Monday, July 23, 2007

Durian Orchard Visit



I had so much durian last weekend!! I tell ya, it was one HEATY weekend!! Booze on Friday night, Klang Bak-Kut-Teh on Saturday morning and then DURIANS on Sunday! It's amazing my voice and throat survived through all that!

This is actually my first time at a durian orchard. We received invitation from Shakh, the GM of BAG to visit his orchard somewhere off Gombak. Surprised to see quite a few durian orchards around that area. We actually went to the wrong orchard the first time.. haha... And all of us city kids were so excited to see so many durians hanging on the trees!! I tell ya, it's the peak of durian season and there were SO MANY hanging around!!! There were mangosteen, langsat, starfruit, cempedak and pulasan trees too! :)

We walked around the orchard without a hard hat and when it became windy, the trees would be swaying and you'd hear durians dropping! The bunch of us ran like kids to the shelter... haha.. went outside the hazardous perimeter and waited and watched a few more dropped. Once the wind was off, we'd go collect the fresh durians!! What FUN! :)



Collection of fresh durians, just dropped from the trees!



yumyum... felt like running out and buy a pack of durians to eat now



Don't have telephoto lens :P... but can see the durians??????? :)



And the outline of durians' silhouette... haha






Langsat tree. The kid is half-monkey, i tell ya! He climbed allllllll the way up and plucked off the ripe langsat for us to catch with the plastic thingy. It was like raining langsat while we tried to catch as many as we can. Some dropped on my head and shoulders.. ouch :P



Let's keep these small! Attempted to climb but failed miserably.. kekeke



Cempedak tree.



Mangosteen, still green!



Can't reach the mangosteens? This is how you get them!



Put them in the cup and TWIST! The ripe ones will fall easily when you twist it.



This one was a complete failure. The entire branch came off!! ahahahah



Look how many we gathered!



This is for us to EAT and EAT!!



This is 'pulasan'. It's like rambutan but has stiff instead of soft hairs



Pulasan, fresh from the tree.



This is where we ate lots and lots of durians, mangosteens, pulasan, langsat, etc.



And made acquaintance with Wormy. Hello World! :P



There's a bbq pit too but we decided not to bbq cause we wanna keep our stomach free for duriansSs!!



And Shakh made us tapau mangosteens and durians back! I took the mangosteens only since i suck at opening durians :P



Serious craving for durian right now, where can i get them at this late hour?!?!?



By the time we reached PJ, we were hungry again!! It was almost dinner time and all we had were fruits the whole day!! So we went to Sri Nirwana at Bangsar for banana leaf rice! Utensils are not allowed whenever we eat banana leaf rice! So i guess i can say that it was literally finger lickin' good! ;)

Friday, July 20, 2007

Rompin Roadtrip

Finally have some time to myself to update the Lair. I'm appointment-free today. No stuffy bankers to meet up.. well, at least for today! I've been spending my lunches and dinners with them for the past week and glad to get a break! Took a day off to settle some legal stuff yesterday too. I've yet to go through the thick documents (more like a tome!) i gotta sign!

Just offload a bunch of pics from the cam too. My weekend trip to a durian orchard and previous batch from Rompin roadtrip.

Anyway, let's backtrack TWO weeks to my Rompin roadtrip! yeah, i'm really behind my posts and photos! :PP

Let's see them pics! :)


Dragon Fruit orchard

These were taken last 2 weeks. Came across a few Pitaya or Dragon Fruit Orchards on my way to Rompin. I had two options to drive to Rompin actually and i decided to take the kampung road instead of the highway to enjoy the scenery and small towns that i'll be passing through. I stopped a lot on my way back!

Going there took me 3.5-4 hours drive and coming back took me 7 hours!! haha.. There wasn't any traffic jam, i just took a leisure drive and stopped at all spots that interest me. I always enjoy the return roadtrip cause i can buy whatever i want and stuff it into the car!! Bought 1/2kg of yummy and hot coffee-bean-fried chestnuts from a roadside stall in Muazam Shah then i was driving and cracking chestnuts all the way in the car.. kekeke

Neways, i was just shooting from beside the road and then someone called and invited me to go right into the orchard! Nice!! I've never been to a dragon fruit farm before! It's my first time seeing a dragon fruit tree actually and it sure look weird!! Like a mix of cactus and giant aloe vera!



