My Little Paradise

After lingering around Gua Musang town, we continued our journey to Kota Bharu. We left the town at around 11.30am and headed straight to our first stopover, Dabong. It is here where you can find the tallest waterfall in South East Asia, the Stong Waterfall, with 270 meter tall.

As we were driving towards the waterfall, we could already see a glimpse of the waterfall from out far. I was excited to see such a magnificent view. The road leading to the waterfall was narrow. It is basically a small trunk road cutting through the thick jungle. Interesting enough though, there were a few kampung houses just besides the trunk road.

Surprising enough, this place was rather commercialized. Well, commercialized in a sense that there is a guard house at the entrance and also a resort besides the waterfalls. But I am not sure, the resort although looked quite grand, it seemed to be not well maintain. In fact, come to think about it, the resort might as well have been abandon. Not even a soul could be seen.

Anyway, back to our main subject, the waterfall. There are two parts to the waterfall. Travelers could either stay at the foot of the waterfall or hike the hill to a higher ground where they can have a closer encounter with the waterfall. Unfortunately, only the self-proclaim Lord and I decided to hike the hill. The two remaining heavenly kings remained at the foot of the waterfall.

The hike itself was not difficult. However, there were leeches all over. Yes, I have this thing about leech, I loath them. The hike seemed to be taking forever as I could see leeches eagerly waited to suck my blood. But we got lucky; our blood is safe for now.

Once we reached the end of the hike, we were presented with a magnificent view. This is really like heaven. I am not kidding. I have been to many waterfalls throughout my life. This is the best one yet. The first thing we did was to explore the area. It was pretty huge. The landscape was pretty diverse too. There was a cave, smaller waterfalls, huge rocks, streams, trees etc. It is truly a small paradise. So we chatted, drank beer, took photograph and above all enjoy the surrounding.

What really amazed me was that once we hiked back down and reached our car, it was already 6pm in the evening. It was unbelievable. I really though that we were only about 3 hours max at the small paradise. Instead we were up there for more than 5 hours. And can you believe it? In that period of 5 hours, we did not even dip ourselves in the water.

I will probably plan another trip here again. The serenity, the quietness and the surroundings make it worth the visit despite the long journey.

The second day to the unkown - Morning

After a rather peaceful and uneventful night, we woke up early to continue our day two drive. Top of the to do list was to find a good breakfast. I was hoping for Nasi Dagang, an East Coast popular breakfast. Unfortunately the store that we went to, despite queuing for 10 minutes, I was left disappointed. Anyway, this was just the start of the journey, I reckon there are many more opportunities.

After a decent breakfast, we roamed around the Gua Musang town to see what this small little town can offer. As mentioned in my earlier post, this town is situated right besides the limestone hill and besides the limestone hill, is the train station. The train station although looks pretty rundown, it does add some charm into the town. We spent about 1 hour at this train station. Walking up and down the railway tracks we did just to get that picture perfect photos. Stood on one spot for minutes we did just to get that picture perfect photos. Risk our life on the middle of the railway track we did just to get that picture perfect photos.

The first day to the unkown

The plan for our budget, photography and venture into the unknown trip is... to have none at all. Well, that is not totally true. We did do some planning. We did know where we are headed to. But what we did not know was what to expect along the way. In order words, we do not plan the itinerary along the way. What we know is what we have been hearing from our friends. None of us has been traveling using this specific route before. We sort of know there are some breathtaking sceneries along the way. We sort of know there are some astonishing waterfalls along the way. We sort of know there are some mystical caves along the way. We sort of know there are some mouth watering foods along the way. But how breathtaking? How astonishing? How mystical and how mouth watering? We have no idea. The expecting of the unexpected added some thrill to the trip I must say.

So the journey began on the early Tuesday morning 7am. First stop was to pick up two of the four heavenly kings at the office: the self proclaim Lord (who got himself a D50) and the publicly acclaimed Java guru. Then we went on to pick up the fourth heavenly king: the dark and a little (just a little ok) over sized heavenly king.

First, each of us took up RM200 and handed over to our treasurer, the self-proclaim the Lord. With a total of RM800. our first stop was to get some tit-bits. After breakfast at approximately 8:30am, we started our driving north journey.

We have planned to overnight at Gua Musang, which is our Day One stopover. We first passed by Bentong, Raub and Kuala Lipis. We stopped at Kuala Lipis for lunch. For you out there who does not know, Kuala Lipis is actually the kampung of our very own Malaysian song bird Siti Nor Nurhaliza. Our dark and a little (just a little ok) over sized heavenly king was pretty excited. He is a big fan of Siti. Well maybe not as crazy as before but still he is excited, especially when we passed by Siti old school.

