Category: From My Angle

We all know that the public transport here in Kuching is in very sad state. Seriously, I only took public transport less than 10 times in Kuching if my memory serves me right and it was years back when I was schooling and I never utilized one alone because I don’t know how it works. *LOL*

What I’m trying to highlight here are some of the safety issues of van sapu(those van operators without license but pick up passengers from bus stops to send them to their destination).

I do not use public transport(be it legal or illegal ones). What I’m going to say here are from what I encountered and my assumptions because I don’t know how these people are operating and how the users know which is the right van to board.

One afternoon, I was driving. There were 2 vans, one in front of me, one behind me. I didn’t know they were van sapu. I just drove as usual and there was a bus stop not far, the van driver in front of me had his signal on stating that he was going to make a stop at the bus stop. As you know, when people want to stop or turn into a junction, they will slow down right? And those behind will of course slow down also. I did not intend to overtake because no point at all, the other lane was occupied also, so I slowed down too.

Then I noticed the van behind me started to tailgate me upon reaching the bus stop but I didn’t care because the other lane was occupied and he should just follow whatever those in front of him were doing, slowing down.

When the first van almost came to a stop at the bus stop, I sped up slightly and swayed to the right a bit while it went into the bus stop area but guess what happened? He switched lane, this was fine, very normal if people want to go faster but he immediately took this opportunity to shove himself right in front of me and stop at the bus stop! WTF! I had to apply sudden break and luckily my speed wasn’t very fast yet. Not only that, it came to a complete halt right in front of the first van at the bus stop. During that time, the first van wasn’t in a complete halt yet. Everything happened in mere seconds so I hope you get what I’m trying to tell you hahaha…

Was so pissed! I looked at my rear view mirror and realized that both were van sapu. The first van didn’t manage to get the passenger at the bus stop which he was supposed to but was overtook by the other van sapu. What’s more?!?! The van behind was putting other road users in danger!

If it’s licensed van, then I’m sure they will not do this as people can report them for dangerous driving and if they got into accident, they will be in big trouble but majority of van sapu operators didn’t bother at all, all they care is getting as many passenger as possible in other words got more money.

So… This is one issue I notice.

The next one which got me quite puzzle and worry especially for the safety of children and women.

Since van sapu got no license, any van can emulate the other real van sapu markings. The fake van sapu will have some “passengers” on board which makes it looks like a real van sapu. Then, it stops at the bus stop to take passengers.

From what I notice, the passenger(s) will usually go up the van when the van makes a stop at the bus stop, sometimes the van is empty, sometimes with other passengers. It’s as if boarding a stranger’s car which is a very dangerous thing to do.

Isn’t this very dangerous? Those waiting for transport will think that this is a real van sapu and board it. Then later got kidnap or drove to somewhere else to be raped or robbed or both?

Since I don’t use such transport, I would like to know how you know that which van sapu is real or fake. I don’t understand how it works.

As far as I know, these real van sapu did help a lot in getting people to their destinations with our current state of public transportation. It’s is not all bad but it is illegal.

What’s your say on this issue?

This time of the year, we all know we will be having this haze attack. Red bright sun in the evening, hazy views, visibility turns low, smelly air, itchy nose, sneezes and so on.

It was a big deals more than 10 years back, it was so bad back then until the government had declared emergency. I don’t quite remember when was that, it was when I’m in primary 6 or early secondary school years. Anyone remember when?

The visibility was so low that time even in the house. Schools were closed if I’m not mistaken. Masks were selling like crazy and I remember my dad brought back some industrial masks, so many types! *LOL* Those masks were very expensive! However, we didn’t wear it, it’s so uncomfortable.

Nowadays, it seemed not a very big deal, everyone as if comes to term that this thing will surely happen and we can’t do anything about it. Even though we do complain, we still going around doing our daily activities without any problem unlike last time.

In fact, I have no idea how to deal with this problem. However, what I do not understand is that why some stupid people can’t stop burning at their own backyards during this time of the year? They know that the air quality is already bad yet they still want to burn their garden waste or whatever at their backyard. Why? Why make things worst? You don’t want to live, we still want to live ok?!? So selfish! There are other time that you can burn your waste, why must you choose time like this to burn?

