Maintenance

More than creating or aquiring new things , one has to understand it is important to maintain anything we aquire. It is true of any private or public possessions.
I have seen in the local malls, or airport or even railway station, people cleaning not only the floors but also the hand rails and also the glass doors and partitions with a cloth very meticulously. No wonder the airport appears brand new.
Many of us feel once we aquire something or build something the work is over. That is why many of the things does not work properly after some time and breaks down.
This reminds me of an incident. Hubby and me were waiting for our train in the Egmore platform. Suddenly we heard a very disturbing noise. We saw a railway employee dragging a six wheel empty trolley. The small tyres in the six wheels had worn out and hence the noise. It would have taken a few minutes and very little expense to put some tyres in the wheels if only any body had cared . No body in charge bothered and it was causing such noise pollution and harming many ear drums.
Simple things like the silver lamp which we light every day needs good maintenance. One of my friends was commenting that her silver lamp always is just black. I found out that the reason for Syamala manni's lamp being so bright is that she is cleaning it twice a week regularly and polishing it with 'vibuthi'. maintenance!
Any proud car owner will talk for hours about car maintenance I suppose.

Sentosa

We all had been to Singapore. I have been to Sentosa island there many times and each time I have spent time there in a set pattern. Each time we go there , we see some of the important attractions like, underwater world, climb up the merlion, watch the dolfin show, go to butter fly park or go to some other attraction and finally come and sit in the muscial, laser show fountain. That used to be the routine. All these attraction entrance fee costs are quite high.
This time it was really different. I am amazed at Singapore how they keep on improving things where generally one feels that there is no scope for improvement. I saw notice in singapore embassy here in KL, which said if your tourist guide book of Singapore is more than one year old please throw it away as it won't be valid any more as there are so many new things around. I thought they were bragging but it appears it is true.
when I first went to sentosa about 10 years back, we could reach the island only by steamer or the rope way. Recently they have constructed a road and sentosa can be reached by buses and cars. This time we went in our car and entrace fee of 2 singapore dollar is taken for each individua). The transport inside the island from one attraction to the other is free so we could park our car in the parking lot and take the ride in the sentosa transport.
This time we just spent time in the beach, playing flying disc, and cycling the double cycle, watching the sunset and spending time for ourselves instead of rushing from one attraction to the other.
One of the new addition was Sentosa Luge which was like gocarting. We had to reach a high place in a rope way and while coming down each will come in a gocart (on a curved sloping road) which is very simple to operate. I was quite scared as I am not used to driving any vehicle (only I am used to driving people crazy). But after Anand's cajoling or forcing I did come down in the gocart which they call as luge. It was enjoyable. Tejas was the one who enjoyed maximum and was happy that he could come down faster than his grand pa and grand ma.
Indeed I could see Singapore in a new perspective, and for once my trip to Singapore was complete without visiting the 'mustafa' in little India.

kinabalu

Malaysia has two States in the East which is separated by the main land Malaysia (which is called West Malaysia ) by Sea and takes around two and half hours by flight to reach there. These two states are Sabha and Sarawak and are in Borneo Island. These two are big states of Malaysia and have unspoilt equotorial tropical forest.
I had visited Kuching which is the capital of Sarawak two years back with my hubby and was lucky to see the biggest flower in the world 'Raffelasia' . We had to travel to interior forest and climb for half an hour to see the flower. The flowering is monitared by the forst department. The flower takes 8 months to bloom and it stays as bloomed flower for just two days. We were lucky that a flower was blooming the day we went.
Now this time we all went to the other state Sabha. The capital is Kota kinabalu. I found Kuching much more cleaner but, Kota kinabalu attaracts more tourists as there are many tourist attractions , like water rafting, scuba diving and mountain climbing etc. It has one of the highest mount of south east asia 'mount kinabalu'.
Anu and Anand went for rafting and I was told it was level 4 which means the rapids were quite rough. I had thought it was level 2. But they did enjoy it and said it was an experience. Anu said whether she would like to get the experience once more is questionable.
Next day Vinu also joined and they all went to the Kinabalu park for climbing . It is compulsory that climbers take a guide and they fixed up all this with a local tourist agent. They climbed to the height of 3300 metres the previous day and stayed over night in the camp site there. Next day early morning Anand and Vinu did the summit which is 4095 metres high. They climbed from the kinabalu park which is around 2 hours drive from Kota kinabalu and I went with Tejas to recieve them. They said the Orchids and other flora in that place is out of the world. I wonder if I can do the first part of 3300 metres. They said more than climbing the coming down is much more difficult though it is faster . By and large the tourist guide and the tourist agent a lady were very very friendly. She had arranged the guide, staying etc for them in the kinabalu park and also the guides for the rafting . She herself drove them to the park the previous day and next day took me there to bring them back. She told me she was the owner of her tourist/ travel company.
I might return to kinabalu to try the climbing.