Friday 15 March 2019

A day in Rantau

It was a very hot afternoon in Rantau yesterday.

Yup, I went and spent the whole day there. Woke up in the morning and just decided to have a look at the place.

It's a typical small town with rows of shophouses along the main trunk road and villages as well as oil palm estates in the surrounding area.

Arrived there around noon and had lunch at a stall. Rice, mackerel masak lemak cili padi, fried bean sprouts, sambal belacan and teh O ice for RM5. Really not bad.

I asked the makcik who ran the stall about the coming by-election and she said things are not hotting up yet.

"Makcik nanti nak undi siapa?" I jokingly asked her.

"Ish....undi tu kan rahsia," she said laughing.

I laughed too as I didn't expect her to answer the question.

But then she added; "Tapi kalau boleh biarlah kita undi orang kita...."

I think I know what she meant, but I rather leave it at that.

I drove around a bit after that and noticed that everything seemed to be in place. The infra of the place looked good.

I even noticed a rather new fire station by the roadside, which is not bad considering the small size of the town.

Then I decided to check out the kampung house of Mat Hassan, the Umno deputy president who is going to be the BN candidate for the by-election.

The makcik at the stall had earlier told me how to get there. Everyone at the town seemed very familiar with Mat Hassan, who is the incumbent assemblyman there.

It was a bit troublesome to get to Mat Hassan's house yesterday as they were repairing the road in front of it.

The original small wooden structure, which is typical of Malay traditional kampung houses of Negeri Sembilan is still there. It looked very nice in front of the normal modern-looking part behind it.

They had erected a huge tent behind the house and I was told by local BN people later that the place will be the coalition's command centre for the by-election.

I then decided to visit Mat Hassan's community service centre in the town, which is about two km away.

There was already a crowd there as it turned out that Mat Hassan almost always would be at the service centre in late afternoon to personally attend to his constituents' problems.

The kind of help he gave ranged from providing financial assistance for the needy to easing the bureaucracies for those dealing with government agencies on matters such as applications for land titles.

I was also pleasantly surprised to meet a journalist friend who was there with his team from KL to try get an interview with Mat Hassan.

Mat Hassan arrived from KL about 4.30pm. I was told that he had earlier been at the parliament as an observer.  My friend was given a slot to see him after he had done with attending to his constituents.

I  went to a nearby cendol stall for a drink as my friend and his team waited for their turn to see Mat Hassan.

Unfortunately for him, Mat Hassan declined to be interviewed as he was not feeling very well. My friend only managed to chat a bit with him and even that was off-the-record.

Despite having waited for hours, my friend seemed okay with it as he really likes Mat Hassan.

"Tok Mat really looked tired and he is fasting today,' said my friend.

He, nonetheless managed to get some pictures of Mat Hassan attending to his constituents who were there asking for his assistance.

He gave me some of those pictures and that of the Rantau town as he knows I'm not good with a camera,




And these are pictures which I took myself yesterday,

The stall where I had lunch in Rantau yesterday.

The cendol that I had near Mat Hassan's community service centre.
Well, that's my day in Rantau yesterday.

My friend said he will try again to get a proper interview with Mat Hassan before the by-election. Hopefully he'll get it.

14 comments:

  1. My wife is from Rantau, Tok Mat make it a point to attend to his constituents at least once a week as long as I can remember, if he couldn't make it, he'll make sure they can see his assistants.

    I believe u had the cendol at a small kedai (Kak Yam), the husband is a convert (mamak). I found the cendol is very nice but they don't prepare it very much, so there's no guarantee it's always available.

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    1. I think that's the one. The couple also sells pisang goreng and air kelapa.

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  2. Betulke Annie Rantau dah ade a new fire station.I heard only yesterdaythat the good doctor wannabe ADUN was promising a new firestation at Rantau. Elect him and many things will be resolved, he said.Sound like a new election SOP for Pakatan Harapan.

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    1. Yes, as I wrote, I saw a small fire station there.

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  3. TokMatN9 sure winlaaa... AnWar .... Just like walk over.. If AnWar is smart he will request The Witch Doctor NOT to file in nomination. Lupa bawa paslaa, Balai bombalaa,aduan hutang orang 62k x may bayarlaa.... Xde calun lain krr... If AnWar seriously want to win the by election he should just proposed his ownself or Lady Nurul.... While AA courting PAS AI trying UMNO... 50+40++18... Kalau AA main belakang tiap tiap pagi AI telefon maki diaaaaa....
    RR keeping queit ... Jobless kan... Xde kuasa macam Tun D. TSR×2 cakaplaa APA pun orang buat dekkk jrr...

