Long Time No Post,

They say if you can't say anything nice, Don't say anything at all.

That's how things are at the moment.

GM has been pissed off with the delays with his transfer & the way the news was broken to us.

It's peak season and being an Islamic country the majority of the tourists are from the UAE. No one seems to like them much, the beach boys have gotten into fights with them, as have the fishermen. Every day the Arabs report a "stolen" mobile phones (always from a public area). When the guest is invited to view CCTV footage they quickly back down and suddenly the phone re appears. They pull all sorts of stunts to try & get discounts but writing about them will just piss me off.

We had a security guard take our car out the other day, He was on suspension for a week pending the outcome of the investigation, Then terminated.

He is trying to take the Hotel to court for unfair dismissal, Little does he realise we have CCTV footage catching him in the act & GM likes to make an example out of these clowns so is prepared to hire a lawyer & fight the case rather than pay the hush money to make it go away as is usually what these idiots ask for (its generally about half what the legal fee's will add up to hence from a business perspective its usually cheaper to pay up, extortion at its finest.)

Anyway on the bright side: Last day is 15th August, then a week off, will probably go to Batam, Bali or Singapore for some R&R. Then off to Delhi then Mumbai on the 1st September.

Blame The President

The new GM was set to start here on the 28th July,

I've been plodding away at my charity thing trying to get that set up & running, ready to hand over by the time we are set to depart, At the close of June hubby was pleased that he wouldn't have to do any more month end reporting for the Hotel as "the new GM is coming in".

Well yesterday the New GM was chatting to Hubby, She casually advised her start date was in fact mid August, not the end of July as we understood it to be.

Hubby informed her that, the new date was news to him & asked if the date was 100% confirmed.

She replied "Not Sure, I haven't even received my contract yet"

Great, so fuming hubby sent a curt email to head office, 5 mins later receives a quick call from HR to say "Received the email, will call with details in 40 mins"

Pissed off Hubby switches off phone.

Fast forward to this morning, after a lot of ass kissing on HR's side and a few phone calls.

Turns out, YES indeed New GM's start date is delayed by approximately 2 weeks.

Why? New GM currently holds the position of 2IC at a sister property in Thailand, The Pres (yup, Bush himself) has decided to stay at that Hotel during an impending trip to Thailand, So it's all hands on deck there in preparation for his arrival !

I questioned why The Pres & his crew wanted to stay at that particular Hotel, I was curious as it's doesn't have a 5 star rating & I personally like to stay at the Shangri-la when I'm out that way. Seems that secret service was out on a recon mission recently and this particular hotel is the only one that meets security requirements & has an approved escape route i.e The hotel sits at an intersection so if the proverbial hits the fan and Pressy needs to abscond he can have 4 different escape routes as opposed to possibly being stuck in one way traffic if he stays at the other hotel.

Oh well, 35 days to go & counting ....

Finally some gossip

We are approaching peak season at the hotel & business has really picked up in the last month.

One thing has also become apparent in the last 2 weeks, We have a thief in our midst.

On 2 occasions guests returned to their rooms to find cash & valuables missing, This kind of thing in NOT TOLERATED at the hotel, Security has investigated, found a suspect & advised the guests to report the matter to the local police as theft is definitely within their jurisdiction, Not the GM's.

The Suspect: Not difficult to figure this one out, You know the keycard access locks that Hotels use? Well the retain information on all comings & goings from each room. All security needed to do was see what card accessed the lock after the guests had left.
On both occasions it was the same key belonging to one of the housekeepers.

On the first 2 occasions the guests refrained from filing police reports.
GM's hands were tied in the matter & he was unable to terminate the staff member with out an admission of guilt or the police reports being filed.

Yesterday another guest reported money missing from his room, This time the guest did wish to file a police report. Security & police investigated & found the same housekeeper had accessed the room during the time the guest claimed to have been away from it.

She was questioned on the hotel premises, denied any guilt so was handed over to the police to be taken to the police station for further questioning. A union member went along with her to represent.

