I’m out of the jungle

Hey all!

Sel’s back from Taman Negara! Trip was great! But in my head, the name “Taman Negara” was associated with very protected forest, hence I’d expected nature in its most natural and untouched form, that i found the place to be rather commercialized.

Oh well, will post up further details and pictures later, when the 3 photographers (i.e. EVo aka Darling, EGo aka Darling’s bro, and Beng Han) have sent me the pictures ^o^

For now, I just want to rant about a particularly bad service we received from a particular resort in Taman Negara last night that still piss me off when i think about it at this moment

Yesterday, we had leisure time after dinner, so we (i.e. me, Dear, EGo, Wan Keng, Beng Han and Mei Qin) took a boat ride, crossed the river, to go drinking in Mutiara Resort. We all stayed in Kuala Tahan, and we had to cross the river to get to Taman Negara. This Mutiara Resort is a relatively more luxurious than any resorts in Kuala Tahan side, and it was the ONLY resort located at Taman Negara entrance. The 6 of us just wanted to have some beer and play some card games in that nice setting, as compared to our very basic accommodation

When we walked into Rimba Bar, the restaurant/bar of Mutiara Resort, we were the ONLY local customers, the rest were angmoh (i mean White Caucasians, not any general foreigners). There was a lady (not sure if she was a Manager or just a waitress) keying in some orders at her station; she glanced at the 6 of us, then continued back with her work. Nobody came to serve us.

Ok, never mind, we find our own table. Only when we wanted to join 2 tables to fit the 6 people that a waitress came and showed us to a bigger table.

We took our seats, and she was gone. For the next few minutes, we were just left seated on our own, with no menu no waitress no table setting, NOTHING.

We stopped a waitress to ask her to wipe our table, because it was stained with water and other mess.

Guess what she replied?

“Pergi cari meja lain lah”

Can you believe it? She did not bother to mutter under her breath, she openly exclaimed her dislike with our presence with such air of arrogance wth!

In the end she came and wiped our table. Gawd, she wiped and flicked the dirt back onto Mei Qin’s legs! And when she wiped the table in front of me, omg the smell reminded me of roadside hawker centre kinda table cloth…all stained and soaked in dirty water for many hours kinda musty smell… *make gagging sound*

Then she left. Again we had to call the waitress to give us our menu and take our order. The waitress did not smile at all throughout our order.

A can of Heineken costs RM21. Yes, a CAN. they don’t even have a beer dispenser, or bottles, or jugs. Just in cans. There wasn’t many variety of beer in the menu, but the waitress said they only have Tiger, Guinness, and Heineken left. So fine, we ordered our Tiger. Then she had to come back to tell us that they’ve ran out of Tiger. I am so happy that she had to swallow her pride and come back to us to apologize for their lack of supplies (wait a min…i don’t think she actually apologized…)

Even until we asked for the bill and made our payment, we did not receive any smiles from any waitress. Usually I would say “Thank you” to every person who provides me service (including toll gate cashier), but last night the “thank you” just couldn’t come out.

What the hell man…who are they to discriminate us just because of our skin color? What’s worse when they are of the same color as us, and we being the citizens of this country. I saw the same sour-faced waitress who took our order smiling happily at the angmoh. Perhaps the Mat Salleh offers them a lot of tip, while tipping is not a common practice among Malaysians. Perhaps they actually charge foreigners a higher rate compared to local. But is there a need to show obvious disdain in their faces upon seeing us? Is there a need to make rude remarks? Think about it, if they provide such horrible service, even Malaysians who are used to tipping will not give tips. Worse still, Malaysian will tell other Malaysians about their attitude toward locals, which really, creates worse publicity than a case of unhygienic food.

http://www.mutiarahotels.com/mutiara_tmnnegara/index.html

This is the link to their hotel. No doubt they charge more expensive than the range of hostels and chalets in Kuala Tahan, (from RM400 to RM1800 per night). But even Tanjung Aru Resort and Four Season Resort in Langkawi (that charge at least RM10,000 per night) didn’t discriminate Soo Ann and myself when we walked around their resort last year.

There you go, Rimba Bar, for giving us nasty treatment. You didn’t know that you were messing with a bunch of bloggers. There will be more nasty write-ups about you, lol, I can’t wait to see what the rest has to say! ^ ^