My Grandma's 90th Birthday

We celebrated this auspicious day late last month. In fact we celebrated her 90th birthday twice and she still hasn't reached her 90th birthday.

Last year, we had a family (she bore 15 children and most of them came with their children and grand children) get together in my parents house. Everyone thought the big 90 was last year. So many voices, so many plans and in the end someone volunteered to have the celebration in my parents' house. My parents were okay with it and we got to see our long lost cousins.

Early last month, my mom told us that we have to celebrate my grandma's 90th birthday end of the month after our Kuching trip. We were like ..whaaaat? Didn't we celebrate it last year? It seems that someone miscalculated and this year is her actual 90th birthday (Chinese). According to our calendar she's 89 years old, but the Chinese always add an extra year to the actual birthday.

Rachel suggested going for Min Kok's morning dim sum because she has not eaten dim sum for a long time.

It was a Friday and the only family members who attended were Rach and her husband, my parents, Tusi and I.. and of course my grandmother lah. Looking at her, I was amazed at her good health. She can still walk, eat, bathe herself,... in other words, she is independent. She does go for checkups now and then but she is healthy. She doesn't take any pills at all. Amazing right? And what more, her skin is not darkened with brown spots aka pigmentation. One of these days I'm going to find out her beauty secrets.

Ah.. there is one secret which she told me a long time ago. She asked me to eat fish. At that time fish meat was not one of my favourites. She said that people who worked in air-conditionered place should take fish meat so that their skin will not be so dry. Ever since that day, I started eating fish and actually like eating it. :)

We celebrated her birthday dinner in Regent Restaurant.

8-course dinner plus a plate of longevity noodles.

90 and healthy... wow. I hope when I'm at her age, I will be as healthy and no pigmentation problems like her. :)

Glo

What dish washing liquid do you normally use?

I use Glo. I Like Glo. I think that Glo does its job. It removes the oil from the plates so efficiently. It used to cost less than RM3. Last year the price shot up. Whenever there was an offer for Glo, I would buy 1 or 2 bottles for my mom. Last year's price was RM3.99 on the average. This year the price shot up to RM4.50 (and later after the Goodmaid warehouse sale, I saw that Glo was priced at RM2.89 per bottle at some of the supermarkets). Thankfully I only use 1 bottle a year.

Recently, I went to the Goodmaid sale in Senawang and bought quite a number of Goodmaid dish washing liquid for my mom. I didn't buy any for myself because I still have a bottle of Glo in my storeroom. The one that I was currently using was about to finish and so I took out a new bottle.

This is the bottle I am currently using. It's a has 1000ml in it.


The newer bottle is the same size as the old one.. but wait...

.. it has only 900ml.

I bet some of you don't notice this right? We always take things for granted. Sigh... I will still use Glo even though they have reduced their ml. I think that they should you know.. tell the consumers that they are giving less quantity. It's the right thing to do.

The Birds at KL Bird Park

A closer look at the birds in the KL Bird Park. I won't be able to name all, so please help me.. :)


These are Sun Conure a.k.a love birds (I think).


Cattle Egrets


Pied Imperial Pigeons


Great Hornbill


Rhinoceros Hornbill


Rhinoceros Hornbill


Western & Victorian Crowned-Pigeon


Flamingos


Pied Imperial Pigeons


Asian Fairy Bluebird


Indian Blue Peafowl


Indian Blue Peafowl


Indian Blue Peafowl


Ostrich


Spotted Dove


Cattle Egret


Sacred Ibis


Milky Storks


Pelican


Red Junglefowl


Oriental Pied Hornbill


Purple Swamphen


Black Swan


Southern Cassowary


Emu ( I think)


Emu (I think)


Chicks


Rainbow Lorikeet


Changeable Hawk-Eagle


Greater Sulphur-Crested Cockatoo


Albino Crow


Birds of Paradise.. lovely huh?


Birds of Paradise


A painting

KL Brid Park

I've heard of the Bird Park in KL many years ago but I have forgotten all about it till Matt suggested an outing there. He wanted to bring Wayne and Om (relatives of Matt and Minch) and asked us if we would like to bring Sze-En and Brian along too.

Om couldn't make it for the trip because she was in Butterworth with her dad.

Our trip started off like this -

8.15am - Breakfast as Ah Seng's coffee shop
8.50am - Fetch Brian from his house

9.am - 10am - Journey from Seremban to KL. Sze-En as usual, slept in the car. Not sure whether she was prone to car-sickness or just wanted to make up for the loss of sleep this morning.

It was hazy.

I managed to capture this shot of he twin towers and the KL tower because we didn't know how to get to the bird park. I googled for directions on my phone and it says 'once in Jalan Parlimen, turn to Jalan Cenderawasih'. It didn't say left of right. We were on the Istana Road and once we entered into Jalan Parlimen, we kept a look out for Jalan Cenderawasih. We didn't know that we have to turn to our right almost immediately after we were on Jalan Parlimen.

We went straight and ended on Jalan Tun Perak ( I think) and u-turned as soon as we were able to.

We arrived at the Bird Park- Can't believe it took us 1 and 1/2 hours to get here.

The entrance and exit of the Bird Park.

The price of the tickets were expensive for foreigners. RM42 (EURO 8.40 , USD 12) per adult. Malaysians who produces their MyKad (Identity card) will only have to pay RM15 (adult) and RM6 (children between 5- 12). We happily showed our MyKads and paid RM87 for 5 adults and 2 kids. While we were waiting for Minch to get Wayne ready, I went over to the ticket counter again. I noticed another set of promotions and asked the person in charged of issuing the tickets about these promotions. She said that if we have any of these cards ( they include J Cards and Metrojaya cards ) we get an additional RM 5 off. I told them I have a J Card, but she said that we had already paid for the tickets and she couldn't give us a refund. So sad :(.

The map of the Bird Park.


A welcome signboard.


A picture with our new feathered friends. A polaroid picture cost RM10.

Pictures with the bigger birds cost more - RM8 per person, and we have to use our own camera. Otherwise it would cost RM25 per polaroid picture.

Sze-En was not scared of the birds but Brian.. you should see him he was trying to be brave yet he was terrified till he push his head backwards until we could see his double chin.

We could take pictures with any of these birds.


These are some of the birds we saw in the bird park. Some of them were just walking around like as if they owned the place. :)

We went for the 12.30pm bird show. It was entertaining. Usually they have 2 birds competing with each other.

There was a playground too. Wayne decided to miss the bird show for this. Later after the show, Rachel and I allowed Brian and Sze-En only 4 minutes to play here. Sze-En said that this is the longest slide she ever played in.

This is part of the Bird Park. It is very big.

Feeding the little parrots. I believe they are also called lories (Singular - Lory). Rachel paid RM2 each for Brian and Sze-En to feed the parrots.

There were some koi fish. At the ticket counter, Rachel bought a few packets of fish food. The children specially Wayne were enjoying themselves very much.

Monkeys, what are you doing here? This is a bird park. :)

Two days after climbing Nuang, I had expected my muscles to ache... but it didn't ache that much. Climbing these stairs weren't painful for me at all. :)

We had dinner here at the Hornbill Restaurant.


I had beef burger.

The food is so-so, but I love the settings. It's all wood. We saw a hornbill up close too.


At the gift shop, Brian bought a hat and Sze-En a pair of binoculars.


A mummy hornbill feeding her baby.... but it looks too old to be a baby...

Since Brian and Sze-En spent all their money in the gift shop, I volunteered to pay for the ice-creams. Before they had their toys, they wanted to spend the remainder of the money on ice-creams.

We spent slightly more than 5 hours here at the bird park. I really love it here. We could have walked more, but Rachel had to be back by evening.

On the way home, Sze-En slept in the car again. She was exhausted. I know the feeling because on the way back to my house, I slept in the car too.

Check out the birds at KL Bird Park in the next post.

The Longest Day

Messner's account on climbing Mount Nuang.

Feelings of regret were beginning to fill my heart as I watched Chris struggling in pain just to take a few steps. It was only the Sunday before that I persuaded her to join this climb of Selangor's highest mountain. Nuang has a reputation for being a tough mountain but I was confident that Chris could do it, as she exercises regularly. Have I made a wrong judgment call?

