Miss Traveler » malaysia

yellow rubber ducks and white water

admin — Sat, 23 Oct 2010 20:00:00 +0000

Hello,

it was so good to get out white water rafting today. So many funny moments, like when tree branches pulled one person out of the boat, so we grabbed an ankle each and pulled her back, with her head dragging in the water. The guide tricking us to tip over at the rapids(failed), trying to get the guide into the water (failed), tree branches managing to snag a paddle so we spent 10 minutes chasing it downstream (success). Earlier, we had to split up into 2 boats so the girls in the other boat reported that all the guys in their boat quickly put their paddles up and sat inside when the guide shouted “forward” (paddle) leaving the girls to do all the paddling. After the trip, those guys asked the girls out for a date and .. speechless…hmmm anyway guys who know how to use a paddle are more appealing :p

Such a good day, we had 1 guide instead of 2 so me and Bel got to do a bit more steering and paddling. It was pretty hard to paddle and video, so at one epic rapids I pushed the camera in my jacket… and I don’t know what happened next, but suddenly 4 out of 6 of us were in the water :p It’s in the video. By the way, two of the girls in the boat actually don’t know how to swim :S

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvflW-im6p0

Enjoy x
Shi

ps: song is Tom Vek, Green lights.

rainforest zipline

admin — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 15:00:00 +0000

heyo,

went walking around on ropes, nets and planks and flying down ziplines in a tropical rainforest. Have been kind of busy lately so was good to do something different. No monkeys, I think that we were a bit weird for them!

Stay in touch wherever you are x

Shi

90 seconds on off and under a boat

admin — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 11:00:00 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95Gg7zTTR3A

90 seconds of clear waters and fishes for my dear office cubicle dwelling friends Surely you can spare 90 seconds in between checking emails, changing diapers, running/biking/swimming 1000 miles, drafting proposals or making plans to take over the world (insert evil laugh here… muaHAHAhahaha…)

Oh heck, I know that you just want a photo collage!

Here you go! Take care, wherever you are.

Shi

Team kinabalu… assemble!!

admin — Tue, 11 May 2010 14:49:00 +0000

What a brilliant excuse to eat as much chocolate and raisins as I like, I thought, as I boarded the plane from Malaysia’s capital to the steamy rainforests of Sabah in the island of Borneo. My emergency ration pack was indeed a symbol of fine planning and consisted of 3 snickers bars, 3 boxes of raisins and an assortment of waterproof and elastic bandaids. What could go wrong in a forest with meat eating flowers (Rafflesia), monkeys with the strength of 3 men (orangutan) and flash floods? I certainly hoped that illegal logging had wiped out 2 of the 3, which only left the flash floods, so I could use my waterproof band aids to lash myself to a tree.

In high spirits, I stepped off the plane and into the van to met up with the singaporeans who true to their nature had shopped and kitted themselves up with gear including aerodynamic sunglasses, a titanium walking stick and an assortment of dried apricots, muesli bars and about 1/2 a year’s worth of zip lock bags. All singaporean men undergo compulsory army training, which I am informed, includes basic army manouevers and a carefully co-ordinated contingent of land and air buffet and catering services that ensures that a hot meal is able to be served on time whether by chopper or mpv, anywhere and anyplace in the jungle. But because we were in malaysia, for lunch we were each handed a styrofoam box with half an egg sandwich and fried chicken to carry with us.

Our guide, the tough chain smoking and nescafe swilling Jo was a former famer who spoke little, smiled even less and charged the market rate of RM10 (GBP2) per kg to carry up and down the mountain. Jo was also an enthusiastic and humble guide who followed up the rear, sometimes lagging back for a chat but then reappearing effortlessly (with his 20kg load)later. We were told by another former guide that they once carried a 200 pound man (about 95kg) up and down the mountain. He now does white water rafting after his knees were wrecked. We also spotted a former national body building champion, resplendant in his lycra costume and many locals carrying food parcels bigger than themselves. All food and gas for cooking is carried up by the locals.

It made my backpack of 8kg (+2kg for water, 19% of my body weight) pathetic by comparison even though I had packed the bare essentials. For me, bare essentials include a digital slr with only 1 lens, no flash, no spare battery, no charger and a backup digital camera :p With an estimated 22 hours of climbing over the next 30 hours I was going to feel every kg.

