Bukit Tabur climb

According to NST, Bukit Tabur / Klang Gates Ridge is the world's longest quart ridge! Surprising huh, not many have even heard of Bukit Tabur when i mentioned it.

Newayz, I went there for a climb and photo shooting yesterday. As usual, it was a last minute thingy. Had 4 plus hours of sleep and woke up at an ungodly hour of 6.30am and gathered at 8am in Melawati. By the time we reached the starting point, it was 9am.

I was actually told to carry at least 1.5L of water and i thought what the heck, it'll be heavy and i don't really need that much water in 4 hours right?! Man, was i wrong!!

Brought a small 600ml Spritzer mineral water only and i would have finish them all in 1/4 journey if i had enough supply! Had to reserve for the rest of the journey though, so i painstakingly did small sips along the way. In fact, everyone in the group ran out of water by 1/2 or 3/4 of the journey eventhough they brought the big bottle. Felt dehydrated and what motivated us? The thought of getting icy cold SPARKLING RIBENA when we get back to civilization!! kekeke

Going up was steep and then it was up and down from peak to peak along the ridge. Totally enjoyed climbing the quartz rock! The entire journey took longer than expected. Normal hike takes about 3-4 hours and we took 5 hours!! ick!

Why? Well, we stopped for pictures, human traffic jam and a lot of waiting. At one point, we waited for an hour for a few fellas cause one of the girls in the group was afraid of height and took a while to gain confidence and proceed. Glad she made it all the way!

Let's checkout the pics!


Going up


Checkout the long vein of ridge shaped like a backbone there



Hiking along the ridge



Picture taken from another peak. Once reaching the top, most of the trail is like that, you go up a peak, then go down again and up another peak. Footing is far and between here so we gotta use our arms' strength to pull ourselves up with help of the rope.





Again, both shots above were taken from one peak to another. I was like, we're gonna do THAT?! Cool! :D





Klang Gates Dam on the left.



The bunch of blue buildings is UIAM (err.. University Islam ... Malaysia) campus.


KL Tower and Twin Towers seem real tiny from here



Passed an orchard on the way down. Jackfruit trees, durian trees, etc. :)



Like this shot :) I was tempted to go back and strike a post there too but at that time, i've sweat a river and running out of water... so, lazy lah..haha.. i plan to go back there again anyway so maybe next time eh :)



Decided to make this pic smaller coz it's kinda gross... hehehe... As you can see, my toenails are now PURPLE!! :P.. Well, at least they didn't fall right off! :) Also have small blisters on my fourth and fifth toes. Got all these while trekking downhill.


All in all, it was a good experience and i enjoyed shooting along the way! Slept for 4 hours after i came back and drank 3 cans of 100 plus to kill dehydration. More pics on the private web album, lemme know if you want the link :)

Sungai Klah Hot Spring

Went to Sg. Klah's Hot Spring after white water rafting last week. Forgot to include the pictures earlier on. Found our way there thanks to the GPS. It's about 30km from the rafting place so we stopped by to checkout the place since we were in the area.

The place is very commercialised with a lot of tour buses that weekend. Entrance fee is RM5.


Hot spring pool.. some say it's good for the blood circulation... didn't bring extra clothes so we just soak our feet here. Temperature is probably about 30-40C... Felt the water was too hot at first but after a few dips, we got use to it :)



Source of the hot spring. Water temperature here ranges from 70-102C.



Walk on the pebbles (with shallow hot spring water) and get a good foot massage!! Had fun here! It was painful and hot at first but turned out to be quite nice after a while. :)



Bought a few raw eggs (with free soya sauce.. keke) from a stall and boiled them here.



Boiled eggs from hot spring. yummy!

White Water Rafting @ Slim River

Went for another grRRrEAT white water rafting trip again last weekend! Let's do the commentary with pics! :)


At the base camp, comtemplating if i should bring my DSLR along. Asked the guide and he said better not, but compact camera is fine. So one of us brought a compact and we managed to get some really cool white water rafting pics! :)



Hot spring just beside the basecamp. Can feel the heat from where we were standing. Throw a squawking chicken inside and you'll get a boiled chic!!



The escaped convicts!! lol
Okay, this is actually our ride from base camp to the starting point. Journey took about 20 minutes on a VERY bumpy offroad trail. We were supposed to be on 4WD but ended up in this since there were 9 of us, plus 4 others from a different group :P



Group photo at the first rapid! They call it "Celik-Mata Rapid" (An Eye-Blink Rapid) cause you'll encounter this rapid immediately at the starting point! Awesome! :D



Oh nooOOo, we're gonna hit the rocks!!! They said this is an 8ft drop! Didn't look like it but if it's about the raft size (which is HUGE!), i guess it's about there.



