First trip back to Muar for the year 2010

OK. An excursion from our recent stories regarding Aceh...

Last weekend, me, wife and baby Al-Rasyid returned to my native hometown of Muar, Johor, our first trip there for the year 2010. This is a picture at a wedding we attended on Saturday...

We next attended another wedding at another part out of town...

As the crowd converged it was raining cats and dogs outside...

Here's my dear wife with Al-Rasyid...

If I remember correctly, this is our baby's first taste of orange and he seemed to really like it...

Sunday morning we visited a favourite stall near the mouth of the Muar river...

Next we went to the recreational area fondly known as Tanjung (the cape). That's when I realised another species of monkey have joined the local population there.

This is a hill I saw besides a school some 20 km to the east of Muar town...

Here's the part of Muar river at a place called Tanjung Olak...

We came here because I wanted to check how the place fits into a dream I had about 2-3 years ago...

Next we visited the mosque at Kampung Raja in Pagoh...

Al-Rasyid 'posing' at the pulpit...

We took the opportunity to visit the tombs beside the mosque. For the record here lies the only known tomb of a Melaka Sultan in Malaysia, that belonging to Sultan Alauddin Riayat Shah who ruled Melaka 1477-1488 AD.

Celebrating the Prophet's birthday in Aceh : Enter the tomb of Syiah Kuala...

Peace be upon you all. After a lapse of 2 weeks, let's continue the new series on my latest trip to Aceh. Continued from the article Celebrating the Prophet's birthday in Aceh : A feeling of old Kedah... or rather, old Malay country before Western colonialists spoiled everything? .

Thursday 25th February 2010, after having breakfast at the hotel in Banda Aceh it's time to make a visit to a certain place...

Welcome to the tomb of the venerable saintly master scholar, Sheikh Abdul Rauf Singkil also known as Syiah Kuala. Situated some 5 km out of city centre, this is me and wife's third visit here. For our baby Muhammad Al-Aminul Rasyid this is his second visit. You can read about the Sheikh and his tomb in the old articles Makam (tomb of) Syiah Kuala made in the blogspot SENI LAMA MELAYU (MALAY OLDEN ART) . Have a look also at the article Views around the tomb of Syiah Kuala....



Sheikh Abdul Rauf's tomb is the one covered in white. It is only in this trip that I learned the one with the yellow-coloured tombstone belongs to his student, Teungku Pakeh Ibrahim.

One for the album. Members of our convoy posing with the religious person (centre with skull-cap) who takes care of this place. He was the one who explained about all the tombs within the enclosed area...

A sideway picture of the tombs situated in the enclosed area. For the record this picture is facing the direction of Ka'abah, the Muslims' global centre of worship in Mecca, Arabia. It is also in the this trip that I learned the uncovered tombstone seen in the centre belongs to Sheikh Abdul Rauf's brother, Sheikh Abdul Wahab. But more of interest to me is the larger tombstone to the right. For it belongs to a certan Sheikh Abdul Rahim Maharajalela, father to Sultan Ahmad Shah Johan Berdaulat who ruled Aceh in the early 18th century...

For couple Haji Muzaffar and Puan Suzana who came to Aceh for the first time, this visit to the tomb of Syiah Kuala was a big revelation.

Soon it's time to go to other places. Will continue another day...

Celebrating the Prophet's birthday in Aceh : A feeling of old Kedah... or rather, old Malay country before Western colonialists spoiled everything?

Time to continue from Celebrating the Prophet's birthday in Aceh : A sudden unexpected trip... .

A few kilometres after the airport we stopped at this restaurant.

Behind is a hall which was exclusively reserved for our entourage...

OK. There were about 20 of us who came from Malaysia joined by 10 or so of Kak Ann's staff. By the way, Kak Ann, a Malaysian staying in Aceh was our host...

She also flew some guests from Jakarta, about 6 of them if I'm not mistaken. Seen in the picture is my wife holding our then four-months and a half old baby next to Ike As Sagaf, a guest from Jakarta.

So there we were seated waiting for lunch to be served.

Writers Puan Suzana and husband Haji Muzaffar was trying to hide their immense delight. For both it was almost like a dream to have finally arrived in Aceh.

Suzana has been writing a number of books concerning the genealogy of Malay rulers and their relations with the Ahlul Bait, family of the Prophet Muhammad SAW. Her own research has lead to the discovery that a main ancestor, the venerable Bendahara Tun Sri Lanang (a major 17th century Malay palace official, writer of the famous Malay treatise Sulalatus Salatin, known also as the Malay Annals) flourished and died here after being transported from Johor to Aceh. A grandaughter (or so) of Tun Sri Lanang married a certain Sayyid (a descendant of the prophet) resulting in progenies who became later Bendaharas of Johor.