Boring, never ending road.

Night had fallen and the 5 of us were moving slowly along what is famously known as the "Boring, Never ending road". It certainly felt very much that way then, I mean the never ending part. There was no energy left to feel bored. We were the last of 17 climbers apart from the Boey family of 5. They came specifically to assist us at KG's last minute call the day before for help. What camaraderie! They had earlier climbed a hill in Broga and then came over to Nuang, had in fact waited at Pacat camp for close to 5 hours for the last few of us to descend.

Boey and his two sons with Messner (white T-Shirt)

Boey and his two older boys, Calvin and Daniel accompanied and supported us. It was comforting to have them. Our eyes kept looking out for familiar landmarks to indicate that we are nearing the end of the road, looking for pine but only saw bamboo trees. Fireflies were hovering around and one even managed to get itself swallowed by David earlier, which could possibly explain how he got his second wind and covered the last stretch so quickly despite a twisted ankle.... he had fire within him.

We met Jason here at Puncak Pengasih.

It has been a long day...15 hours of hiking since 6.30am. Jason was the point man, taking the lead and marking the route with pieces of plastic tapes tied at strategic locations and shredded paper along the trail. It was good to have him, efficient, reliable, dependable and strong, which earned him the nickname "Camel" on an earlier hike of G3. Boey and I wondered how this man could do all that he did, and that without training!!!. He was fast too, covering the distance to the top within a very respectable 4 hours 45 minutes, followed closely behind by SK, fondly referred to by her husband KL as 'tigress'. KL did well, though a bit unsure of himself earlier on.

KL who referred to his wife as 'tigress'.


Chris, at the start of the never ending road.

The walk in from the base right to the end of the never ending road took me 90 minutes covering a distance of 5km. Although I have walked this road a number of times, I never did remember that it was going uphill and downhill, certainly not a casual stroll in the park. For those unfit, they would be panting and huffing and some may even think of giving up. Nevertheless it was a good warming up which could possibly explain why many of us did not feel as much muscle ache after the climb, as compared to after climbing Ledang.

KG, Eunice, Chris, David and myself were covering the back most of the way up. Weather was good, much to the relief of Eunice, that dear fellow climber, and of course the rest of us. She only decided to come if and only if it didn't rain the day before. You see, the rain would bring out more leeches, something which triggers a panic reaction in her. Chris was also afraid of them until she actually saw one...her first remark was 'huh, this is a leech? I should have known earlier'. She expected the leech to look like something out of the Rambo movie, those round shaped thingy that sticks to you and sucks all the blood out. So a giant was slain that day. Eunice's prayer that no leech would get to her worked. She saw 6 but none got to her. Courtesy of Nuang, KG and I got one each. Hmmm...call it hiking fee, donate some blood. Some even insisted in taking photograph of the creature sucking blood from my calf!.

Hiking fees in the form of donating blood :)


Radzi and Ismail

Along this road, I went ahead and caught up briefly with Radzi and Ismail, two friendly gentlemen who joined our group for the first time. They were preparing for Mt K the following month. Well, I shall say they are ready for it. I didn't see them again until they were descending from the summit while I was on the way up. They made good time. Apart from them, the other newcomers were Ah Fatt (Chih's friend), Brandon and Chan, young men who were way in front.

That's one thing about mountain climbing which I welcome very much. We get to meet many new people and hit off at the first meeting. Climbing somehow brings people together, regardless of race, religion, social status or otherwise. Some have become close buddies.

The trek to Lolo campsite was uneventful enough. Many campers were around. The usual greetings followed. I noticed that someone had removed the arrow sign pointing to the left indicating that the trek up is across the river. We almost made a mistake during Nuang 2, if not for that sign. We did the 4 river crossings easily enough, since the water levels were low.

Uncle Loke & Jack

Pretty soon we caught up with Jack and his father Uncle Loke. Uncle Loke is a springy elderly gentleman in his 60s who would put any young man to shame. He walked up Nuang with no sweat, sup sup water as they say. I mean he WALKED... while the rest of us CLIMBED. I wondered whether some people are just naturally physically gifted for such activity. On the other hand, Jack appeared to be struggling. I touched base with him and found that his last climb was KK in March, which KG and I organised. It was good to see a father and son team doing a climb together. Nowadays how often do people do that?

Praying for Jack.

We did not know it then but today we would get to know Jack a little better. It was obvious that the lack of training was taking its toll on him as he plodded along. Just after Pacat campsite, Jack suffered a back ache and decided to turn around. It must have been a difficult decision having come so far. But an injury to the back is not something that anyone should risk. We said a prayer for him before he descended with his father.

KG in his usual element..

My buddy KG was in his usual element, surpassing himself again. Having completed a 21km half marathon the Sunday before within a respectable time, following an Angsi climb on Saturday, he certainly was in tip top condition. I daresay the best I have known him to be in since many moons ago when we started our climbing adventures. I still remember that defining conversation we had about climbing Mt K in Jan 2007 which precipitated all our climbing activities till today... We still enjoy the planning and strategising and the preparations, and the satisfaction of seeing others summit peaks, pushing their limits and beyond and discovering for themselves the joy of mountain climbing.

He assisted Eunice by carrying her backpack all the way up and down and assisted any others who may need help along the way. He will say it's his training for G1. Along the way before Pacat, Chan had fallen back because of a cramp. He could not proceed further even after KG has applied medicated spray on his thigh. Chris and I met Chan that way, seated on the ground, resting, the others having left for the summit. Initially I could not recognise him since it was still dark when we met at the base. By that time Chris was having a struggle of her own. She kept wanting to stop and not proceed further. Somehow she found that her leg muscles had no strength.

KG massaging Chan's leg after applying medicated spray

I told her I cannot just leave her on her own. When she saw Chan, she quickly and happily seized the opportunity to say that she could stay with Chan until we came down. I told her no, that it would be better that she rested at Pacat campsite. She reluctantly plodded on. I found out that she had only 2 hours of sleep the night before (or more accurately that morning itself) and only 1 piece of bread. Perhaps it is the lack of energy due to insufficient food that was causing her trouble, I suggested. Along the way she took 2 energy bars.

After seemingly an endless climb up, we finally reached Pacat at around 10.30am, 4 hours later. Not bad time considering the pace we were moving and more importantly we were still within target of the summit. However, in view of Chris' performance so far, I was prepared to let her stop at Pacat and stay with her. KG on the other hand, felt she should go on at least until the next stop at Puncak Pengasih or otherwise known as the False Peak. Chris herself I was sure may have remained at Pacat if not for the fact that she felt it was unfair for me, if I were to miss out on the chance to summit because of her.

Jason, helping Chris when she almost reached Puncak Pengasih

It turned out to be the right decision for her to continue climbing and as they say, the rest is history or rather 'her story'. Chris began to climb better and better from Pacat onwards although she was sorely tempted to follow Jack and his dad down. The stretch from Pacat to Pengasih is one of the most difficult parts of Nuang or of any mountain I have climbed, more difficult than KFC of Ledang. I would call it root climbing. And yet Chris was doing very well. From then on I had no doubt she would reach the summit. At the False Peak about 12.30pm we met KG and Jason, and they were contemplating that Jason should go down to assist us. Jason, by the way, had summited at 11.23am and descended back to False Peak (about 1 hour from the summit) to provide assistance without being asked to do so. Wow...I can say very few climbers would do that, even if asked. I am sure a word of appreciation to Jason is in order here. He certainly lived up to his reputation. From then on Jason assisted Chris to the summit and carried her backpack.

David, resting at the peak after a long climb.

We finally reached the summit at about 1.30pm, approximately 7 hours later and well within the turnaround time of 2pm. Kudos to all who summited and those who didn't, don't give up. Many congratulations were passed around together with the shaking of hands. I found David sitting there snugly and having his lunch, wearing on his face the most satisfied look and savouring the moment. We shared his joy. I congratulated KL Chan, who was probably pleasantly surprised he made it despite his earlier doubts.

