Travelog Road Journey to KRABI Part 1

Travelog Kuala Lumpur to Krabi... Part 1

For almost a month, we planned the Krabi’s trip via road with estimated 1,600 km from Bukit Beruntung. Based on Google Map, it would take around 10 – 14 hours journey with 833 km via Plus Highway.  

Original Plan Route

Bukit Beruntung – Kayu Hitam – Danuk – Hat Yai – Patthalung – Trang – Krabi – Ao Nang

So excited! This is our first time driving into Thailand with Toyota Estima 2.4 cc engine.

Day-0

We started our journey on 13 Aug 2014 6.00 pm heading to Juru, Butterworth. Actually not really a good start because some of us are not feeling well. After 1 ½ hour drive, we stopped at RTC Simpang Pulai for dinner.  One of my favorite restaurants is Nasi Kandar Padang Kota with famous "Nasi Kandaq". After dinner, we continued our journey to Juru, Butterworth and stayed overnight in my sister house.

Bukit Beruntung – Juru : 4 ½ hrs (including dinner)

Toll rate is RM37.90

Fuel is RM115.00

Day-1

On 14 August 2014 6.30 am after performed Fajr prayer; we started our journey heading to Kayu Hitam Immigration. We reached at Pekan Changlun around 8.30 am. There are shops with sign-mark of “Immigration Form and Insurance” where you can get their service to fill-up the immigration form, car insurance and money exchange.

Buy car insurance and fill-up immigration form

It is also advisable to re-fuel your car before crossing the border. The fuel’s price in Thailand is more expensive compare to Malaysia. Drive through Bukit Kayu Hitam Immigration for Malaysia’s immigration clearance and continue drive to Thailand ‘s border. We parked our car at the parking bay on the left hand side and walking to the Thailand’s Immigration for passport clearance and car export documents.

Juru – Kayu Hitam : 2 hours (including breakfast in RR Gurun)

Toll rate is RM13.00 and RM1.40

Fuel is RM110.00

Car Insurance for 1 week is RM17 

Car Export Duty in Thailand is RM 5

Immigration Form fill-in is RM2 per persons

At Thailand’s immigration, don’t forget to put RM1 in your passport for their tips. Trust me, it will make them smile at you! (Based on our research, most Travelog advised the same….). Once you cleared the immigration then proceed to the next counter for Car Duty Export. Make sure you bring the Malaysia Car Registration (original if you are not the owner) and pay RM5 for registration.  Once done, you can pick-up your car and drive through the immigration.

WELCOME TO THAILAND!

SAWADEKAP

Do not forget to adjust our watch one hour behind Malaysia for new time zone.  Now you’re in small town called Danuk.

From 10.00 am to 9.00 am Thailand time….

With Bangkok National TV Crew

We parked our car along the roadside in Danuk. The first thing to do is buy Thai Simcard with full Internet RM35 for 5 days usage. Then we had a nice breakfast of "Nasi Lemak" in the small restaurant. During breakfast we met National TV Station's crew and somehow they wanted to interview us on Asian Community 2015.

Hey, we are on National Television of Thailand talked about our opinion for Asean's Community 2015.  Err feel like international artist... Ha Ha Ha. Coincidentally, we are at right place and the right time though!

At 10.00 am  (Thailand time) we continued our journey as per original plan route.

(Danuk – Hat Yai – Patthalung – Trang – Krabi – Ao Nang)

It is a new experience driving in Thailand. Personally we think driving in Thailand is quite safe and easy.  The most important to have a good map but nowadays with WAZE technology or Google Map, it is really help. Unfortunately, we are so happy looking at the scenery and non-stop talking until we missed the Patthalung – Trang junctions. Actually, we saw the junction but somehow we keep driving on the highway towards North. Ha ha ha serve the purpose!!

Only after an hour, we noticed that we did not follow the planned route. We took a short break, look at Google Map and concentrate.  We used the new route towards further North and cut through West towards Krabi with additional 1.5 hours . 