We had decided on the Mesilau track, the alternative route to the usual way up the mountain – more steps, more scenic, our trip planner was told. After 1 hour of going uphill, we started going downhill for almost an hour into a beautiful valley, which was rather demoralizing even if the bamboo forests and mist were gorgeous. We finally started going uphill again and along the way we were overtaken by the Japanese Retirees, all 10 women and 2 men of them. Deceptively and demurely clad in cotton hats and polo shirts, these japanese mums and dads were all business with compression tights underneath and swept by us at a brisk pace barely breaking a sweat. Go Oba-san power!

Reaching the halfway point of laban rata 9 hours later, we gratefully tucked into the buffet dinner and attended a briefing for the via ferrata (iron road). 2-3 hours rest, we woke up again at 130am for the 2am ascend to the summit for the sunrise. Stairs became ropes against sometimes vertical granite faces, all in the darkness of night and under the light of torches and the moon. At 5am the first rays of light peeked over the mountain, illuminating the ant-like climbers below.

Silence, clouds and very fresh air. No noise, no birds, no insects, no signs of life except for rock, water, grass and 200 other climbers scattered over the mountain.

Time to go back down on the via ferrata way (highest in the world at 3,800m) abseiling along granite faces to get to the bottom. In reality, you spend half the time attaching and re-attaching safety equipment and the rest waiting or hanging on the side of the mountain, but oh the views

If I thought I was broken before, there was still the climb down. Rain and mist covered the track, making every rock and step muddy and slippery. Half way down we remembered that the van would leave at 6pm. So the walk down became a run down the mountain. In total it took us 4 hours downhill and 2 hours drive back to Kota Kinabalu. A hot shower never felt so good and we had a seafood dinner including lobster, tiger prawns and crab. A bag full of sweaty clothes and a head full of memories, I crab-walked my way on the plane back to Peninsular Malaysia.

At home, a message titled ” Lombok leisure stroll” dropped in my inbox.

“Wake up early morning to start the trek at 03:00 AM for the hard three hours climb to the summit (3,726 m) on volcanic screen. Once there, enjoy proud feelings of satisfaction and the amazing sunrise views across the Wallace Line to Bali, Mt. Agung and Sumbawa.”

Perhaps I can ” enjoy proud feelings of satisfaction” via cable car to the summit and with a papaya daiquiri in one hand?

Shi

ps: Mt K stats

Mesilau (altitude start) 2,000m

Low’s Peak 4,095m

Timpohon (end) 1,866m

Total trail = +8.5km

Mesilau + 1.5km

Total 8.5km + 10km = 18.5km, vertical height of 2,095m up, 2,249m down

9 hours mesilau- laban rata (1st leg)

4 hours laban rata – summit (low’s peak) (2nd leg)

2 hours summit – park ranger hut (3rd leg)

2 hours via ferrata

4 hours laban rata- timpohon (final leg)

21 hours total climbing from 1st may (sat) 9am – 2nd may (sun) 4:30pm (29:30h)

21 / 30 = 70% of time climbing

damselfish to the rescue

admin — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 14:59:00 +0000

Hello

I was on a boat last weekend. A mad rush to pack on friday evening and then slipping through crazy traffic, across the mountain range, stopping for chinese food in a tin shack on the side of plantation roads and ending up onto a lonely jetty on the east coast of malaysia. A weekend of living on a dive boat with a mix of people – teenaged virgin divers, old seadogs, bunch of people doing their rescue diver course, singaporeans with expensive underwater filming gear Captain, famous chef mary and the boat crew.

Up early in the morning to view clear warm water (31 celsius), blue skies and coconut trees. Tropical diving awesomeness, with colorful fishes everywhere and water visibility 30m? That means, as clear as swimming pool water. If we weren’t diving, we were napping, eating or jumping off the side of the boat. Ok, slight correction. This trip, I was the ONLY person jumping off the boat. I did have several “coaches” telling me to arch my back more, point my toes and watch out for people flushing the boat toilets (!!)

Unfortunately I didn’t get to go in the little boat to explore the island and snorkel in the mangroves. Instead I was practising towing, resuscitating on the surface”unconscious diver”, “hysterical diver”… and all that fun stuff for rescue diver certification. I learnt several things, firstly it’s fun to be towed on your back by people “rescuing” you. Secondly, it’s fun to be entertained by noisy people who make many jokes about head jobs, neoprene and orgasm sounds while being rescued (^^) And lastly, if you have to resuscitate an unconscious diver on the surface of the water, keep their head above water and tow them back to the boat, the person would be dead by the time you get there, if they weren’t already dead when you pulled them to the surface.

Hmm.