When the infamous Sultan Mahmud of Johor was murdered while being carried on the pedestal in 1699, he left no heir. So custom dictates that the Bendahara should be elevated to the throne and that's the start of the Bendahara dysnasty who ruled over Johor, Pahang, Riau, in fact wide expanses of land which used to form the glorious Melaka empire of the 15th century AD. Colonialists intervention soon saw the break-up of the empire. Suffice to say these resulted in the modern states of Johor, Pahang and Terengganu having monarchs who originated from the Bendahara line, which in turn originated from the Sayyid and Tun Sri Lanang who flourished in Aceh.

Imagine knowing all this, knowing how your main ancestors started out and where they came from. Imagine, having wrote a number of books about it but have yet to step foot on the land where it all started. Not only that, Suzana was actually in the midst of writing another book. And she happened to reach a snag when comes to a subject which concerns Aceh!

While Suzana and Muzaffar whose movement are currently constrained due to having a small child were harbouring dreams of visiting this land sometime in the near future, they never dreamt it would happen so soon. Who would have thought, because of their association with little old me, coupled with the fact that they wrote the very succesful Malay book "Ahlul Bait dan Raja-raja Melayu" (which I've translated to English. See My 5th book is out! Ahlul Bait (Family) of Rasulullah SAW and the Malay Sultanates... ) they got invited by Kak Ann with all expenses paid?

So there they were husband and wife trying to contain their delight in all civility while savouring the food and view at the restaurant. And they were only a few kilometres away after arrival from the airport. All they have seen so far were just little samples of the wonderful historical land which is Aceh.

My dear wife and baby Al-Rasyid posing downstairs. For the record this is the 3rd time my wife came to Aceh, second for our dear baby...

The wife staring at the scenery, wide open expanses of paddy fields which characterise major parts of Aceh, even at the rather urbanised capital called Banda Aceh! Yep... when we came last year and stayed at the only 4-star hotel in the whole of the land, we can't help but notice the paddy field just behind the hotel. Which brings us back to the meal we had.

While Suzana was rather composed, Muzafar reached a staged where he almost cried. "My God," he quipped."These paddy fields reminded me of my growing years staying with my Nenek (grandmother) back in Kedah more than 30 years ago!". Which is exactly my sentiments. I might be 5 years younger than him but I still remember the paddy fields which used to cool my eyes besides the stretch of road from Muar up to Negeri Sembilan.

Here in Aceh, I also found scenes from 30 years ago being enacted again with people still farming the old way, man and woman walking in the mud and such. Muzafar went one step further by declaring all the food we had tasted of the good old years of the 1960s to 1970s, a period where Malay villages were still largely undefiled.

"How come the food here tastes so good?" he asked. I answered, apart from the clean air and refreshing scenery (Aceh has no big industry with factories to pollute the air) the food were freshly taken or plucked from its sources. No sir, they hardly use preservatives here. As far as I know and have tasted, whatever you eat are taken from a close-enough locality in amounts which are sufficient for the day's need. So sir, we don't need to use artificial preservatives nor we store our fish and meat in ice for months and on. Nor do we have to pretend these are fresh when thawed or served with microwave...

Here's one with all the people gone. So on to the title of this article.

While industralisation has made people progress in a certain materialistic direction, it has also made them less-sensitive to nature, in fact more oblivous to their actual natural needs. Consumerism has created artificial longing for goods that we don't really need. The same goes for the body. It is consumerim which has made food taste less natural in Malaysia then it was, say 30 years ago.

So why did I use the words "... before Western colonialists spoiled everything?" in the title of this article? Well go figure. At the risk of sounding very insular, I dare say it is the Western colonialists who brought consumerism and its whole artifical demand thing into our once nature-centred population. Everything is spoiled since then...

Later at night we visited the orphanage built by Kak Ann in Lhoong, some 50 km south-west of Banda Aceh.

The very same night we returned to Banda Aceh. We had supper at another restaurant before checking in at our hotel in mid-town.

Here's a view outside this restaurant. Seen in the background is a stretch of land which extended into a small narrow peninsular (or was it some sort of island connected by bridges?) constituting the famous area called Ulee Lhue and its harbour. That's all...



p/s: Do excuse me for the poor quality of pictures. What happened was, the night before we flew to Aceh I've just found out my Olympus camera charger was condemned beyond simple obvious repair. I had no time to find replacement. Thus I had to proceed with a camera with less than 5 per cent power still on.

Luckily a friend brought a videocam and asked me to record our trip. It is a fairly good model and you can see the results in the latest postings at my Malay blogspot BERPETUALANG KE ACEH. However the snaps made using its camera mood leaves a lot to be desired. Either that or I don't know it well enough to operate it properly hence the pictures you see...

