could be a relative and bring their grievances to the owner. My mom is a Lim too, so you can say I am biased.

An international show agent told me this story. Uncle Lim, asked (I think was) Copperfield who was performing at the resort to reveal the secret to one of his acts.

David was hesitant but finally relented and showed him backstage. After seeing it, the old man declared: “SUMUA BOHONG!” (all bluff). Haha.

My favourite anecdote is the following but can be an urban legend. He hosted a dinner for the King and PM at his mansion. When the dinner was over, the tycoon in black tie, sent his VVIP guests to their cars and motorcade. As he shook their hands, he blurted out “Ada Senang Mari Ah” Literal translation from Hokkien meaning “Please come when you are free” Being a billionaire and top tax payer has its privileges, I guess.

While writing this story, I checked to see if there are deals for hotels in Genting. Saw many good deals and discounts offered:

http://www.mycen.my/genting-highlands-hotel-deals-finder/

#gentinghighlands #resortsworld #hillresort #hotel #genting

Lovely Tariker.

Back at F&N Teh Tarik Mega 2017, members of the public and shoppers at Mydin USJ Mall were invited to play an obstacle challenge course, that included balancing some things on the head and to make tea the tarik way, while running. Photograph by Maria Bernadette.

#fn #fntehtarik #tehtarik #tea #milktea #fntehtarik #fnmilk #game #hangtarik

Son Of A Hotel Owner.

I had a childhood friend whose family operated a hotel with the grand sounding name of Hotel De Luxe.

When he went to London to study, his reputation as a hotel owner commanded a lot of respect. His uni mates thought it must be a legendary hotel like the ones in Hollywood or Rome, housed in an art deco building. He told them the hotel had a casino.

In reality, it was a ‘rumah tumpangan’ or a budget lodging house above the family’s coffee shop or kopitiam. The casino was the mahjong table in a corner. Lol.

The friend has since migrated to the states. I am sure he will make it big.

I know about rumah tumpangan as I worked for the late Malay movie legend Mustapha Maarof. He owned a production house and was very frugal. We, the film crew, must look for the cheapest hotels when were were outstation. It may sound tough but I now appreciate the experience and challenges of traveling on a shoestring budget.

Those ‘rumah tumpangan’ were the predecessors of today’s slick budget hotels. The walls or partitions don’t touch the ceilings. That means you can hear everything from the next room. There is usually a ceiling fan in the middle, a spittoon and a mosquito coil provided. A thermos flask for hot water and a bar of 999 Chlorophyll Soap were also provided. The anti skin infection soap was a good idea as the blankets were furry from wear.

If you are lucky, you can order food from the coffee shop downstairs. Famous Yong Suan and its nasi ganja in Ipoh is a good example. When the highway opened up, it eliminated travel time and the need to stop overnight. Unfortunately, the owners were not online savvy and made no affiliations with online agents and were unable to compete relying on walk in guests alone.

There was one in every town, big or small, to cater to the traveling salesmen and van drivers or delivery men. It is a legacy institution fast fading,

Picture of Lok Ann Hotel from 1938 boarded up and awaiting demolition to make way for the MRT. The Chinatown hotel is a venerable landmark with a coffee shop on the ground floor. Pic was taken in April 2015. The giant flag bearers were part of the flag vaulting team in a chingay parade. .

#history #rumahtumpngan

Got Discount Or Not Ah?

Sometimes when I try to promote my hotel booking site to a friend, and the friend will ask “can I get discounts?” That’s a very typical Malaysian response. Not just about value but friends must always give discounts, it seems.

I love to give you a discount but it is not within my control. I understand the sentiment and the desire to get maximum value as a Malaysian myself. That is why I recently launched the Hotel Deals Finder feature.

For each city featured, you can find special discounts and reduced room rates for certain properties. Save up to 50 % or more, where available. It depends on the deals made by the hotels and my affiliate partner and are subject to availability and booking dates.

I am trying out the Deals feature and am kicking off with discounted rates for hotels or deals in some of the destinations popular with Malaysians. However, any one from anywhere in the world can enjoy the discounts.

These are some of the destinations popular with Malaysians. I hope to include hotels in Taiwan, Korea and Japan soon. It is tough work and as luck would have it, I suffered an Internet outage over the weekend, slowing down the building of more pages.

You can use built-in Hotel Search and you’ll probably find some existing deals or flash sale. For your convenience, I’ll add more cities. as we go along and as I gauge usage and understand the algo better. Thank you for your support. Contact me directly, should you need help.

Since I am so tired, I didn’t use Photoshop to build a collage. Tip: I merely screen capture the directory thumbs view generated by the excellent and free Faststone Image Viewer. I like that it looked natively like cardboard-mounted travel slides from film days. Start here for discounts: http://www.mycen.my/ #mycenhotels #hotels #discounts #deals #rooms #travel