Idlan helping with the unpackingAn early start for Puan Anita and me before the mayhem started at around 8.30 when the boys woke up. Breakfast. Shower. Shouting about which toys to bring an which clothes to wear. We finally got our act together and left just before 11am.
This time around we decided to stay in the mainland rather than on the island. It turned out to be a brilliant plan. The Penang Bridge had a fire on the island-bound lanes causing a tailback close to 10 kms. A couple of my uncles were caught up in the jam and it took them over three hours to cross the bridge. Imagine, after a four hour drive up to Seberang Perai and having to endure a few more hours caught in the car with the grumpy boys?
View of Gunung Jerai from our floorWe stopped over at Tapah for lunch. A simple KFC affair where Puan Anita did the ordering and the waitress messed up the order completely! But since it was Hari Raya, we kept our feelings to ourselves ….. The journey went very smoothly. There was a couple of crawls just before Ipoh, but otherwise fine. We reached Sungai Petani just after 4, checked in, and the kids was already jumping on the bed soon after. We stayed at Park Avenue Hotel, just by the Sungai Petani (South) exit along the PLUS highway. Very convenient actually!
One of the drawback of the hotel was there was no Astro Sports channel. I had dinner at my auntie’s place while watching United given away a two-goal lead to Everton. My Toffee-mad friends must have exploded that evening!
I thought my boys would have been tired after the journey and the dinner, but how wrong was I. They were still bubbly and energetic close to midnight when we finally went to sleep. Another long day looming tomorrow.
