Road Trip 10~13/07/2008 - Part 5

.
Day 4 - 13/7/08

Ah ha. Finally this is the last post about this trip. Phewww..

The view of local town in Cameron Highlands, we were the only tourists there.

It was actually an apartment unit and rented out to us.

The first destination would be Sungai Palas. Great place for breakfast with nice view. In fact I would prefer the T-café for scones. Cheaper and taste better. However, we were running out of time and so we combined both objectives in one place. As usual, it was so crowded and all nice locations were already seated. Some of us had cakes, scones, and sandwiches. All of us ordered different flavours of teas and got mixed up eventually since we are not good in distinguishing them.

The brothers of the century.

The last breakfast for our road trip.

Posing is necessary.

The next place we went was the strawberry farm. It’s definitely not an easy place to find the farm. It’s situated deep inside the Sungai Palas and you will see a signboard on your way to BOH Tea Center.

Most of the members were given a basket and spreaded off quickly to harvest strawberries like hardworking bees.

Our machine in front of the animal farm

On the way back, we stopped by at the Blue Valley to get some vegetables back home.

Most of the day was spent inside the car as we traveled from Cameron Highland back to KL via Simpang Pulai route.

This is how we ended our 4 days road trip, with tiredness, sweats, burnt skins, few hundreds poorer, back home with lots of smelly clothes, vegetables and strawberries.

Lastly, I enjoyed much and looking forward to the next trip!

The End
.

Road Trip 10~13/07/2008 - Part 4
.
Road Trip 10~13/07/2008 - Part 3
.
Road Trip 10~13/07/2008 - Part 2
.
Road Trip 10~13/07/2008 - Part 1
.

Things That Freaks Me Out Now

.
The following items are currently annoys me:-

1. Why do people still come for lecture or take up the course when they already can answer everything thrown out by the lectures immediately? University is a place for you to learn, not a place for you to show off. As if like they no need to pay tuition fees like that. Go back to your workplace and impress your boss!! You are wasting time stupid!

2. Why do people use highlighter to highlight almost all the texts in one page? Highlighter is meant to be highlighting important phrases and points and you might as well dip the whole lecture notes inside the bright yellow liquid? Wasting time to draw line by line and using the ruler to guide somemore. Wasting time and money! Another option is print on yellow paper.

OMG!!! Wake up you people! Wake up!!!

.

Awaiting The Real "Merdeka"

.
National Day is just around the corner.

but I'm ashamed of that.

The real meaning for celebrating National Day is lost.

Laws were no longer applied to politicians and rich.

Freedom of speech is diminishing.

Freedom of religon became playing of fire.

Being threaten for suggesting 10% allowance to university.

Being acused for wearing too provocatively and seductively.

Being warned not to challenge, test their patience, and even question them.

Being told to be grateful as they granted citizenship to you.

Being asked to leave if you don't like it, back to china to be exact.

Still being advised to change lifestyle when everything is minimum.

Being informed that Mercedes Benz is cheaper than Proton.

Being told that RM 1 mil syabu was stolen in police HQ.

Being psycho-ed that our toll and petrol, are cheaper than 1st world countries.


and today's special:-

No to 'too sexy' Avril Lavigne

GREAT.

Malaysia Boleh!
.

The Television

When young,

You watch television.

.

.

When old,

The television watches you.

I Wanna Go Here

How nice if I can see this real. Please donate to my travel fund. Thanks



.

Solitude

.
It’s already mid of August and completed Week 2 in NTU. Well, it’s quite a different experience here compared to Malaysia and even in UK. Sometimes I do question myself why I throw myself another year long master courses? Is that going to be very useful and capable to secure a better job in future? Hmmmm….. Throwing myself again into some tedious third order integration and similar difficulty of mathematics? Throw myself away from beloved home and dog? Resting myself on an unfamiliar territory? These questions lied unanswered.

Back to my daily activities, basically I’m back to 100% student life at the moment, since I will not be able to work in the first semester. Waking up late on weekdays can be nice and relaxing, however, I normally reach home around 11.30pm after 3 hours of lectures and 1.5 hours of traveling from west to north east. In one ordinary weekday, I would need to walk to the mrt station nearby and catch a train from there to the second last station of the line and then switch into another line and sit until the last station. The entire process of the train journey is about 55 minutes. After that, I need to grab a bus into the uni campus.

This is actually my first time staying in a very high density place. The noise from the lift upgrading construction outside started 8.30am sharp. It’s not easy to cope with the noise level at first, and I slept with ear plug for the first week. I missed the quietness in my kl home and the comfortable chilly environment in uk.

