A families trip to Belum-Temenggor Forest Reserve

Do you know that located at the east of Penang Island about 155km travelling distance away, there is a world's oldest rainforest believed to have been in existence for over 130 million years, covering an area of over 300,000 hectares and surrounding the 2nd largest lake in Peninsular Malaysia.

The huge lake is called Tasik Temenggor, and the northern part of the tropical rainforest is called the Royal Belum State Park of Perak, while the southern part of it is called the Temenggor Forest Reserve.

There are many beautiful scenes of nature in this forest reserve area. The lake is pretty clean. It is like a mirror reflecting the scenes on it.

For this nature trekking trip, we took the 4 days 3 nights Temenggor Package of Belum Eco Resort. The package includes cruising, accommodation, activities, and 4 meals per day.

We parked our cars at the car parking area of Pulau Banting public jetty. The jetty is located after the 1st bridge of East-West Highway crossing the Temenggor lake and before the 2nd bridge.

We boarded on the boat from the resort and travelled south. We passed by Pulau Talikail, an island with a mountain, and there is a lookout tower on top of the mountain. Unfortunately, we were told that the lookout tower is under repair, so we have no chance to climb up the mountain for sight seeing at the tower there.

After about 30 minutes, we reached a small island at the heart of Tasik Temenggor where Belum Eco Resort is resided. The small island belongs to Uncle Steve Khong, who established and run the resort on it.

Located far away from civilized area, there is almost no phone signal coverage on the island, so you will be free from Internet disturbance during your stay. Water supply is pumped directly from the lake. Drinking water is properly treated by filtration process. Electricity is supplied with their own power generator, and only available from 6.30pm to 7.30am. That should not bother you much, as during daytime you will be out of the resort going for activities. Interestingly, the resort does have a modernized sewage treatment system to properly treat the waste water before discharging to the lake.

The green house on the lake in the photo below is where the diesel powered generator located. It is a bit noisy during operation, so it is purposely located some distance away.

There are 3 types of accommodation available. The boat houses are spacious and well equipped.

The 2nd type is double storey dormitories, good for large group of people staying together.

The 3rd type is where we stayed, small chalets with a queen size bed with private outdoor bathroom. Hot water is available with gas heater.

This dining area of the resort is clean and nice. I think this is a temporary dining area, as the actual dining area is located on a platform below this area, which is currently under repair.

There is a function hall upstairs. Every night, one documentary movie about the Belum-Temenggor Forest Reserve will be shown for visitors to have better understanding about the place and its nature. After the movie session, usually there will be Karaoke session at the same function hall.

Evening activities at the resort includes fishing, swimming, kayaking, photographing, etc. If you are lucky, you will be able to see hornbills and monkeys on the tree. There are elephants in the surrounding rainforest, but not on the small island of the resort.

Tilapia fishes are found in the lake, and if you are lucky, you can get Tilapia of easily above 2kg for additional dish in your dinner.

In front of the resort, there are many fish breeding facilities, but they are not belonged to Uncle Steve.

Travelling to other visiting sites in the forest reserve will require cruising of at least 20 minutes.

We saw old tree with big trunk like this in the rainforest.

The world's largest flower Rafflesia is also found in the rainforest. Unfortunately, by the time of our visit, the flowers are still at the budding phase and looked like a ball.

We also had some fun at waterfalls in Pulau Tujuh. The jungle trek to the largest waterfall upstream is a bit challenging to the young children. There were some wooden facilities downstream which were abandoned, probably damaged by elephants.

We visited to an Aborigines village.

Our children coming from urban area encountered with their children staying with the nature.

We passed by an island with white rock with dinosaurs age outcrops, on the way to a trekking area to explore the Sira Gajah salt lick. We couldn't find any elephant that day, but found some caves made by the elephants, and also their droppings.

After staying 3 nights with the nature, our vacation finished and we returned back to our urban live. I started to miss the 3 dogs and 1 cat living in the small island, and also the relaxing and email/messaging disturbance free moment at the rainforest!

A family trip to Royal Selangor Visitor Centre

Located at Setapak Jaya, an outskirt quite some distance away from Kuala Lumpur city center, the Royal Selangor Visitor Centre is a modern building with built-up area of 40,000 sqft. It is known as the world's largest pewter factory and showroom.

The company was originally called Selangor Pewter, and was awarded with its Royal charter by the Sultan of Selangor in 1992.

Outside the building, there is a world's largest pewter tankard as recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records. This is a nice place to take some photos.

We are assigned with a pretty guide after registration at the front counter. She accompanied us throughout the visiting tour, explaining about the displayed items and answering to our questions.

