Letting Them Travel Young

Pasir Salak Historical Complex (Above and below left)

On saturday my elder daughter went off on her first long distance school field trip organised by her religious school. The purpose of the trip was stated as to discover our historical and nature sites and to appreciate god's given wonders. Well as I understand it they cancelled the visit to the Pasir Salak historical complex so there goes the historical discovery portion of the visits but at least they visited the Teluk Intan leaning clock tower, a fruit farm, the Labu Sayong handicraft village in Kuala Kangsar and the Sungei Klah hot springs. So all in all it actually seemed that this was a tour group visit rather than anything historical discovery mission.

The Teluk Intan Leaning Tower

But I do not really mind as I feel that as per the Malay adage, the further you travel, the more open minded you become, and this was a good opportunity for me to check out whether she could be entrusted to take care of herself on journeys on her own. She failed part of it miserably as she did not respond well to our calls and messages to her handphone that got us a bit worried and she got a scolding for that when returned home. But overall I believed that she carried herself well and should be able to assume the responsibility of taking care of her younger sister on their tuition and kindergarten centre field trip to Malacca next August.

Making Labu Sayong

You must be saying that my kids are having it great with so much travel. The fact is the travelling bug is very inherent in my family, it is just that for me personally circumstances in my youth did not allow me to undertake such field trips until I was in college, mainly due to the costs. Yet my father still endeavoured to undertake as many family vacations as he could afford so trips to Singapore and Medan has been included in my life's journey. Thus since I can afford to pay for such trips now, why should I not allow my daughters the chance to experience as much of this wonderland created by God. Hopefully such experiences will equip them better to face life's journey. It is so much better than being stuck in front of a computer, or worse idling in shopping complexes right?