Our daughter, Mia will be sitting for the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) examination this year. It’s an exam equivalent to GCSE O Levels. SPM is not everything but it does open a lot of doors if you excel. Doors to scholarship and good universities locally or abroad. While we would never pressure our children to get good results, we do encourage her to try her best. Her brother, Adam set a pretty high bar so consequently, Mia would aim to achieve the same good result as his brother because she too dream of studying at some exotic city some place far away.
That’s why we decided to give Mia a surprise visit two days before the big day. We booked a return flight to Kota Bharu months in advance. We were fortunate to secure the tickets for only 342 ringgit for the entire trip. The flight to Kuala Lumpur were literally free thanks to Trip.com . We woke up bright and early that Friday morning and left for the Salak Tinggi ERL station at 5:30AM. It was the start of the monsoon season and it poured all the way to the airport.
From Kota Bharu, we hired a rental car to visit my parent in law in Tanah Merah. Linda’s mother was unwell and had to visit the hospital a few days earlier so we thought we would pay a visit. In the evening, we made our way to Mia’s school to visit her. The rain did not let down the entire day and just enough when we arrived at her school. Needless to say, she was jumping with joy upon seeing us. Our visit could not have happened at a better time.
We took Mia out for lunch at a restaurant nearby and then bought some supplies for her. We stayed at a budget hotel nearby but without Mia though because it was not one of her scheduled off days. Zaman Sejahtera Inn was cheap but decent. My only complain was that it was right next to the main road and we could hear the loud traffic all day and night. Not to mention the brash motorcyclist visiting the Shell station next door. Apart from that, we had to inhale the toxic exhaust fumes from the idiots who parked outside our room. Don’t think we want to stay there ever again.
The next day we visited a mall to while away the time while waiting for 2 o’clock when we get to visit Mia again. The rain was relentless and I fully regret forgetting to bring an umbrella and a jacket. We met Mia again for some time and then said goodbye and good luck to her before leaving for the airport. Although our flight is not until 10.10pm, we decided not to risk being trapped in a flash flood en route the airport. Taman Bendahara where we shopped earlier was already submerged knee-deep in water.
After a four hours wait, we finally boarded the flight back to KL. The rain didn’t let down and we were lucky it wasn’t enough to delay our flight. We only reached home at 1am the next day after taking the last ERL train from KLIA. Was it tiring spending 48 hours travelling to visit our daughter for less than 3 hours? Yes but it was totally worth it. We know Mia needed this moral boost more than anything.