New Route (unplanned route)

Hat Yai – Patthalung – Namtuk Yong – Thung Yai – Khao Phanom – Krabi – Ao Nang

Alhamdulillah finally we reached Krabi town around 3.30 p.m. and drive slowly looking for Halal’s food. So hungry!  We had our lunch in a small restaurant with very nice Thai’s cuisine of "Nasi Campur".  It is delicious but too spicy!  Most of them cannot speak “Malays” or “Nara” language.

“Nara” means Narathiwat is a place in Southern Thailand near Malaysia and people there speak “Malay” language or "Nara" language in Thailand.

According to the local peoples, 90% of Krabian are Muslim and most of them owned the chalet or boat in Ao Nang. Thus, it is quite easy to get “Halal” food in Krabi and Ao Nang even in Phi Phi Island.

Recharged our energy and time to go to final destination. 

We continue our journey while enjoying the beautiful scenery along the way to Ao Nang. Trust me, it is very beautiful and I lost my words to describe how beautiful it is. It take about 20 minutes driving, we arrived in front of our hotel Ao Nang Beach Resorts.

We booked the Hotel Ao Nang Beach Resort through www.Agoda.com for 2 rooms (4 days 3 nights) is RM530.00. It is a beautiful hotel with nice big rooms facing the beach. About 3 minutes walk to the beach! Actually, we felt very tired but we don’t want to stay in the room. More things to explore! We decided to enjoy the Thai’s massage and its cost about 200Tbh. Wow feels so fresh even after almost 10 hours drive. 

Windows shopping at Ao Nang road 

Indian Restaurant ...err Thai's food?

The last activity of the day was dinner at Noori India Restaurant with Thai's cuisine cost about 1,300Tbh. 

Day-2

We wake-up quite early in the morning and took our breakfast in the hotel.  Actually we can’t wait for sailing trip to four Islands with long tail boat tour. The four islands are Railay Beach at Tup Island, Chicken Island and Koh Poda and Phranang Cave Beach

Full day tour 4 Islands traditional Long Tail boat is cost 2,000Tbh (500Tbh/person) included lunch and mineral water.

What should we bring? 

Just wear your swimming-suit, camera, sunscreen and a towel.

NOTE: Do not expect to stay dry on this trip!

The pick-up bus (not sure if we called bus or van or ???) arrived at 9.15 am and we joined with another groups at the assembly location near the boat jetty. Together with us in the same boat are groups from France, Malaysia, Thailand etc with the total passenger 35 pax. 

Transfer pick-up to jetty 

With the Captain "Leo Nardo"

Long tail boat before someone got dizzy

The first destination was Tuk Island (Railay Beach) which taken about 40 minutes from Ao Nang beach. Masyallah so beautiful where a sandbar on which we can walk when the tide recedes gradually separates the sea.

Walking at the sandbar

Caught Selfie from another camera

Selfie on the sandbar

The second destination was Chicken Island… clearly we can see the chicken head! The island got its name from a bizarre rock formation that resembles the head of a chicken. However, the most interesting part is snorkeling and swimming with colorful fish in the crystal clear waters. Awesome!

Chicken Island

Selfie with the fishes in Chicken Island

We took nice beach-lunch in Koh Poda for 1 ½ hour’s break. Immediately after lunch, we are back in the sea! Swimming, sunbathing and photography are our main activities!

Nice scenery at Poda Island

Poda Island 

Our last destination was a bit challenge due to high wave to Phranang Cave Beach. Due to high wave, the boat park on the side of the island and we got to walk to Phranang Cave Beach.  We stayed here for an hour. We felt we haven’t got enough but yet need to go back to Ao Nang Beach. From here the boat took about 50 min to reach back to Ao Nang jetty (with high wave!)

Phranang Cave Beach

We reached our hotel at 4.30 pm…. and jumped into swimming pool.

After two hours rest, we went to Ao Nang Seafood Restaurant for dinner. We ordered Som Tum (spicy green papaya salad with crab meat), stem fish, omelets with shrimp and sweet & sour squid. The flavors and fragrances are seemingly inexhaustible. Over the dinner, we talked about our sailing today and somehow we decided to sail again tomorrow. Our dinner in Ao Nang Seafood cost 2,000Tbh for 4 pax.

