Evacuation

The flood waters finally came into our house in the early hours of the morning while I was out surveying the neighbourhood in my wellingtons. My wife frantically called me on the cell phone to inform me of this new threat to our castle (a man's home is his castle). I rushed back or waded back as fast as I could and we gathered all our important belongings and drove through the flood waters to safety which was actually the southern part of our city.

Our close friends(husband & wife) invited us to stay at their house until the flood subsides. We are grateful to have such friends who can come to our aid in time of need. In fact we had several choices actually as we have quite a number of good friends in this city.

Anyway most of our neighbourhood was inundated with filthy, smelly flood waters. In general it was about knee high although in some places it was a few inches but neverthless once the waters gets into the house there will be a layer of mud deposited in every nook and corner. We were more fortunate than the Jitra folks who faced the water level as high as one's chest or even higher. I managed to get some pics of the flood at it's peak and also took some of the places that were bone dry just to see the contrast within the same city. The other half of the city had a better drainage system. Somebody better do something about this before history repeats itself.

We moved into our house last night after cleaning up the place for three days. It was a back breaking job. They say this flood has a 17 year cycle. I will be 73 if it happens again and I don't think I can do this type of house cleaning at that age, if I live that long that is!



Friends dropped by when the flood was receding.

More Flood Pics

Our Porch

















Side Of House

In Front Of The House



Early Morning View At the Front

Indian Temple Near The Stadium

Entrance To The Royal Kedah Club

Another Friend's House

The Southern Part Of Our City Which Was Bone Dry

Friend's House On The Right(where we took refuge)

Alor Star Tower

Alor Star Fountain

Siamese Temple

Telok Wanjah Road

Mother And Son Having Breakfast

House Flooding

I wrote about the flood in a town 20Km away. Now the flood waters from that area has come down to our city. My house is surrounded by flood waters. Just another inch or so before the water comes into the house. Have to move some of the electrical appliances to a higher place. When you live in a single storey house, a higher place would be the table top.

We are fortunate in that it has not rained for the last two days and we still have electricity. The water pressure is very low and it takes a long time to fill up a pail from the garden tap. The flood waters is still rising. Tonight we will be on vigil, watching out for the creeping water.

All the cockroaches and centipedes are coming out of the sewer system. Have to take care of them to as the wife is allergic to cockroaches. Took some pics for posterity.

Back of house

Side of house

Road junction

Front of house

Neighbourhood

Flood

Received a call from a friend this afternoon. She stays with her friend in Jitra, the town that was having flood problems. She wanted to go and check on the house as the house owner was also outstation.

I agreed to go with her and we made a few calls first to determine if the roads were passable. The highway was closed due to flooding and so was the old road to Jitra. The only other route available was the country road that went around the flooded areas but led to the center of the town. The journey was fine except for one or two places which were under water about 2 - 3 inches which was no problem for our car.

We reached the house in good time and started to move the electrical things to a higher place. Pulled out all the plugs from their sockets. Having done all that we could we started our journey back. The few short stretches that were flooded before were now much longer and more than one foot deep. My friend started praying and pressed on the accelerator. It was like driving through a lake. We could not see the road. We kept our eyes on the vehicle ahead of us until we reached dry ground. That road would have been closed to traffic by now. The flood waters from our left flowing across the road was so swift that at times we were afraid we might get swept off the road. What an experience.

The water level in the river is still rising but the rain has stopped. Hopefully when the tide goes down in the morning the river water can be discharged to the sea. Below are some photos of the flood taken with my handphone while in the car.

Rain

For the last four days it has been raining in this town. Some times it rains cats and dogs and other times it just dribbles, neverthless it is still rain. So many clothes waiting to go out in the sun. So many tennis players waiting to play in the sun. We even sang 'rain rain go away, come again another day' but to no avail. What a bummer. The 'padi' planters were very happy though as they needed the rain for their 'padi' to grow.


