Experience, Feel, Think & Share.

Bali trip

2009-04-25T18:10:00.023+08:00

It has been a busy days for 2 months to work as a general clerk in a plastic product factory in Shah Alam. That makes me fail to update my blog for this Bali trip post for the past few weeks. 5th to 10th of April I went to Bali with my mom and sister. I shall not write anything much as I feel kinda lazy to write it all and just share some pictures.

The video is noisy as the strong wind blows makes it. The video is the overview of Mount Kintamani. The arrangement of the picture is a bit untidy especially the vertical pictures because it has been rotated from the original display of inverted image and I have to adjust the position because of the format.

It was a really enjoying trip to Bali with mom and sister. Balinese are friendly as they give warm hospitality and service willingly. They are open-minded and strongly uphold their religious beliefs and rituals in their daily life without being bias towards other cultures.

Thanks to my mom and sister brought me to Bali.

Zi Yang back to Malaysia

2009-02-10T12:38:00.000+08:00

It has been a year since Zi back from Australia. He is taller and looks fit.

His return just last for 2 weeks. It was not enough time for my gang and I to spend some quality time with him. However, we are glad to see he back to Klang Valley.

The following are the pictures of our 1b5 gang with Zi recently.

He is pursuing engineering course currently. We wish him all the best in his pursue and hope to keep contact more often.

Kota Kinabalu trip

2009-01-03T10:04:00.000+08:00

20th-27th December 2008, my friends and I went to Kota Kinabalu, Sabah for year end vacation.

20/12/08, around 5.10a.m, we reached at LCCT. We are supposed to check in by 6. However, the funniest part is the person in charge told us that our flight need to be delayed for 5 hours and then he check again, he says our flight does not even exist! Thanks to Samuel and his brother, Johnathan managed to solve the problem and make us arrive at KKIA Terminal 2 around 12.30p.m. We stayed at Wakiki Condominium which is opposite to the local famous beach, Tanjung Aru beach. Nothing much on the first day, just walk around city center. At evening, we enjoyed sunset at the beach.

Second day, we went to the market to buy some equipment for Mount Kinabalu and check out the budget for the Tunku Abdul Rahman Park. We brought special local shoe for the climbing which is named 'Kampung Adidas'.

Kampung Adidas. Not a good picture of it. It is a rubber shoe with some plastic nail at the bottom.

After that, we went to the Jesselton Point for the Tunku Abdul Rahman Park enquiries. Finally, we are able to get someone for us to 3 island for a whole day with RM 75. With this rate, we booked a boat, snorkeling gadget and banana boat. With a booked boat, there is no time constrain for the duration we stay at each island. It is really cheap.

Third day, 7.00a.m, we reached the jetty and go for a day trip in Tunku Abdul Rahman Park.

Jesselton Point entrance arch

There are 3 islands to go for the day. The islands are Manukan, Mamutik and Sapi. We went to Pulau Mamutik first.

Up (From left) : Keenen, Wei Jiat
Down(From left) : Samuel, Me, Calvin

(From left)
Keenen, Calvin, Me, Samuel, Wei Jiat

When we want to snorkel, we saw a notice. It is written there : Jellyfish season. We are a bit scared, in the end, we didn't see any.

Next, we went to Pulau Manukan.

(From front)
Johnathan, Adelyn, Deborah(down), Samuel, Wei Jiat, Calvin, Me, Keenen

Apart from snorkeling, we sand buried Wei Jiat, Calvin and Samuel.

Later, we go for the Banana Boat in the middle of the sea.

Before we go for Pulau Sapi, we saw a headless turtle in the middle of the sea.

Poor turtle.......

It was raining when we reach Pulau Sapi, after some time, rain stops. Around 5 something, we back to Wakiki. The 3 islands have nice beach, clear sea water and lots of fishes. We are able to see sea urchin, blue starfish, rainbow colour fish, clownfish (Nemo), some nice corals and lots of aquatic organism.

Fourth day, we didn't really have plan. We just go 1Borneo for movies and hang around. 1Borneo is the local shopping paradise. Back to Wakiki, we enjoyed sunset in Tanjung Aru beach.

Christmas eve, our main plan for this Kota Kinabalu trip - Climb Mount Kinabalu. Morning, 2 vans drive us to the Kinabalu Park away from Wakiki about 60km. It tooks 45 minutes to 1 hour to reach there.

Once arrived, we are at Balsam Cafe. Haven't start our climbing yet, need to 'check in' at the counter. There, we have our guide, Ben and Dominic. They are really friendly and nice. Soon, the driver drive us to Timpohon Gate, 4km away from Balsam Cafe.

