My Prolink PDC66001 60 watts 6-port USB charger with QC3.0 fast charging support

I was looking for a replacement to my Belkin B2E027 4-port USB charger and finally bought the Prolink PDC66001 60 watts 6-port USB charger.

There are many brands and models of multiple port USB chargers available in the market, varying in quality, price, charging speed, and safety features. My considerations in choosing a multiple port USB charger includes:

• Reliability - Prolink is a trustworthy Singapore brand with many decent ICT products.
• Safety - Prolink PDC66001 is IEC and Singapore Safty Mark certified. It comes with S$1 million product liability insurance. Its IntelliSense feature provides protections against over-voltage, over-current, over-temperature, overload and short-circuit.
• Total number of charging port - its 6 charging port is more than the 4-port Belkin B2E027.
• Charging speed - Prolink PDC66001 has 2 Qualcomm certified QC3.0 fast charging ports and 4 more 5V/2.4A charging ports.
• Total output power - Prolink PDC66001 has a maximum output power of 60 watts, while most other multiple port USB chargers are having maximum output power of 30 watts or even lower.
• Availability of 3-pin UK plug - Prolink PDC66001 comes with a 1 meter long AC power cord with 3-pin UK plug.
• Price - I find Prolink PDC66001's price of around RM100 quite reasonable.

Its size is pretty small, about the size of a mouse, making it very easy to be carried along while traveling.

Its QC3.0 charging ports are differentiated from the other ports with green colour.

Each of the Prolink PDC66001 product has its own serial number. Registration for its 12-month warranty can be done online on their website.

Renewed Malaysia passport in 11 minutes during RMCO period

My passport was about to expire in less than 6 months time. I planned to renew it online, but the system said due to their internal problem, I was not able to proceed with the online passport renewal and need to do it by going to an immigration office.

You can click here to try your luck to renew your Malaysia passport online. Before you proceed with the online passport renewal, you need to take your passport photograph at a professional photo shop to be uploaded to the system. After you've completed the online passport renewal process and made the payment online, you will still need to go to the immigration office with relevant documents, including a printed copy of the payment receipt, in order to collect your new passport.

If you plan to do your passport renewal at the immigration office, it is not necessary to take passport photograph, as your passport photograph will be taken at the immigration office, free of charge. Even though you have brought your own photo, the officer will still insist you to take a new photo at their photo booth.

Since I was not able to renew my passport online, I made an appointment to visit the UTC Shah Alam Immigration Office located at Level 2 of Kompleks UTC Selangor (Anggerik Mall). During current recovery movement control order (RMCO) period, it is a must to make prior appointment before going to the immigration office.

You can click here to make online appointment with immigration office.

Note that you need to make separate appointment for each person going to the immigration office. For my case, I brought my kid together to renew his passport as well. Therefore, I made 2 appointments, one for myself and one for my kid, both at the same timeslot.

Kompleks UTC Selangor (Anggerik Mall) is quite easy to reach with the aid of Google Maps. You can easily identify the building with its big UTC Selangor signage as shown in the photo below. It was quite easy to get a parking bay there. The parking is not free, but its hourly rate is pretty reasonable.

The immigration office is located at Level 2 in the building. We need to fill in a form for each person and submit all the required documents to the reception counter there, before we can get a queue number chit to be served.

Required documents for an adult to renew passport:

• Existing passport (original)
• MYKAD (original)
• Printed copy of the appointment email received after the online appointment was made

Required documents for kids below 18 years old to renew passport:

• Existing passport (original)
• MYKID/MYKAD (both original and photocopy)
• Birth certificate (both original and photocopy)
• MYKAD of the parent who brings the kid to the immigration office (both original and photocopy)
• Printed copy of the appointment email received after the online appointment was made

If you forgot to bring any of the required original documents, then that's too bad, you need to make another visit again with the complete set of required documents.

If you forgot to photocopy any of the required photocopies, no worry, expensive photocopy service is available at the shop just next door.

If you forgot to print out your appointment email, also no worry, expensive email printing service is available at the same shop next door, provided that you can access to that email with your handphone.