After lingered about 2.5 hours at Kuala Lipis, we continued our journey up north to Gua Musang. We reached our final destination of the day at around 4:30pm. Gua Musang is not small town (if you compare it to my hometown Pekan) and yet it is not big either. It is divided into Bandar baru and Bandar lama. And yes, there is a cave in this place where the name of the town is named after. But according to the local people, the cave is no longer being visited by people for many years. This town is actually pretty amazing especially with the huge limestone hills as its backdrop.

Our first mission is to get a reasonable but cheap place to sleep. It was not difficult to our relief. We have been seeing the motel signboard, The Kesedar Inn along the way from Kuala Lipis and to get to the motel was also not difficult as the signboard is big and clear. Since we wanted to keep this trip cheap, we opted for a twin sharing bedroom with an additional bed for four of us. We kept nodding our head despite being asked few times whether the arrangement was comfortable or not by the hotel friendly staff as the room seemed to be overly crowded in her opinion. So, the room charge for that night was RM97, which was about RM24 per person. I thought it was a pretty good deal as the room come with a satellite TV (yaba-daba-dooooo!).

We couldn't do much after settling down in that motel room as it was raining outside. We went out for dinner that night and tried to explore the town a little. The dinner was average but rather expensive. We had satay, omelet malay style, veggie, tom yam, white rice and keropok as starter. The dinner cost us RM46, which is unexpectedly over budget.

The night life in Gua Musang is pretty much the same as the other small towns in Malaysia. Don't expect too much. After making few rounds around the town, we headed to our motel room and called it a day.

Not a particular interesting first day, especially with the gloomy weather. But we are lucky enough to have dry weather during the drive. The scenery along the way was pretty amazing though. We passed by numerous kampong. We passed by many rubber and palm plantations. We passed by many unique and extraordinary limestone structures. As such, we drive drive and stopped for photograph. Then, we drive drive again and stopped again for more snaps.

The birth of an idea

Some ideas behave like the titanic, they started big but due to some reasons, the ideas vanish and they eventually sink into the deep blue sea and people would talk about it every now and then, but the ideas never took off. Some ideas, on the other hand, behave like the big bang. They started small, very small. But due to some unknown reasons, which I like to call it the factor X, they exploded into something very big, huge and enormous.

The birth of the idea is conceived pretty innocently. The self proclaim Lord wanted to try his hands into photography. So the idea is to have a short photography session. However, the factor X is the destination. We lingered around that subject for a few minutes. As we were discussing, the factor X became uncontrollable.

And so, from around KL area, we started to mention the east coast and the capital of Kelantan state, Kota Bharu. And as the conversation continued further, we ended up talking about thailand and massaging. I believed if the conversion were to continue further, sooner or later the idea of driving all the way to Tibet would eventually arise. Well, maybe much sooner than you could imagine... :P

Anyway, the trip was set:
The smart and cool travelers: The Four heavenly Kings
Trip transport: My small small cheap cheap but very reliable four-wheel
Trip Date: 27th December ~ Until we are sick of seeing each other face
Trip theme: Budget, Photography and Venture into the unknown
Trip bonus: Massage, Dip in Waterfalls, Beer, Beer and more Beer
Trip route: Go north all the way to KB and make detour to Thailand and back to KL

For the next few entries I will be blogging about the trip... and how it eventually unfolded... stay tune can...

Back to blogging...

Many things happened since the last update of my blog. It is impossible to recall everything in this single entry, but I will try to pen down bits and pieces of what happened over the past 3 months in the coming entries.

Life is unfair... Get over it

I have yet to finished the book... I do hate myself for that. Sometimes when I am a little busy with my work and my mind is occupied with some other "things", I tend to struggle with my priority list.

Anyway, every Saturday morning, besides watching my favorite cartoons in the Disney channel, I am now looking forward to watching CNN. Don't play play can...

Every Saturday morning, if we in Asia are lucky enough, CNN international might broadcast Anderson Cooper 360. Well, since reading his book, I am a total fan of him. I think his job is cool. Able to go to remote places and see first hand how people live, how people earn a living and how people survive.

This morning, there was a special edition of Anderson Cooper 360, Killing Fields: Africa's Misery, The World's Shame. The show got me glued to the tv. I must be honest that not every word or scene stuck in my head but the reports were enough to make me think.

Today's episode focuses on Congo, one of Africa's richest countries with natural resources. Despite the enormous wealth of natural resources, the country is slammed into poverty no thanks to the endless wars and corruptions.

