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.

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

My Beloved Right Wrist

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

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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.

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To Be Continued......

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

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

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

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Day 1 - 10/7/08

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We gathered at Gavin’s house until 2 something, and here we go. The first stop, McD. Yeah. To fill up four empty stomachs. After that, we picked up Jeremy at 3am and straightaway march towards our first destination.

How fast can we go on this trip?

The top speed of our machine. This is why I said how far can we go is really depends on it.

Our first stop was Bentong Hotspring. Yes, it doesn’t have any fancy name. It’s really call Bentong Hotspring. The place was totally in darkness with only lights from stars and moon only. We have to make our ways to the pool with our torchlights. It was very quiet since it already 4 something in the morning and no one else beside us. The water was surprisingly not so warm, more like a pool of muddy leftover warm water. I guess they turned off the heater during nighttime. Not much pictures were taken over there, maybe we scared of capturing "others" unintentionally.

Being squeezed while changing inside the van.

So we carried on our journey to Kuantan to get some food. Really not much time spent over in Kuantan since we have no idea what can do there.

We stopped by at the Pantai Temasik in Terengganu to refuel us and get some legs stretching. The water over here is quite clean and clear unlike those on West Coast and some shampoo advertisement.

The weather is so lovely.

Posers wei!

Some group pictures before we leave.

We reach the haunted Tasik Kenyir in noon time and starting to look for accommodation. Wi, Daren and me went to the Information Center for more info, while others bargaining with the boat operators. However, the lady at the counter was not too helpful. She straightaway introduced one of the resorts to me, I’m wondering whether she got any commission for that or not. Since some of the resorts were closed for “renovation”, so we left with a few options in this haunted lakeside.

1. Expensive resort which contained a ‘spa’ word, how cheap can it be?

2. Camping. We have no cooking equipment at all, so this option is out.

3. Boathouse. You have to book this in advance, so out too.

4. Cheap resort that can fit 6 of us in one room. Yeah, this is suitable to our theme.

Unpacking at the Kenyir Lake entrance.

The Information Center

Where the boat operators are.

The only transportation inside the lake.

The journey to our resort and also entering from the lake!

The one of the right is ours for 2 nights.
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When we checked in, OMG. There were only 3 double beds which barely can fit 2 gentlemen in one of them. Its not even queen sized too. Lets check out the toilet, no lights, the lock is gone case. WTF. They don’t even provide 6 pillows to us, we have to request and take it ourselves. The room is huge, and it has Astro with 14” TV. How cool was that! The greatest resort I even had! P/S: We made fully use of the torchlights inside the toilet.

The first place that we went was the fish farm, lots of Tilapia and some catfish. The purpose we went there was to get some live bait to fish Toman tomorrow. Hohoho, my first experience in “watching” people fishing.

Picture taken at the nearest to the platform, so lesser fishes.

The always sinchan-ed Daren TLW

Kim is so gay!

Arrrgggghhhhh!!!!

The scenery is so lovely, and you can get it in Malaysia too.

The next stop, waterfall. The sky was dark and it dribbled for some while. I always have the feeling of being flush down by sudden water. Too bad I couldn’t join them 100% as my wrist was still in cast, and that was the greatest regret in that trip.

Nothing much interesting after that, as some of the gang went fish but came back emptied hands.

Dinner in such haunted places were always the main problem. The resort doesn't have any convenient store at all, so no way you can get any maggi mee or biscuits from that island. Basically you will need to pay RM40 one way to take a boat ride to the opposite mainland to get them. Eat inside the resort? It's even more expensive, look at the rate for tilapia fish! All of us had nasi goreng and fried chicken as those are the cheapest main, and it's more than RM6.00

RM 2.50 for 1 freaking gramme wei!!!

That's nothing much worth mentioning about the dinner's quality. Let’s fast forward to nighttime. Our great going-to-be doctor got us 2 bottles of sinful liquid. Remember, this is the first doctor I ever met who promotes alcohol drinking. The first night was Turkish Raki. Everyone gone sleeping very fast right after the drinking session since this was the first proper night in our trip. I was secretly modifying my cast in the middle of the night while others sleep and snore like their first sleep in ten years.

Left to right: Raki for the first night, Absinthe for the second.

To Be Continued....

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

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