KG, Chris, Eunice and myself

And of course to Eunice and Chris, who have overcome personal fears and physical challenges, I am proud of you both. Scaling a peak means more than just physical achievement. For to some it is pushing beyond one's perceived limits and fears, breaking forth and finding new grounds in oneself, a sort of self discovery.

Uncle Loke and Jake made it!!

While we were all relishing the time at the summit, just before 2pm, someone brought us the news that Jack and his father were on the way up!! He sent his heralds before him! Lo and behold... what a great comeback and grand entrance (did he plan all this??? Haha) (psst KG jokingly has this theory that his father must have given Jack a piece of his mind on the descent that got Jack to turn around...). I believe Jack had the steely determination to summit. He has demonstrated that mark of a 'no quitter' so essential to any climbing adventure and the making of a true mountain climber. We were all so glad and happy for him and his father.

A great climber once said, 'Going up is optional but coming down is mandatory'. So began our descent. KG, Eunice, Chris and I were the last to go down, at about 2.30pm, 30 minutes beyond our turnaround time. We felt that it was ok to do so having that sense of control. And as any experienced mountain climber would tell you, the descent is more dangerous and many an incident has taken place on the way down.

An hour and half down, after Pengasih, I slipped as I was turning around to take a step down. It was a smooth piece of root that was positioned like a step. It happened so fast that I did not have time to react. My ribs took the full impact as they came in contact with that piece of root. Uugh! I went backwards and landed on my backpack. For a couple of minutes it took the wind out of me. KG was behind and quickly came over. I couldn't reply him initially. I found out later that I had a small crack on one of the ribs. Thank God it was only a crack. Doc Wong, a fellow climber whom I consulted, said it was not serious and I would recover fully in a month. Well, I try not to dwell on what could have happened.

David slipped and fell..

The descent otherwise was uneventful until David's left foot took a twist at the Lolo dam river crossing. Boey skilfully dressed up that foot and David found himself able to walk comfortably again, though perhaps now with much more caution.

Boey helped David with his twisted ankle and said a word of prayer.

On the way out, I reflected on that incident. Could I have avoided it? Even the question of why I am climbing mountains came across my mind. Not surprising after such an incident while walking on the never ending road in the night.

Yes, perhaps I could have avoided it. But I believe I was not reckless. I reasoned that with Nuang at certain sections of it, we have to treat it like crossing a highway, rather than a trunk road. Raised the level of care. Would I climb again? Probably yes. Apart from the sense of personal achievement and also the satisfaction of seeing others succeed, there is a bonding that forms between climbers who truly stick out for each other, as amply demonstrated by the Boey family, Jason, David and my buddy KG and the rest of the team which I was not there to witness, that would draw me back...

Chris started out with KG, Eunice and Daniel, but later fell back because her knees were hurting.

Back to Chris... it was now about 9.45pm and she was not making much progress. Her legs were in pain. According to Daniel's GPS calculation, we were still about 1.7km from the base. A long long distance.. Chris confessed later that she would not be able to walk anymore and did not know how she was going to get out. KG later told me that all the bikers he approached at the base had one excuse or another. Finally, and probably by divine intervention, a biker coming along the road agreed to stop and gave Chris a lift out at a price.

We managed to exit the never ending road about 10.15pm. Finally, the end to a very long day. Chris slept fitfully in the car. KG took over the driving cos I was almost knocked out. And can you believe it.....3 days later Chris is thinking of climbing Nuang again!!! By the way, she is already in her 60s but on that mountain peak that day, I would not be surprised if she felt 18 again. Well, that's what she answered when people kept calling her auntie and asking her age during the climb.

Finally, I must say that if not for my buddy KG's foresight of getting Jason & the Boey family in, this climb could have turned out much differently. Kudos to him... the consummate planner, who analyses all angles to a climb and who firmly believes that a major disaster is usually the result of many small (by themselves, inconsequential) mistakes coming together at the wrong time.

Climbing Gunung Nuang

Warning - This is the longest post I have ever written...

Name of Mountain - Gunung Nuang
Location - Hulu Langat, Selangor
Height - 4898ft.
Length of hike - about 9km
Level of Difficulty - 5th toughest mountain to climb in West Malaysia

Some would say that Nuang is an easy climb. Most people would say that Nuang is a tough climb. Some used Nuang as a training ground for higher and more difficult mountains. Some climbed Nuang because they wanted to meet the challenge - to climb the 5th toughest mountain in West Malaysia. Others go for the sake of their friends. Others like me, were encouraged to join the climb and to be one of the select few who made it to the top.

Now that I'm safe and well, let me tell you my story.

First and foremost, I NEVER had the intention of joining this Nuang climb. After the Ledang climb 2 months ago, I wanted to hang up my hiking boots. It was such a shame because I bought a pair of Timberland hiking shoes just before my Ledang climb. To put my shoes to "rest", just after using them for only one time, I would have thrown away RM378.

After climbing Ledang, the organisers, Messner and Sirdar started talking about climbing Gunung Nuang. I think it was during the dinner we had in Tangkak the day we climbed Ledang. Two days after the Ledang climb, Messner sent out an email on organising a climb in Nuang. I must say, that was a good move on his part so soon after the Ledang climb because everyone was excited. 61-year-old Aunt Chris had her fun in Ledang and was gamed for Nuang. I shook my head when I read all the emails coming through my mailbox. Everyone, except me, was excited about climbing Nuang. After RW's horror of Nuang in Jun 2007 and Jimbo's account in May 2008 (and the negative stories of some who were in either one of the two groups), I told myself... NO, I will not even think of climbing Nuang.

A week before the climb, Messner was on MSN and his opening line was "your Aunt Chris is doing Nuang this Sat. How about this niece?" I chatted a while with him on the general topic of climbing mountains (he did Angsi the day before) while he continued to press me for a "YES" to climb Nuang. Feeling cornered I gave him 2 conditions - 1) I have to exercise at least 4 times before the climb and 2) If it doesn't rain the few days before the climb. His reply was "wah alot of conditions....more than what a lawyer will put in a contract.." I saw Sirdar online too and he too was persuading me to join the climb. I told him that I was not fit and didn't think I should go. I also told him of the conditions I gave to Messner.

Yesterday was my decision. It didn't rain the whole week and I guessed both Messner and Sirdar were secretly glad that I would be joining them for the climb. I went to cell meeting last night and requested prayer. I told them of my fear of leeches and also ask them to pray for fine weather.

Since this was a last minute decision, I only finished packing after the meeting. I slept at about 12.35am and woke up slightly after 3am. Usually before a climb (or a vacation) I find it hard to have a good night's rest. This time I slept soundly and felt refreshed after the 2 1/2 hours of sleep.

The climbers in Seremban met in our usual place - Kemayan Square at 4am. There were 10 of us and we left in 3 cars.

We met the 7 climbers from KL at Nuang. There were 4 new climbers this time (We always meet new people in every climb).

All of us arrived on time and Messner and Sirdar briefed us on this climb. It was so dark that Messner had to turn on his car headlights. (A note to anyone who wants to start off early next time - bring a big battery-operated torchlight)

We started our journey at 6.43am. Some started earlier because they didn't have to use the restroom.

We were told that we had to walk about 5km on a never-ending boring road. 22 minutes into the journey, I stated panting. Sirdar generously offered to carry my about-5kg bag pack which I gladly gave it to him. There was no discussion of "porter fees", otherwise I would be very broke. :)

At 7.16am, I saw some other climbers taking pictures of this hut. Being a busybody, I stopped to take a picture of it too. (What I really wanted to do was to stop and rest. Taking this picture was just an excuse :)).

7.29am - A break at one of the rest areas. The never-ending boring road is just like Bukit Kepayang's.... only thing is - you'll have to walk 4km extra.. and probably take 5 times longer to reach to the end.

We smelled durians along the way. We saw at least 2 people on scooters travelling on the same road as us to collect durians. Sirdar was already thinking of buying some from the locals when we descend. A thought came into his mind and he voiced it out to the bikers. He asked if they could help us carry our bags to the end of the road. The answer was expected. They said that they had to detour into the jungle... or something like that.