One more thing! If you forgot to bring the person (such as your kid) along, the passport also cannot be issued to the person, as thumbprints verification is an imperative process. The passport holder needs to be present at the immigration office.

Quite surprisingly, there were very few people coming for immigration office service today, probably because now is still RMCO period. We managed to complete the whole process, from getting the queue number chits for 2 persons, then attended by an immigration officer, had our left and right thumbprints verified, took our photo, made the payments at payment counter, put the payment receipts into a basket at Counter 8, wait for a while and collect our new passport, all completed in just 11 minutes.

Anyhow, the immigration office in UTC Selangor has made a KPI that all passports shall be ready for collection within 1 hour after payment made.

Note that payment can only be made either using credit card or debit card. Cash payment is not available.

Passport cover can be purchased at the passport collection counter. The price is RM5 each. There are 2 types of passport cover, the old type in darker red colour has a more solid feel, and the new type in lighter red colour is a piece of soft plastic. This passport cover is optional.

Can you park at reserved roadside parking bay after business hours?

Vacant roadside parking is very difficult to be found nowadays. Sometimes when you are able to find a vacant one, the parking bay is marked in red paint instead of yellow or white, indicating that it is a rented as reserved parking space by the city council to possibly the shop right in front of the bay.

If you arrived there after business hours (early in the morning or late at night), or during weekends or public holidays, you might wonder can you park your car at that "reserved" parking bay as legally allowed by the city council?

The answer is YES because the reserved parking bays are rented during specific working hours only, and is free for any car parking outside the rental hours.

The reserved parking time slot of those parking bays marked in red paint is usually following the same time slot which the city council is collecting parking fee for the other roadside parking bays.

For Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL), the reserved time is from 7.30am to 6.00pm, Monday to Saturday, except public holidays.

For Petaling Jaya City Council (MBPJ), the reserved time is from 8.00am to 6.30pm, Monday to Friday, except public holidays.

For Subang Jaya City Council (MBSJ), the reserved time is from 8.00am to 10.00pm, Monday to Friday, except public holidays. However, MBSJ is also renting out a kind of reserved parking at higher rental price, which include reserved time during weekends and public holidays.

Normally, when you see the shop in front of the reserved parking bay is closed, and the time is outside the reserved hours, it is safe for you to park at that parking lot.

Anybody who illegally blocking a public parking bay, including those "reserved" parking bays outside their rental hours, is an act against the law and can be fined for penalty by the city council.

Anyhow, if there is any argument, normal citizens should not take the law into your own hands, and should report the case to the city council instead.

A family day trip to Pulau Ketam (Island of Crabs), Selangor

Pulau Ketam is an island located near to Port Klang, one of the busiest container ports in the world.

There are 2 Chinese villages on Pulau Ketam :- the main Pulau Ketam village and a smaller Sungai Lima village. Although both the villages are quite near to each other, there is currently no road access between them. They are connected with water traffic.

Pulau Ketam is accessible by cruises or speed boats available daily at the South Port Passenger Terminal (Terminal Penumpang South Port) of Klang. It is within walking distance from Port Klang KTM station.

There is a huge golden crab sculpture at the South Port, a good photo-shooting location.

Hourly traffic is available from 9am to 6pm. Tickets are available for to-and-fro or single trip, and the price is pretty affordable. The price of cruises ticket is slightly more expensive than speed boats, selling at RM18 for adults and RM10 for children for to-and-fro trip by Alibaba Pulau Ketam Cruises Services Sdn Bhd.

While the travelling time of speed boats is slightly faster, the cruises are more relaxing with air-cond, large screen TV, comfortable seats, and roofed open air upper deck. It takes about 40 minutes for the cruise to travel between South Port and Pulau Ketam.

The infrastructure in Pulau Ketam main village is pretty well established. It has a nice jetty, free public toilet near the jetty, police station, fire brigade, surau, etc. There is a "pork free" restaurant called Restoran Po Seng next to the surau on the island.

As you can see from the photo above, there are telco towers on the island. You need not worry about getting phone signal and mobile data there.

