Monkeying around in Muar

Continued from Climbing Bukit Treh with the wife and baby.

Next we went to a place close to the Muar river mouth.

This place is famous for its many monkeys living in a mangrove swamp.



I have also visited this place many times but this is the first made during high tide.

Here's a couple who feed the monkeys so often they become buddies...

It is also in this visit that I realised how many monkeys they have...

Normally I'd just watched the monkeys coming down from trees to get their share of feed close to the roadside but this time I actually concentrated on the ones on trees.

Climbing Bukit Treh with the wife and baby

OK. Time to churn out more supporting articles for the stories on Muar also running in the blogspot CATATAN SI MERAH SILU.

Sunday morning 15th August 2010. I brought the wife and baby to climb a small hill called Bukit Treh not far from my mum's house in Muar.

For the record, I have climbed this hill many times. But it is the first time for wife and baby...



As it turned out the path was blocked by a falling tree.

We had to find alternative by climbing down a slope...

Then climbing back again from further ahead.

Look at the tree which blocked our way. Oh, if you can't see baby, it is because he was strapped on my side...

Soon we could see some steps albeit covered by grass.

This is a view down from the steps... you could see part of a water treatmen plant complex.

The climb continued...

This gate indicates we were already close to the top.

There's an abandoned water storage facility from the British colonial days.

At last my wife and baby could say they have arrived... :]

A strange 'emu farm'...

Continued from The journey down Takengon......

Halfway or so down we stopped at a stall for refreshments...

Interesting are the huts built between pine trees...

More interesting are these lot...

I can't help but thinking this must be something from a rural African village, something like a gathering of ostriches... or to be more accurate that of emus, those funny-looking grinning big birds from Down Under...

The journey down Takengon...

Continued from Morning views of Takengon and Danau Laut Tawar.

Soon we were on our way out of Takengon.

Compared to the journey up the previous day, I paid more attention to the scene around...

I realised there's coffee plants most of the way up (or down at this point)...

This gate marks that we are entering a different district... different but still considered within the highlands of the native Gayo people...

There were parts were the road is very bad...

Looking at the coffee plants offer respite when the winding road became too weary.

Plateus such as this made us forget we were still 3,000 feet or so above sea level.

Then there's people on bikes making us feel as if we were on low ground...

Of course there's still the bad parts to put things in perspective...

All in all, the highland does offer interesting vistas...

Morning views of Takengon and Danau Laut Tawar

Back to the Aceh support stories. Continued from Enter Takengon and the highland fresh water lake Danau Laut Tawar.

Saturday morning 30th January 2010, after a nice sleep I went to have a look at the city of Takengon.

The hotel I slept at...

Actually I wanted to have a look at the large freshwater lake called Danau Laut Tawar. But it seems I have to walk quite a distance from the hotel.



As it turned out I could have better views from the hotel's top floor...










There... can you see the lake behind the buildings?

Ah. A nice view of the city with a range of mountains in the background.

The spice restaurant near Pagoh

OK. Running alongside the series on Aceh in the blogspot CATATAN SI MERAH SILU is a series on a recent travel to Muar. The series also need supporting articles. There's a few coming and this is one.

On a hilly area towards the town of Pagoh, Muar could be seen this building.

Inside is a restaurant offering meals cooked using home-made and home-grown herbs.



The herbs are in fact on sale in a variety of combinations said to be able to cure certain ailments.

For the record this restaurant is part of complex that includes a herbs plantation covering wide tracts of land. It is called Ladang Herba Nasuha (Nasuha Herbs Plantation) and is said to be the biggest in Asia!

Enter Takengon and the highland fresh water lake Danau Laut Tawar

Continued from The road uphill to an Aceh highland....

The journey up the highland continues...

We soon reached the boundary of the city called Takengon.

What is so special about this city? We will see after this gate...

For from a hillside vantage point after the gate we could see the city of Takengon besides a wide expanse of water.

Welcome to the freshwater lake called Danau Laut Tawar.

Situated at about 4060 feet high from sea-level it is higher than the highest peak in Kedah, Gunung Jerai and about 1,000 feet higher that the better known larger lake Danau Toba south of Medan.