To be continue day-3 and day-4 …. 
Read Travelog Road Journey to Krabi Part 2

Next destination is Phi Phi Island (7 destinations) with speedboat.

Noordin Khalid

Ao Nang, Krabi

Thailand

Recommendation in Linkedln

Salam 


Just feel like to capture some of recommendation received in Linkedln into my own blog.

Thank you for all my friends, colleagues and clients from all over the world who had spent sometime to put your recommendation on me.

Hope you are able to benefits from my program. 

Lately, I am quite tight with the implementation of Service Improvement in one of the local organisation in Malaysia. Change always pain but in order to improve they must change..

Pray for the success of the project ...


Noordin Khalid

ITSM: The main advantages

My new articles written for CDC News in August 2014

The three main advantages of Service Management are cost-reductions, strategy unification and continual service improvement.  The integration of core business objectives allows an effective operational efficiency and cost reduction through improved end-to-end organization visibility.

Thus, the process management and identifying target areas for improvement are essentials.  The common target areas are reducing recurring incidents, reducing recurring incidents, reducing average incident resolution time, reducing user down time and decreasing overall IT support costs. ITSM helps to reduce the occurrence of problems while also minimizing the impact of organizational errors, allowing for an efficient and cost-effective business performance.

ITSM assist strategic unification that helps to increase cross-functional communication and better transparency while simultaneously reducing the possibility of poor alignment for organizational goals. This will give the opportunity to align customer needs with business satisfaction.

With more effective cross-functional transparency, it also inadvertently creates an opportunity for continual service improvement. E.g. better alignment of business priorities, effective change management to accommodate for fluctuating demands, enhanced customer fulfillment, greater customer satisfactions

The innovative nature of ITSM will allow consistent self-improvement across operational functions for increased productivity and a cost-justified infrastructure.

Our next steps in the next 90 days…

• Stop talking! Stop doing the wrong things! Ask yourself what does your customers think of you and your services

• Look closely at your services… is it what’s needed or what you think you should provide? Ask your customer’s how you can improve and better manage their expectation on both sides

• Make commitment to deliver the services that they deserve

     Service Excellence is the next ... 

 Noordin Khalid

 Certified ITIL (Expert), COBIT5, Prince2, LeanIT, ISO20000

An introduction to IT Service Management

Articles written for CDC News in July 2014.


Having educated thousands of people on IT Service Management, I often use analogies to illustrate the various IT concepts to my students. A common trait I see with most of them is that they would only understand service concepts from a non-IT perspective and would have great difficulty translating it into what we they do. 

It's all around us!

In order to properly understand ITSM, I would often tell people to look for the concepts, activities and functions in places like hotel, airlines, or banks - find the IT elements behind it. That is to prove that Service Management is all around us.

What is the definition of Service?

"Service is a means of delivering value to customers by facilitating what the outcomes customers want to achieve without the ownership of specific cost and risks"

The outcome-based definition of service is moving IT organisations beyond business-IT alignment towards business-IT integration. Thus, IT organisation must shift emphasis from efficient utilisation of resources to the effective realisation of business-outcomes.


How do we get there?

To transform into Service-based organisation, the elements of 4P - People, Process, Products (Tools) and Partners must be considered with the support of Best Practice models and standards e.g. ITIL, COBIT, CMMI and ISO20000. Thus, we need to develop our 4P into a "Strategic Asset" by having a proper training programs to improve people competency, improve process maturity and manage our technology's capabilities. To ensure the the sustainability of the ITSM, the communication plan to transform the organisation and culture is essential. 

What is in there for us?

Practical values from adopting ITSM Framework; 

• transform into service based organisation to become more proactive on end-to-end services
• enable uniform ways of working in 4P across enterprise
• enable the Governance in a structured manner to ensure continuous improvement 

Noordin Khalid
Certified ITIL (Expert), COBIT5, Prince2, LeanIT, ISO20000

ITSM: Tomorrows' Strategies of Managing Services

Program conducted by Noordin Khalid on 10 July 2014 at PJ Hilton Hotel


Title: Tomorrows' Strategies of Managing Services

As the CDC company is transforming itself into a service-based organisation, a briefing attended by the top 12 management was held at the PJ Hilton Hotel on 10 July recently. At the meeting facilitated by Noordin Khalid, he extolled the necessary steps CDC need to take to successfully make the change.