Back to the colourful fishes. Did a night dive next to the island, with obligatory bioluminescent plankton arm waving actions… think leo dicaprio’s “beach” movie (^^) Last dive really made my trip, finally got to swim with a turtle, see a shark and poke my camera at some moray eels. Because we all did a 1 hour dive, almost ran out of air, came up with 4-5 feet swells rocking the boat threatening to bash our heads in with the metal platform, teenaged divers swimming amok all over the place… who later became extremely seasick teenagers lying half dead around the boat….

Good times.

Enjoy the pic! x

Shi

happy chinese new year!

admin — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 22:00:00 +0000

Happy chinese new year! It’s been a pretty busy past few weeks in KL, with lots of eating, shopping, cookie making, eating…and more eating. Hmm. There are 3 major races in Malaysia, Malay, Chinese and Indian so we get lots of food from all 3 types – and then there’s all the other food from thailand, vietnam, china… I haven’t even done many touristy things, just been mostly…eating!! But CNY is pretty major in Asia – like Christmas is for Europe. Anyway, enjoy the pics, gong xi fa cai and wishing you a prosperous year of the tiger.

Shi

ps: Maneki neko (fortune cat) in the photo, is 1 1/2 times my size – or 8 feet tall :p I didn’t put in the photo of the 2-storey cat!! And it’s 8ft kittens!

dug out some old stuff from my KL archives

admin — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 22:30:00 +0000

Hmm.. you all probably think that I have too much fun..

Actually this trip back to Kuala Lumpur I didn’t take many trips out of the city..except to Thailand. Mostly packing up everything for Sydney, met up with some friends at the wavepool – for those of you who don’t know, yes, Kuala Lumpur has an artificial wave pool! It’s like a 2 x olympic sized pool, with tanks hidden behind a 10 storey fibre glass volcano (that can spit out flames) and the mechanism is simple. It works like a great big 10-storey volcano shaped…toilet Some Indian dude presses a button and the tanks spit out a slushy, shoulder high wave. Some pro surfers brought a jet ski into there and ripped the place up.

http://flickr.com/photos/folio/sets/4707/

Waterfall are also really beautiful, the rainforests. The surfing is ok during monsoon seasons, some really epic days, always on the weekdays when I can’t make the 4 hr drive to the east coast. Also if you like being pelted by so much rain that it hurts, or living on huts on stilts because it really does flood in the monsoons, walking around barefooted, not having your clothes dry out for 9 days because it’s raining so much. Eating fantastic local food during Ramadhan..mmm

There is also amazing scuba diving if you’re happy to drive 5 hours out of town or take a flight to east malaysia (borneo) – orangutans and all that, very cool. And very strong. Sipadan Island is amazing, we were the last batch they let stay on the island and everyone else has to make day trips there now from Mabul. But you have Volkswagon Beetle sized turtles. I am not kidding. It is freaky to be swimming next to something bigger than you, and 1 snuck up on me (ok, swam above me) on a night dive and I let out a scream underwater. Contrary to what they say, it is possible to be heard underwater if you scream loud enough.

Ah, good times.

What’s that? I have too much fun?

Nahhh.. I just compressed the best bits from 3-4 years.

Well..not too much fun anyway
Shi

Tis the season for turkey

admin — Fri, 22 Dec 2006 09:00:00 +0000

merry xmas! Got back from the turkey/greece trip & drove to east coast for surf the day after… It was good because scored some great swell, but I paid for it the next day because I did not get enough sleep/jetlag/not eating anything…

Turkey & greece were interesting. I’ve also discovered the meaning of “It’s all greek to me” – I’ve been driving on the opposite side of the road, with road signs that have gamma, sigma, rho…

Our conversations were like this:

Me: ok, so what street do I turn?
Brother: uhmmm…ok at the..Y..gamma…pie…O with a dash…ermmm..oh, I think we just missed it.

Greece had a lot of stones…and temples…mostly stones lying on the ground. The description would read ” There used to be a 30m high gold temple in 1000bc” and I would stare at the boulders on the ground & try to visualize it….

Sigh.

anyway in greece I liked these 2 places:

Delphi – cool temple in the mountain, gorgeous views (not that I got to see any, I was designated driver, the roads were mountainous and the greek drivers all had little mazda roadsters & tendencies to overtake at the sharpest steepest bends) Epidavros Ampitheater: 200m diameter & 5 storeys high – but we could still hear each other speaking normally from the other side (200m away)…great acoustics…

Istanbul was good. The rest of turkey..uhmmm…well if you’re in turkey you should just stay in Istanbul. Blue Mosque & Hagia Sophia was good…the palace was a bit of a letdown, except for the holy relics including a foot print of prophet mohammed & his teeth & the severed hand of a 500AD christian saint.

