the chateau
2013-04-25 2:58 p.m.
i am actually feeling very cranky and annoyed at the world (happens quite a bit) at this moment and am not in the least in the blogging mood, but after going back and reading my old entries i realize how absolutely important it is to have a logbook of my activities if not all those memories just disappear into the cobwebby abscesses of my mind and all i'd have to remember my youth by would be how often i felt cranky and annoyed at the world.
soooooo. what did i do what did i do.
right, so here's what i did over the weekend!
THE CHATEAU.
such a wonderful, magical place.
so we went there over the weekend because we were just so sick and tired of being in stinky old singapore and well the only place you can go on a budget weekend getaway is to malaysia now, isnt it, what with batam and bintan being even more stinky than singapore.
little did i know that almost all the nearby malaysian hotels and resorts would be so pathetic, at least based on their tripadvisor ratings, that we didnt dare set foot in any of them for fear of having stained linens and towels, cold showers, insecty rooms and cigarrety air etc *shudders*.
so our quick budget getaway became not-so-quick and not-so-budget as we had to eventually settle on a further place (6 hours away!) on a higher budget.
but it turned out to be, indeed, worth every cent and every bone-rattling minute spent getting there.
the trip started with an unconventional (at least for us) mode of transportation.
NIGHT BUS.
(not to be confused with Knight Bus which is big and purple and can move sideways and on water. this one unfortunately cannot.)
'twas the first long-distance bus ride of my life! i was really excited for reasons unknown because our ride started from midnight and we were supposed to arrive in KL by 6am and isnt there just SOMETHING so mysteriously exciting about travelling in the middle of the night on an unreliable cheap bus on roads that are known for being dangerous???
alas, the bus 'twas never meant to be.
Fate looked upon us, people of such calibre, and deigned that we should not embark on our journey on such lowly means of transportation with seats that cannot recline and a massage function that involves nothing more than a tired vibration.
therefore, by the hand of destiny we got stuck at customs because i brought the wrong passport (the expired one with the picture of 11 year old moi). fate dictated that we double back home, go through a truckload of parental bullshit (note to self: NEVER involve the parents in situations of urgency because they will decide that the most important matter at hand is why you didnt tell them you were taking a bus instead of a flight), decide on the next morning flight into KL, get 3 hours of fitful sleep, wake up again to go to the airport, feel strangely happy about being at the airport in the wee hours of the morning (refer to previous paragraph), bounce around in early-morning hysteria, knock out during the flight itself, knock out somemore during the taxi ride from the airport into the city, take another shuttle up into berjaya hills from KL, and FINALLLLLYYY arrive at our wonderful destination!
upon arrival we had this french (yes FRENCH! in the middle of nowhere in KL!) lady bring us nice fruity drinks and show us around the whole poshy place with a nice poshy french accent. i was exceptionally happy with the fact that they served nice fruity drinks instead of things i don't like (like CHAMPAGNE) but eventually realized that that is because everything in the resort, as far as humanly possible, was organic (hence the name the chateau spa and organic wellness resort).
so french lady brought us around introducing the organic bedsheets, the organic apples, the organic towels, the organic thing-under-the-tv, the organic snacks, the organic tea, the chlorine-less pool (YES THERE IS SUCH A THING) filled with organic salts from US, and the organic toiletbowl as well.
(i assume).
so after this frenchy introduction we went ahead to explore the grounds and took a lot of photos, naturally.
but before that we hopped on the bed and took a photo of ourselves first.
at this point of time 50 years from now i am going 'how amazing, i still look exactly the same!'
anyway, digression aside.
what was i talking about?
the grounds, yes.
that would be the view from our room, and the fabulous chlorine-less pool!
subsequently we moved on to Colmar Tropicale, the french-themed village nearby (yes ours was the french-themed CASTLE, the village is for peasants) to relive my old memories.
not that there were many old memories to relive, seeing as the last time i was there was probably when i was...8? or 9? and the only thing i could really remember was a random image of some caucasians dancing on the cobbled streets in some sort of folk costume.
(see that's why we need blogs to remember things by.)
well the place isn't much (clearly). i was much more impressed with it when i was 8.
we had a very overpriced lunch by the street, trying to get the alfresco in europe feeling as much as possible. but its a bit hard when all around you see tudongs and you're eating really really thin, pathetic pizza that was clearly frozen not too long ago.
subsequently we decided that, really, the village is just not for people like us. and we retreated back to the grandeur of our castle to go for a swim in the chlorine-less pool.
the feel of that cold, chlorine-less, salted water sluicing over the skin on a not-so-hot afternoon was just...
TOO COLD FOR WORDS.
i have no clue why a resort that seems so in tune with its customers' needs would spend so much money replacing the chlorine in the pool with organic salts from US but neglect to heat the bloody thing!
couldnt feel any saltiness about the water at all (and i wasn't inclined to taste some) but i'd definitely have been able to feel some WARMTH.
anyway, minor gripe aside.
we got some overpriced poolside food in an attempt to inject some warmth back into our poor freezing bones but were pleasantly surprised to find that the beef burger (there was an organic version of that too but it was too spectacularly overpriced) actually tasted pretty good, something you'd never expect of poolside food. the organic health boosters by the side (full of weird stuff like carrots and oranges and lemons and mint etc etc) surprisingly weren't too bad as well considering the ingredients that went into it.
so double negatives really make a positive.
after that we were wondering what to do when the hand of destiny again intervened, sweeping us to the spa and demanding that we do a foot reflex treatment. well who are we, puny mortals, to deny the hand of destiny?
so we found ourselves there (had a free yoga class whilst we are at it) and well the rest is just blissful history.
there arent any photos because i was too busy zoning out.
not that the point of this blog is for photos anyway; the photos merely complement the wonderful writing, not the other way around (that being tons and tons of edited photos and writing that consists of 'that's me in the mall! that's me in the car! that's me in the toilet!').
i digress.
back to what i was saying. mmm. well i think i've more or less covered the interesting parts of our stay because nobody wants to hear me say:
and then we had dinner.
and then we went to bed.
and then we woke up.
and then we had breakfast.
and then we had that 6 hour journey back.
then we had dinner again.
you wouldnt wanna have to read that, would you?
well in that case i think...i will just end this entry here then!
i can think of no more eloquent way of doing it than a quick stop into nothingness.
so here it is.