A young dragon fruit, already being attacked my ants.


And it grows!


So small and already drying up


The good ones will be wrapped :)


I tried the dragon fruit jelly and drink. Taste a bit weird lah


The Prime Minister was here too!


Also dropped by Ulu Bendul. The starting point to climb Gunung Angsi is somewhere here cause i saw the signboard around. :)


Ulu Bendul Recreation Park. Lotsa peeps that weekend.


They pooled up the river water like this... o_O


The park is a bit touristy and commercialized for my taste


Random stop. Got fish? :D


The signboard says "Air Kelapa Bakar". Err.. how shall i translate this? BBQ Coconut Drink? :P Wanted to try it but there was no one manning the stall when i stopped by. Even the charcoals were not lit yet. I guess they open later in the evening :|



wah, kinda long... tired of scrolling yet?!? hehehhe

Newayz, that was 2 weeks ago! Will do the durian orchard visit last week in the next post. Next time. Late dy and tomorrow is another working day. Speaking of work, I can't believe they did such IDIOTIC mistake 2 freaking weeks before Go-Live!!! urgh.. what the heck, that's another story. Let's not go there lah. Nite!

Wednesday, July 4, 2007

Jungle & River Trek to Kemensah Waterfall

Went for a leech-feeding session during the weekend.. keke... Okieokie, it was a mix of jungle and river trekking to Kemensah Waterfall. Went in at 9am and came out almost 4pm. That's 7 solid hours with mother nature with 3 different waterfall stops. Very nice! :)

Let's checkout the pics :)


Mossy fallen tree. I rather like this shot eventhough alllllllll my shots in this outing were really rushed! Didn't have time to do much tweaking since i need to keep moving instead of blocking people behind. The group turned out to be 29 people instead of around 10-ish. More fresh blood for the bloodsuckers!!!


Here's the part where we started off - the jungle trek. Thank goodness the ground was dry and even so there were so many leeches around! I shudder to think if it rained the night before - with the ground slippery and full of bloodsuckers... yerrgh

Newayz, I don't have many shots of the jungle trek part cause i just wanna keep moving before the bloodsuckers got a chance to stick on me! Of course, what you see here is the easy-peasy part! There were areas where i gotta pack the cam into the bag... can't have it dangling around cause we had to be on all four - think Spiderman! Very slopy and if you slipped, you'll be rolling alllllll the way downhill. If you're lucky, you'll be saved by a tree halfway down after hitting it with a sickening thud.. hehhh.. okok, none of that happened lah. We have good spidey skills :)


And then the river trek. ahh, I really enjoyed this part. Leech-free and cool water rushing down my feet. Nice!!


Another mossy log!


Watch your head!


Slippery shoes.. whoops, she almost slipped there!


2nd waterfall. Not a good shot. Vaporish lens. Lotsa fine spray of water when you're near the fall... blah


3rd waterfall - 2 guys from the other group under the fall. Another blah-shot. Neways, this is the highlight of the journey to me! Get a natural therapeutic massage just by standing under the few-hundred-feet-high waterfall!! woohoo! Grrreat stuff! I'm still waiting for the pic of me frolicking under the fall from the other camera! Now that i think about it, i'd SO do it again for this!


Crystal in the rock. As seen on the ground along the trek back from 3rd waterfall.


Our bloody souvenirs from the outing.. haha.. I got a bite at about the same place too. Managed to detect and pull out about a dozen or so leeches before they bit and drew blood. Missed one at the very end. So damn itchy... ishh.. Newayz, felt good with the outcome cause i expected to get a LOT more than one!


Got out from the jungle at 4pm so we totally missed lunch! Starving people then went for a seafood dinner at Cheras. :)


Next, PADDLE OR DIE!!!!!!



P/S: Happy 4th July!!

Monday, July 2, 2007

Hotties

I was going to post the outing pics but got side-tracked by these hotties!!! ahahha



Bumblebee, the cutiepie sidekick. Totally adorable!!




Optimus Prime is so freaking HOT!! what a BOT!! And that huge gun and sexy voice... *swoon*