*Warning: Lots of photos ahead*

This year’s Eid-ul-Fitr was a new one for me. A new celebration. Typically, my family and I would drive 8 hours long to my grandma’s in Kelantan. However this year, I am not following my family. Instead, I celebrated Eid-ul-Fitr with my husband, Eddie, just the two of us, in Shah Alam.

Last year, we celebrated Eid 3956 miles away from each other. I was in Melbourne, my family was in Mekka, while my husband was in Penang at his grandparents’. This year, Alhamdulillah, I get to celebrate Eid with my husband. We didn’t follow my family because I couldn’t stand being on the road without puking and the flight tickets were sold out.

The eve of Raya, Eddie treated me to a nice last iftar at Chilli’s, Paradigm Mall. Thanks hun, it was really nice.

Last Saturday, my husband and I got the golden opportunity to become one of the volunteers for ‘Shopping Raya 2013’ for Baitul Ehsan orphaned kids. This program was organised by Projek Iqra.

The home is located in Taman Maluri, Kuala Lumpur. The program said to start at 8.am, but we arrived at 7.45am. Call us eager, and yes we were. After waiting for the rest of the volunteers to arrive, the program finally started at 9am. It started with the opening speech from the founder of the home, also the caretaker. He spent his own fortune to build this home, and this home rely on people’s donation money as it is not under any organisation.

He and his wife started with renting a house, (and they are still renting) and now they recently bought a new house next door and the renovation just finished, earlier than planned. It cost them almost RM600k to buy the house, and they renovated the house into a three-story house (the rest of the houses are two-story) for RM200k. All from donations money, MashaAllah! Now, they have about 63 kids and the boys had to be placed in another house Gombak due to the lack of space.

I had to hold back my tears as I listened to founder talking about the background of some of these kids. There are cases where the kids came knocking at 3am in the morning, traveled far to find shelter. Not all of them are orphans, some come from a single parent family who are unable to take care of their kids.

Some kids have been here for all their lives, they were sent here since they were as young as 10 days old. Baitul Ehsan do not actually take in babies, but sometimes when people asked, they just didn’t have the hearts to say no.

The kids here are so blessed. They are so smart and well-behaved. One kid already went to Jordan to further their studies and another kid is going to Indonesia, with help of sponsors. These kids here are being taught to recite Quran and memorize them. The aim is to give them Maahad Tahfiz education. Other than Quran and Islamic studies, they are also learning academic basics such as maths, science, English and Bahasa.  They don’t go to public schools, all of them are home schooled, and they have teachers coming in everyday to teach them.

The second day was the island hopping day! We bought the tour for 700baht each. It’s called Hong Island longtail boat tour. There’re several speed boat tours, but longtail boat is the only pregnant-friendly option (other than ferries). Although, I wouldn’t recommend if you are close to 6 months or over.

If you are 4-5 months pregnant like me, I suppose it’s fine. But do not let the tour company knows, otherwise they won’t take you in although it’s perfectly safe. They just don’t want to get sued in case of an emergency. For us, we had to ask a few agents that would allow a pregnant lady to join.

Anyway, we had to wait for the pick up at 8.30 in the morning at our hotel lobby and this is our ride! It was like a modified pickup or something, but man, was I thrilled. hahaha.

That morning, the weather was so clear, it was so nice!  Look at the longtail boats behind me. We took the smallest one, which seats about 20-25 pax.

Climbing the boat needs an extra care and effort. Now, this is the reason why I wouldn’t recommend if you’re too pregnant. I was able to climb in and out of the boat with no problem. With a lil’ help of course, but only to avoid falling. Having a dry bag would help too. We didn’t, so we had to be extra careful not dip our bags in the water.

The boat ride was very smooth. It’s not bumpy like speed boat. Granted, it is slow. but it is pregnant friendly and it doesn’t cause me any motion sickness. and I do get motion sickness in the car (because of the pregnancy thing, otherwise I won’t).

I have been neglecting this blog again. I meant to update it, I swear. But I’ve been slumped with work, which I will tell you about later. However, in the midst of setting up business, my husband and I managed to find a time to take a time out and flew to Krabi, Thailand.

Oh dear, this will be a long post with lotsa pictures. And food porn. Bear with me here.

Day 1

It was an early flight and we arrived at our hotel, Aree Tara in Ao Nang, Krabi approx 9 am. We weren’t able to check in yet so we rented a motorbike for 200baht (RM20) for 24hours.

We took a bus to the hotel. It was just 300baht for both of us, and they dropped us right in front of our hotel. Getting a taxi would cost 600baht, but whats the point if you have a lot of time at hand, hey?

That’s me. On the scooter. No, I didn’t drive. Just posing. But I did learn riding a bike on the third day. :p

With the motorbike, we went to the Ao Nang center, got some massage (200baht), lunch and bought data plan for just 109 baht (see Noktahhitam’s post for more info on this).

Finally, it was time to check in to our hotel. The room was exactly as advertised.

I stole this picture from my Noktahhitam’s blog. haha. On our way back to hotel, we bought sticky mango rice on the street.