Who would have thought of inventing a bladeless fan?

Why do you want a bladeless fan? It’s way ‘cooler’ (sorry for the pun) than the normal fan.

Furthermore, it’ll be made in Malaysia apparently.

Telegraph’s Article on the invention.

Total cost of trip:
Petrol Consumption : RM244.02 Highway Tols : RM97.70

Morals learnt from trip:
1. Life is a winding road, but eventually you will get there. (the winding trunk roads between towns)
2. When you reach a dead end, don’t be afraid to turn back. (there’s always a reverse gear in the car)
3. When you feel something is not right, don’t be afraid to ask. (not getting lost … for more than 10 minutes)
4. Give clear indication to others on what you intend to do. (car signals la …)
5. There are things in life which you can and cannot do. (such as tresspassing into a hidroelectric dam)

Reason why so few photos taken:
1. It was a driving trip, not a photography trip.
2. It is very hard to hold the camera while driving.
3. Remembered to take all my chargers except my camera charger. So need to control camera battery.

Gerik

Lenggong
9.00am: Reached the Kota Tampan Archaeological Muzium. Here lies the remains called ‘Perak Man’, the only prehistoric human remains finding in the world which shows deformities. There’s also pictures and displays of other prehistoric findings around this area.

Perak Man

Tasik Chenderoh
After that, it was time to head down south to Kuala Kangsar. Along the way, I drove past the Chenderoh Lake. There’s even a rest area on top of a hill overlooking the lake.

Tasik Chenderoh View Point

Empangan Chenderoh
A short journey down the main road later, I saw a sign to Chenderoh Dam. Being curious to see how the dam would look like, i took the turning to the dam. About 15mins or 9km through winding kampung roads later, I arrived at the power plant. Seeing an open gate without a guard in the guard house, I drove straight in to find a good view to have a picture. On my way out, I was stopped by the guard who insisted that I was trespassing. My argument was there wasn’t anyone in the guard house and the message written on the wall is to ‘report to the guard post inside’.
In the end, I was permitted to leave after agreeing to delete the picture. Well, I deleted only ONE picture of the dam … I still have two pictures…

Empangan Chenderoh - Forbidden Picture

Kuala Kangsar
My next stop is Kuala Kangsar. BY then It was about 11am and I was getting hungry since I didn’t have anything for breakfast. I intend to go to the landmarks and not stop for long before heading to Taiping for lunch. Stopped by at Masjid Ubudiah, the Royal Palace and the Kuala Kangsar Bridge and proceeded to Taiping.

Taiping
I realised I didn’t do my own research on where the famous wan tan mee stall was. I was spending about 15 mins turning round and round the town looking for what would seem like a ‘famous wan tan mee stall’. In the end, the stomach won over curiousity. I just stopped at a random chinese coffeeshop where I can find parking space and had a plate of wan tan mee there.
Next, moved on to drive around the Taiping Lake Gardens and its attractions in the vicinity, foot of Bukit Larut (Maxwell Hill), Taiping Zoo and War Memorial Cemetary.

Taiping Lake Gardens

Kuala Sepetang
It seems that I don’t have many locations left to explore between Taiping & Ipoh. Checked out the map and realised that two other nearby locations would be Kuala Gula Bird Sanctuary and Kuala Sepetang (Port Weld). According to my travel book, there won’t be much birds at this time of the year as the birds will only be flocking there starting the month of September.
Since Kuala Sepetang has its place in history for having the first railway tracks in Malaysia (Between Port Weld and Taiping)
On the way to Kuala Sepetang, I actually drove past the Residence of Perak’s first Menteri Besar, Ngah Ibrahim. It was quite a big mansion (but sorry, did not stop for a photo session.)
Nearing the town, the landscape around me changed from the normal palm oil trees and into mangrove forest. Kuala Sepetang is a small peaceful town which was only awaken by my car. The town was actually a dead end of the road. I would have thought that the railway tracks would still be here but there wasn’t any sign of rail-works along the drive. So much for preserving history …

Ipoh
That was more or less the end of my northern road trip. Two hours drive later, I reached my hometown in Ipoh. The next day, I’ll be heading back to KL. Hopefully in the next few months, I’ll be able to take another trip, this time to the east coast or the southern region.