I saw my first leech here. I couldn't believe it. The ground wasn't wet and here it was at the start of my climb showing off its long and lean body... like as if it was warning me that I would see more of its kind later... yucky. Aunt Chris was so excited to see one. She had a different picture of a leech in her mind.

8am - Another 5 minutes rest stop before we continued our journey. Messner placed a paper and a pencil here so that the rest of the group could mark the time they passed through here later when they descended.

8.05am. We crossed our first river. My pictures were all blurred. Not enough light, can't blame it on the camera.

Walking along the pipes reminded me of the Angsi trail.

We left the pipes and headed upwards to where the old dam was. The ones I circled were the pipes.

8.18m. This is the old dam. We have nearly reached Kem Lolo.


Durians, durians and more durians. Smelled heavenly...

8.21am - Crossing the 2nd river adjoining the dam. Aunt Chris was determined to cross the river by herself.

We saw some very interesting plants.

8.29am - At last we reached Kem Lolo. It took us 1 hour 46 minutes to reach this place. Crossing the 3rd river. If it had rained heavily today or even the day before, the water level would have risen up to our thighs and we would have had to take off our shoes to cross the river. It didn't rain and we didn't have to take off our shoes.

Crossing the 4th river near the camps. This was where Aunt Chris fell. The water was shallow but she must have slipped on a rock that was slippery. Her shoes and socks got wet but she didn't want to change her socks because she didn't see the point of wearing dry socks with wet shoes.

After Kem Lolo it's upwards all the way. From Kem Lolo to Kem Pacat the ground was orangee in colour. This made me glad that it wasn't raining and the ground was relatively dry.

A fallen tree. It was so huge.

All the way to Kem Pacat, the ground was smooth and uneven. I tell you... if it rains.. habis (gone) lah. One slip and we may end up in the natural longkang (drain) made by years and years of rain water flowing downstream. We took more than 1 hour walking through this ground.

9.54am - Just before reaching Kem Pacat, we saw LKK, Brandon and his friend, Chan. I was surprised because I knew that they were fast climbers. As we got nearer, we saw that Chan had cramps on his leg. Quickly, Sirdar went over and attended to his muscle cramps. Chan was wearing long pants and had difficulty pulling up his pants to where the cramps were. Fortunately Brandon had a spare pair of shorts in his bag and gave it to Chan. With my back turned to them, I started taking pictures of the surrounding trees. I always never see the beauty of the surroundings in all my mountain climbing trips because my goal was to reach the peak and back to the base safely.

Another fallen tree and at 10.17am, we reached Kem Pacat. (Pacat means leech in Malay).

A picture with Sirdar and Brandon. BTW, Brandon and LKK went off without Chan. Chan said that he would walk slowly to Kem Pacat and rest there.

I was here for 37 minutes. Sirdar wanted to wait for Aunt Chris and Messner. The rest of our group left at different times.

Bees everywhere. I don't like them buzzing at me. I tried to avoid them but they kept coming. :(

A bunch of students climbed with us too, but different pacing. It's good to have them. We don't feel so lonely climbing up.

We left some of our water bottles here to lighten our load. (Must remember to write names on the water bottles just in case someone accidentally takes the wrong one). My water bottle was missing when I returned for it later.

Messner left a paper and pencil here for others to record their passing through this place.

10.54am - We left Kem Pacat. Not long after that Jake complained of a back ache and he felt that it was bad enough to turn back. We were kinda sad for him and his dad. Messner prayed for him and told him to sms him when they reached the base.

Continuing our journey... it was uphill all the way to the next checkpoint. This stretch is even harder than the KFC in Ledang.

When I looked up, gosh.. the ground was almost vertical. I don't have long legs and this was a major problem. I sighed so much during this stretch . Many a time I didn't think I could make it to the next level. Fortunately Sirdar was there to help pull me up.

Along this stretch, we met Boey's 2nd son Daniel who coolly overtook us without a sweat. Boey and family had planned to lead a group up Broga Hill and couldn't join us for the Nuang's climb. After receiving Sirdar's distress call a day before the climb, the family said that they would come to Nuang after their hike at Broga. Daniel reported that they reached Nuang's base at 9.30am , almost 3 hours from the time we started. The rest of the Boey family (Boey, Shirley, and 2 other sons, Calvin and young Brandon) said that they would wait for us at Kem Pacat.

12.24pm - At long last we reached the next checkpoint - Puncak Pengasih (Lover's Peak) also known as the False Peak. It was very misty. The air was cool. Sirdar thought that it would rain later but he was wrong.

We saw Jason here. I remembered we kept asking him where Puncak Pengasih was and he didn't know what we were talking about. Then suddenly Sirdar spotted the signboard just a few meters ahead of us and told Jason that this was the Puncak Pengasih, the last checkpoint before we reach the summit. Jason was a last minute recruit for this trip. Sirdar, realizing how weak our team was (only Messner, Sirdar and Brandon had summited this mountain before) managed to persuade Jason to help out. I remembered what Jason said last year about Nuang. His leg muscles ached for 3 days and he would never want to climb Nuang again.

Jason had summited at 11.23am and he came down to check if we needed help. Sirdar asked if Jason could accompany Aunt Chris back to the base. She wanted to turn back after Kem Lolo and both Messner and Sirdar persuaded her to go to the next checkpoint. At Kem Pacat, she said she would wait there for us, but Sirdar made her fell guilty by saying that if she stayed, Messner would have to accompany her too. They told her to climb up to the next checkpoint.

While Jason and Sirdar were discussing about Aunt Chris, we suddenly heard Messner calling out to Sirdar. Wow!! I thought. Aunt Chris made it I was happy for her. It seems she ate only 1 piece of bread and that was too little for a big climb like this. So after gulping down 2 energy bars, she suddenly had the energy to climb.

Together, we continued our journey. Jason carried Aunt Chris' bag and slowly we made our way to the peak. We came across this stone that marks the Pahang/Selangor border.

We rested at Puncak Pengasih for about 10 minutes before we continued on. After Puncak Pengasih we found ourselves descending climbing over the rocks and had to be very careful. We took about 1 hour to reach the peak.

1.34pm - The peak at last. I was so glad I made it to the peak. I quickly smsed Mctc and started snapping pictures. Sirdar started making lunch. He boiled water to make coffee and then later heated some Brahim's Beef Kurma to go with the pita bread. Aunt Chris offered some of her sandwiches too.

And what do you know...we saw Jack and his dad summiting 24 minutes after we did. Gosh! It was indeed a miracle. After we parted ways, they went down to Kem Pacat to rest and suddenly Jack realised that his back ache was gone. So they started climbing up again.

We saw a squirrel too. It posed for the camera before running off. Messner had a leech bite and allowed us to take a few photos before Sirdar gently pulled it off with the help of some salt.

A group photo to show that we made it!! Some had already descended so we don't have an actual group picture of the whole team.

Sirdar and Messner, the two organisers who diligently planned and organised this climb and other previous climbs including 5 trips to Mount Kinabalu. You guys are the greatest. I can't imagine climbing any mountains without you guys. You made the climb more interesting. More importantly, you guys believed that all of us could summit. Thank you Sirdar and Messner.

2.37pm - Our turnaround time was set at 2pm, but we lingered for another close to 40 minutes before leaving the summit.

3.32pm - The Pahang/Selangor marker .

Heading towards Puncak Pengasih.

3.44pm - Reached Puncak Pengasih. We could hear Aunt Chris, but didn't know why she was making so much noise. Later, we found out that Jason had "abandoned" her and she needed help to go down the steep ground. David agreed to be with her and together they went down and were never to be seen again until we reached Kem Pacat.

Somewhere between Puncak Pengasih and Kem Pacat, Messner took a fall and cracked one of his ribs. (He found that out later). Sirdar quickly attended to him. Messner laid down for at least 5 minutes. Fortunately the ground he fell onto was flat. This terrain right up to Kem Pacat was very steep and he was indeed fortunate to fall flat on his back.

After a while, slowly, he could move and we descended slower than usual, always keeping an eye on him. I never got a chance to take a picture of him lying down because my camera was in Sirdar's pouch and Messner may not have liked me taking his picture when he was in pain.