This morning, the proverbial has hit the fan. The unions are up in arms & threatening strikes! Why? Because while in police custody the housekeeper was strip searched.

GM is now off holding an emergency meeting trying to explain to the dim witted union members that he has no control over police policies or procedures on how they deal with suspects. If a cop chooses to strip search a suspected thief, GM is powerless to stop them, furthermore a union member accompanied the housekeeper to the station. So he was present to object to the strip search & contact legal aid for advise prior to it taking place.

Oh well, it's just another day in paradise.

P.S GM's time is coming to a close here, Looks like Mumbai is the next location with a tentative start date of mid August.

Update for the sake of updating

So,

My Bro in Law is here at the moment competing in the "battle of the chefs". Day 1 he placed in the Top 5, Today is Day 2 and he is currently at the convention centre competing against other Chefs from the Asia Pacific region. Good Luck !!

GM was interviewed this morning for a Chinese travel show called "Travel World" produced by Shenzhen media group . The segment will play on a Chinese station and an Astro channel in about 6 - 8 weeks.

I'm keeping busy doing the charity thing, I'm about to head off to view another orphanage as we are still looking into "adopting" a charity, similar to what we did in Indonesia.

And the goddamn postman has decided to start stealing my parcels, 2 missing so far, grrrr !!!!

Here's some of the orphans I've been working with.

Busy, Busy, Busy

Been so busy of late,

I had 5 in laws turn up last week & it's almost a full time job playing host to them.

I've just started helping with another Charity, more hands on this time round.

Still making small batches of mineral make up.

Have had friends arrive from Oz unannounced (not staying at this hotel) & send me a message to say "Oi we're here Biyatch!" so will host a catch up dinner tomorrow night.

Tasted a durian for the first time today (finally! Only took me 3 years). OMG , it certainly is an 'acquired taste'. Think of 'Garlic Pudding' multiple that taste by 1000 and that will give you an idea of what a durian is like to eat. yuck, yuck, yuck.

Shopped until hubby dropped today, I was still raring to go, he was tired & hungry.

The hotel is pretty boring this week, We did have some wait staff deliver room service earlier and took the opportunity to dob on the kitchen staff (no white bread, no chicken burgers, no apple, pineapple or carrot juice. Lots of customer complaints ) So just need to figure out why the Exec Chef is running every thing down so low. He's new to the hotel, first week on. So I assume the low stock has more to do with the old chef not stock taking during his last few weeks here.

No Monkey or Snake Sightings.

Oh a guest came down with typhus, I know him fairly well so jokingly told him not to poke around in dirty holes and to disinfect his clothes. Good thing I did as I wiki'd "Typhus" & seems it's transmitted via body lice. I think body lice is a nice name for "crabs".

Business as Usual

So GM is back from Mumbai.

He has an inbox full of guest complaints, mostly boring things like:

1. Guest asked for "Doctor". Engineering guy turned up with an "adapter"

2. Guest complains she did not receive a complimentary fruit basket on arrival. (Get over yourself lovey)

I might start posting recipes on this site, I love cooking & one of the perks here is I can get my hands on a lot of delicious recipes from the management company's top executive chefs.

Need to call the Expat Women's Association regarding charity work, Then I'm going shopping.

*I think I'll start referring to Husband as GM in my posts as its quicker to type.

My Happy New Year, 2006/07

My Husband is still not back from Mumbai. Since I've had a few days of peace and quite I took the opportunity to get a lot of my stories typed up and published.

My New Years Eve, 2006, Count down to 2007.

NYE is always spent at the Hotel, All major Holidays are, When we host huge parties GM & Wife can't exactly take a rain check and be a no show can we?

NYE 2007 was no different, We had a 1000 balloon drop happen at the stroke of midnight and partied the night away to an 8 piece local band who did covers of Black Eyed Peas, Rihana (ella, ella, ella) and other current chart toppers.