Paddy Fields

Seberang Perai
8.30am: Head out from Tong Wei’s place towards Sungai Petani. Not much jam along the highway, thankfully.

Sungai Petani
Exit out from the highway into Sg Petani and immediately started to look out for signs to Muzium Lembah Bujang. It wasn’t hard to find and after touring a few main roads in Sg Petani, I’ve finally found the roadsigns to the Muzium.

Lembah Bujang
10.15am: Reached the muzium which is surprisingly located on a hilltop. I was actually thinking that the muzium would be at a ‘ground level’ location. The authorities relocated all the temples (Candi) found in the surrounding lands and reconstruct them at the muzium. There were in total 4 temple grounds.

Candi Lembah Bujang

Once I had enough of temples, I head back to Sungai Petani for lunch.

Sungai Petani
While driving through Sungai Petani earlier in search of Lembah Bujang, I kept noticing an ad or direction pointing to a certain Radix Fried Chicken. I’m curious as I have not heard of this food chain outlet before. Found one outlet and proceeded to survey the place. The menu is quite or should I say VERY similar to KFC, but with different names of course. It also supposed to have WIFI too. Great! I can upload my photos while I take a break for my lunch.
But alas, the WIFI wasn’t working and I didn’t get to upload anything at all. I then stopped by a shopping complex nearby to use the loo and check out the local stores. Got away from the mall as soon as I can, because although the mall looks new with trendy shops, but I was the only person walking around. I hate to be pulled in by every shop assistant around.

Alor Setar
My journey continues up north to Alor Setar. Drove into the town and immediate saw the distinctive Alor Setar Tower.

Alor Setar Tower

Made some turns here and there and I came to Pekan Rabu! It was supposed to be special in the old days to open only on Wednesdays, but now it is commercialized to open everyday. Okay, stopped to have a look, but I got place to park the car so I got back in and headed to the Tower.

Pekan Rabu

Figured out that I don’t want to spend my hours stuck in Alor Setar jam and proceeded to Jitra. Now comes the challenging part. After going up north, it is time to head to Pengkalan Hulu, where I would need to go down south to Gurun(via North South Expressway), turn east to Sik, head south-eat to Baling and north-east to Pengkalan Hulu.

Gurun - Baling
The entire journey from Gurun to Pengkalan Hulu would be on trunk and kampung roads. I made a mistake where I’ve missed a turning at Sik and eventually heading up north to Pedu Lake. Once I realised my mistake, I had gone by about 20kms! And so I head back the other direction back to Sik to find the correct junction to Baling.

Baling View

I remember from my history lessons that Baling was quite an important town. But there were no such signs anywhere. Now that I reread the history books, I figured out that the government might have suppressed the Communist ideology until the extend of forgetting this town as part of our history.

Pengkalan Hulu
From Baling to Pengkalan Hulu, the journey is about 15km on trunk road. At Pengkalan Hulu, I have a decision to make to either go up to the border to Betong or head back down to Gerik. Realising that I didn’t bring my passport an a huge billboard ad calling ‘Remember Your Loved Ones, Don’t Bring Back AIDS’, I head south to Gerik. I estimated that I couldn’t go anywhere further than Gerik and decided that this would be my last stop for the day before the sun goes down.

Gerik
5.30pm - Reached Gerik town. Scouted around the town for necessities…
Motel, check.
Hawker Food, check.
Cybercafe, check.
and best of all, Cantonese speaking Chinese majority, check!

Checked into a not-too-shabby motel run by a Chinese family (so I’m quite sure I would be hearing people banging in the room next door. Not sure if Gerik of all places would have such ’services’ too.)
Had a dinner of fried noodles and orange juices at a combined price of just RM4.50. Went back to the room to charge my laptop and handphone, regretting that I didnt bring along my camera charger (I really thought I packed it along …).
Prepped the pictures and blog text before heading to the cybercafe to go upload online.  Apparently there’s a 12.00 midnight curfew for businesses here and can only surf for less than 3 hours here. So I went back to the motel room to plan for tomorrow’s journey.