The village is built on top of a swampy area. All the houses in the village are stilt houses. Even the roads are built on top of the land. This forms a unique scene in Pulau Ketam.

AS its name suggested, you can find plenty of crabs in this island. The crab species in the village is of small size, colourful (blue, orange, red, yellow, ...), and only has one plier. The villagers say edible crabs are located at the other side of the islands, some distance away from the village.

The village is not too large, most of the places are within 1km radius from the main street located near the jetty. Everywhere are within walking distance. The villagers also travel by electric bicycles and bikes on the island. The electric vehicles are available for rent to tourists too.

Quite a number of villagers have converted their house into homestay for tourists who come and visit the island. There are also a few hotels with room rate of around RM100 per night. Anyhow, Pulau Ketam is still a fishermen village, and you can find fishing boats cruising around.

Pulau Ketam is a nice relaxing place for sight seeing and listening to stories about the village from the villagers there.

There are quite a number of wall paintings for photo shooting.

And the village has quite a number of Chinese temples too.

While a day trip is sufficient to explore the village, and one night stay at one of the homestay on the island will bring a more amazing experience.

Broga Hill hiking

Broga Hill is a pretty famous hiking attraction nearby Kuala Lumpur. It is located in Semengih, at the border between Selangor and Negeri Sembilan.

It has a nice sunrise view, which you need to start your hiking latest by 6.30am in order to catch the sunrise timing. Since it is still dark when you start your trekking around that time, it is advisable to bring along a torch light. If you prefer to make use of your handphone LED light instead, make sure it is bright enough, and its battery is fully charged.

There are quite a lot of hikers there during weekends and public holidays. Parking is available in a palm oil plantation estate at the trek entrance, but the space is limited. If you are too late to arrive there, you might have difficulty finding a nice parking space. There will be people collecting parking fee from you, and they charge by number of headcounts in your car instead of per car basis. The rate is RM1.00 per person.

Not long after you walk on the trail, there will be another station with people collecting yet another RM1.00 per person from you as hiking fees. They also sell drinks and simple snacks to hikers, at a premium price compared with the price you can get in the shop in Semengih.

The trail is actually pretty wide and easy to walk. When we hiked up Broga Hill, there were days of raining before, so the trail is pretty muddy and a little bit slippery. Proper shoe for hiking is highly recommended to walk on this kind of trail condition.

There are 3 hill tops as viewpoints good for photo shooting. 3 of them are pretty close to each other. To reach the first hill top from the entrance, you will need about 45 minutes to an hour.

When you reached near to the first hill top, the slope is quite slant there, and you'll need to climb with the aid of rope already prepared for hikers there.

When you reached the hill top, enjoy the beautiful scene there.

After the third hill top, you can continue your trek to another viewpoint at Gunung Tok Wan, but the journey will easily take more than 2 hours to reach there. Most people set their endpoint at one of the Broga Hill hill tops, and there are also people who like to take the challenge to hike all the way up to Gunung Tok Wan.

After you walk down the hill and completed your hiking, there are some picnic plateau with tables and seats near the entrance for you to take your self-prepared breakfast. There is also a small children playground with some outdoor gymnasium facilities.

If you prefer to take your breakfast or lunch nearby, there are plenty of restaurants and food centers in the Broga Village located just about 1 kilometer away from Broga Hill.

At the end of the village, there is another famous attraction called Sak Dato Temple, which also attracted quite a lot of visitors during weekends and public holidays.

There are a number of hawkers and mobile stalls selling goods and foods near the entrance of the temple.

The temple is pretty large in area, with a nice botanical garden inside it. You can find statue of the 12 zodiac animals in the garden.

There is a place to spin for better prosperity and harmonious family in the temple which you should not miss it.

On top of a small hill next to the temple, you can find a very large statue of the Monkey King.

There is a nice suspension bridge connecting the temple to the hill, which you can walk over with it.

You can complete your day trip to Broga Hill, Broga Village and Sak Dato Temple, and returning to Kuala Lumpur right before dinner time. As such, hikers in Klang Valley can always plan for hiking up to Broga Hill as frequently as they like.