The one particular report that struck me was when hearing most of the Congo people were earning around USD0.20 per day. Bicycle is a luxury left alone a motorcycle or a kancel. The people would build their own transport, a bicycle but motorcycle look alike. The entire bicycle is made of wood, including the wheel. The kind of stuff you would only see in the Flintstones cartoon. Riding that bicycle but motorcycle look alike must be a challenge on a dirt and stony road.

There is this other scene, whereby a soldier was laying in a small bed in a small clinic. His hand was ripped apart by gun shots. Unfortunately the clinic was so poorly equipped that no pain killer was available. The soldier kept yelling "I'm gonna die! I'm gonna die". I think we might sue the doctor if he failed to provide us with any pain killer in situation like that… don’t we?

Frankly, I am not sure why I like to watch reports like that. I don't think it will change my life. As much as I hope to go over there and see myself the situation and maybe land a helping hand, I know it is just a wishful thinking. To give up my life here is just not possible and unthinkable. Don't ask me why, I don't know.

Maybe I should appreciate life better. The pay is low and the work is stressful, but I do have a job and I do earn enough to pay my rent. I do able to slot in some entertainment once in a while. I also owned a transportation that is comfortable and reliable enough to bring me anywhere I want...

Life is indeed biased. Life is indeed unfair. Get over it?

Anyway, after the show, I have a strong urge to get myself a camcorder. I want to record my life and the people around me. Maybe I won't be able to sell it to CNN or National Geography but it is something worth exploring...

Let me save up some money first…

We celebrate...

Yesterday was a rather special day. It was our office uncle's daughter full month day.

The office staff was invited to a dinner at Sg Buloh. A restaurant seems to be owned by our office uncle. Regardless what occasion, year end dinner, Chinese new year, or any "official" dinner, our office uncle would recommend that restaurant. (well, I still wonder despite being there so many times, some of the colleagues still got lost...)

Anyway, the baby was really cute. She looks like the mother, to our much relief... lol...

I drank a little too much though. I was pretty "wing" when leaving that place. I am sure I was loud and very vocal. I was so loud that office uncle said it was as if I was the one having the celebration… hehehe… but I enjoyed myself la...


May the baby grows up happily and healthy...

I saw Fred...

One of the many fun in bowling is to see how people bowl. The style of bowling is very unique and personal.

I am pretty self conscious when it comes to bowling style. It is just a thin fine line between awesome and weird bowling styles. When nothing is going on that day (meaning I play real sux) I would just try to improve on my bowling style. Try to imagine I am one of those national bowlers and mimic their style.

Yesterday, as me and my fitness girl went bowling, we had an interesting sight. I am not exaggerating. I am not kidding. The guy playing next to us... really played like a real life Fred Flintstones playing bowling... the only thing missing was the yelling of "yaba daba doo" part before each throw. He played really well too. Many strikes and many converted spares.

I really felt disappointed that I do not have a camcorder with me. It should be a great hit in youtube I reckon... lol...

I miss the game...

It is a game of speed and power. It is a game of concentration. It is a game of self-discipline. It is the game that I like, bowling.

I have not been playing bowling as regularly as I like. Besides being busy at work, I simply can't find kaki to go with me. Isn't that strange? I must say every time I go to bowling alley, I can see that place is packed with people. People mountain people sea can… but, out of that many people, how come I do not know any of them? Life is strange... isn't it?

Today, however, out of blue, my fitness girl colleague asked me to go bowl. Playing bowling can... how to reject... Anyway, we both played 4 games each. Boy, I was sux. My ball didn't curve as much as I like. My ball didn't hit the pocket as accurate as I like. My ball didn't hit the strikes as perfectly as I like. Instead, I got splits pins. I got air ball. I got endless brooklyn throws.

Sigh... playing like that how to meet my 300 target ler?

The Power of music

Music is a powerful thing. Besides being the universal language, it can be a very good stress reliever. When you and down and you are feeling all tense up, music help you to relax. Well, it actually depends on what kind of music you are listening to and that's pretty subjective.

Me and music go a long way. I first started playing the organ when I was 7 years old. Although my taste in music has since changed, music has been a great part of my life. Heck, I even did my final presentation for public speaking class on music during my college time. And I got an A for the class.

A song is as powerful as a photograph. Whenever I listen to a particular song, all the memories would come back to me. It is as though you are being sucked back in time.

Last Saturday, my pig fren dog fren and I went to K. That night, I did not select any of the Mayday songs (although I managed to sing one of their songs), which is out of ordinary for me. Instead, I picked some oldies. Songs that I have not listened to for some time.