Sunday (9 August 2009)
After having some vegetarian breakfast with the family, start my journey up north.
First stop, straight to Georgetown. It’s been a long while since I’ve been to Penang.

Welcome To Penang

I dont even remember the Penang Bridge. I thought the Komtar building was metalic in color but how weird it looked like to me in real life. It looks like a highrise apartment with its yellow coated paint.
Wanted to stop by Fort Cornwallis to have some photoshoot. Just as I step out from the car it started to rain! Bad luck…
Got back into the car and drive on. No longer than 10 mins, the rain stopped. What the hell …

Backdrop - Mainland Malaysia

Next plan, take a drive up Gurney Drive. It’s a different experience driving in the day when there’s not much traffic and people at all. But at least I got to see the actual buildings standing there.

Driving Along Gurney Drive

Then continued on my journey to Batu Feringhi. So many hotels & high rise condos along the beach line that there is rarely a sight of beach from the road.

Hard Rock Hotel Batu Feringhi - Still Under Construction

Stopped at Teluk Bahang to have some laksa Penang for lunch. I hope I don’t get diarrhea because I can never stand strong spices. After a short lunch break, head back to the mainland.

Teluk Bahang

Met up with Tong Wei in his Seberang Perai’s home. Dinner with him and his wife and a jug of beer later, watched Chelsea beat Man United. Well, it was a tiring day … and it was more like watching a football match til I fell asleep. Only found out about the score the next morning.

Thanks to him for his hospitality and his sharings. Since his wife is almost due, need to think of a gift for his first newborn pula …

Sorted Pictures

The group of camera-welding individuals in total took 7000+ pictures of our trip to Bali. What’s the total file size, you might ask? 10.1Gb.

10.1Gb is only purely pictures and does not even include the video we will be editing. It would take a few days to scan through hours of video

What is worse than scanning through all 7000 pictures? It is sorting them out according to the activities.

Yeah, I know it was a crazy thing for me to do, but it is important to be able to select the best pictures to be used to summarize our trip. It took me about one whole night to sort them out into the categories (on the left).

Thanks to all the photographers who had contributed their skills and patience to shoot all the wonderful pictures for us to look back to.

Do I need to list out all their names? I have a better idea. Why not I post photos of the photographers taking the photos instead?

Alvin, Designated Photographer

Azarul, Designated Photographer

Corey, Designated Videographer

Adrian

Alan

Cal, The Tour Guide

Myself

Chia

Johnny

Kim San

Even Moon was taking pics

Moon Chong

Pitt

Revathi

Sidney

Suk Theng

Vanessa

Wayne

Woan Chin

Yan Juin, abandoning his camera for PSP

Yussuf

Read more about the Bali Trip Here:

• Bali Day 1
• Bali Day 2
• Bali Day 3
• Bali Day 4
• Bali Recap

Statue 01

The tour is for 4 days and 3 nights. However we only managed to cover southern and central Bali (Kuta, Uluwatu, Tanah Lot, Ubud and Jimbaran). There are many other regions which we did not go due to time constrain. We didn’t go to the north-western National Park or the volcanoes in eastern side of the island or even Nusa Dua and Nusa Penida Island in South Eastern side of the island.

Even in Kuta town alone, we didn’t go to places such as the art museum or Banjar Hot Springs. I cannot deny people from saying that Bali is the land of a thousand temples. In fact, I think that there are more than a thousand. Along every street we went to, there will be at least a few temples on either side of the road every 100 metres. That said, there are many Pura’s which I hope to see. We only get to see Pura Tanah Lot, Pura Uluwatu and Pura Taman Ayun.

Besides the temples, Bali is also rich in large statues and monuments which were well preserved. I’m deeply fascinated by the fine craftsmanship to create these magnificent larger than life monuments.

Statue 02

Statue 03

Statue 04

Statue 05

Hotel Padma Statue

No matter what, I don’t think I would take another AirAsia flight anytime soon. It is not the fear of flying, but it is the fear of flying with this crew. I don’t know if it applies to all their flights or not, but it seems that they allow people go in to the cockpit to take pictures.