A family trip to Genting Highlands

It has been quite some times since my family last visited to Genting Highlands, and during the last school holiday we have visited it again to escape the heat.

On the way to Genting Highlands, we stopped by Batu Caves Temple.

Something new about this temple since our last visit is its colourful staircases, which apparently successful to attract more tourists to it.

The monkeys in Batu Caves are still around. They are, as usual, got used to the people around.

Driving uphill to Genting Highlands, I felt that the road is wider than before, and it is safer and easier to drive there.

We stayed at a new apartment called Geo 38 Residence, which has nice facilities including swimming pool, jacuzzi pool, fitness centre, sauna room, children playground, etc. all located at the same floor. The sauna room is not too big, and located inside the gents and women washrooms respectively, beside the swimming pool.

The main problem of this apartment is its location. It is hiding behind a new small township at mid-hill, at a lower ground than the Awana, which is quite some distance away from Genting Highlands at the hilltop and most of the visitor attractions uphill. You will need to travel by car to go anywhere out of the apartment, despite there is some food at the shops around within walking distance. If you stay in one of the hotels uphill in Genting Highlands, it will save you time, effort, petrol and parking fee to just walk around without the need of using a car.

If you are looking for vegetarian restaurant, there is one in Chin Swee Caves Temple, but crowded with people. There was a long queue outside, and the food waiting time exceed hours.

Genting Premium Outlets is a new attraction on top of Genting Highlands. There was a big crowd there. It was raining when we visited the place, and its top floor area is outdoor open concept, which has very limited shelter to the rain.

There is a food court in Genting Premium Outlets, which still using the troublesome temporary prepaid card method. We need to buy a prepaid card and load it with value, then use the card to buy food and drinks in the food court. Then, we need to return the card to get back the deposit money in it.

We visited the Happy Bee Farm, which is located quite near to Geo 38 Residence. After the visit, we found out that the road is one way. To return to the apartment, we need to go all the way down until we reached a roundabout, then only can go back uphill. This has tremendously lengthen the distance of travel.

We've also visited the Genting Strawberry Leisure Farms.

The entrance fee is not cheap, but it is quite worth to go inside and take photos.

We discovered that the strawberry farm only forms a small portion of the entire area. Majority of the farm is planted with flowers - a lot of colourful, beautiful flowers.

Our stay in Genting Highlands this time is only for 2 days 1 night. Since it is a family trip, we didn't enter into the casino. Outside the casino, we found that the shopping mall is still familiar, and the indoor theme park is also quite familiar.

Using Travel Recommends WiFi Router to access Google, Whatsapp, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Youtube, etc. in China

If you are travelling to China, you will expect your Internet access to Google services (including Gmail, Google Maps, Google Calendar, Google Drive, etc.), WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, Telegram, Twitter, Snapchat, Blogspots, Wordpress, YouTube, and thousands over websites and Internet services be blocked and rendered inaccessible by the Great Firewall of China (GFW).

One common way to gain access to those websites and Internet services in China is to subscribe to a dependable and reliable VPN service before you enter into China. There are VPN solutions in the form of computer software as well as mobile apps to tackle the GFW restrictions, but such solutions might be limited to single device usage, not a good idea if you carry several devices (laptop, tablet, smartphone, smart watch, etc.) with you, or if you are travelling with a small group of people (family, friends, colleagues, etc.) in which each of you has one or more devices that need to access to those websites and/or Internet services.

In such case, a portable WiFi router with built-in VPN specifically for use in China is a better solution. The WiFi router is even more important than a local SIM card or roaming service, because as long as you have full Internet access, you can make voice or video calls using WhatsApp, Telegram, WeChat, Line, and other messaging apps.

I have searched around the Internet and found several providers of portable WiFi router available in the market. Some don't specify whether their portable WiFi router has workable VPN function for use in China or not. Some received customers' review about having mobile signal coverage issue, VPN connectivity issue, battery drainage issue, etc.