We spotted a chameleon too.

5.20pm - Finally reach Kem Pacat. We were greeted by Aunt Chris " Why so long one ah?" and hellos by the Boey family. They were at Kem Pacat since noon and waited for us for more than 5 hours.
We left Kem Pacat at 5.36pm and along the way, Aunt Chris knees were starting to get really painful. She took an aspirin and Sirdar sprayed some instant pain relief thingy on her knees.

7pm - We reached Kem Lolo. Aunt Chris's knees were getting worse.

While we were crossing the river near the dam, David fell. I guess either the rocks were too slippery or he was also tired out from the long hike or both. He sprained his ankle and couldn't move for a while.

Aunt Chris didn't want to stop because if she did, her knees would be more painful. After like 5 minutes or so, Sirdar, Aunt Chris and I started walking, leaving Messner and Boey's family with David. Sirdar was hurrying out to the "never-ending-boring road" because he wanted to check if there were any motorbikes available to take Aunt Chris and David out to the base.

7.39pm - When we reached the start (depending on where you came from) of the boring road, we saw 2 bikes and some (at least 6-7) scooters. Our hopes were raised. When we asked the owners of the vehicles, they had some lame excuse. The bikes did not have lights and there was very little petrol in the scooters.

Left with no choice, we walked on. Aunt Chris took out her torchlight. Mine didn't give out much light, so I didn't want to use it.

After like 15 minutes or so, we heard Messner's voice... and soon we saw the Boeys and David.. WOW.. he was walking steadily with the help of 2 walking sticks. He said that Boey prayed for him to have supernatural strength and he got exactly that. PTL!

We saw some mushrooms.. it reminded me of Enid Blyton and her tales. I didn't come across these mushrooms while walking up this road early in the morning.

Anu Chris' knees were so painful that her pace was so much slower than mine. Soon there was a gap between the first group - Sirdar, David, Shirley (Mrs Boey) and I AND the 2nd group - Peter, Aunt Chris, Boey and his two older sons.

Every motorbike that passed us we asked if they could fetch Aunt Chris to the base. All of them had the same excuse - no petrol.

The first group reached the base at 9.26pm. My knees were hurting and my soles were in a bad shape. I just wanted to take off my shoes and wear my comfy slippers. Imagine, I was wearing a pair of panty hose (someone said that the leeches won't get through them), a pair of socks and another pair of panty hosed-kind-of-material ankle stockings.

A few minutes after we reached the base, we heard from Boey's radio that Peter's team managed to get a biker to take Aunt Chris to the base. It cost her RM30, but she gladly parted with her cash. She must be thinking - What was RM30 compared to a LOOOOOONG walk in the dark? (FYI, my friends who went to Nuang in 2007 and 2008 paid only RM5 per person for a biker to take them out to the base).

I quickly showered and boy, the water was cold, but very refreshing. The bathrooms were quite clean too. Let's see, there were 4 toilets, 2 changing rooms and 2 bathrooms.

Not long after I took my shower, Aunt Chris reached the base. She looked so tired. I helped her carry her bag of clean clothes to the bathroom. Although her bag was very light, I sensed that she did not have the energy to lift even her own bag. I had the same feeling when I was in Ledang last year. I was so tired out, till even taking of my clothes to bathe was a hassle.

10.13pm - About 45 minutes later, Peter and team arrived at the base. He looked tired and worn out. Oh, by the way, there were no street lights near the bathroom or even at the car park, so it would help a lot if you have a big torch light and place it on top of the car.

10.38pm - We left Nuang and headed to Semenyih to look for food. Messner was so tired that he allowed Sirdar to drive his Rexton. Jason drove Sirdar's car. It was already past 11pm and we couldn't find any Chinese restaurants open at this hour. So we decided to eat in Seremban - Lobak Food Court. We had our dinner at 12 midnight and I reached home at about 1.15am.

Surprisingly, the next day I was able to get up with minimal muscle aches. I could run up and down the stairs. To me, climbing Nuang was not as tiring as Ledang. Maybe because it didn't rain or maybe because I had so much help from Sirdar. :P

Oh, compliments from Nuang. I took a fall on the "orangee" ground between Kem Lolo and Kem Pacat. My back hit a thin tree stump and gave me a nasty bruise just beside my left shoulder blade.

All in all, I thought this was a good climb. It didn't rain, I saw 6 leeches but none bit me and God's hand was upon all of us.

P/S Read Messner's account coming up soon. (For Messner's article on Nuang, click here)

FB Chat Got Limit?

I was happily chatting with someone on Facebook when a message appeared in the chat box -

I was taken aback. Strange. I never knew that there was a limit to chat messages in FB. Hmm... we didn't chat that long too. Probably about 2 hours or so. Is it only me or has anyone out there received this message before?

Ikea's 1st Day of Sale

Two days ago, Matt asked if I wanted to go to Ikea today. I was hesitant because there were a lot of things to buy in Ikea.. things which looked nice and have this "buy-me" look in Ikea. More often or not they were placed in one corner of the house or somtimes even in the storeroom.

I decided, maybe I should go, just to update myself. I haven't been in Ikea for a very long time. The word "long" is relative. I think the last time I stepped into Ikea was last year.

I went for a walk with my sisters early this morning and had breakfast with them after that. Then I went to my parents' house to bathe and then went to church to do some work. At 12pm Matt and I left to pick Esther and Minch from their house (they were on leave). We had lunch together. We reached Ikea at about 2.30pm. In my list of things to get, I had to look for a garlic crusher, a shower curtain and a sponge holder.

I found the garlic crusher and shower curtain but couldn't find the sponge holder. As I passed through the kitchen section I saw this -

A kettle. I've been wanting to buy an honest-to-goodness kettle. I had an electric jug kettle, but not one that operates on a stove. When I was in Melbourne 2 months ago I saw De using a kettle with a sprout cover. From that time onwards I told myself, if I ever see one with a sprout cover I would buy it.

I found it in Ikea... and I placed it in the shopping cart. :)


And I saw this too -

A floor lamp. The place where I worked/blogged/chat/FB doesn't have enough light and I needed to get a reading lamp so badly.

It was on sale and I immediately grabbed it.

After checking out, we went to have our favourite hot dog (cost only RM2) and curry puffs (RM1). Esther and I were so hungry after shopping for 3 hours. The hot dogs were yummy as ever and the curry puffs were simply heavenly. I think the hot dogs tasted better than the ones I had in New York.

It was a really a fulfilling day for me. I even finished the book One Fifth Avenue by Candace Bushnell. I slept at 4am because of that. :)

Making Omelettes for Lunch

Last week, I asked my friends if they know of a good omelette recipe. Some commented in FB and one posted the recipe in his blog. Looks easy to make.

Yesterday I tried making one. I had 3 eggs, onions, button mushrooms and cheese. I cooked the onions and mushrooms first and placed it aside. Then I beat the eggs and added cheddar cheese, salt and pepper in it. I poured the eggs mixture into a frying pan - um ... a 25cm frying pan.. and it spread out until it was quite thin. Once the mixture was half cooked, I added the mushrooms and onions. Then I tried to fold the egg skin (how else do you call it?) to cover the mushrooms and onions. The skin broke. :( It wasn't a pretty sight. Later when I ate it, it didn't taste good too. I think it was not cheesy and salty enough and I cooked it in oil instead of butter.

I have 4 more eggs left. Today I thought I would give it another try.

This time I added chicken sausage.



I cooked it in a smaller pan...

A really small 14cm-pan. It looked like a mini pizza. I made sure I used butter instead of oil, and added more cheese and salt.

The pan was so small that I wasn't sure whether the middle of the egg mixture was cooked. Anyway, I put it under the fire for a while longer before transferring it to a plate. It didn't look good but it taste delicious.. but after a while, a bit " jelak" because of the butter and cheese.

I think it will take me a while before I try making omelettes again. :P

561 Pages

I am now reading this book, author of Sex and the City. I am now at page 90 and at this point, not very interesting. Another 471 pages more to go. Too many names to remember, I always have to look back to check who's who. Let's hope the ending's good. :)

My Poor Clogs

I bought the clogs in March 2009. It was so beautiful and fragile that I never really wore them. Two Sunday's ago, I wore them to church. Then I left them in Rachel's car because we planned to go to the Lake Gardens for a walk later.

