we stayed at my uncle's place at batang kali, somewhere in between genting and kl. i tell you, one day i might just get a house in malaysia. just a cheap small one in the rural areas will do. i sooo love the experience. other than in camps i've never woken up to the calls of birds and insects and neither have i sat in a porch in the company of people i love with the cool night wind blowing, insect noises and a cup of TEA. the house is not beautiful, a little rundown in fact, but it sorta adds to the quaintness.
the small little room with the white tiles was my family's room for the seven days. it was built from scratch by my uncle.
the garden is darn huge.
this is the place we sat and chit-chatted every night.
there were peacocks (and chickens but they were at the back of the pen)...
and dogs. these are the three puppies. there were three other adult dogs.
the food was good. most of what we ate were simple, cheap roadside shophouses fare. most of the shops were family businesses. this is really family business in the simplest and most apparent form. everyone even the kids help out and the youngest and oldest hang around in the shop watching tv or napping. some of the ingredients are harvested personally by the owners. it might be the city me but i find it pretty sweet and kinda heartwarming - this generation unto generation thing - that sometimes i wonder if it's the cooking that's truly making the food tasty.
sugarcane from a roadside stall. cool plastic bag right?! and it tastes different from any other singaporean sugarcane as well.
my dad with the coffeeshop stalls in the background. somehow the setup of the coffeeshops there's pretty different from local ones.
my ipoh ipoh horfun and some wanton mee on the pink plates.
ipoh's famous for it's pomelos as well. there's a row of stalls but i think the one my folks bought from is run by a pair of sisters.
a roadside stall selling bags of cotton and pillows. i thought it looked very pretty with the different fabric colours and bags of cotton swinging in the wind.
we went to places like kl, ipoh (where i got very excited cause that's where ipoh horfun was born and guangliang's hometown) and this seaside place called 'lumut'. it's amazing how my uncle is willing to travel such huge distances - hours - just to see mangroves or buy stuff or eat good food or whatever. i guess being singaporeans we take travelling very forgranted. then again, the travelling time's good for discovery, thinking and napping. we didn't go to many grand, majestic places built for tourists with the exception of kl and genting, but rather, we visited places like the batu caves, san bao dong and taman paya bakau. overall, we visited quieter places but i'm not about to complain. i guess it's more of a recuperation holiday and besides we get to see another side of the country which is totally different from what i've seen, studied or viewed in tourism brochures.
was a clear day when we went to genting!
my family's buddhist so we visited several temples like this. all the coils hanging from the ceilings are of people asking for blessings for themselves and people they care for. kinda sweet eh?
my sisters and i at san bao dong. it's this temple built within a limestone cave. now i know the interior of limestone caves are cool and wet..
when i was at this particular location i felt like i've been transported into one of the period dramas i adore. :)
here's the mangrove i was talking about. there're mangrove monkeys man. how cool is that?
these are the adolescent monkeys. the one on the left has a hairstyle that reminded me of some guys in school.
this is lumut. i absolutely love the idyllic seaside waterfront atmosphere.
this is the batu caves. i totally refused to go in cause of my crazy fear of heights.
one of the better restaurants we went to. it's named after todi - the drink you tap from coconut flowers. the food was damn good and i drank todi for the first time.
what i enjoyed most was the lifestyle i led for the past seven days. admittedly, it could have been better if the release of the results and round 1A bidding didn't fall within that period of time but it was still good. sleeping on matresses with the whole family in a room, waking up and falling asleep to nature, feeling the cool raw cement beneath your feet everywhere, even in the house, quiet days, long car rides, simple places of interests, good food and surrounded by people you care about and care about you in return. somehow, i felt more real, more in touch with life in general. i couldn't have thought of a better christmas holiday.
long roads are meant for thinking and napping.
and ehh.. durians would fall in the middle of the night.
we saw this huge caterpillar on one of my uncle's trees. and i thought "man.. ivan kwan would have a field day here."
of course we saw the ugly side of the country - the discrimination of the chinese, the bad land management, irresponsible and heck-care governance and the lack of development - but like the average tourist i tried putting all these at the back of my mind and enjoyed the holiday instead.
before we set off back across the causeway..
like i said, it's more of a time for recuperation and thinking and one of the things i realised is that i want/need out time like this with people i love every year. the location not necessarily malaysia but rather, a vacation with the same elements.
anyways, this has gotta be my longest post EVER.