I have chosen Travel Recommends portable WiFi router as most of its customer's reviews are positive. It might not be the cheapest one in the market, but I believe it is dependable and reliable to ensure my Internet connectivity in China. Its rental price for China of RM28 per day is quite reasonable too. In fact, I really had enjoyable experience with this Travel Recommends portable WiFi router while I was in China, and I am pleased to have made a right choice.

In order to successfully rent a Travel Recommends portable WiFi router, you need to make your reservation at their website at least several days before your departure date.

During reservation, you can choose to have the device courier to you (with additional charges), or to self pick-up at their service counter available at the arrival hall of KLIA, KLIA 2 or Penang Airport. Self pick-up is also available at specific location in Johor Bahru and Kota Kinabalu. For device returning after your travel, you can also choose to courier it back to the company, or to self drop-off at either one of the 5 service counters available.

The package comes with:

• The portable WiFi router, sharable by up to 5 connected devices at the same time
• A travel adapter for you to charge the portable WiFi router (which you can use it to supply power to your other devices too)
• A USB charging cable
• A pouch to store all the components nicely at one place

You can also opt to include a power bank in the package, with additional charge. If you carry your own power bank, then you won't be necessary to rent the power bank from Travel Recommends.

There is a RM200 deposit collected by Travel Recommends upon making online payment to confirm your rental unit. This deposit will be banked in to your bank account several days after you returned all the rented components to the company.

The portable WiFi router has built-in Li-ion battery, which can last for about 6-8 hours of continuous usage. Whenever you are indoor with available wall socket, just charge it up, and it should be able to last the whole day from morning until midnight without much problem.

For portable WiFi router to be used in China (with or without VPN), Hong Kong and Vietnam, there is a fair usage limit of 1 GB per day. Exceeding the limit will cause your Internet access to be very slow, although still can stay connected. The quota usage is shown in real time on its display for easy check up.

There is unlimited usage for portable WiFi router to be used in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, whist for other countries such as Singapore, Europe, Australia, Canada, USA, Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia, India and Macau, the daily fair usage limit is capped at 500 MB only.

Rental prices for different countries are not the same, and can be found at their website. On and off they will have promotional price for specific countries.

I think portable WiFi router is an important oversea travelling component for you to carry along while you are abroad, to stay connected to the Internet and remain contactable via messaging apps. This is particularly crucial for travelling in China, as you need a portable WiFi router with dependable and reliable built-in VPN to stay connected to your favourite Internet services.

DIY applying for China visiting visa with Kuala Lumpur CVASC using online appointment

Malaysian passport holder who intends to visit to China needs to apply for a valid visa before making the travel, as there is currently no visa exemption arrangement between China and Malaysia yet.

Application for the required Chinese visa needs to be done in the office of Chinese Visa Application Service Center (CVASC) available in Kuala Lumpur, Penang and Kuching. You can either complete the whole process by yourself, or choose to make the visa application through an agent, which will charge you additional fees for their service.

In fact, the process to apply for Chinese visa is pretty straightforward and fast provided you follow the procedure correctly.

The Kuala Lumpur CVASC office is located in Hampshire Place, Jalan Mayang Sari, 50450 Kuala Lumpur. You can take the LRT there by coming out from either Ampang Park station or KLCC station. The Hampshire Place building is within walking distance behind the Bank of China building.

If you drive there, you can park in the visitors car park of Hampshire Place, but the parking lots are quite limited. In case the parking at Hampshire Place is full, you can park your car in the visitors car park of Megan Avenue 1 just across the road.

Here is the procedure to apply for the China visiting visa by yourself with Kuala Lumpur CVASC.


Step 1: Get ready the required documents

You will need:

• A valid passport with more than 6 months before expiry date.
• Your passport must have at least 2 empty pages. The visa itself will take up one full page.
• A photocopy of your passport page with your personal information and photo, and the adjacent page with your signature.
• 2 pieces of passport size photos. Make sure the background of the photo is white (not blue) in colour.
• If you are travelling as tourist, you will need to submit a photocopy of your air ticket.
• If you are travelling for business trip, you will need to submit a letter of invitation from China and a letter of dispatch from your company in Malaysia. There are certain criteria needs to be explicitly printed in both the letters, including your personal particulars (full name, gender, date of birth, etc.), detail of the company that issued the letters respectively (name, contact, address, official stamp, etc.) and your visit itinerary. The date of both the letters must not be longer than 3 months from the date of visa application.