The first station we visited is a museum about the founder, Yong Koon, founded the company in 1885, the pewtersmithing tools used at that time, some of the products including the old tin currency in animal shape and money tree.

On the wall, there is a giant touchmark with the Chinese words "玉和足锡" (meanings Jade, Peace, and Pure Tin) which Yong Koon used during the early days of his pewtersmithing workshop.

There is also a giant weighting scale that can accommodate a few children to stand on it.

After talking about the history, the next station talks about the science of pewter. It explains that pewter is an alloy with majority of tin and some copper and antimony.

The next station is the Chamber of Chimes, where we can produce musical sounds with cast pewter cylinders of different length. There are also some other cylinders made of wood, hang down from the ceiling.

Then we entered into the Hall of Finishes, with a lot of pewter tiles with different patterns and textures displayed on the wall.

The next station is the Hall of Frames, with many pewter made photo frames displayed on the wall.

On another wall, there are hand prints of all the craftsmen who worked more than 5 years with the company.

There is also a replicate of the Petronas Twin Towers made up of many tankards, which is about 2 storey high.

The next station displays a giant container with 1,578kg of pewter swarf, and some pewter pots made by recycling the pewter swarf.

At the end of the tour, we have a look at the pewter factory with about 400 craftsmen working at their well organized workstation. Complimentary drinks of 100 Plus is served in pewter cup. Only limited workstations can be closely visited by visitors, the rest we can only see from the visiting bridge but cannot enter into their area.

There is a place for visitors to experience the process of creating a pewter dish/bowl using traditional tools of hammer and wooden mould. A fee of RM63.60 per person was charged for this session. Our children liked it very much. It took about 30 minutes for them to make their own dish with hard knocks. The finished work can be taken home, together with a certificate of completion.

Opposite, there is a pewter foundry for visitors to experience the process of casting, polishing and decorating a pewter accessory. The fee is RM159. We didn't try this one.

Entering the showroom, there are many pewter products available for sell. They told us the most famous type of product sold is the tea caddies, ideal as gift as well as for own use. There are also Star Wars collections which are pretty nice.

Beside the showroom, there is a café serving light meals and ice-cream.

If you plan to take a visit to the Royal Selangor Visitor Centre, you can probably take down their GPS coordinate here: 3.196, 101.724.

Malaysian International Passport renewal fee reduced

There is news that effective 15 January 2015, the renewal fee for Malaysian International Passport has been reduced to as follow:

• Citizen of age between 13-59: RM200 (old rate: RM300)
• Children below the age of 12: RM100 (old rate: RM150)
• Senior citizen above the age of 60: RM100 (old rate: RM150)
• Student below 21 years old with proof to study abroad: RM100 (old rate: RM150)
• Handicapped or disabled citizen: Exempted (was also exempted)

The Malaysian International Passport is valid for 5 years from the date of issue. There will be no new issuance of Malaysian International Passport with 2 years validity.

A family trip to South Island of New Zealand

Isolated from the rest of the world, New Zealand is a beautiful country with amazing sceneries, flora and fauna. The outdoor scenes of the movies Lord of the Rings and The Hobbits were taken in the beautiful scenic places in New Zealand. The people living there are generally friendly, sincere and helpful to visitors too.

Being an agricultural country, you can also see a number of sheep, cows, and sometimes horses eating grasses on vast farmlands. It is said that the population of these livestock is more than the population of people in New Zealand.

After landed at Christchurch International Airport, we were picked up by the free shuttle van from Airport Gateway Motel which we stayed that day. After check-in, the motel was kind enough to shuttle us to Juicy Rentals nearby the airport, where we rented an MPV as our transport throughout our tour in New Zealand.

We ate a very relaxing breakfast at Terra Viva Café & Deli nearby Juicy Rentals. The Café is attached with a beautiful garden with lots of flowers.

We visited the Canterbury Museum, which exhibits the Maori culture, Asian arts, dinosaurs, birds and Antarctic lives, a young lady mummy, meteorite stone, etc. There is also a historical Victorian Christchurch street near its exit.

We had picnic in the Christchurch Botanic Gardens located next to the Canterbury Museum. There is a river in the botanic gardens, and you could see flock of ducks and birds living in the habitat.

Eating in restaurant or café in New Zealand is pretty expensive, so most of the time we prefer to do our own cooking in the place we stayed. Groceries can be purchased at hypermarkets such as New World, Countdown, etc.

We visited Re:Start, a shopping mall where shops are made out of cargo containers. We also visited the Cardboard Cathedral Church. The roof of this church is made out of cardboards. It is a transitional church building, as the original Cathedral Church was badly damaged in an earthquake happened in 2011. Near to the church are hundreds of white chairs, installed there in memorial to the death killed by that earthquake in 2011.