At Timpohon Gate, we need to trek 6km to Laban Rata, our base camp. There are some stops in between the 6km trek.

Left Picture: I sit on a weighing scale. End up got scolded.

Right picture: At Balsam cafe

In front of Timpohon Gate. Here we come! Starts our trail after the Gate.

At start was ok. After 30 minutes, started to feel a bit tough. After the first stop, the trail is full of rocks, high, wooden and uneven height stairs. A step of stair needs your leg to be almost 90 degrees with your knees. Furthermore, with the bags needed to be carried make us more tired. It is really not easy. Most of the trail you see from bottom is really high. Sometimes I see it, I feel like want to give up. We really need to rest after few ten metres and take some pictures. It took 5 hours to reach our base camp. We reached there around 5.30p.m

Nepenthes rajah. Endangered
species of insectivorous pitcher
plant.

At Laban Rata, we have our dinner. Then without shower, we sleep at 7.00p.m and wake up at 2.00a.m. We need to climb 2.7 km more to reach the summit to see the sunrise. The trail is steep along the way. However, there are ropes for us to hold and the granite floor of the mountain is not slippery where our 'Kampung Adidas' grips it well. We reached there 5.00a.m.

It is Christmas Day we reached the summit. The wind is cold and strong along the way. I can feel a bit levitated and pushed forward when the wind blows for awhile. The sunrise was really nice.

We going down to our base camp after that as many other group is at the summit and also for our breakfast.

After having our breakfast, we check out Laban Rata and go down back to Timpohon Gate. Intially, we wanted to go Poring Hot Spring, but the transport to there is expensive. End up we didn't make it. Then we back to Wakiki and have some rest.

Wrong public information about Mount Kinabalu
I want to add on some additional information about Mount Kinabalu. Most Malaysian thinks Mount Kinabalu is the highest mountain in Southeast Asia. However, it is a myth. The plain truth is The mountain is the fourth tallest in Southeast Asia behind of Hkakabo Razi (5881 m),Myanmar, Puncak Jaya (4884 m) and Puncak Trikora (4750 m) of Papua, Indonesia. Therefore, Mount Kinabalu is only consider the highest mountain in Malaysia.

Mount Kinabalu is also one of the highest trekkable mountain in the world. Not only that, it is 20th highest peak in the world in terms of prominence. What do I mean by in terms of prominence? I can't give you a summary. If you're interested to know more please visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topographic_prominence.

This is the hall of fame for the climber who made record. They are seriously fit and mad. They have to climb from sea level to the peak and back down to sea level. 8km I already feel like half-dead.... Moreover this is 21km, half of the Marathon distance.........

At evening, we went to 1Borneo New York New York (NYNY) restaurant to have our Christmas night dinner.

It is the first time we went to New York New York restaurant except for Keenen. It is a nice place for family and friends for dinner. We really enjoyed our meal there.

26th, morning wake up, leg ache. It is really pain and ache. I need to bend down upper body, make leg straight, and raise my butt to walk down the stairs. Although we suffer leg ache, we still go to Lok Kawi Wildlife Park to fill our time. Nothing special except for the Proboscis Monkey and Orang Utan. Depart from there around lunch time, we went for movie - Bedtime Stories. It is previewed in Cathay cinema in KK much earlier than its original preview date.

27th, last day in Kota Kinabalu. We pack our luggages and clean the room. Have some walk along the Tanjung Aru beach, have dinner, fly at 9.30p.m and home sweet home.

This Kota Kinabalu trip is consider a budget-wise trip. We only spend around RM 1100 for the whole trip. We no need to worry about the accomodation thanks to Samuel's uncle. His generous offer helps us have a nice place to stay. Another special thanks for Samuel and his siblings who spend time and effort to make this outing smooth and organise. I also not forget Wei Jiat, Keenen and Calvin for their contribution. Last but not least, thanks to our parents who let us go for this trip willingly.

I hope we can have this kind of great trip with my friends in future.

Jeram Besu, Pahang trip

2008-12-15T11:28:00.000+08:00

13/12 - 14/12, my mom and I went to Jeram Besu joined a group of Brickfields Temple volunter staff for 2 days 1 night trip.

First day
It takes 2 and 1/2 or 3 hours to reach Pahang Elephants Sanctuary starting from Brickfields, KL at 7.30 morning.