I didn’t read any rules that permit visitors into the cockpit while the plane is in flight. Wouldn’t it be an opportunity for hijackers to take action and hold the plane on ransom?

You heard it from me, No more AirAsia Flights for me.

Read more about the Bali Trip Here:

• Bali Day 1
• Bali Day 2
• Bali Day 3
• Bali Day 4
• Thanks to the Photographers

Beach Boys

Pro Surfers - Part 2
Obviously after seeing the pictures of four dudes successfully surf, more dudes decided to give it a go and show their ‘macho-ness’. The second day was more ‘eventful’. By ‘eventful’ I mean surfers getting hit by the boards and getting injured as well.

Surfer Kong

Surfer Faizal

Surfer Alvin

Would anyone believe if I say even 2 Japanese babes were trying to surf after seeing the cool guys surfing.

Alvin watching over the Japanese Chicks

Kuta

Kuta Stores

Today is the last day for us to shop and sightseeing as in the afternoon we would be heading back to the airport. Most of us took the opportunity to go to the Kuta town and Kuta Beach where all the big stores and foreign attractions are.
No shopping could be done there as the prices are still a little higher.

Others prefer to shop at the smaller traders further away from the town center.

Mini Traders

The End
After the final round of touring Bali, it was time to head back to the hotel and refresh ourselves before going to the airport. I reckon that the among of bags have doubled compared to when we first arrived in Bali.

And thus, ended our 4 days, 3 nights Bali trip.

Return Luggage

Read more about the Bali Trip Here:

• Bali Day 1
• Bali Day 2
• Bali Day 3
• Bali Recap
• Thanks to the Photographers

Pro Surfers (Part 1)

Pro Surfers - Part 1
The day has come where some of the guys decided to take some surfing lessons and try to surf. Not bad for the first timers. After a quick lesson, they were able to go into the ocean. I thought it would take about 1-2 hours to learn the proper techniques before the trainers allow any beginner to go into the ocean. Proved that watching movie like Point Break weren’t really ‘Guide To Surf’ at all. In order to take pics of them surfing, I had to go into the water at waist deep to take a closer picture of the action.

Surfer Chia

Surfer Lun

Surfer Nick

Surfer Ivan

Stuck in the Rain

Ubud
It takes about an hour’s bus ride to Ubud, the artistic centre of Balinese . Along the way, we get to see many small stalls/shops selling art pieces. Apparently many artists from all over come to Bali to settle down and be inspired to paint the life of Bali. To me, it was getting a little overcrowded with paintings. Perhaps this is how Bali survives; by having certain places specializes in certain artistic traits. There are areas where there ONLY do stone carvings, wood carpentry, prayer stands, etc.
It was unfortunate that it started raining along the way and the Ubud Central Market where we suppose to go was flooded. There were some frantic action running across the flooded main road seeking shelter. Luckily it didn’t last long and we were eventually able to get on with our shopping tour.

Ubud Market Walkways

Various Items on Sale

Babi Guling at 30 000rp

Babi Guling
Along our entire trip, we kept seeing restaurants selling Babi Guling but we never stop for it. Many of us were very curious on how Babi Guling taste like. While some of the group went straight to the market to shop, this group of curious Malaysians went to try the famous Babi Guling (Or Roast Pork) to find out how different is it from the Malaysian version. It is different from our Roast Pork (which are chopped in pieces). Here, the meat are in slices (or torn and served with special sauces/spices in a basket-looking bowl. The cost of one bowl is about RM10.

Bebek Bengil

Bebek Bengil
After a tiring walk around Ubud Center, we proceed to our dinner restaurant which is about 5 minitues away from the Art Market. Bebek Bengil Reataurant (Dirty Duck Diner) serves its main specialty, the Crispy Duck alongside its other side dishes. It’s quite good in taste but personally I feel that the duck’s original taste is nearly killed off by the roasting.

The Main Course

The restaurant itself also boast a breathtaking view of a tranquil paddy field. Too bad it is not in the path of the sunset, else it would be a magnificent view.