To Kak Zanina of The New Straits Times' Travel Times section, if you happen to read this, I suggest you go straight to the collection of articles listed under the post The Aceh trip stories... in order from ground zero until the end... . The links point to all the relevant articles posted in all my three blogspots, hence you have those in Malay, English and bi-lingual bundled together for easy reference and continous flow of understanding. That should give you some idea what sort of articles I can produce or reproduce if you decide to have some for Travel Times. Mind you all the pictures have been down-sized to 10 per cent while the original ones at 3 megapixels should be good enough for paper print.

I have more pictures in store, those I did not publish in my blogspots. Besides the Aceh trip referred to was the 8-day trip made June 2009. Since then I have been to Aceh again twice, in January and February and now I'm just starting to relate the later. Cheers! :]

Celebrating the Prophet's birthday in Aceh : A sudden unexpected trip...

Peace be upon you all. At the end of January me and wife brought our then 3-month old baby Al-Rasyid to Aceh. So I thought one of these days I'll start a series on it in this blogspot. As it turned out we went to Aceh again in February, albeit unexpectedly. So after deliberating some time on the matter, I decided to present a series on the later trip instead, leaving the story for the January visit to be told at another time. Come... :]

The February trip was started on Wednesday 24th February. Coming along were our friends Puan Suzana and husband Haji Muzaffar who are both prolific writers in subjects considering Malay rulers and the Ahlul Bait, family of Prophet Muhammad SAW. Refer to this previous article... My 5th book is out! Ahlul Bait (Family) of Rasulullah SAW and the Malay Sultanates... .

We went for this Aceh trip on the invitation of our friend Kak Ann (the lady in orange, not the one on far right though...). She wanted us to attend the Prophet's birthday celebration to be held an at a mosque she just built in Perlak, an area in the eastern parts of Aceh...

The function itself would be held on Friday which is the 12th day of the Muslim month of Rabiulawal, noted by many historians as the date Prophet Muhammad SAW was born on. As Perlak is some 8 hours by road from Banda Aceh where lies the only international airport in Aceh, obviously we must arrive in that province before then.

There are only 4 flights to Aceh from the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) in Sepang, one each on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. We just received our invitation late on Monday. Thankfully by Tuesday we got all our flight details sorted out for the flight on Wednesday...



So there we were on our way to Aceh. Never would I thought that I would go again to this personally very meaningful province. At least not so soon after making the previous trip end of January...




Actually there's some 20 of us coming on the same flight from Malaysia for the same function...

Most of them are Kak Ann's relatives. Me and wife were among the few friends while Puan Suzana and Haji Mustafa are our friends only recently introduced to Kak Ann. So there...

Views from a bungalow on top of Fraser's Hill

A few days after the family visit and river cruise in Melaka (see Melaka river cruise at night ), me and wife brought baby Al-Rasyid to Fraser's Hill where we spent the night at a bungalow. Here's the views from the balcony of our room...

And here's parts of the bungalow...

By the way these pictures were taken on December 13th 2009. That's when baby Al-Rasyid turned two months. Cheers! :]

Melaka river cruise at night

OK. So went around and visited certain places in Melaka. Actually on the same day we also went to Muar before going back to Melaka at night. The mission is to take the Melaka river cruise at a time when we could get a good view of the lights. Here's a number of video clips following the night cruise. Enjoy it! :]

On to the tomb of Tun Teja...

After we're done at the city of Melaka, we next head southwards towards Muar and decided to visit the tomb of Tun Teja.

Who is Tun Teja? She was said to be an astounding beauty from a noble family in Pahang...



There is a long story regarding how the admiral Hang Tuah came to Pahang and managed to lure her to come to Melaka and marry the Sultan...

It is said that she died while retreating with the royal entourage following the conquest of the city of Melaka by the Portuguese in 1511 and that is why she was buried here, in the middle of a paddy field.

There is reason to believe that there was a settlement here once, even for a short while. This well in the compounds of the Tun Teja tomb complex should attest to that...

Visiting the Tengkera Mosque...

After the tomb of Hang Tuah, we next went to Masjid Tengkera, the mosque of Tengkera...

Built in the 1720s or so, it is one of the oldest still-existing mosque in Malaysia...


It used to be the state mosque of Melaka...

For information the word Tengkera came from Portuguese word tranquerah which means rampart or a low-built fortification. The surrounding area used to be a busy suburb lying just outside the main fort of A Famosa, the Portuguese military stronghold after they conquered the city of Melaka in 1511 AD. Thus it was protected by such a rampart. However this mosque was built only after the Dutch took over rule starting in 1641. The Portuguese were very much against Islam and used to destroy every mosque they could get their hands on while the Dutch adopted a more egalitarian policy to get the Muslims to work alongside...

At the grounds of the mosque lies the tomb of Sultan Hussin Shah. For the record he was the ruler of the remnants of the Johor-Riau-Lingga empire which used to inherit the colonies of the Melaka Sultanate. Too bad the empire was broken apart by the Dutch-Anglo Treaty of 1824, during his rule...