1st Jan 2007 was the last night the band was scheduled to play, After a very successful NYE party the night before, GM (husband) and I really let our hair down. drinks were flowing & a great time was had by all. The night ended for us around 4 o'clock in the morning.

8:00 am the phone rings, it's the The F&B Manager (I'll call him Chen), whom Say's "Police are here, They need to verify GM's work permit" we are both nursing nasty hangovers so Husband (GM) queries whether or not he has to do this straight away. Chen says he'll find out and ends the call.

8:10 am Phone rings, Chen again, speaking to GM "Um, The Police would like to see a copy of your work permit and visa" Hung over Cranky GM snaps "they have no authority or jurisdiction over my work permit & visa, if there is an issue with it get an immigration officer to contact me" and hangs up.

8:30 am Phone Rings, Chen again, speaking to GM "The Police have left, One of the engineering guys as well as the chief engineer have been arrested, The police have requested you to the police station to assist with their enquiries"

GM then gets out of bed, showers & dresses and is off to sort this mess out (with a pounding headache & an empty belly) he is accompanies by "Beth" The HR manager whom also holds a law degree ....

At the police station GM learns what prompted the current events.

Police: At 6am this morning police witnessed a member of your staff (the engineering guy) tampering with a fire hydrant. A hose was connected to the hydrant and run off water was seen to be collected and deposited into the fish pond.

Beth is handed a pen & paper then asked to draw the company org chart. Naturally GM sits at the top of the chart.

Police show GM the handwritten org chart and advise he is being help on suspicion of theft of water! as he is the boss of this organization he is the man responsible. (Gotta love the corrupt police in South East Asia)

The Chief engineer tries to explain to the police that as there is no fire department in the area and the Hotel has a volunteer fire fighting team on staff to service the hotel and immediate area (which is basically vacant land & small village). The Engineering guy was servicing the Hydrant and instead of wasting the run off water he was recycling it into the fish pond. Why at 6am? Well the resort was running at 100% occupancy and the task was performed early before the breakfast rush.

Police don't care for explanations at this stage, They're quite smug and happy with themselves in the knowledge they have cracked this huge organized crime syndicate.

Now mind you this is all taking place at a snails pace, The police are taking smoke breaks every 15 mins and 2 finger typing the statements into the computer.

GM gets impatient and snaps at the police about their incompetence (BIG MISTAKE)

Police man decides its lunch time and heads out, I get a phone call from GM to say he's ok & doesn't know how long he'll be.

5pm rolls by, Nnother phone call from GM to me "Police have gone for dinner, no new updates, should be finished when the police get back"

Midnight I fall asleep alone.

6am next day, I call the Hotel 2IC for an update, Beth had had left the station that night so we had no further developments to report but the 2IC is a local and assures me GM will be ok.

I'm advised the police are just after money and this is a common occurrence here. I'm also advised GM has started a hunger strike (lol, I actually found humour in this and thought "way to go with the non violent resistance, hun").

So the 2IC advises Beth was on her way back to the station via the hotel, So I get the Exec Chef to make some sandwiches for hubby & gather a change of clothes for him also, I ask if I can go with Beth to the station but am told No, as I may be roped into this mess and as I am "white" the bribe money will go up dramatically because as we all know "White Westerners are millionaires" (This is a common misconception with many S.E Asians)

Off Beth goes while I wait at home, Back at the station when 24 hours lapse from the time the initial report was taken in strolls the police man and goes straight for the sandwiches packed for GM. (Legally Police can hold suspects for 24 hours with out formal arrest & Damn it I should of requested ham sandwishes !) After the Police have had the morning snack intended for GM They are now ready to negotiate.

In steps Beth (Law degree holder) to begin negotiations. Initially the asking price to secure GM's release is $100,000 SGD (Yup, one hundred thousand Singapore dollars)

During negotiations the Police explain the situation like this "Pay or we charge him with theft, he could sit in jail for months before the courts even think of setting a date for the hearing" (And S.E Asian prisons are BAD! read a book titled "The Damage Done" for an honest insight into it)

Negotiations go back and forth until eventually a $50,000 SGD payment is settled upon.
By this stage the hotel owners, owners rep, GM's regional manager and the head office are all well aware of the situation.