Throughout the k session, I seemed to be flying back in time... back to my secondary school time, back to my university time, back to my early working time. When I was singing Y.M.C.A, I actually had a flash back of the time when I was maybe 5 or 6, making the YMCA moves in the small living room with my bro.

Time does fly...

Mr. Borat

I woke up at before 6am today. After few failed attempts to get back to my dream world, I started to switch on ASTRO to watch.

In the early like this, I like to watch news. Just to have a glance of what happenings around the earth. Nothing really new though. Later I found myself laughing away watching CNN news. Strange? but is true.

The news channel was showing a clip of the movie trailer by Borat. Borat? Never heard of? It is really hilarious. It is a movie about this guy, named Borat from Kazakhstan, who went to US. The culture shock that he experienced is so hilarious...

I really hope I could get hold of a copy of the movie. It will be so funny la...

Don't believe me? try this... http://www.borat.tv/trailer.html

my 100th Post

Congratulations!!! I have reached a new milestone today. This is my 100th post. Hopefuly there will be 100 more to come.

Clueless...

I can still remember how my uni-mates converted their bedroom to one big game room so that they could play games all day long. My colleagues also talk about games at work, during lunch break, during dinner time. It seems like you could hardly survive in the world out there if you are not computer games savvy.

Well, I guess I am among the minority when it comes to computer games. I used to play Sim City. That's about the only game that I truly like. I always like to build my own city. A city with my own vision. A city with balance, the ying and the young. A city with high rise building together with great national parks.

Besides Sim City, I am completely clueless with any other games. Few weeks back, my colleagues asked me to try a new game called spacecowboy. The game sounds simple enough. It is a game of shooting airplanes. Well, after installing the game, I tried a few clicks and decided not to pursue it anymore. So boring can.

Today, knowing how bad I am with my gaming skill, my dog fren insists on coming to my place not only to install the game but also to teach me how to play. How to reject lar you tell me.

So in order not to make a fool of myself again, please excuse me as I need to start my warcraft III tutorial game.

The Amazing Race of my own

I have a sever hang over yesterday. Whole morning, I was in Zombie mood. Right about lunch hour, I got a call from my brother. And he, has a mission for me...

Listen carefully he said, I need you to do me a favor. I need you to get the following items to me before 3pm today at a hotel in Subang Jaya:
1. 3 watermelons
2. 3 bunches of bananas
3. 8 pieces of moon cakes
4. 6 packages of rolled cakes
5. 8 bottles of cokes
6. 1 old putter

I think I completed my mission pretty well despite the hang over. I was at the hotel around 2.30pm.

Bravo to me!!! Maybe I should consider joining the Amazing Race...

Rabbit got drunk...

My internet connect at home was completely destroyed over the weekend. I was not able to update my blog. Luckily I am a Astro person and not a Internet person...

Anyway, Friday started off usual. First I went to my client site to visit my makcik makcik and pakcik pakcik. After that it was back to office and continued with the work. In the evening, my x-project team was having a departmental meeting cum birthday bash.

The departmental talk was rather interesting. My superior is always able to put things in perspective. She was able to twist the words in such a way that everything seems alright. To be frank, I felt much better after the talk.

That night, me and my pig frens dog frens went for dinner at One-U. That place was alright. It was rather cramp for me but the environment was nice. The music was nice as well. However, the dinner somehow turned up to be rather nasty after few jags of beer. We started to play dice. As simple as the game sounds, I was not very good at it I supposed. I got so drunk that night that I couldn't drive at all.

The way I got drunk was so not cool. I think when girls see me drunk like that sure run far far away lor... how sad...

The zombie in me

"I wanted to see the starvation. I needed to remind myself of its reality. I worry that if I get too comfortable, too complacent, I'll lose all feeling, all sensation." ~ Cooper.

Human is a funny being, when we are too comfortable with the moment, we tend to forget a lot of things. We are self-engrossed. As long as I am ok, my family is ok, my friends are ok, then my life is a-o-k.

Maybe that's not the way it supposed to be. When we are comfortable with our way of life, I do feel bore with the life. Everything is just so normal, so predictable, so dry. Maybe that's when you start losing all the feels and all the sensations.

Losing all sensation will be like a living zombie. Lately I am feeling like a zombie myself. Well, not entirely true. I think I am suppressing my emotions more than usual lately. Many people have left or are leaving the company and many more have gone for interviews (gossip gossip) do not particularly make you feel good about the place you are working... yet I find myself able to carry out my work as usual... maybe that's not true also... unusual, definitely unusual... yet I find myself able to carry out my work in an unusual way. Besides that dealing with unusual events cum people also can take a lot out of you. But again I am able to ignore all these people in an unusual way. Is this the new me? I am not sure...