We visited the Ohoka Farmer's Market on our way from Christchurch to Rangiora. There are lovely people, nice food and fresh vegetables.

We had a farm stay in a cottage house in Pete's Farm Stay. Pete brought us to walk around his farm, watched his dog Jessy shepherded his livestock, fed the lovely sheep, calves, alpacas and cows. He even demonstrated to us how he shears a sheep.

The next morning, we had breakfast with Pete's family in his lovely house, together with another family from Canada who also stayed at Pete's Farm.

Then, we travelled all the way south from Rangiora to Ohoka, Ashburton, Timaru and reached our destination Oamaru. We stayed at the Ambassador Motor Lodge.

We visited the Steampunk HQ museum located near to the Oamaru Harbour. It features the steam-powered technology of 19th century Victorian England.

We went to a viewing platform at Bushy Beach to watch the yellow-eyed penguins returning from sea. The platform is high up at a cliff, quite some distance away from the penguin landing beach. It is very windy and cold there. We only managed to see a few penguins.

Then we went to watch the blue penguins at Oamaru Blue Penguin Colony. While watching penguins at Bushy Beach is free, watching penguins at the Colony requires purchase of entry ticket. But it worth the money, as we could see hundreds of small blue penguins returned from the sea, gathered together, queuing up and walking crossing the beach in front of us to return to their nests.

Departed from Oamaru, we went to see the big round rocks at the beach in Moeraki Boulders. We had our lunch in a nice seafood restaurant there.

We continued south to Dunedin, but we missed the opening hour of visiting Cadbury World. We also missed the departure hour of Dunedin scenic train tour. Anyhow, the Dunedin railway station is beautiful, and we took quite a lot of photos there.

We went to Baldwin Street, which is considered as the world's steepest residential street.

We continued our journey to Otago Peninsula, driving through kilometres of unpaved road at a swampy area, before we reached Bettys Bach. It is a waterfront cottage down a steep slope, with very nice scenic view. The slope is so deep that our luggage needed to be carried by an electrical lift connecting the small parking area on top with the cottage at the bottom.

There is a Larnach Castle in Otago Peninsula, but due to time constraint, we didn't enter into the castle. We went to Te Rauone Beach to watch the sea lions. The beach is very windy. We dodn't manage to see any sea lion that day.

We visited the Royal Albatross Centre and saw hundreds of albatross resting and flying around the place.

After that, we headed west to a small town beside a huge lake called Te Anau. We stayed in a nice lakeside holiday house there.

There is a Miles Better Pies bakery shop nearby that sells really delicious pies. There are also several souvenir shops that sell merchandises at reasonable price.

We drove north along the Fiordland National Park from Te Anau to Milford Sound for our cruise tour. It is a scenic highway with lots of sight seeing stop points, including the Mirror Lakes, Knobs Flat, The Divide, Hollyford Valley, Monkey Creek, The Chasm, etc. Our car passed through a long Homer Tunnel which only allows one way traffic at a time, controlled by traffic light at both side of the tunnel.

At Milford Sound, we went sight seeing on Mitre Peak Cruise.

On our way back, we visited the Underwater Observatory of Milford Discovery Centre.

We didn't have much choice for our lunch in Milford Sound. We found only one Blue Duck Café & Bar there. The food is quite nice, although a bit expensive.

Departed from Te Anau, our next destination was Queenstown. We stayed at Panorama Terrace apartment there.

Queenstown is a more dynamic and happening place in New Zealand, with bars and casino in the town centre. We had a fun time in Below Zero Ice Bar.

We went up Bob's Peak by riding on Skyline Gondola. Really very nice view up there.

Departed from Queenstown, we visited the historical Arrowtown nearby. There is nice ice-cream selling in Arrowtown, and a narrow Arrow River.

We also visited the Gibbston Valley Winery and had a nice wine tour in its large wine cave. We watched bungy jumps at the Kawarau Bridge Bungy Centre.

We settled down in Manuka Crescent Motel in Wanaka. Wanaka is a small town at the shore of the beautiful Lake Wanaka. We walked from the motel to the town, following the track in Eely Point Recreational Reserve. There are beautiful pine trees and lupin flowers along the way, and also ducks and birds in the lake. Recreational fishing boats were sailing in the lake. At the other side of the lake, far far away, are ice mountains forming a beautiful scene.

We had our dinner at Bombay Palace Indian Restaurant. The food was really nice, but also pretty expensive.

I had an amazing 1 hour trial flight above the Mt Aspiring National Park and its surrounding with my flight instructor from Learn To Fly NZ. This is my first experience flying a plane on the sky!