Before understanding what service management is, the programme also specifically defined what service really entails. By definition, "service is a means of delivering values to customers by facilitating the outcomes customers what to achieve without the ownerships of specific costs and risks".

The outcomes-based definition of service is moving IT organisations beyond business-IT alignment towards business-IT integration. Therefore, IT organisations must shift emphasis from efficient utilisation of resources to the effective realisation of business outcomes. 

At the core of the transformation towards a service-based organisation are the 4P elements - People, Process, Product (Tools) and Partners. These four items mimic closely CDC core values of Intrapreneurial, Commitment, Doing it Right and Collaborate. 

The elements; supported by best practise models and standards such as ITIL, COBIT, CMMI and ISO20000. With these the 4P are to be developed as CDC strategies assets by providing training to improve competency, process maturity and manage technology's capabilities. 

The half-day briefing enlightened the top management and strengthened their confidence to implement the initiative more so with the impending "Go-Live" of NextGen ePerolehan come early 2015.



Noordin Khalid
Certified ITIL (Expert), COBIT5, Prince2, LeanIT, ISO20000

Niaga Lepas SPM

Salam Hormat  


Petang semalam sir menerima panggilan dari kawan lama yang hampir 25 tahun tidak jumpa rentetan dari artikel yang disiarkan baru-baru ini. Suaranya amat dikenali cuma jenuh juga untuk mengingati kembali siapa gerangan orang disana. Beliau adalah saudara Fazwari dari Taman Ayer Putih, Bagan Ajam jiran sekampung semasa di alam persekolahan. 

Apa yang hendak diceritakan adalah kisah kami selepas dari SPM 1988 dimana kami memulakan perniagaan makanan ringan. Cadangan ini dimulakan oleh Fazwari (Wari) dan sahabat baik beliau, Zam (nama penuh tak berapa nak ingat). Seingat sir, mereka merupakan pelajar yang cerdik tetapi sangat nakal. Apa yang untung kat mereka, pasti akan dilakukan...

Berbalik kepada cerita tadi, kami bertiga sepakat untuk mengeluarkan belanja Rm100/seorang (kalau tak silap). Pastinya kami meminjam dari ibubapa masing-masing. Setelah itu, kami menyewa basikal beroda tiga yang kami sewa dari Bagan Jermal. Kami memulakan perniagaan makanan ringan- snek dan air minuman dan berniaga di persekitaran Sekolah Menengah Dato' Onn, Bagan Ajam. 

Alhamdulillah perniagaan yang kami jalankan mendapat sambutan dari pelajar-pelajar sekolah serta kawan-kawan lain yang menjadikannya tempat lepak harian. Untung tidak seberapa tetapi banyak dipelajari dalam menjalani kehidupan ke arah kedewasaan. Sedikit sebanyak ianya mengajar erti kehidupan, keberanian untuk berhadapan dengan orang ramai serta rasa tanggungjawap. 

Tetapi jiwa muda, hangat-hangat tahi ayam juga akhirnya kami dapat bertahan selama sebulan apabila masing-masing teruja dengan pendapatan yang lebih lumayan untuk berkerja kilang dan sir pula mendapat kerja di Kapal MV Gadis Langkasuka. (Insyallah nanti sir ceritakan bab ini pula)

Apa yang dilalui sepanjang berkerja di usia muda - berniaga, pencuci kereta dan "stewards kapal" mengajar suatu yang amat penting dalam diri sir iaitu "SUKAR HIDUP TANPA IMPIAN".

Kita hari ini adalah apa yang kita lalui sebelum ini... 

Untuk adik-adik, lihat diri kamu di masa akan datang agar dapat membentuk diri sekarang. Dalam buku R100I, sir ada kongsikan teknik atau kaedah dalam membina impian masa hadapan bagi membentuk diri sekarang. 



Noordin Khalid
Petaling Jaya


#SaveGaza
#SaveSyria

Untuk mendapatkan buku R100I, sila emailkan ke sirnoordin@smartscoach.com