Sunset on the Fields

Team Building Winners

Prize Presentation
We also had sort of a lucky draw and prize giving in Bebek Bengil. For starters, the team members who won the team building competition each won 2 movie tickets. Then there are 5 lucky draws for the departments. Then it was followed by grand lucky draw for an ODM watch, MP3 player, and finally a PlayStation Portable!

Yan Juin, the Lucky One

Now I officially lost count how many PSPs were there in the office. In all, almost half of everyone who came for the trip went home with a prize.

Read more about the Bali Trip Here:

• Bali Day 1
• Bali Day 2
• Bali Day 4
• Bali Recap
• Thanks to the Photographers

The first game: Face-off against each other to …. name your opponent! The rule is simple. Just name the person of the opposing team according to his/her passport (full name). Moral of the game: Take an effort to know everyone from your company. It is hilarious to see people trying to figure out the Chinese name, when we use to call each other in English names and even worst still, trying to say out a full Indian name.

The second game: Move across the finishing line with all team members staying within the space provided (Newspaper). It is kind of hard when you have 10 members trying to squeeze to constrain within piece of newspaper.

The third game: A game of math and organization. The game master will shout out a number and the teams would need to add up to the amount. The rules are that you are restricted to the number of your teammates (10 person) and each person must be in any of the numbers. The other groups had an accountant each in their group but so what? My group has two programmers! LOL. Calculations settled easily.

The fourth game: A combination of ‘Fill water into the bottle’ and ‘Pass the message’. It’s a challenging game where you need to gather enough water as well as remember the message to pass to your team mate.

The final game: Pictionary on the Sand. Each team would select 3 members to draw a item for the rest of the team to guest. There were four rounds of items to draw, so we would need to rotate our roles and have each members given a chance to participate. It is no sweat for each team as there is a whole pool of artists (and those who think that they are artist) among us.

When all the games were completed, the game masters gathered to tally up the scores. I reckon my team did quite well and would be at least 2nd place. True enough the game masters announced the score and there was a tie with another group at first place! So we are down to the final death match of … Name Your Opponent again!
Sadly, my team lost … but Congrats to the other team.

Nasi Padang
For lunch, we went to try out the local food called Nasi Padang. It’s like a small buffet with small servings of various dishes which I cannot name. The favourite phrase at lunchtime was “Please pass me the … whatever that yellow thingy is”

Pura Tanah Lot
Pura Tanah Lot is a temple which sits on an offshore rock formation. It has a mythological background in which the temple was build to worship the Bali Sea God. At its base, it is the home of poisonous sea snakes, the holy guardians of the temple.
This temple is one of the seven important sea shrines in Bali which are actually within eyesight of one another to form a mythical ‘protection chain’ to safeguard Bali. Read more about Tanah Lot Here.

Pura Taman Ayun
Pura Taman Ayun (Garden Water Temple) is one of six royal temples in Bali. It was the royal temple for the Mengwi Dynasty in the 17th Century. According to our tour guide, this temple was always packed with worshipers in its high time.

It was actually built on an ‘island’ in a river and the main temple buildings are surrounded by a moat. When we first reach the temple, we saw some villagers fishing along the river banks. We cannot go into the main structure but can only walk around the moat and take pictures of the temple from the outside.

Hu’u Bar
Dinner on this night was at a fancy fine-dining restaurant called Hu’u Bar. We were required to dress up nicely for this occasion. The food was … let just say it’s fine dining. It is nice but in portion half the size you would pay for it.

I actually found out from the site that Hu’u Bar is part of a boutique package created to provide an entire Bali sensation to its customers, ranging from food, art, architecture, music, wedding service and surf. Not bad of an Idea …

Party @ Kuta
Here comes the much awaited MFX Party! At first we wanted to go to this famous Club 66. What is so exciting about this Club you might ask … This club has it’s own bungee jump.

It was a short five minutes walk from the main road as the bus was unable to go through the small lane. For some reason, the Club was without activity on that night, so we went to another club instead, which so happened has an owner who knew Moon! And so we partied here instead!

So what’s great about partying with your boss? You don’t have to pay for it!

Read more about the Bali Trip Here:

• Bali Day 1
• Bali Day 3
• Bali Day 4
• Bali Recap
• Thanks to the Photographers