Later during the week, I saw them in Rachel's car and brought them home. As I was carrying the clogs from the car into the house, one of them fell.

Sigh.. so sad. I kept thinking about it for the next hour.. trying to tell myself that they are only shoes. In time I will forget about them. :(

Pot Bless Dinner

Two weeks ago, I was invited to an event in FB. The event was to be held in my uncle's house and the occasion was... no one knew. We thought maybe they wanted to celebrate my Aunt Sally's birthday... but her birthday was not until end of July. After a few speculations, the other aunties asked my uncle. It seems that his daughter felt like it was a long time since the last family gathering, so she just made a suggestion and see if all of us wanted to meet for dinner. Aunt Sally said she was making prawn noodles (yummy). Then one of the aunties said maybe we should each bring a dish. Some said okay, some thought we would have too much to eat then, because Aunt Sally was preparing the prawn noodles for everyone.

So, this is how the prawn noodles looked like. Aunt Sally had to do it bowl by bowl. First she "cook" (just put in hot boiling water for a few seconds) the noodles and vege. Then she added the soup. Then it's up to us whether we want to add the meat, prawns and fried onions. The soup was oh-so-good.

The other family members contributed the following -
Aunt Chris - corn beef with eggs , garlic bread and some dragon fruit enzyme dessert.
Aunt Alice - Fried Chicken
Rachel - Pudding
David - barbequed pork meat
Su-Ann - Cheese Cake
My mom - some chinese vege dish, not sure what it is called in English.

I'm not sure who contributed the pizza and boh-boh-cha-cha. Esther and I brought Cream Cracker Cake made by Tusi. I didn't want to make brownies because I knew that there would be more than enough food to feed an army. With Su-Ann's cheesecake and Rachel's pudding, we have covered the dessert part.

You can tell that we are a close-knited family. We love gatherings like this. It's fun. The kids - Brian, Mae-Z and Sze-En were happily playing outside.

And guess what? It was one of my cousin's birthday. He got invited toand we forgot that his birthday falls on the 12th of July.

So now that this is over.. I think our next gathering will be in September - the lantern festival. Yay! Can't wait.

Pizza Italia

The day before, Rachel expressed that she wanted me to try this new pizza outlet called Pizza Italia in Seremban 2 (behind Columbia Hospital). She has been there once but it seems that they ran out of dough for the pizza.

Since there were only the 2 of us and we wanted to try a variety of pizzas and other food, we called Tusi along, knowing that she would love eating something different. None of my other family members, except my brother and twin, enjoys eating pizza, mainly because of the cheese. The older sister can only take certain kinds of cheese, ones that do not have a strong smell.

Rachel placed an order for 2 pizzas - one chicken and one beef. Fortunately she had gone there once and got hold of their name card. She called them just before we left my parents' house.

The pizzas came not too long after we were seated. They tasted good... nothing like Pizza Hut. :). Last time, when I was working in KL, I had to work late almost every day. Usually we would order from Pizza Hut and over time I got very scared of eating pizzas.

This Pizza Italia... I won't say it's the best, but it's definitely better than Pizza Hut or Shakey's. The cheese they use makes a difference. I do not have much experience when it comes to pizzas, but so far the best pizza I've ever eaten came from Villa Romana in Melbourne, Australia. I have also tried the pizza they sold in Disneyland, California ... very cheesy and salty but it's nice too.

We tried the chicken lasagna. Not so nice. :(.

Dessert was tiramisu. Tasted good. I want to try making this someday... probably call some guinea pigs for tea too.. hehe.

Manholes in Kuching

Bet you never see a more interesting manhole cover right? This is (I think) only found in Kuching, Sarawak.

A closer look at the manhole cover. Some may ask.. why is there a picture of a cat on the cover? Well, the old spelling for cat in the Malay language is Kuching.

This is the normal manhole cover in Kuching.

What's For Lunch?

Usually, when I am at home I cook a simple meal for lunch. Very often it's noodles and some vegetables.

Two days ago, I helped Rachel prepare dinner. It was a very simple meal. The ingredients were button mushrooms, lots of garlic, some Italian spices and spaghetti. Simple right? It was delicious.

Today, I tried making something like that, but with different ingredients.

First I boiled the spaghetti, the broccoli and some sausages.

Then I chopped the garlic (the garlic chopper makes it so easy) and yellow onions and fried them separately. Once the spaghetti, broccoli and sausages were cooked, I fried them together with the onions and garlic. I added some Italian spices. Rachel told me no to put thyme in, but mine came in a premixed bottle and I thought it should be alright.

My pasta dish looked good. The smell was right. I would love to boast of my fine cooking but I have to admit, the taste was horrible. It was bitter and had one kind of funny taste.

What went wrong?

Was it the oil? I used extra virgin olive oil.

Was it the broccoli? I should have stuck to the button mushrooms.

Was it the onions? I shouldn't have added the onions.

Was it the thyme spice? I'm not sure. Probably.

It was an awful lunch and I ate some Chipsmore biscuits after that to take away the weird taste. :(

Goodmaid Warehouse Sales

Where in the world can you buy detergent for so cheap?

Last Friday Matt announced in Facebook that Goodmaid was having a warehouse sales in Senawang. I asked him for the goods and price list and found the products to be very cheap. (50-70% cheaper than what we usually pay). They had the sale on for 2 days only - Friday and Saturday.

I went to the factory in the evening with Mctc and bought a bunch of cleaning products. Fortunately, I brought my little for-luggage-use trolley which I bought in America some time back. I bought some detergent for my mother too who once told me that she uses the dishwashing liquid like it water. She had to buy the 5 liters bottle so that she needn't think of buying them so frequently. I had no such problem. I usually purchase the 1 liter bottle and it could last me the whole year. I don't cook very often. :)

The next day, Minch called up early in the morning and asked if I wanted to follow her to the warehouse sales. She wanted to buy some detergent for her friend. Feeling excited, yet lazy, I told her that I would go with her. So I went.. with my trolley.

We bought so much stuff. My trolley wasn't big enough for all our purchase. I bought more dishwashing liquid for my mom and a few other items I didn't see the day before.

While heading towards the car with our stuff, I saw my church friends. I asked if they wanted to borrow my trolley. At first they said they didn't need one because their mom will only get a few things. Knowing that they would buy more than a few things, I told them to take the trolley and return it later.

Then later in the evening, I asked my aunt if she needed anything from the warehouse sales and she said she wanted the fabric softener. Minch was willing to go there again and she called another friend to come along too. We dropped by at church to pass Minch brother something. I saw my friends - the ones who borrowed by trolley earlier on. I asked them if they had it in their car. They said they saw another church friend in the warehouse and pass edthe trolley to her. Umm.... ok, I thought.

I didn't get many things this time. A lot of the stock was sold out. I could see many empty boxes. Minch's friend brought quite a lot of the same item.

When I reached home, I place them all in a plastic box.

So here they are... enough to last me at least 6 months (for some items) - 2 years. :)

Plucking Rambutans

When Mctc suggested we go to a friend's house to pluck rambutans, I wasn't really keen. First of all, I don't really know the owner of of the house and secondly, I wasn't dressed to climb up the trees. Later I found out that there was a third reason - there were lots of mosquitoes.

When we reach the place, I saw Christine happily cutting bunches of rambutans off the trees. She told me that she love doing this.

The guys were just standing around doing nothing. Haha.. no lah, I came quite late and I'm sure Eddie did his share of work too. Steven was at the back doing his fair share of making the trees lighter.

There were at least 6-7 boxes/bags of rambutans and so many still waiting to be plucked. Eddie told the owner that he and his team would come back one Sunday for a 2nd round of harvesting.

Never be deceived by the colour of the skin. The yellow rambutans were just as good as the red ones. The bag of rambutans that I brought back had more than 100 seeds. I gave them all to my parents.

Eddie calls my mom's house the town hall (or community hall) because there is always something going on there most the time. It's a good and fun place for gatherings, and meetings. :)

Durian Party

Oh yummy, yummy durians.

