Thinking Of Holiday..But

Working hard the whole year round and it's time for a holiday. First thing that came to our mind was, where is the best destination and will the whole family agreed unanimously. The next most crucial question is, do we have enough funds or extra budget for a trip of, let say 5 nights. For an everyday people like us, who worked days and nights just to pay up the mounting bills, school expenses, cars maintenance and installment , house-hold expenses and lots and lots of other things, holiday is the last thing on our mind. But then, everybody needs a little time away. Away from it all. Thus, holidaying is the best therapy for our body and soul.

Now, how can we plan a trip for a family of six (that's us). We can't afford to go overseas like most of other people nowadays do. What we can do is, we picked a destination within the country that has the most interesting places to visit and do. Sarawak came to mind. By the way, we did this three years ago.
 Sophie and I put this into plan. We checked daily the low fare airline (Air Asia) and fixed the date where everyone is free from work. We agreed to go in December. First week of December. Now we have to purchase the tickets for all of us but we were always short on cash. So, what we did was, we surfed the airline website every now and then and watch the price religiously. One day we hit the jackpot. There were tickets available at Rm 22.00 per way (Langkawi ~ Penang). Great! We purchased it straight away without wanting to wait another moment. Total for this route (Langkawi ~Penang~ Langkawi) was RM 264.00. One task completed. Next, we need to book from Penang to Kuching and return.

In the mean time, we browsed through the website for a decent hotel room in Kuching. Finally we found something we liked. Somerset serviced apartment. It was about RM 280.00 per nite. All six of us can crash in, include breakfast for all. There were 2 huge bedrooms with a little kitchenette and 2 bathrooms. There was even a washing machine and dryer too!  What more can you ask?
Right, now a transportation to fetch us from airport to the hotel.  That was easy. We booked directly with the hotel. Done! The hotel had given us an ample time for payment so we had some time to raise the money for all the arrangements.

What I did was, I placed a few empty envelopes aside. One envelope was marked as hotel, the other envelope marked as flight tickets, the third envelop for food and car rental while the last one for shopping. Whenever I received any payments from my supplier, I paid all my creditors first. The balance will be placed
 in any one of the envelopes. Sara did her part too. She kept a little envelope and will take some money daily from my purse secretly.

We started planning in March. By May, we got lucky again. We saw tickets from Penang to Kuching at RM 98.00 (if I'm not mistaken) per way. But we don't have enough to buy for all. Ariff, my eldest son will buy his own tickets. Soffian had only a little savings so it seems I had to pay the difference. Then, we came up with this idea. I can only come up with three tickets first. So, at random, I placed a booking for Sara, Soffian and my husband. That left only Sophie, Ariff and me.
In August, we finally able to purchase all the tickets for the whole routes. Phew! That worked out quite well.
The girls were starting to get excited about it. It's not because the holiday itself but rather the whole family would be travelling together.
We still need to pay for accommodation, car rental and airport transfer. But at least, we had secure our seats with the airlines and at a very good price too.

I think by September, we finally came up with enough savings to pay up for our accommodation and transportation arrangements. Yeay.. we did it! We are ready for the holiday!
Now, we only need to have some extra cash for shopping purposes and sight seeings. Even entrance tickets at some of the interesting places had been stashed away in the little envelope. How smart can we be...

The day arrived. We took the flight from Langkawi to Penang and spent overnight there. The next day, we went to Penang airport and watched Sara, Pian and my husband left first as their flight was earlier than us. We, Sophie, Ariff & I followed suit after the few flight intervals.
Even though we had to plan one year ahead (because of the lack of funds), I believe we traveled in style or at least I think so.
When Sara, Pian and my hubby arrived at Kuching airport, they waited until our arrivals. Once we arrived, all of us when inside a luxury Toyota Alphard that was waiting for us to take us to the hotel.
The hotel wasn't a disappointment either. It was cosy and warmth.

The next day, our rented MPV arrived and we drove anywhere our hearts desired. No worries as everything was paid upfront. All we need to do was enjoy ourselves. Needless to say, the children brighten up the day and you all must have guessed it, yep, they did the bed jumping and rolling like a five year old did. I don't know what's with them and the hotel beds. Maybe the fluffiness of the beds and pillows that attracted them to do that. And to think that they can even have children of their own at that age. Pian even did a Calvin Klein boxer shorts model for us to admire. Yikes!

Some days we cooked in the apartment. There was one evening, we went out to a famous nite baazar called Pasar Satok and guess what I bought. Fresh tiger prawns. I told them lets cook tonight and everybody agreed wholeheartedly. We got back at the apartment at about 6.30pm and I started cooking our dinner, sweet and sour prawns, fried pompret and some mixed vegetables. They ate like they've never seen food for months. Maybe it's the change of environment and it almost felt like home.  

We had a great time there and a great memories too. It has been quite some time since we traveled together. We're planning next to visit one of the Asian countries next. Most probably The Philippines or Vietnam.

So people, plan your holiday, don't worry too much about the money. Save it any way you can or just do like we did. It sounded silly but it worked. We truly need to get away from everything to revive ourselves mentally and physically.

Until next time, have a great day and be happy!

Love,
Rose
1st.May '13