We also visited the Stuart Landsborough's Puzzling World before leaving Wanaka to Aoraki Mt Cook.

Before arriving Mt Cook, there is a very long Lake Pupaki. There are nice and fresh salmons selling in Mt Cook Alpine Salmon Shop beside the Lake Pupaki Information Centre, located at the south of Lake Pupaki.

We stayed in Hermitage Family Motel in Aoraki Mt Cook National Park. There is free shuttle service to bring us to the Hermitage Hotel located about 800 meters away. Inside the hotel, there is a small museum with a 3D theatre and planetarium.

We just purchased the ticket once, and it entitled us for unlimited entry to the museum and theatre throughout our stay in the Hermitage. We watched the Primeval New Zealand documentary, Tycho to the Moon 3D cartoon, and Infinity Express.

We visited the Tasman Glacier terminal lake in our Glacier Explorers cruising tour.

We also walked into the Hooker Valley, a track that passed 3 suspension bridges and took us more than 4 hours from Hermitage Hotel to and fro. I noticed that even deep inside Hooker Valley, there was still one or two bars of handphone signal available.

Leaving Mt Cook, we headed east to Lake Tekapo and stayed in Lake Tekapo Motel.

We visited the heritage Church of Good Shepherd and the Mackenzie Sheep Dog Statue.

We had lunch at Kohan Japanese Restaurant and dinner at Thai Tekapo.

We planed to have stargazing at night at Mt John University Observatory, but the weather was too cloudy. Anyhow, we had nice coffee and ice-cream at the Astro Café there.

Before leaving Tekapo, we went to Tekapo Springs and soaked ourselves in the three tiered hot pools there.

Then, we drove to Geraldine and took the inland scenic route back to Christchurch. There are farms and farms and farms along the way.


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• Travel tips to New Zealand (South Island)

A family trip to Sydney, Australia

Sydney was the first place I visited in Southern Hemisphere.

The Sydney Kingsford Smith International Airport Terminal 1 is very busy. When we are landing, we could see airplanes queuing up at the runway, taking turn to take off one by one.

There are a lot of arriving passengers queuing up at the immigration customs counters. Besides the Incoming Passenger Card, we are also required to fill up a Travel History Card for Ebola contingency tracking.

We stayed at Railway Square YHA hostel located next to the Central Railway Station. It is well equipped with a big self-catering kitchen, spacious dining area, laundry room with washing machines and clothes dryers, luggage lockers, and even a small swimming pool. We met with quite a lot of young people from around the world who stayed there too.

You might want to have a nice experience staying in the hostel room modified from train cabins, as shown below. We stayed in double room with attached private bathroom, which is located inside the building, beside the laundry room.

Chinatown is just nearby the Railway Square YHA hostel. The food there is pretty expensive.

We visited Circular Quay, which is the founding site for Sydney. There are several ways to go there from the Railway Square YHA hostel, which we've tried all below:

• Taking the free shuttle bus number 555
• Taking the non-free bus
• Taking the double decker Cityrail train

We joined the I'm Free Tours city walk, guided by a young lady wearing a bright green I'm Free T-shirt. She brought us to various historical places around, which blended nicely with this modern city. She told us about The Rocks history, and the story behind various buildings we visited.

And we saw this sculpture named Still Life With Stone and Car by artist Jimmie Durham, created by dropping a large rock onto the car.

We had dinner at the famous Pancake On The Rocks near the Harbour Bridge.

There was Chuck Close art exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) which we wished to visit, but unfortunately we missed its opening time.

The next day, we went back to the harbour near Circular Quay, and took a ferry to go to Manly. There is nice ice-cream at Manly Wharf Pub and Restaurant.

Manly has nice beaches at both side of the Manly Corso street. We had a nice time at Shelly Beach, which really has a lot of shells on the beach.

This Sydney night view photo was taken from the ferry on our way back to Sydney Harbour. You might be amazed that the ferry has free WiFi service, even when it is travelling in the middle of the sea.

We also visited the Sydney Fish Market to enjoy the fresh seafood there. We went there by Sydney Light Rail tram.

There are a lot of seagulls at Sydney Harbours, near the Sydney Opera House, as well as at the Sydney Fish Market. They are not quite afraid of people close to them.

Another place we visited was Queen Victoria Building, which is a historical building with a historical lift in it. This building is now a shopping mall in Sydney.

We did planned to go to the Royal Botanic Gardens, but in the end couldn't make it.

Our Sydney trip was a short stay, before our journey to New Zealand.

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1. Applying for ETA online to travel to Australia