Most of turkey seemed to be enveloped in clouds of smoke from the wood/coal fires….everyone in turkey seems to drive around in little hyundais, travel by car ferry, and have NEVER SEEN AN ASIAN PERSON. We got stared at every place we went to, and entire classrooms of kids on school trips would bombard us with “Hello!” “Konnichiwa!” and ask to take pics with us.

Also a lot of stuff about turkey trying to join the EU & greece stopping them, ha ha. Oh yeah, Brad Pitt’s troy horse is actually sitting in Troy – and it looks more authentic than the 3 storey rocking horse they charge ppl 8Euros to see.

So after arriving 3pm saturday in KL , & with no sleep for the previous 36 hrs, I was driving to the surf at 3am to make it there by 7am. Mozzie bites, crushed finger, washed over the rocks (I provided
that afternoon’s drama entertainment), bruises, blinding rain that physically hurts you & the best trashing I’ve had in a while… I was elated

Came back into KL yesterday to meet my sis who’s come in from syd, mate who’s come in from qatar, buy final xmas gifts & bake xmas cookies! I’m forwarding a pic of some friends surfing last sunday…obviously there are prettier pics of msian surf here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bryannys

http://www.scaryreef.fotopages.com

Tomorrow I’m heading bk to the east coast for the xmas weekend…not starting work til jan so if it’s still good I’ll be there surfing into the new year’s…hmmmm

GREAT STUFF….

merry xmas & happy new year to all!

xoxox
shi.

Bar Luna

admin — Sat, 07 Jan 2006 08:30:00 +0000

Happy New Year!

Best wishes for 2006…nothing much happened here, spent my NYE in a little seaside town called Cherating on the east coast of Malaysia. Haven’t made any significant resolutions except to 1. Not stress so much 2. Exercise more to eleviate stress. 3. Not think about how stressed I am and 4. Surf more (Source of stress doesn’t allow me to have enough free time).

Anyhow…in the midst of all this, a friend’s friend came to Malaysia for the holidays and we had a pretty good week, I think. Here’s a pic of the good life in KL – Bar Luna. It’s a place on the roof top of a service apartment tower, really close to the bars area of KL – Jalan Sultan Ismail and the infamous Beach Club…

Such a good place to bring a special someone you’d like to canoodle with or if you’re a schmuck like me, come with good company, plant your bottom on the mod cushy chairs, strawberry daquiri in hand (ok, so that’s just MY choice of drink)….admire the sparkling lights, the view and what a weird and wonderful city Kuala Lumpur is….so nice.

And of course before the bar we had a fantastic Indo-Chine (vietnamese, thai etc) dinner at the Bar Savant at the Asian Heritage Row. Thai duck salad, mango salad, starters platter with fresh rolls, moneybags, chicken green curry, black pepper beef…great food. Buddhist décor with sculptures, wall carvings, koi pond and Bob Marley blasting downstairs

One of the perks of being in a warm tropical country….

Best wishes
Shi.

Update

admin — Mon, 29 Aug 2005 07:30:00 +0000

hiya

well I kinda have good news and bad news. Bad news first, I suppose. Bad news is no more Tokyo/ Japan photos. Good news are exotic Asia photos and bi-monthly tropical island paradise pics in the future.

Wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t say that I don’t feel disappointed about not seeing Tokyo for a while. But after getting 1 week upset stomach after swallowing Tokyo sea water – tropical coral island paradise doesn’t sound too bad. But Tokyo is sugoi. Always thankful that I had the chance to be there for a bit.

Surfing in wave pool on foam boards is slightly depressing though. Monsoon season for surfing starts late Oct- Nov. Puasa starts in October as well so Selamat Berpuasa!! (evil laugh) Starting work Thursday for slightly higher-than-average pay in architecture firm building Pakistani condominiums so I expect to work like a dog.

Also have laryngitis this week so if you hear nothing but deep breathing when you call my number, it’s not a kinky sex caller, it’s Shi trying to tell you in her loudest whisper that she has laryngitis. (Already done that a few times)

Am in the midst of juggling GMAT studying, a fever and the shop proposal. Went white water rafing as a final hurrah before becoming a urban zombie. Of course I brought my camera if only to prove that yes, I am turning into a yuppie tourist.

Kinda tired now, this fever/flu/laryngitis thing is doing strange things to me.

Have fun,
Shi.