Of course we didn't hit the rocks but instead they maneuvered the raft and made it stuck there for a few seconds for them to take pics for us! Cool stuff!



All smiles as the gang on the other raft survived the rapid too.



At the end point.. No, we didn't want to leave!!


All in all, it was an AWWWESOME trip! This 6km river ride has 24 rapids as opposed to my last rafting trip at Kampar River, which has about 9 rapids only. They said this river is more 'technical' as it is narrow, but it makes the entire ride more fun cause we had to squeeze everyone to put our weight to the right/left side. This will lift up one side of the raft and keep the raft a little slanted to go through those narrow rapids.

None of us fell off the raft at the 8ft rapid maybe because we were prepared, but at some point along the 24 rapids, 4 from our group fell overboard!! hahaha.. 2 from my raft and 2 from the other raft.

I now have another layer of tan(!!!) and a Certificate of Bravery to add to my collection. SOoOO glad one of us brought a compact camera this time! Had so much fun going through the pics!! :D

Payar Island

So i had a long weekend holiday last week and i was in the mood for an island getaway. Alas, the east coast islands were all booked out and my attempt at a last minute reservation was futile. hmphh... Searched around for other islands and found one called Pulau Payar which is accessible from Penang (2 hrs by ferry) and Langkawi (45 mins by ferry). It's actually a marine park so there's no chalet for overnight stay. Day trip is all you can do at Payar. The ferry will drop you on "the 1st and only Coral Reef Platform in Malaysia" - yeah, that's what the brochure says :P.

It was a great getaway eventhough the water is nowhere near Redang's standard. Put on my snorkel and fins and the next thing i know, i'm swimming with the fishes! What fun!! Totally thrilled when a HUGE barracuda swam silently past me. Was I not told in advance that i'll be seeing such huge creature there, i'll probably freaked out!! haha... Also saw baby sharks and Nemo's nest and lots and lots of fish. :)

Came back with a tan and a Patch Adam's nose which lasted for days. I went to the island on Monday and when i get back to work on Wednesday, the tip of my nose is still red!!

Okaydoks, enough gabbing now... let's see the pics! :)





The beach! The guy was shooting on his videocam at the side and I gave up waiting for him to move himself and his ugly shirt from my picture and decided to crop it out instead - um, which i'm lazy to do now.. so there!:P



View of the beach from Reef Platform



We swam to the beach from the Reef Platform! :)



Or be transported to the beach on this! That's the Reef Platform in the background.



The sun deck



Baby shark!



Lotsa fish!

GPS Navigator

Was using my GPS navigator to route me around Penang. No need to ask for direction! :)


The setup in my car



While driving north to Penang, noticed this place on the map in Bidor - Pun Chun Restaurant, which is said to be famous for their Chicken Biscuit and Herbal Duck Noodle Soup. Made a detour and tried it. Okay ler, not bad... but not THAT great either, IMO :)



Air Itam Laksa... yep, this hawker stall is found on the map too..kekeke... again, just so-so for me.

Bangsar SeafoOd Garden

Went to Bangsar Seafood Garden recently for their anniversary Eat-All-You-Can promo. The 5 of us had 21-course meal!! How crazy is that?!?! We had, among others :

- 1 CHICKEN dish
- 1 SQUID dish
- 2 types of TOFU
- 2 types of VEGGIE dishes
- 1 Steamed EGG with Assorted Yolks
- 3(!!!) types of PRAWN dishes
- 3(!!!) types of FISH dishes


and these, which came with condition "ORDER ONCE" only :
- 1 Shark's Fin Soup with Crabmeat
- 1 CRAB dish
- 1 SCALLOP dish

There were more but i can't remember them all now. I ate the most shrimps and had a small mountain of shells formed beside my plate!! hehehhe

Bluetooth GPS Receiver

My HOLUX GPSlim236 Bluetooth GPS Receiver (with SiRF Star III) is on its way! yay!

Where do i wanna go next...

Got tagged and i'm 2 weeks late! oops! :)... newayz, i think most (if not all) of my trips are arranged at the last minute. When i have the time and feel like going off somewhere, i'll just do it. So, i don't really think much of where i wanna go next... it's more like, what gizmo i wanna get next!! :D

Newayz, I'm into island retreats lately so I'd say Bora Bora!!! Gotta live in the Overwater Bungalows!!!

Still alive

my gawd, i can't believe the last time i posted was a MONTH ago! gasp! March is definitely a busy month for me. Should be able to get some breather in 2-3 weeks time.