You can apply for single-entry visa or multiple-entry visa. If you intend to apply for multiple-entry visa, you need to also photocopy your passport page containing your previous Chinese visa which was applied less than 2 years ago. For first time visit to China, you can only apply for single-entry visa or double-entry visa.

Fees will be higher for multiple-entry visa. The current schedule of fees is as below:

Step 2: Fill up the online visa application form and make the online appointment

In order to complete this step, you will need:

• A computer connected to the Internet.
• The computer is installed with Adobe Acrobat Reader.
• The computer is connected to a printer.
• Preferably to access the online visa application form and online appointment form using Google Chrome.

When you are ready, click here to go to the Kuala Lumpur CVASC Quick Access webpage. You might want to bookmark this URL for future access.

After you have reached the webpage:

• Click on the button inside the Application form box in the webpage.
• Follow the step-by-step instruction to fill up the online visa application form.
• Save your form online, and go through all the fields to review it. Make sure all information is correctly filled up.
• Finalize and print out your visa application form.
• Don't forget to manually sign on the printed application form.
• Don't forget to attach with your passport size photos (with white background) and all the supporting documents.
• Click on the button inside the Appointment box in the webpage.
• Fill up the online appointment form.
• Submit the appointment form online, and print out the confirmed appointment slip.

Step 3: Visit to CVASC for document submission

On the date and time of your appointment, bring your original passport, photos, all supporting documents and the appointment slip to CVASC office at Level 5 of Hampshire Place.

At the front counter, submit all your documents for checking. If all your documents are complete, you will be given a queue number.

Wait for your number to be called, submit your documents to the officer, and you will be given a pickup form with the date to collect back your passport.

The whole process should take less than 30 minutes from the time you step in Level 5 to the time you step out the office.

No payment is needed during document submission. You will only need to pay during passport collection.


Step 4: Visit to CVASC for passport collection

On the day of passport pickup, just bring along your pickup form and visit CVASC office at Level 6. There is no specific appointment time needed for passport collection. You will need to arrive at the office between 9.00am and 3.45pm.

Let the front counter inspect your pickup form, and you will be given a queue number.

Wait for your number to be called, submit your pickup form to the officer, and you will be required to make payment for your visa. You can either pay by credit card or pay by cash.

After payment made, just wait for a while and your passport will be returned to you with the visa in it. Make a last checking on the visa detail before leaving the CVASC office.

The whole process should take less than 30 minutes from the time you step in Level 6 to the time you step out the office.

A family visit to Sewing World Gallery @ Sky Park One City Mall

In the older generation not too long ago, sewing machine had been a common item found in many household. At that time, sewing (and perhaps knitting, too) was an essential skill learnt by most housewives.

Then, sewing machine had been unconsciously become lesser and lesser seen in household nowadays. It prone to become industrial item found in clothes and fashion factories.

Meanwhile, the Mostwell Group which is the sole distributor of Janome sewing machines in Malaysia has been endeavoring to bring back the continuation of sewing arts and crafts into today's households by organizing numerous events, trainings and programmes to teach everybody from age 7 onwards who are interested to learn about sewing to master the skill.

The Sewing World Gallery located at 1st floor of Sky Park @ One City Mall with close proximity to the LDP USJ toll (accessible via a junction near to Shell petrol station) is an over 10,000 square feet gallery showcasing many sewing products made by their students. There, you will open your eye to realize that sewing is indeed a kind of arts and crafts similar to drawing, calligraphy, pottery, painting, etc.

 

Entrance to the Sewing World Gallery is free of charge. Inside the gallery there is also a small museum of sewing machines and tools, a small auditorium, and a classroom for interested parties to sign up for their sewing classes.

Sewing inspires creativity. They show you how old jeans can be transformed into new life as cushions, handbags, and other creative items.

There are also interested stuffed toys, some of which are as big in size as a human.