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  4. Masak lomak cili api sana mesti best.. My fav when I travel down South, R&R Seremban. One gerai fresh oyster mushroom lomak padi!!

    Indian community sana banyak pasti kojo2 plantation.. Rasanya Sime Darby ade plantation sana.

    Si Dr Adun wanna be tak besa masuk estet kut?.. Aney.. klo coy macam Sime Darby, segala kemudahan asas pekerja pihak estet sediakan tau..

    Dr motivate Teresa supaya jadi cerdik pandai sikit, jgn malopong blur, kerja jgn main agak2 kena betoi2 macam Menteri2 BN.
    .. suruh dia usaha dapatkan pasaran2 luaq, harga sawit akan melambung tinggi.
    ...Nah estet untung, pekerja dapat bonus dana ESOS tinggi dari syarikat mrk... semua bahagia.

    Zaman BN dulu sawit sampai disebut GOLDEN CROP. Untung berlambak2. Haiyaa.. tarak standard la Menteli Amoy ni. Dia setipiket lulusan ape eh???

    Professor Nasi Lemak

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    1. zaman BN masa siapa Professor Nasi Lemak.
      zaman BiNi-PIS ke?
      jamji menang seminyih bawak bini bonceng bonceng

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    2. Anon 02:52

      Kamu pakai setipiket apa ni? Tak payah cakap saja pandai. Pi buat kerja. Lepaih lawatan rombongan Pakistan, Menteri dah pi sana bincang2 jual kelapa sawit ke? Jgn sekadar pokpekpokpek blur blur ingat nak tanam buluh saja.

      Dah 10 bulan dok melilau sedunia apahal? Takn ini pun nak tunggu Bossku kena juga ziarah Pakistan baru Malaysia dapat tarik pelaburan asing?

      Professor Nasi Lemak

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  5. Calon PH ni cakap pun tak bunyi nasional, macam mana la nak beri khidmat. Kono makcik pakcik pokat loghat N9 poning calon PH ni. Sami Velu pun bunyi cakap eh telingo buleh terimo. Ni caro dio cakap macam baru sampai Malaysia tahun lopeh. Budak Bangla den pun cakap eh takdo pelat dah. Tak bercampor orang calon PH ni. Tak laku la kek tompek macam Rantau ni..mintak maaf la cakap.

    Takyah runsing la, Tok Mat. Takdo tokoh Dr.petition ni. Buang karan jo

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  6. soon the bas-tord "bo55ku" startegist will start to use the "P-WORD" in their campain.alreay telling all sort of thing like loans, "minta sedekah kempen" LGBT, da ma hai etc
    now start to "bunuh karactedinatesr", promot the BiNi-PIS can

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. low pay RBA = low quality comment

      Delete
  7. So Annie ... finally kona Tok Mat yo.

    Inilah pemimpin Malaysia Baru yg ori.
    No baggage or skeleton in the closet.
    Perfect communication n budi bahaso.
    A wise man .

    Malaysia need Tok Mat .

    Waghih

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  8. Hmmm.. from the looks of picture that you take, it's true lah you're not with camera lah Annie. Hahaha...jgn marah, gurau je.
    Thanks Annie for being there. I also will go there later on to help apa yg mampu. The umno ADUN of linggi nearby is my school batchmate.
    Hopefully Tok Mat will win. UMNO is in good hands now. Steady tok Mat.

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  9. While my school mates continue to wish for a PH win, do they really know who Mat Hassan is?
    He is color blind.
    Unless you're a Rantau citizen you will never know that.
    His video viral has nothing to do with the nons.
    Only the very divided Malays whom he needs to butter as every other Melayu munafik politician does. Playing to the majority of the ignoramuses that abound.
    He would have won GE14 easily but some fearful people decided to advise him all the wrong ways of winning.
    You of all outstation people trying to decide the outcome of something that's not within your grasp are just playing lottery with your so called "learned" analysis of what only God knows!
    Only factual fiascos of Mat Hassan and cronies can overthrow him. Other than that you outstation peoples comments aren't worthy of any outcome of the by election.
    So leave the Rantau people alone.
    Go save your own Johor yah!

    TheEqualizer-manonthestreet.

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