What else is new? My modem got fried.. again! Normally when i get fried modem, the entire thing will go kaput but this time the modem powered up fine. Just that the DSL light kept blinking. huh? Called up TMNut, got my port reset and i still couldn't get a steady light. When they said they tested the exchange and that my line is fine, i kinda guess that the modem is a goner and true enough, when the technician dropped by and tested with his modem, things are fine. ughh... went down to Low Yat immediately after the guy went off and got myself a new wireless router modem.

Had my Annual Dinner & Dance recently too. The theme this year was just so-so - James Bond (2)007.. a step down from last year's coz it limits the costumes one can go with. Anyhow, everyone glammed out that night... lotsa hot guys in tux and gorgeous gals in glamorous evening gowns as opposed to cool silver screen characters from last year. I was erm.. fashionably late.. The thing started at 6.30pm and i arrived at 7.50pm... kekeke... didn't get to take many pics since i was so late and by then most of the people were seated and the evening started with the MC making the grand entrance in a new Bond vehicle.. a girlie bicycle complete with a small basket in front... hehehe

As usual, drool-worthy lucky draw prizes - half dozen Sony PSPs, Ipaq, Motorola phones, ipods, plasma TV, Wii and etc. etc. No, i didn't win anything!!! :PPP

Back to work

First day of work after a week's break. I've yet to revert my biological clock back to the working days. Been sleeping late and waking up at noon like i used to do back in college.. hehe.. gotta love the night!!

So my clock is still a bit screwed and i could only sleep at 5am last night and had to draggggg myself up at 8am this morning. ergh... It's amazing i'm still at my feet and did not nod off at work.

Monday is not as bad as i thought I'd feel. It was good catching up with the fellas who went off for vacations. Had traditional candies from Japan and checkout pics taken in Lipe Island. Gosh, i miss island's clear blue water. Gotta visit one soon!!

Withdrawal symptoms

Just like that the week-long hols that i've been waiting for is going to be OVER!! I tried scrunching my face to stop time like the Jap guy from Heroes but nothing happened! *sobsob*

I'm at this horrid stage where I don't feel like going back to work. Gotta pull myself out of the blue :(

Beggar's Chicken @ Jugra

Went to Jugra Hill last week to tryout Beggar's Chicken. Interesting stuff. The chicken is buried in sand and cooked for 4 hours. Gotta make reservations in advance as the place doesn't take walk-ins. It's something different so of course i wanted to try it!


Drove up Jugra Hill. The place is WAY out of the main road. About one and a half hour drive from KL.


Crazy friend took my cam and snap this cemetery on our way up. See anything spooky? hehehe


Beggar's Chicken @ Jugra. Wait, i think that's duck. We ordered Beggar's Duck as well. The meat was soft and tender.. oh, and the soup inside was yummy. Had to fend off the ppl from attacking it and let me snap some pics first.. kekeke


umm.. i can't remember what this is called.. it's like Loh-Mai-Kai


This is "Longevity Soup" according to the menu


Where all the Beggar-style dishes are cooked - our chicken was buried in the sand for 4 hours.



We ordered 9 course meal for two tables since there were 22 of us. The bill ended up with RM27 per person. Another weekend of good food to welcome the PIG's year!! hehehe

GONG HEY FATT CHOY! :)

:|

Got another bunch of pics from our Jugra outing last weekend. Will post it up either tomorrow or the weekend. Off to get some caffeine to keep me awake. :|

Snap Preview

Snap Preview on the Lair. Came across this and decided to use it. Hover your mouse on the links and you'll get a preview of how the page looks like. Try hovering on these links and checkit out:


Star Online

:)


Edit: I've taken it out. After a while, it gets kinda annoying :P

Klang's food

Went for authentic Klang Bak Kut Teh this morning with the fellas. Ended up in 4 different places in one morning. gosh, so freaking full! From one to another yummy food place in Klang. Let the pics tell the story :)


1st stop


1st stop: Bak Kut Teh and sideorders - 2 sets for our table with rice for everyone.


The sideorder


2nd stop


2nd stop: 80% full by then but had to try this DRY Bak Kut Teh, which was new to a few of us so the entourage moved on to another shop well-known for this.


Soup served separately for the dry version. Again, served with rice but we cut down the orders and shared a few plates around instead of one each.


3rd stop


3rd stop: my gawd, full already. But they said there's this famous cendol shop in Klang, so off we went for dessert. I'm not a cendol fan but i like this one! Pic shows cendol with ice-cream but i tried the one without ice-cream. Nice! :)


4th stop


4th stop: Heck, freaking full by then! And we've yet to try this tapioca noodle which was widely publicised prior to the outing. So we tapau 2 packets back to my friend's place and everyone had a taste. Good stuff. The noodle is CHEWY! lol