Trip to Kelate

Just got back from Kota Bharu, Kelantan. Was visiting my parents with my wife and Rahil. I don't get to see them as often as I want to and this time, we spent nearly a week there. As usual we took the Air Asia flight and the round trip ticket for three of us was only around Rm200/ which was a great bargain. I had to book them online nearly 2 months ahead of course. My parents were really happy to see Rahil, as she is their first and only grand child. They even threw a feast for all our family friends in Kelantan. I was expecting only our neighbour but in the end more than a hundred guests turned up. The lucky kid received a lot of gifts. Rahil is now growing fast, she turned 5 months on the 29th of March and she now weighs eight Kgs. She also started eating solid food. On the 27th as I was about to feed her in the morning, I heard her say "Baba". I thought I was dreaming but she repeated it louder and clearly. You can imagine how thrilled I was to hear the first coherent words out of her mouth - Baba. My wife doesn't mind that she didn't say Mama but she deflated my ego a bit when she told me that Rahil doesn't understand what the word means and she was right. Rahil kept on saying it to everyone including a loud continuous "BABA BABA BABA" when we are slightly late with her food.
We were just in time for the Sultan's Birthday and I learnt that Kelantan is the only state in Malaysia which declares two days holidays to celebrate the Sultan's birthday. The entire town was lighted up and it was quite nice though my wife noted that the decorations looked a bit "Kampung". One thing I noticed was that people there would take any opportunity to celebrate with their whole family and this was one such big occasion. The entire road around the Istana was closed to vehicles as thouands visited the palace.