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This blogspot is a medium to share my thoughts and adventures apart from promoting my books. Below are the books which have been written or authored and published by myself.


"Berpetualang ke Aceh: Mencari Diri dan Erti".

ISBN 983-42031-0-1, Jun 2006


"Berpetualang ke Aceh: Membela Syiar yang Asal"

ISBN 983-42031-1-x, May 2007


"Berpetualang ke Aceh: Sirih Pulang ke Gagang?"

ISBN 978-983-42031-2-2, November 2007


It is interesting to note that while these books were written in Malay it has gained enough attention to merit being part of the collections of the American Library of Congress and National Library of Australia. Look here and here.


While the first three books were published by my own company, the fourth titled "Rumah Azan" was published in April 2009 by a company called Karnadya with the help of the Malaysian national literary body Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka. It features beautiful pictures along with stories behind selected mosques which could be related to the history of Islam and the Malays alongside the formation of the Malaysian nation. Look at the article A collaboration of old collegemates - the book "Rumah Azan".


My fifth book "Ahlul Bait (Family) of Rasulullah SAW and Malay Sultanates", an English translation and adaptation of the Malay book "Ahlul Bait (Keluarga) Rasulullah SAW dan Kesultanan Melayu" authored by Hj Muzaffar Mohamad and Tun Suzana Othman was published early 2010. Look here... My 5th book is out! Ahlul Bait (Family) of Rasulullah SAW and the Malay Sultanates... . For more information check out my Malay blogspot CATATAN SI MERAH SILU.



Like my fourth book "Rumah Azan", the sixth book "Kereta Api Menuju Destinasi" is also a coffee-table book which is published by the company Karnadya with the cooperation of Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (the main Malay literary body in Malaysia). Coming out January 2011 it features pictures and stories on the adventure travelling by train to all of Peninsular Malaysia along with the interesting places which could be reached this way.


My seventh book "Jejak keluarga Yakin : Satu sketsa sejarah" in turn is a coffee-table book which is written, editted, designed and has pictures taken by me. Coming out of the factory October 2011, this book which combines family history with history of places such as Singapura, Johor, Batu Pahat, Muar and in fact the history of the island of Java and England has been reviewed with me interviewed live in the program Selamat Pagi Malaysia at RTM1. Look at the article Siaran langsung ulasan buku "Jejak keluarga Yakin : Satu sketsa sejarah" dan temu ramah di Selamat Pagi Malaysia. Some selected contents have been featured in Sneak peek "Jejak keluarga Yakin : Satu sketsa sejarah".


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The "Berpetualang ke Aceh" series of novels could be obtained in e-book form. Enter http://www.e-sentral.com/, click general novel and go to page 4. You can also type the word "Aceh" at the search box. Or click straight Book 1, Book 2 and Book 3.


Wednesday, January 07, 2009

My latest trip to Pulau Besar... with the wife...

Peace be upon you all. I've just returned from a week's trip to the East Coast with the wife. So some posting on the matter will be forthcoming. But before that let me get some pictures off my chest here... that of my latest trip to Pulau Besar, Melaka a fortnight ago, my first with my new wife (or any wife for that matter as I've never been there with my previous wife). Heck, after all, we only got married just about a month ago.

Oh, for the record, we also went to the north together and that happened the following week after we got married. It's just that the trip was also made with my friend @ photograher Shamsul Yunos for an upcoming coffee-table book on mosques in Malaysia, so I took the wife along. Whatever, that trip resulted in the last few articles here ending with the one titled New trip to the North - The Ubudiyah mosque and Perak royal mausoleum revisited... made on Christmas day at a cyber-cafe in Melaka!

Back to Pulau Besar... I've been there almost 20 times I think since I first went there sometime in 2002 or 2003. So let me just present these pictures ya. For previous pictures on the subject, please look for it yourselves using the blogspot's search engine.

OK. We arrived at Pulau Besar at about 9pm, by the 8.30 ferry from Anjung Batu after a rather exhausting trip around Melaka. This is a picture inside the local surau (small praying hall)... or you can call it a mosque if you wish.


The surau is situated next to a complex housing a few tombs, especially that said to belong Sultanul Ariffin (king of the gnostics) Sheikh Ismail, a saint from the Middle East said to have arrived to the Malay archipelago at least 600 years ago.

The door to the complex is often locked and visitors who came by the drove expecting barakah or blessings from the aura of the saint's tomb normally could only look on and make their wish from outside. But I happened to come at the rare few times when the door is unlocked for visitors. So here is a good look at the tomb of Sheikh Ismail from inside...


Another look at it... from the head area that is.



Still, my favourite tomb in Pulau Besar (and there's at least 20 visible ones said to belong to saintly or magical personalities while more than 1,000 unmarked old tombs are believed to exist alongside) is this one just outside the main complex. Seen here are my travelling stuff. I often like to lie on that side of the tomb. Heck, sometimes I lie inside the box, above the tomb itself to the shock of some!




Here's the waters just outside the compound of the area containing the Sheikh Ismail tomb complex and the surau.





And the signboard just beside the compound's entrance, erected by the custodians of this place.






Actually I was just testing the zoom feature on my Olympus automatic camera. It has a magnification capability of 5x which coupled with the digital zoom (zooming by multiplying the pixels of the pictures shown, not actual physical zoom) gives and effective magnication of more than 22x. It's just that perhaps because of the internal software and hardware, the screen tends to show chunky pictures as the view is zoomed in past 5x and into the 20x region.

But snap the view and picture would appear looking quite well on screen. That's how I got the previous two pictures although when I took it, I was actually standing on the same spot where I took the picture above...

Oh, as for the title "My latest trip to Pulau Besar... with the wife...", so where's the wife, you may ask? Well, if you look and study all my postings at any of my blogspots, I rarely show pictures of myself. And that's what I told the wife when she asked me to snap some pictures of us together... I took pictures mainly to share with others, not to show myself. So expect me to do the same regarding the wife.

Anyway, I might soon post some pictures with the wife as it is part of future story-telling, God willing. Besides, I'm also a family man at heart. What's the harm in showing some family pictures once in a while right? So see you guys another time. Cheers!


p/s:
I hope it's not too late to wish Happy New Year to everyone and happy Ma'al Hijrah too (the Islamic new year which happened to fall on December 29th )