MERDEKA BEACH

 My first son will not be joining us (again) for the trip. Just want to relax at home all by himself and dont want to be involved with family activities, we headed to pantai merdeka at about 3 p.m. Situated about 17 km from Sg Petani, this was our first visit after the 2008 PRU. Because after the pru, we went there the authorities of Merdeka Beach Resort said that the resort was taken over by the new state government and is closed for the public for this time being.
     Upon reaching the resort and the beach it was a pleasant suprise to see the facelift of the place. There are new eating outlets which are cleaner and more beautiful than before, varieties of menus from the stalls and more comfortable. There was also a year end expo with hundreds of stalls, selling from food, clothes, traditional medicines and even fertilizers. After eating delicious mee udang, we took a stroll along the stalls, not the beach, mind you, because the stalls are seemed more interesting. I bought few things to fill my shopping cravings and went back to check in our room at the resort.
     After maghrib pray, we went back to the beach, finding ourselves a nice spot to grill the fish and chicken brought from home. There are not many people, so, there are a lot of place to choose from. It was nice, the resort had prepared few places for campers to barbecue. But , we are not barbecuing this time but grilling, to save the time and fuss to put up the fire. Just use the single stove with small gas container, everything was set up. The rice and drinks were bought at the nearby stall. I just prepared the fish, chicken and the air asam.
     The food was ready to be eaten about half an hour later, accompanied by few stray cats on the beach. Finishing up everything, we just hang around until 10 pm and went back to our room to doze off.
     The next morning , as early as 7.20 a.m I was the first to come out from the room to go for my morning walk by the beach, accompanied later by the rest. Then we had our breakfast at the resort cafe which took hours to prepare our breakfast , the reason, there is only one cook working that day. Lame excuse!!
     After breakfast we went for a swim or a dip? in the sea. The water was so calm even in December,unlike the rough seas in east states at this time of the year. The weather was nice, many people having fun under the sun, in the water, swimming, fishing, building sand castle,camping, picknicking and all sorts of outdoor activities suited on the beach.
     At about 11 a.m we went back to our room, took shower and get ready to check out. As it was near lunch time we went back to the foodcourt by the beach and had nasi briani for our lunch that day. We went back to our sg petani house, and stayed before went back to pantai merdeka for the family day dinner that night.
     After asar prayer, we started from home, stopping at a food stall to grab a bite of roti jala. Reaching pantai near maghrib, so we went straight to the resort surau to perform our duty to Allah. Next we headed to the dinner area, by the resort cafe. The menus, as usual, barbecues along with fried rice, fried noodles, fruits, corns and etcs. The food seems not enough for the whole bunch but other than that everything else went smoothly. There prize winning ceremony and lucky draw after dinner. As usual I was not lucky in lucky draw.
     Then, we went to the beach where they held forum titled baity jannati, at the expo site. It was the last night in 2010. The announcer announce that the forum will be finished at 12.00pm, and azan will be call to celebrate the new year of 2011. I think this is a good idea, and something different from the previous new year concerts before the countdown. Despite of the young ones, mingling around and might cause some social harzards, there were older people on the look out and might curb any wrong doing by the youngs.
     Watching the forum with a big bowl of cendol is something I've never done in my whole life. We went back to our house, just in time for the count down in Tv. After a long tiring day, it was nice to have a place all home and nice warm bed to be tucked into for a good night sleep.
      Thank you Allah for your blessing to me and my family throughout the year 2010, there are so many of your nikmats we enjoyed this year, syukur alhamdulillah. May 2011 will be the same, Insyaallah.