Some 2 weeks ago, Eddie suggested having a durian party in my mom's house. Most of us were durian lovers and we only eat the best ones. A few days ago we set the date for our durian party. It was held yesterday at 8pm. We were warned not to have our dinner, otherwise we would be too full to enjoy the durians. Eddie said that he would supply the durians. He told me that there were 19 durians weighing more than 30 kilos.

He brought only 14 durians to my mom's house and we had expected about 15-20 people coming to this party. Even when Eddie told me that there were 19 durians, earlier on, I thought they weren't enough for everyone. When he brought only 14 durians, I thought I'd better have a light dinner first before the party started.

The durians looked and smelt wonderful. They taste yummy but they are probably the worst fruit to consume. They are super sweet and causes blood pressure to rise. People who are diabetics or have heart problems should minimise their intake of durians and if possible, avoid eating durians at all cost.

As usual, my dad had the honor of opening the durians. Actually none of us (my immediate family) knew how to open them. Aunt Chris helped to open some of them too. Although she loved durians very much, she didn't have any. She didn't want her blood pressure to rise. We all marveled at her will-power.

Gosh.... the durains looked so inviting.. I didn't have much will-power when it came to bitter-sweet durians. I had about 6 seeds.

There were about 20 of us who were at my parents' house, and we only opened 13 durians. Some didn't like durians and the rest of us ate about 5 or more seeds.

When we were younger, my parents would buy like 5 or 6 durians for us to eat. My dad wasn't a wealthy man but he always tried to buy some every durian season. During those days, there was no guarantee whether the durians were good or bad. Sometimes half of the durians had worms in it.

Now that the quality of durians are better and more people are willing to spend a fortune just to eat good durians, we are all so choosy. They have even given names for different types of durians like Red Prawns and D24. The cheap ones cost about RM2-3 per kilo and the expensive ones ranges from RM10 per kilo onwards.

I am now willing myself not to eat any more durians. I have reached my quota of durian intake this year. :(

Sarawak Trip 2009

I have written 16 posts concerning my 4 day trip to Kuching this month. Click each one of them to read about my experience. Enjoy :)

Kuching, Sarawak, Day 1

Sarawak Cultural Village

Damai Beach, Sarawak

Cat Museum, Sarawak

Kuching, Sarawak, Day 2

Sunday Morning in Kuching, Sarawak

St Thomas Cathedral

Riverboat Ride in Kuching, Sarawak

Kuching Waterfront, Kuching, Sarawak

Tunes Hotel.com, Kuching

Kuching, Sarawak - Day 3

Sarawak River Cruise

Kuching, Sarawak - Day 4

Jong's Crocodile Farm & Zoo, Sarawak

Pottery Factory in Kuching, Sarawak

Semenggoh Wildlife Centre, Kuching, Sarawak

Kuching, Sarawak - Day 4

On our final day of our Kuching trip, we've decided to hire a couple of taxis and visit the orangUtans and the pottery factory. Initially we wanted to do this on the 3rd day, but I reminded Esther that we had to check out of Tune hotel by 10am and it would be better if we hire the taxis on the last day of our trip and ask them to take us to the airport at the end of the day. This would save us the taxi fares from the city to the airport. :P

It was decided the day before that we had to get up early today if we wanted to go out for breakfast at 7am. Aunt Annie, Aunt Chris and Brian decided not to go. The rest of us were looking forward to have another famous-only-in-Sarawak meal called Hor Thien Hoo (not sure if it was spelt or pronounced correctly). Sze-En's dad told her that she must try this food. So for the first few days we went around hunting for this food.

The day before, after our heavy breakfast, we passed by a restaurant selling this food. Actually, it was by pure chance that we stumbled upon this restaurant. My mom saw the cook making this food and asked her what it was. It was so uniquely made and my mom couldn't resist asking the cook what was this food called. When she realized that this was what we were hunting for all the while, she and the other aunties wanted to order a bowl and shared among them. But they were so full from breakfast and everyone thought it would be better to try it the next day.

The restaurant was situated very near to the "great cat."

The "noodle" was made of rice flour and they just added some water and cooked it flat on a wok. Once it was cooked, they peel it of the wok and mix them with a bowl of soup. The soup contained all kinds of nice ingredients like fish, mushrooms, white and black fungus. A bowl of this cost RM4.50, a very reasonable price because of the ingredients.

The "Hor Thien Hoo" looks like a bowl of meen fun koh, but it sure taste different. I had my usual teh-si.

After breakfast, we walked back to our hotel and started packing up. Once we have finished packing, my parents and aunties saw that they had at least 1/2 an hour to kill, so they played their card games again.

The day before, my mom went out for a walk alone along the waterfront. She met someone, a driver of a van-for-hire and he said that he was willing to hire his 11-seater van for RM200 (USD57, EURO 40) for the whole day and he would chauffeur us wherever we wanted to go. My mom was thinking - if we hire 2 car taxis , it would cost us the same, but we would be in 2 different cars. To have all of us in 1 vehicle could be better right? And so, she got then man's contact number and gave it to Esther.

Esther called him to confirmed the hiring of his van. He agreed to take us up from the hotel at 9.30am. Umm... for all who are thinking of doing the same thing if you have a big group, be sure to check out the van first. The van that we booked was old and the air-cond was pathetic.

Anyway, we have already agreed to take his van, we shouldn't complain too much. The driver suggested to go to the Crocodile Farm first. We weren't so keen but since he suggested it, so we went.

This is the Jong's Crocodile Farm and Zoo. Like I've mentioned in my earlier post, the idea of visiting the crocodiles weren't very appealing to me. It was one of those "been there done that" kind of thing.

It was already passed 12pm and we were hungry.... at least I was, watching the crocodiles fight for their food made me hungry. The driver took us to a place to have lunch.

I must say, the food here is very good. I had nasi hailam (Hailam rice) and the others had chicken chop rice or rice with mixed dishes.

The driver suggested us to go to a bird's nest.. um farm or shop, but we said we didn't want to go there because we wanted to spend more time at the pottery factory.

Here at the pottery factory, the kids had so much fun. They declared that of all the places they visited, the pottery factory was the best. I think that they just love to get their hands dirty. hehe.

Our next destination was the Semenggoh Wildlife Centre. We arrived there a little too early to see the orang utans so what did was to check out the area.

Apart from the orang utans, we saw pepper and pitcher plants too.

Our next destination - the airport. We told the driver that we wanted to reach the airport by 5pm, but we were too tired out to go anywhere else. We arrived at the airport at 4pm. It wasn't time to check in yet and so we waited till 5.15pm for the counter to open.

Once we got our boarding passes we went straight to the waiting area. We had to go through the international flight entrance. Over here domestic flights means places like Miri and Sibu.

The kids had a light meal at the Mary Brown restautant. I think this is the only restaurant once you get pass the immigration counter.

We had over an hour to kill before boarding the plane. After the kids had their meal, they wandered over to look at the planes while the aunties and my mom played their card games again.... in the airport. Sigh! What would they do without the RM3.80 cards, I wonder.

Oh this was our fourth day and by the time we reached the airport, Brian was so fed-up with Sze-En's presence. Did I tell you that she is a real chatter-box? Anyway, sometimes it is nice to hear what she had to say but other times... gosh.. I'm glad I'm not staying in the same house as her. hehe..

We separated the kids and there was peace. :)

The plane took off a little bit later than its scheduled time. It was alright.. as long as it wasn't like 1 hour or more.

This was what I had in the plane - nasi goreng with satay (fried rice and barbequed chicken). Esther had the Air Asia's famous nasi lemak.

Sze-En ordered maggi mee (at last her mom allowed her to have a cup of instant maggi mee)... but it was such a shame that she couldn't eat it because she was airsick. She slept most of the journey back and my mom ate her maggi mee for her.

Well... that's all. My Kuching trip ends here. All in all it was a good trip. I enjoyed my time in Kuching and didn't really mind the complains and grumbling made by the rest of my family members... hehe.