Btw, if you are wondering what am I studying. It’s actually Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering.

.

Road Trip 10~13/07/2008 - Part 4

Day 3 - 12/7/08

Day 3, the day we checked out from Tasik Kenyir and returned to our beloved van which has been rested on the lakeside for quite some time. We packed up and left in the morning, right after another round of nasty resort breakfast.

Great view from our balcony. (This is Kim)

We came across a lot of beautiful sceneries along the journey to next unknown destination. The winding road towards Gua Musang from here was still closed to public and the road condition was real bad. Now I know why the contractor of the project stated that road user’s on their own risk. As a result, we were like sitting roller coaster all the time. I felt sorry for the van owner. LOL.

We noticed that the van was in half emptied tank fuel since the departure of Tasik Kenyir and the driver decided to try his luck on the closed road. We are getting more and more desperate as the fuel gauge needle is dropping and still no sight of any civilization yet. Luckily we passed by a small hut that we decided to get some lunch. While we were waiting for our orders, one of us asked them about petrol availability nearby. She told us there will be no petrol station around this deserted area and only she has it, in which we believed her undoubtedly. She quoted us RM 3.50 per litre, the most expensive petrol I have ever come across in Malaysia. However, we still have no choice and would rather not risk ourselves of running dry in the sea of palm oil trees. Oh, ya, did I told you that we found a petrol station JUST a stone throw away from the hut? Damn it! Our throats were being cut truly madly deeply.

1 hold, 1 pour, 1 look, and 1 record.

We are somewhere middle of the palm oil jungle.

The hut where we bought petrol at RM3.50 per litre

We somehow reached Gua Musang and got refreshed. By asking the locals we have been told that we will pass by Cameron Highlands in order to reach Ipoh, our next destination.

Suddenly, I remembered that I’ve been told by the van owner to avoid hilly roads as the van may not be able to cope it. And now we are in the middle of nowhere, turning back to tasik kenyir is almost impossible, so we headed the hilly and winding roads towards the highlands.

Not everyone was sleeping in during the journey, we had laughs, arguments, snores, noises, etc. Most of the time the co-driver and driver wake themselves up by arguments. It is actually a very effective way to stay alert throughout the whole trip as your brain thinks harder as you encountered an argument. The whole trip was never short of listening to co-driver shouting the driver as gorilla, monkey, king kong, Michelin, etc. As in return, the driver was screaming trees, ent, tree-man, etc. Definitely all types of foul languages were accompanied and well seated in between the sentences. They were somehow arguing on a new topic about the French language. As we passed by a junction that towards Pos Blau, none of us noticed that would be the critical junction which led us to Cameron Highlands. Both of the co and driver were arguing about the pronunciation of Pos Blau and led us to the end of tar road, somewhere unknown in the middle of peninsular. We had to turn back to the critical junction and wasted so many precious time and the more expensive than V-Power petrol.

Winding road to Cameron Highlands

Top speed.

The road from Pos Blau junction was definitely better surroundings as we are ascending to the highlands. The weather was so nice and made people more calm, especially the co and driver. We traveled from bentong hotspring to salt water beach at East Coast, then to fresh water lake in Tasik Kenyir, and now to highlands.

Things gettings cooler.

The first thing we did in Cameron Highlands was trapped in traffic jam. It’s already 8pm and we were still hungry, no confirmation of accommodation, still stuck in the crazy jam. Eventually the whole jam was caused by the great weekly pasar malam. You cannot believe the hordes of peoples on top of this small hill. We waited like 45 mins to be served for steamboat. Isn’t that steamboat requires no cooking and preparation can be done in advance? What is going wrong?

The next thing we need to do was to look for a place to stay overnight. We drove through the whole three towns and couldn’t get any room at all. It was so full house that until we almost decided to leave for Ipoh. We finally got ourselves a condo unit with 3 rooms. Glad that I have my own proper bed and toilet with lights! The night was not cheap as we were last minute customers, and don’t think they will be kind to our wallet.

Random farm.

Nothing beats the beer after a whole lot of tiring journey.

Steamboat-ing

We got ourselves a bottle of sake while waiting for our dinner to kill the night, and everyone was showing the symptom of fatigue, but still they managed to finish the whole bottle by playing the same old good card game. This is how we ended our night in Cameron Highlands.

Look, how exhausted we are behind the camera.

Drink of the third night.