Some of the tennis players.
[ I am the handsome one - the far right, front row, :) ]

The damp, wet atmosphere can get you down. I am not one of those who curls up in bed with a good book during such times or any other time for that matter. I will end up snoring and the book will most probably be on the floor.

The rain did not stop our regular weekly karaoke session though. We sang all the oldies to our hearts content and hoped the singing would have stopped the rain. It didn't. We all went back in the rain.

Woke up this morning and heard the chirping of birds. That was a good sign. When I went out to look at the sky there were some blue spots and one very bright whitish spot where the sun, blocked by clouds, was supposed to be. It looked like a good day today.

Not so good news from Jitra, a town about 20Km from here. Some parts of the town was flooded and the water level in the nearby river was still rising. Hope it doesn't rain for a while and the tide recedes to allow the excess surface runnoff to be discharged into the river and straight out to the sea. I wonder how Noah felt when it rained for forty days and forty nights and then have to live with the flood waters for another one hundred and fifty days! Of course he didn't have any tennis appointment .. heh heh.

Keeping In Touch

Hi ST,
Thanks for dropping by. I agree with your veiws on relationships. Those whom we do not have much contact with tend to fade away. Whenever we meet the topic will be more or less the same. As you said, we tend to exchange pleasantries only. The real friends are those that we have contact with regularly either at work or because of common interest.

If we really value the friendship that we once had with someone, we should try to keep in touch so as to nourish that friendship even if they are far away. Friends are hard to come by. As you get older it becomes harder to make good friends. Most probably because we tend to be set in our ways and we become too rigid. When we were young we were more tolerent and 'cincai' and so our friendship list was quite long. We also don't have the time to do all the crazy things that we did that brought us together.

I am glad we(my wife and I) still have some good friends with whom we have good times. The internet has come in handy, in keeping in touch with those friends who are far away. Life is so unpredictable. We need to treasure every moment that has been given to us and be a blessing to those who come our way.

Picture

Me On Da Floor

Finally decided to publish my picture. Why? Just because .....

On Da Floor meant sitting on the floor and not on the dance floor as some people might have assumed. Just came back from Ipoh attending a college reunion - the class of '77 M.U. It wasn't my class but my wife's. I was just the driver. Listened to all their past activities at the university. What this guy did, what that girl did, a particular lecturer's behaviour and so on and so forth. Who married whom and how many children everybody had. All in all it was entertaining and a lot of laughs. Even an outsider like me was able to fit in and chip in my two cents worth once in a while.

Another walk down memory lane for some people. We need these trips to remind us of life and how fast it is passing us. Maybe it will help us see if we had made right decisions (the major ones) concerning our life. Some of us are too busy amassing wealth at the expense of our health and even our spiritual health!

The bible says what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul. This is in reference to life after death.

If we reflect on this it would help us to rethink our strategies, futuristic plans and our lifestyles and realise how temporal these things are. We need to be more concerned about the eternal life which is forever.

Keeping Fit

After all the good food at the various functions I realized that I did put on a 'few' pounds. Some people might disagree with me on the word 'few' but I am not a stickler for details. Anyway, decided to go to the gym with my son. He to do some muscle strengthening and me to lose some 'pounds'. Went well for the first two days but on the third day overdid my knee lifts and injured my left knee (the one that had the torn meniscus repaired in May). There goes my keep fit plan. Maybe things will be better after the weekend when we get back from Ipoh. Meanwhile it's back to the tv and blogging time! heh heh..

Memories

Attended an old friend's wedding anniversary - 25th. Good to see old friends from our past. Very thrilled when the power point presentation was displayed showing us when we were young. The bell bottoms and the side burns and the bermuda shorts and not forgetting the hair on the head which some of us have lost. Ah, what a past. So colourful. Of course in today's context colourful would mean dying your hair in various shades of colour and wearing gaudy coloured clothing! Whatever makes them happy. It was a fun time and a walk down memory lane for me. Hope the next 25 years would bring more colourful memories.