Our next trip? Not sure, but one of the aunties suggested Langkawi. Hmmm.... I'm not too sure about that. :)

Semenggoh Wildlife Centre, Kuching, Sarawak

Ah... the orang utans at the Semenggoh Wildlife Centre. I was so looking forward to visit this place. This is a rehabilitation centre and if I remember correctly, we were told that initially there were only 12 orang utans here, but now they have multiplied to 24.

The entrance fee was RM3 per adult and there were no charges for the children. Our van driver told us that we could purchase the tickets cheaper as a group. The entrance fees for a group of 5 adults cost RM10 (meaning RM2 per adult) and the 6th adult had to pay the normal price - RM3.

From the car park, we had to walk quite a distance to where we thought the orang utan would be. It's not that far actually, but one of my aunts who had knee problems thought it was too far for her and she said she would wait for us at the car park.

The dos and don'ts.

We were told that the feeding time was at 3 - 4pm. We reached here at 2.30pm. So what we did was to look around. There was an exibition of some sort. I wasn't too keen on that and didn't take any pictures of them.

We saw the crocodiles again. Aunt Chris said that she had never seen a real live crocodile before, and she finally got to meet some of them here.

We saw some orchids and pitcher plants.

The kids were getting restless. It was almost 3pm and they were wondering when will the orang utans make their appearance.

At 3pm, a park personnel asked us to congregate in another place. He gave us some rules to observe. Among them were no flash photography, no feeding the orang utans, be quiet at all times, keep away food and water bottles out of sight from the monkeys and be prepared to have a sudden hot shower (a.k.a pee from the orang utans). Naturally as we entered the jungle, all of us were looking at our surroundings, not wanting to have hot showers from the orang utans. Oh... the park personnel also said that we may not see the orang utans if they were not hungry and didn't want to come out and grab a bite from where the food was prepared for them. He asked us to be patient and not go off in a huff after waiting only for a short while.

We were told to go into the jungle to the feeding area, about 200 meters from the roadside. Going inside the jungle reminded me a lot of climbing Gunung Datuk, the only thing was, here the ground was flat with the occasional tree roots patterning the ground.

We reached the feeding area in probably 3 minutes or so. We waited and waited.. and scanned the trees above us (you know, just in case..) and looked at the feeding area. The kids were waiting patiently too, and I think it was harder for Sze-En because she loves to talk and it was so difficult for her to keep quiet for too long. Just before the trip to this place, we told her that the orang utans won't come out and she would have to call out to them by speaking their language. I guess she was also all prepared to make her monkey's call but that was before we knew that we had to be quiet.

After waiting for 10 minutes, the park personnel (he was on a walkie-talkie with someone) said that the orang utans were at the car park area.

So off we went out of the jungle to the carpark. Aunt Chris phoned Aunt Annie to tell her that the orang utans were seen at the car park area. Aunt Annie said yeah, she was looking at them now. Gosh, the amount of walking we did (actually not much, but we were all so tired by then) and all along we could have waited for the orang utans in the car park area. Aunt Annie was laughing at us. She thought she gave seeing orang utans a miss (because she had knee problems and couldn't walk fast and far) but in the end she was the first one who saw them.

Here's the orang utan, posing for the camera. My camera wasn't good enough to take nice shots and the sky didn't cooperate either. We could hear the thunder and the sun hid behind the clouds most of the time. I had to zoom to take this shot. There were so many people wanting to take a look at the orang utans. So many cameras were focused on them. Knowing the weakness of my camera, I left the scene so that others could have a better glimpse of the monkeys and probably get some good shots of them with their DSLRs.

There were 3 orang utans. We even saw a mother with its baby.

While we were in the jungle, Aunt Annie made friends with the taxi drivers and they told her how a pepper plant looked like.

Here's how they looked like. They were planted along the roadside. The taxi drivers also pointed out the orang utans nest to her. When we reached the car park, she told us that she made the right decision of staying in the car park area.

I really enjoyed this visit very much and would highly recommend this place to anyone visiting Kuching. Nothing beats looking at wildlife animals without them being caged up. :)

Pottery Factory in Kuching, Sarawak

From the first day itself Sze-En was looking forward to visit the pottery factory while she was in here in Kuching. So after the crocodile farm, we went to one of the random pottery factories found in the outskirts of Kuching.

I can't remember what was the name of this factory. We were each given a round sticker to paste on our T-Shirts. I didn't see the need of it because a visit to this factory was free. From the entrance we could see some activities going on upstairs.

There were at least 5 0r 6 women carving the vases. I was impressed by their art. They could create a pattern using free hand. I didn't see any pencil markings on the vase, or maybe the markings were so fine that it could only be seen by the person carving it.

Some almost finished vases.

Here's a potter hard at work. When he saw us, he begin making a few different types of vases.

Originally, he was supposed to make these. They looked like covers for claypots.

The potter was kind enough to let the kids play and make their own pots. Esther also dirtied her hands and tried to create a vase out of the lump of clay.

After a while, they only managed to make these :-

It's not so easy after all. This made me think of God trying to mold and shape us into a person pleasing to Him. After this session I'm sure Sze-En and Brian must be thinking.. it's not easy being God after all... human beings are all so stubborn.

There was a special place to wash off the clay. My parents and the aunties were getting restless and we asked the kids to clean their hands. As soon as their hands were cleaned, both of them rushed back to the working place and started playing with the clay lump again. They really love this place. After a few minutes, they went to wash their hands again.

Later I asked the kids this question - Of all the places they visited which was the best place they enjoyed? Both of them said that it was the pottery factory.

Jong's Crocodile Farm & Zoo, Kuching, Sarawak

The idea of visiting the crocodile farm wasn't very appealing to me. I knew how crocodiles looked like. I've been to the zoo a few times and they all looked the same. They all looked as if they were sleeping. Not very interesting at all.

Since the kids were with us and they were all geared up to go, we found ourselves here at the crocodile farm. Oh, we booked a van (with a driver) for the whole day. What we did was to let the driver know where we wanted to go and he would take us there.

The entrance fees were quite pricey. Someone (can't remember who) said it cost RM10 and that someone must have been a Sarawakian. Looking at what we had to pay, I assumed we were once again treated as a foreigner. :(

I really didn't want to visit this place, but I went because Esther may need help looking after the 2 kids. I told my parents and the aunties that they needn't come in. We'd try to be quick, after all there's nothing much to see except crocodiles. They were relived. They also didn't want to see the crocodiles. I was really surprised when my dad decided to come along with us.

A photo shoot first with a non-moving crocodile.


Crocodile eggs anyone?


A Chameleon. The kids saw them at the Malacca Butterfly & Reptile Sanctuary too.


A goat and some chickens..... if you can spot them.

Ah.... this is what we came for.. the crocodiles, all lying on top of each other. I wonder why they do that.

We saw otters, monkeys, peacock/hen and cassowary.

The farm area was bigger that I had expected. We were there in time for them to feed the crocodiles. We saw 2 men throwing baskets of fish to the crocodiles. When it came to food, the active ones got to eat more. Crocs who were too slow or were fast asleep would have to wait for the next feeding time.

There were some long benches nearby and we realized that the real "feeding the crocodiles show" was about to start when everyone started choosing their places.

Oh... there's the bait. Someone had wheeled 2 baits away from each other to the middle of the pond.

Crocodiles were swimming leisurely, still unaware of the bait...

Ah.... I smell food....oh it's up there. What is it doing up there? Now i must summon my strength to reach for the food.

One, two, three.. up.

Sometimes the person manning the bait purposely lifted the rope higher when the crocodile was about to eat it.

After a while we got bored and left the scene. Thank God the kids also had enough of the show.

I wonder why the crocodiles sometimes sleep with their mouths open.


Exploring further...

We saw other animals here. Surprisingly the owl was awake. It blinked a few times to let us know that it was watching us.

We came across a pond full of water lilies.. but no flowers. :(


The otters again. The kids said goodbye to their favourite animal.

We were inside the farm for about an hour. Guess what my mom and the aunties did while we were inside the farm?

They were playing card games again. (Like that also can!!!)

Another photo shoot of the kids at the entrance of the farm, another "been there done that" to add to my list. :)