.
To Be Continued......
.
Road Trip 10~13/07/2008 - Part 3
.
Road Trip 10~13/07/2008 - Part 2
.
Road Trip 10~13/07/2008 - Part 1

My Beloved Right Wrist

.
Let's take a break from the roadtrip posts, shall we?

3 weeks, from white to brown, clean to dirty, fresh to smelly

The cast was finally removed on the 28th of July 2008, three weeks after the accident.

What’s your comment for wear it?

No one is going to feel happy for being wrapped and not allowed to move for like a few weeks. Muscle cramps, discomfort, bulkiness, numbs are often happened. Especially at night, when you are tired and sleepy. The worst of the worst part was the psychological part, you always felt that your wrist is in jail and always wanted to get rid of it. There’s no place that can place your wrist in comfortable area, everywhere you put, up or down, left or right, it doesn’t feel any comfortable at all. Even though the cast has many little pores so that it can breaths, but the rate of sweat evaporating is not as fast as you producing the sweat under the hot sun. Therefore, the cast can be very sweaty sticky inside and enormous heat will be trapped inside.

Normally clinics will not have the saw to remove it, so you will need to do it in the hospital and it is not as cheap as pisang goreng. Furthermore, the hospital will not allow you to remove it without any consultation from the doctor. That would possibly cost you a bomb if you don’t have any medical insurance. My total damage to up date is already RM1k plus and occupational therapy is coming up next week.

I would rather pay more in order to obtain the best treatment possible, since right hand or wrist for a right-hander is very important.

I’m currently wearing a splint so that it could provide necessary support and also immobilisation . :-( Luckily the best past is, it is detachable and washable! Yeah!
.

Road Trip 10~13/07/2008 - Part 3

.
Day 2 - 11/7/08

Activities of the day: Fish, fishing and angling. It's just that simple.

Rising early from a raki night proves that the drink was too mild to them. We had our breakie at the same old place again since there's no other option is available. We went to the fish farm again right after that, to get more baits, as we are going to fish the whole day.

Checking out of the baits at the far side.

These fishes are too big for us.

We could not afford to waste anymore time and proceed to the first fishing spot immediately. Mostly the whole lake was very calm and very nice view. Great for the anglers and also the one who needed a rest after a long working life, like me. Basically I was lying inside the boat and watch until tired. Sometimes i'll hold the camera and net to help them when there's something up.

Wi taking over the steering, for 2 minutes.

One of the calm fishing spots.

After that, we headed back to mainland for lunch. Problem arised. It was Friday, and also public holiday too in an Islamic state. Everyone is not working, including leisure and food industries, even in the state's biggest tourist attraction, how are we going to have 2020 vision? Lastly we could only found a small hut that were selling nasi ayam only, from the mouth of the only operating convenient store. Nothing else you can eat over there, that's wonderful. Maybe we were too hungry and couldn't find any other option, so the nasi ayam did not receive any complaint from us. We were then brought back to the resort as the boatman needs to get onshore to buy petrol at nearby town. They keep complaining about the recent petrol price hike, and have no choice but pass the burden to consumers. How pathetic is that? They were the most affected group as they need petrol to make a living. Screw those people who said our petrol price is STILL cheaper than neighbours!

We spent sometime at the resort's natural swimming pool. 3 different depths of pools that are available to us. One for the kid, only 2 feet. Another one for adults, about 4-5 feet. The last one for brave ones, the lake open style, depth is unknown.

Supa-men!

Olympic long jump, with ghost hand behind.

We moved on the our next fishing spot with our boatman arrives very late. and he promised to stay later of the night. Mainly we killed the day with fishing only, in different locations.

Daren's catch.

Clever Toman bit the tail of the bait without hitting the hook.

Michelin man = safe roadtrip.

Gavin's catch.

"Switching jobs, wise move?"

Gavin's second catch

Kim's catch.

Lastly we converted our catching to our dinner. The biggest one we go for making soup and the rest smaller one we fried it. The resort kitchen charged us RM5 for processing each fish, quite reasonable actually. I didn't join them for the dinner because I went to have a very long rest.

we fish for our dinner.

Finally its absinthe time. All of them look excited and played with it rather than drinking it.

After all, Gavin and Jeremy went for night fishing as the boatman agreed to bring them out for free. The others were just like me, sleep all the way to morning.

Jeremy's catch, at last.

.

To Be Continued......

.

Road Trip 10~13/07/2008 - Part 2

.

Road Trip 10~13/07/2008 - Part 1

.