KUALA LUMPUR, July 27 - An elderly Kelantanese woman is giving up her dream of performing the Hajj next year after her shoebox savings became an expensive feast for termites.

According to a posting by Muhammad Khairul Azhar Mat Nawi on Facebook, his grandmother Zainab Sulong or also known as Mek Nab had saved up a total of RM30,000 in cash.

The 72-year-old was heartbroken to find out almost all of the bank notes she was saving up were eaten by termites.

Khairul told Harian Metro that Mek Nab has been saving up the money earned by selling 'kuih' for a few years now.

"All of us know that our grandmother was planning to perform her Hajj next year with a private company and I thought she had saved up enough money.

"We did not expect her saving up the money by keeping it in a box at her home in Rantau Panjang. We wouldn't have allowed it if we knew about it sooner.

"My grandmother is old already, maybe for her it's easier to keep the money there instead of going to the bank,” he said.

Khairul added that the money that Mek Nab was saving was a mix of Ringgit and Thai bank notes and it has been some time since she last checked the box.

He said that he had sent the damaged notes to a local bank to process to see if they could be replaced.

"I’ve actually gone to a bank in Gua Musang to inquire about this issue by showing them a picture of the damaged notes, however they told me that I might not be able to get compensated due to the damage that was done to the notes.

"I was told that if 50 per cent of a bank note was damaged, there’s nothing they can do about it.

"However, we can only find out about this by sending the actual damaged notes to them,” he said, adding that he will send the damaged notes to the bank soon.

Meanwhile, Khairul and his siblings are planning to collect funds amongst themselves to replace their grandmother’s damaged bank notes and are planning to send her to perform her 'Umrah' next year.

He hoped that his grandmother’s incident would serve as a lesson to the public.

Khairul’s initial Facebook post has garnered over 500 likes and shared over 700 times.