Beth heads off to the bank and is met by the owners rep who authorises the withdrawal of funds from the owners bank account.

The money is then delivered in a brown paper bag and my fugitive husband is set free !!!!!

He showers, eats, then sleeps till the next morning. I question him about his hunger strike, he advises the cell at the station was filthy, with roaches and lizards running around every where.

He was offered food but was served sludge with half a rat in it. So the hunger strike wasn't a form of non violent protest after all.

The only good thing to come out of this ordeal was Beth, we always thought she was as dumb as a box of hammers and was on the verge of being fired but she shone through this ordeal and managed to hold onto her job.

Also just want to add, corruption exists on all levels but NEVER have I experienced it like this. This was not corruption rather Extortion.

P.S This did not take place in Singapore, The Singapore sums I mention are the equivalents of the currency here.

* Hmmm, No pictures of this drama to post so here is one of me taken in March. I was building sand castles, you can see them in the background, lol - I'm tired, need to sleep now.

The Exorcism of ..... A housekeeper ?!?

This event happened back in April and was one of the reasons for starting this blog as after relaying the story to friends, they commented that I should keep a journal of daily life here.

Here goes,

One Sunday, My Husband's only day off during the week. He and I decided to do a spot of fishing, I don't particularly like fishing I enjoy getting out on the open waters for a few hours for a change of scenery .

We had a great half days fishing expedition, headed out for a long boozy lunch then it was off to a bar to watch the F1 (We are huge F1 fans.)

Fast forward to Monday, Husband comes home from work & first thing out of his mouth is "You would never believe what happened yesterday". Husband has been in the game for over 15 years and I thought had seen it all. So hearing him utter that phrase, instantly he had my attention and I'm thinking "This ought to be good."

Turns out while we were enjoying an eventful Sunday so was one of the housekeepers, we'll call her "Sue".

Sue unknown to us at the time, has a history of mental illness (note: In S.E Asia there is not a very thorough understanding of mental illness amongst the general public. People are referred to as "Crazy" or "Not Crazy") Sue is one of the "Crazy" ones.


Anyway Sue had a turn while at work, initially she "fainted" and was passed out for around an hour, She came to, Jumped up and ran at full speed into a door, went down for the count (again), not before managing to bust up the door, it had a huge dent in it and was taken off a hinge.

On hearing this I'm thinking WTF?!?!? How is this scenario even possible in a work place?!?! OH&S anyone ?!?!

But wait there is more to the story,

The housekeeping supervisor in all her wisdom decided to leave Sue when she initially fainted, I guess in her expert medical opinion a Doctor was not necessary.

Upon Sue awakening and having her up close & personal encounter with the door, The supervisor then decided (medical) attention was required.

So naturally a call is placed to the local Muslim holy man to come & preform an exorcism on poor "possessed" Sue.

The events of Sunday had all been relayed by the weekend duty manager report during morning briefing, Husband then had to call an emergency meeting with all department heads to educate them on the dangers of believing in this supernatural nonsense. Then an "emergency" first aid refresher course was scheduled to begin the following week.

Sue was placed on sick leave and husband was left trying to figure out who to bill for the broken door. Sue, Satan or charge it out as a maintence expense.

Seeing as I can't post pics of any one involved in the event, Here's my attempted shot of Ferrari (No idea if its Kimi or Massa) at Sepang, Malaysia.

Stereo Types

When I was still living in Sydney I would always jump on my high horse and reprimand people for using ethnic stereo types.

Fast forward 3 years and I'm one of those people !! After you travel abroad and experience different cultures stereo types do become apparent. Yes I know not ALL people of a particular race behave in a certain manner (duh !) But this is what I have observed:

1. Germans: Yes they do wake up first thing in the morning to beat the crowd & reserve a deck chair by placing a towel or book on it.