You might say that people are burning everyday even with haze or without haze. However, from my view, from what I’m seeing around me, that’s what I notice. Other time I seldom see smoke coming out of their backyards and only time like this you can see it almost everyday. Usually, you might just see one or two, then time like this, there are more than that.

I’ve been hearing fire engine’s siren a lots these day and one happened near my place. The fire got out of control and spread to the bushes nearby. Guess what they’re burning? TIRES! I did take a photo if it, just the smoke but I accidentally deleted it when I wanted to delete some other photos.

During time like this, it’s not a very good situation for me because I have sensitive nose. Sneezing is one thing, the haze is also causing my nose to bleed but not the type where blood flows out, Phew… It’s due to the membrane in there that got irritated and dried. Simply by rubbing my nose will cause the membrane to rupture. There will surely be dried blood in there, it’s so annoying. Sigh…

Anyway, what I really don’t understand is that, why burn now? You are not supposed to burn now! ARG! Inconsiderate brats!

I’m sure many of you bloggers out there might have experience something like this:

You blog about something, be it eatery or bank or anywhere that you visited. Then from time you time, you will get people leave comment on your post as if you own the place.

Ever encounter this?

I encounter it A LOT! With so many blogs summore, it is not something new. It amuses me but sometimes if my mood isn’t good, it annoys the hell out of me.

People can leave comment such as:
“I want to make reservation at your restaurant for 2 people on this day”
If I’m in very good mood, I will take all the trouble to contact the person back as in sending this person a personal e-mail telling him/her that I’m not related to the restaurant/eatery and give them the real contact number of the place. If I’m in very bad mood, I will not bother at all and reply the comment with “I don’t own this place, sorry” *LOL*

“Can your bank approve the loan for me, my income is like this, like this, blah blah… Here’s my phone number 123456 please contact me a.s.a.p”
Usually this kind I will not care, I will just remove the phone number, approve the comment and not responding to it. If I’m in super duper good mood, I will respond in the comment to ask them to contact the nearest branch.

Nowadays it got more and more especially from Sarawakian.net as my phone number is on the blog and there’s banner there too(remove it already ;p), I got many calls! At least one call a week related to some eateries posted in there.

They called to ask about franchising of this and that, call to make reservation(YES! Make reservation with me!! *sweat*), call for sponsorship of food for event and call to ask about “my” eateries.

Goodness gracious -.-” I will usually tell them I’m not related to any eatery, I’m just a blogger blogging about places that I’ve been to. Sometimes I’m kind enough to give them contact details if I have them on hand else I will just tell them if you don’t see any contact details of the place in the post, it means I got no idea how to contact them also, that time I only went, dined, and left without any name card or detail.

There’s one funny one that I want to share with you. One afternoon, someone from a local radio station called me, talking to me about some charity event and so on and lastly ask me whether I can supply chicken rice to them or not! I was so blurred and shocked, I thought they want to invite me to join their charity event as a blogger and I double check with her again on the chicken rice part and asked her where she got my number. She told me her colleague gave it to her, then I told her I don’t sell chicken rice, her colleague might have got my number from sarawakian.net. I’m only blogging about the place. She was shocked. Then asked me whether I know the shop owner or not *LOL* I told her I have no idea at all. Then we had a good laugh over the phone and she said, “how come he gave me a blogger’s number instead of the shop owner’s number?!?!”. It was hillarious!

Can you see how strong the impact of blogging is? Bloggers are giving free publicity to businesses now! Think of it in other way, we should be compensated for the publicity! That’s why some bloggers change their blogging direction to avoid doing publicity for free but people like me, how? These are the things that brings me traffic and popularity.

Ok la… Don’t puke, I may not be that popular but many people know me because of my blogs, so how? I sure cannot compete with Kenny Sia but I do have my fair share of fame, a bit la ;p. Not that I crave for popularity, I don’t think I can handle too much fame.

Want to blog yet don’t want to give free publicity and yet those topics make up the contents of my blogs. There’s always 2 sides of the coin to look at. Such dilemma, how!?!? You say how le?