Inside the gallery, you can also find the largest bag in the world recorded in Guinness World Records which is as large as a garage.

There is also the largest display of handmade fabric flowers recorded in Guinness World Records, showcasing 99 names of Allah (known as Asma'ul Husna).

The Sewing World Gallery is really a nice educational place to spend your leisure time with your family and friend. If I am not mistaken, it is the first and only gallery of its kind in Asia.

Online renewing Malaysian passport with MyONLINE*PASPORT website

Renewing Malaysian passport at the immigration office has been a time consuming process that can easily cost you half a day to even a full day.

The good news is: now Malaysian can renew their passport using the online service provided by the  MyONLINE*PASPORT website.

With this service, you can complete your password renewal application, together with its payment, anytime and anywhere by using your web browser. Then, you just need to go to the immigration office of your choice to collect your new passport, which will take you probably less than 30 minutes counted from the time you step in the immigration office.

The prerequisites to use this online passport renewal service for Malaysian are as below:

• You must have a valid Malaysian passport with electronic chip.
• For children under 18, the renewal applicant must be the same person who applied for the existing passport.
• You must get ready a JPG file of your recent passport size photo that fulfil the requirement, to be uploaded during the online renewal application.
• You must have a valid credit card to make online payment.
• You must have a printer to print out the receipt, to be used to collect your new passport at the immigration office.

The steps are as follow:

• Get ready your photo.
• Use your web browser to go to MyONLINE*PASPORT website.
• Read the terms and conditions, and click on the "Agree" button.
• A popup window will appear, click on the "OK" button.
• Fill in your existing passport and IC detail. Specify your choice of location to collect your new password. Search for your passport detail in the system.
• Fill in the online application form, upload your photo, and submit your application.
• Make online payment using your credit card. For normal 5-year Malaysian passport, the fee is RM200. Senior citizens above 60 years old will get 50% discount.
• Print out the receipt.
• Bring the receipt, your existing passport and your IC to the designated location to collect your new passport.

You can also go to the same website to check for your passport renewal application status.

It seems that many are still unaware about this online passport renewal website, because the website currently shows the number of online application so far is only 3380. Feel free to bookmark this article and share it with your family, relatives, friends and colleagues.

A family trip to Kuala Sepetang (Port Weld), Perak

Kuala Sepetang is a fishing village located just 16km at the west of Taiping, Perak, Malaysia. It is about 72km drive from Ipoh, and 99km drive from Penang. Nearer to the confluence is a Chinese village which most of the houses are wooden and built half on top of the water and half on the landside. There is also a Malay village (a.k.a. kampung) at the adjacent inner land.

The Chinese village is pretty traditional. Most of the houses are wooden. There are several temples around the village. There is also a private independent petrol station at its center.

There are quite a few homestays available in Kuala Sepetang, of which most are not advertised in the Internet and they prefer to be contacted for booking information by phone. There is also a larger scale one called The Happy 8 Retreat @ Sepetang which is well advertised in most of the major online hotel booking websites in the Internet.

Right before arriving the 2 villages of Kuala Sepetang, there is a small junction on the left of the main road, leading to several charcoal factories. The larger and famous one is owned by Khay Hor Holdings Sdn. Bhd, which is free for tourists visit. They can also arrange a guide to explain about the charcoal manufacturing process to the visitors if the crowd is keen to know more about their operations.

There are quite a number of charcoal kilns inside the factory. The entrance (which is sealed as bullet shape on the whiter lower part of the kiln in the photo below) is taller than an adult.

Beside the factory is a small river, which mostly dried out during our visit. Right at the entrance of the factory, you can buy some charcoal soveniors, and a kind of unique natural vinegar with multiple functions.

After visited the charcoal factory, we went straight to our accomodation, which was the Happy 8 Retreats.

This wooden building with an eagle figure in front has already become a famous landmark of Kuala Sepetang. It is a multifunction building, which in front of it is a fishery wholesaller. Inside ground floor is the Happy 8 Retreat receptionist, lobby and dining area.

Do you notice the "cage" outside the wall, on top of the blue signboard? It is actually a lift, accessible from inside the building.