2. Koreans: Loud talkers, every conversation sounds like an argument, like wearing caps with wide brimmed visors & sparkles/lace/sequin tops. Plus they love the "all you can eat" breakfast buffet.

3. Aussies: like a drink, very easy going types, but some (when visiting S.E Asia) tend to have the mentality that although geographically neighbours; they are some how Superior to their Asian counterparts.

4. Americans: Loud talkers - Hey buddy sitting at the table 7 meters from me, you seem like a nice guy but I don't care to hear your conversation about how every thing is so much better in the U.S, especially over breakfast when I am nursing a hang over!!

5. Singaporeans: Very image conscious and materialistic, if it ain't branded they ain't wearing it.

6. Malaysians: Life revolves around food! The don't ask "how are you today?" rather "Have you had breakfast/lunch/dinner yet? And no wonder ! Malaysian Makan (food) is the best S.E Asian cuisine in my book!!!

7. Malaysians & Singaporeans: Have no shame in asking for a discount on anything & everything! I've picked up this habit, You'll be surprised how often it works even in stores with fixed pricing !

8. English: Um, like to brag & whinge (I'll blog about one particular pom later)

9. Russians: There is a reason why people day "Never trust a Russian" lol

10. Italians: take them to any Michelin Star restaurant any were in the world for a meal but rest assured "Their Mamma" can make it better.

11. Chinese: OMG! side track for a moment:

Our Chinese Chef will kill & cook anything he can get his hands on !!!

Pythons - Taste like chicken
Turtles - Hubby caught Chef in the nick of time & saved the turtle from becoming the chefs special soup of the day.
Crocodile - Tastes like chicken
Whale - Tastes like chicken, nah joking, I couldn't bring my self to sample this "specialty"

Ok, I'm cutting this post short now as I have probably offended just about every one out there.

& More Snakes & Monkeys

Funny thing happened since my last post,

A viper was found outside our suite, Now we live on the top floor of a tower block, There is only the Penthouse, A VIP suite and The GM's apartment here. None of the other suites on this floor are currently occupied so it's not as if the viper hitched a lift in a guests bag and found its way up here and I doubt the snake managed to crawl up the stairs or elevator shaft, I never actually saw the viper I only heard the report from security, perhaps it hitched a lift in the housekeeping cart ?

But the funniest thing I have seen in a while happened 2 days ago, Hubby and I had just returned from dinner and were down stairs in the staff car park .

The monkeys were out again, quite a few of them playing in the trees & running along the drive way. One was sitting on a staff members motor bike, He was grabbing hold of the handle bars and mimicking a motorbike rider, It was so cute.

Monkey then caught sight of himself in the side mirror of the bike, His facial expressions changed from shock, to puzzlement and finally excitment as he realised it was his relfection staring back at him.

Monkey caught sight of us and looked almost embarassed that we had caught him checking himself out in the mirror, so he looked away and played with the handle bars again, hehehe so cute !

As soon as monkey thought we weren't looking he went for the mirror again this time grabbing and pulling at it until it was free.

He then hopped off the bike and was on his way back to his jungle home, stopping every few steps to check himself out with his new mirror.

Can't wait for him to show his friends, I wonder if they will all pop down to the car park to get their free mirrors.

Beware of the men in Blue

I just heard this little bit of gossip that happened at one of our sister hotels.

The hotel has undergone a refurb and had LCD T.Vs installed in all rooms as well as around the public areas like the lobby & bar as that has become the brand standard.

Anyway last week a couple of guys in blue overalls came into the hotel, I guess all the staff just assumed these guys were either in house engineering or contractors because nobody batted an eyelid as these guys went about their business of removing the LCD’s from the walls.

Only after they had finished the task & left, did the staff realize the blue overall guys were actually thieves, lol.

How embarrassing would that police report be to make, hehehe.
It’s all on CCTV but I bet that tape never see’s the light of day.

From tomorrow onwards I’ve requested no engineering enter the GM’s apartment with out prior authorization from me, just to be on the safe side.