Is this the calmness you experience before the big wave? Is this the clear sky you get before the hurricane? I don't know. I hope not. I want to be able to feel the sensations again like a 5 years old boy who can't sleep at night, too excited, knowing that his parents are bringing him to the park the very next day...

Experiencing life

"There are no slow-motion falls, no crying out the names of your loved ones. People die, and the world keeps spinning."

It's taking awhile for me to read the book. I am not reading as fast as I like. Somehow you need time to digest what is being said.

Maybe I like to be in the author's shoes. Maybe I should be witnessing the war with my own eyes. Maybe I should be there to capture the moments, to experience the war myself.

Hm... I think life is cruel. Everyone knows that the world keeps spinning regardless what... The world would not go slower or faster because of you. I know this fact well. But I guess without experiencing the reality of war, the statement remains just a statement.

I seriously think that I need to experience life more. You see the funny thing about me is that I know what I want, but I think too much. When you weight the pros and the cons, 9 out of 10 times you would take a step backward. Once you do that, you tend to just get over it by hypnotizing yourself over and over again with all the cons in the head. I think many people have the same tendency as me.

The truth is if i were to die tomorrow, I know I have regrets. And I don't like that. Then, how could I experience the life that I always wanted to?

Let me think it over tonight can…

My Super X-girlfren

She has no wing but she can fly high. She has no big ears but she can hear whispers from 10 blocks down the road. She has no muscle arms but she can easily pick up a giant shark. She is pretty she is cool. Thanks God she is not my x-girl friend.

I went to watch a movie today regarding a girl with extraordinary power. Overall the movie was ok. Not particularly hilarious. Not particularly touching. But it was rather entertaining. It is one of those movies where you would chuckle a little when you remember some bits of the scenes.

I am thinking, why does Hollywood always portray superheroes this way? Look at these comparisons: Clark Kent and Superman, Peter Parker and Spiderman and Nelson and Mr. Incredible. It seems like all superheroes must either have no fashion sense like superman (you know, wearing red underwear outside and all), a nerd like Spiderman or a loser like Mr. Incredible to disguise themselves from being recognized. There must be a better “secret identity” for our superheroes, don’t you think? Maybe not for batman though, Bruce Wayne is pretty cool... hm... but wait, batman doesn't have any superpower... hm... my first conclusion is still valid.

Maybe Hollywood should consider making a cool person a superhero. This person can have great fashion sense, straight As student, successful entrepreneur and save the world all in the same time.

Yeap, I like that idea...

He is now 15 kg and 92 cm

I am not a very good father. Well, I am not really a father yet. Theoretically I should be. But I am not. About one and half years ago, me and my colleague who nowadays fly all over the world decided to do some charity and thus adopted a child each. It is a pretty noble thing to do I thought.

We went to the charity office to acquire more information on the “adopt a child” program and decided to go ahead with it straight away. I picked a child from Xin Jiang, China. The reason was simple, I would like to go there one day. We were given some pictures of the children that were available for adoption. It didn't took me long to choose my current child. I really wish to share his picture here but that would against my blogging principle.

I am not a good father because I have never written a letter and send him any gifts after one and a half year adopting him. I bought some stickers for him but never got the chance to send to him. The envelop containing the stickers is still with me until today.

I checked my mailbox today and got a letter from the charity. It is an annual progress report from the Charity on the development of the area where my adopted child is living. I am really happy to see that the progress is going well.

What makes me really ecstatic was when they sent me a recent photo of my adopted son. He definitely looks different from the only photo I have of him. Definitely taller, in fact he is 92cm and 15kg. Besides that he is also in good health. I am really happy. I promise my self to send the envelop with stickers to him by this month.

Happy living...

The Triangle - The Conclusion

The series Triangle came to a conclusion yesterday. I am not sure if I like the ending. Just wonder why it always comes down to the American Government when dealing with the great mysteries surrounding the unexplained? First you have the cover-up of the UFO crash down at Roswell, 1947 and now you have the Bermuda Triangle. I am not sure if I like that idea at all. Maybe the series try to explain the mystery in a more scientific way or maybe by involving the American Government, in this case the US navy, people could comprehend the subject better. Maybe involving aliens from outer space no longer convincing to the public.

However, I do like the idea of Parallel Universe and multiple realities which the series try to explain the whole mystery surrounding the triangle. It is really cool to know that somewhere in another dimension and universe, across the boundary of space an time there is an another me who is doing much better than I am here.