Its 1st floor is a Chinese restaurant named as Makanan Laut Kang Kao. 2nd floor onwards are the rooms of Happy 8 Retreat.

The Happy 8 Retreat at Sepetang is very artistic with wooden theme. Below is the photo of one of its dining table surrounded with decorative wooden designs. We had our next morning breakfast there. The breakfast was included in the accomodation package. It is fixed for each day, instead of buffet style.

Despite its rustic wooden theme, you might be surprised to find out this retreat is well equipped with modern contactless keycard system similar to those used in 5 star hotels.

Our room was river facing with a queen size bed below and 2 more single beds on top, big enough for family stay. The room is equipped with modern electrical system and attached with a modern toilet. WiFi password was provided and its signal was pretty strong and stable.

After settling down, we went to walk around the village.

There is a KTM train station sign which is another famous landmark in Sepetang, which formerly known as Port Weld. In fact, this is the 1st train station in Malaysia which commenced operation in 1885, with a short railway track connected to Taiping. Notice that during those good old days, the sign has 4 languages on it. Today, the train station has already ceased operation and the railway track had been demolished, leaving this sign as memorial.

Nearby, there is a Chinese hawker stall selling the famous curry mee, laksa, red bean drink, ice kacang, etc.

The stall opened at 3pm, and always crowded with long order queue. Outside the stall is another hawker selling prawn crackers which is pretty famous too.

Beside the riverbank, there is one multi-storey brick house which is actually one of the homestays. The price per room per night is RM100 only.

There are houses on both side of the river. We were told by the villager that last time, there was no road linking the 2 sides. Villagers need to take water transport to go over to the other side. A few years ago, a new bridge was built linking the 2 sides. Now the villagers can cross over to the other side by walking or riding on motorcycle, which brings much convenience to them. The photo below was taken at the middle of the bridge.

There are 2 kinds of boat owned by the villagers in Sepetang. One is the fishing boat, and another is the tour boat. Each of the fishing boats is marked with a large alphabet, either A, B or C. The villagers informed that boats of type A are for fishing in the sea, and the boats normally went out for a few days before returning; B is for prawns and crabs catching, while C is for clams and cockles catching.

We went for river sight-seeing on one of the tour boat. Tickets were sold at counters near the jetty.

The first destination is eagles feeding. There are many eagles at the spot hunting for food.

Then, we went to a floating fish farm for fish feeding activity. The fishes are breed in nested cubicles. The workers on the fish farm also shown us some wild animals found there, including puffer fish and horseshoe crab, for photo shooting.

Then, the boat brought us went along the village before returning to the jetty.

At night, we took another tour boat for fireflies seeing at the mangrove forest researve area, which departed at 7.30pm. The tour was slightly more than 1 hour. There were many fireflies on the trees at both side of the riverbank. The fireflies blinked synchronously, which is different from the asynchronous fireflies we saw in Cherating few years back.

The next day, we visited the mangrove forest reserve in the Matang Mangrove Eco-Educational Centre, located diagonally opposite the junction to the charcoal factory. This mangrove forest reserve is said to be the largest of it kind in Malaysia.

Before entering the mangrove forest reserve, we need to purchase ticket at the guard house. We were given a passbook which we can stamp at each of the visiting stations inside the forest. There were quite a lot of monkeys outside the guard house.

Jungle tracking inside the forest is pretty easy and should not be getting lost, as we just need to follow the wooden bridge built on top of the swampy forest to complete our track.

Deep inside the forest, there are also huts and houses for homestays, as well as camping area for campers.

There is also a jetty beside the river, with tour boat service going to sight seeing activity similar to those offerred by the tour boats at the Sepetang village.

If you are interested to have a trip to Kuala Sepetang, you can download the tourist map below (click to enlarge) to plan for your itinerary.

This trip of my family did not cover all the attractions. We didn't visit the Matang Museum nearby, we didn't visit the cockles factory, we didn't visit the Kuala Sangga fishing village, which is a small village only accessible by boat. We also didn't go for dolphin watching, as we were told that dolphin is hardly seen at the season.