First visit - Elephant Sanctuary
First, the guide bring us to feed elephants. Before that, there are some introduction and information on the 6 elephants. There are as young as 7 years old and as old as 70 years old! We then start to feed sugarcane to the elephants.

The following are the first part of the Elephants Santuary vist pictures

Left : 13-14 years old, from Johor

Right: 33 years old, from Myanmar

My mom touching a male elephant. It is 7 years old and the only male elephant there. To differentiate male or female, the tusk determines it

This is the 70 years old female elephant from India.

A close up look on the 70 years old elephant. I observed that the old elephants usually have faded colours on the trunk and ears. The 33 years old also share the same characteristic.

The second part is the riding of the elephants. There are 2 different assortment for the ride. One is for the children, another is for the adults. As this can save time and more effiecient use of size of elephants. It is just 2 person with a guide per elephant at a time and a small round ride along a circle. Although is a short ride but is quite a different experience! I got a chance to ride on the grandma elephant!

The following are the pictures of the ride

The sequence is from left to right

After the riding, the elephants are brought back to the jungle to rest. Then we go to another destination. In our schedule, we should have a bath session with the elephants in the river, however, is has been canceled. Out of curiousity, I asked the guide about it. He says the bath session is only at the afternoon and is still morning now, we are in time constrain so the schedule has changed. Everyone then feel a bit upset. What to do....... I just go to the next visit unwillingly......

Second visit- Orang Asli Settlement
We have a small walk from the Elephant Sanctuary to the Orang Asli settlement village. Everyone gathered at a small shelter made by the Orang Asli and the guide give us some information about them. The tribe is called Cek Wong, which only can be found in Pahang and the population is just 400 people. Next, we give them our donation in kind, some food and clothings. They thanks us by showing their traditional dance. Then we walk around the village and see their houses.

The following are the pictures of the second visit

We have our lunch after that.

Third visit- Deerland Park
After the lunch, we head towards to the Deerland Park. At my first thought is just a fenced place for deer to move around and our job is to see the deers, how boring..... But once I'm there, it's far more enjoying than I thought. Straight after the entrance you can see deers scattered everywhere. We were given a small basket of raw sweet potatoes to feed the deers. The deers quickly rush towards me and my hands can't beat their mouth. Once I finished feeding them, I start to touch them. Most of them ran away........

After it, I accidentally saw a pair of bird kissing!

How's it?

Then, I saw a park worker holding a small white porcupine! Very cute.

Small and cute huh?

Continue to walk..... Until I see another worker taking out a snake from his inner shirt and display it on the table. I be the first one to touch the snake.

It is smooth, scalely and cold-blooded!

Next, I saw 2 rabbits having their sweet time in sleep.

How relax........ How lovely........

The last part of this Deerland Park where I enjoyed the most out of this trip is I can be close up with a black bear! It is unfenced. I never think that I can go touch it. The bear is better and more tamed than Winnie the Pooh. It is so tamed until I almost got kissed!

Good bear instead of good dog.

Shake hand: Soft palm

Hug: Wide and solid back

Bear try to act cute.

Don't follow them, come to me. Good bear!

Bear is tamer and more friendly than you ever imagine huh? I really want to make it as my pet at that moment. Haha.... Do you want to have it as a pet too?

Next, we go to visit some local cottage factory

Fourth visit- Local Cottage Factory
1.First is the mushroom factory, we are being introduced the mushroom farming process. Then we visit around the area.

2. We then proceed to the groundnut factory. As usual, we are brief by the owner. Everyone then bought lots of groundnut for the next month Chinese New Year as it is cheap to buy.

The workers sun the groundnut to make it dry.

3.Lastly we go to the Tauhu factory. No briefing, once there, everyone got chance to test eat the soybean products and bought it.

This tauhu factory quite famous in this area.

Didn't take much picture on this fourth visit.

Second day- Water Drafting & Back Home
Early at the morning, we go to a river in Kuala Lipis for water raft. It got 4 to 5 rapids along the journey. It takes 45 minutes to water raft 6km journey. Along the way, everyone use the paddle to splash water to each other and enjoy the scene of nature in left and right river bank. It's fun and enjoyable! However, there's no pictures taken as it is not convenient.

After that, we have our lunch and back to Brickfields, KL.

There are more to discover and visit in Jeram Besu. Mine is the 2 days 1 night package. There is also other packages to suit the tourist. It is a good place for family, friends and group to have outing or trip. You can visit this link for more enquiries http://www.countryviewadventure.com/default.htm

I find this trip nice and beneficial. Lastly I want to thanks for my mom bringing me to this trip.