Views from Giri Kedaton

Peace be upon you all. Come again turn of storytelling for the Jawa island trip 1-14 May...

Early morning Thursday 3rd May 2012, I started the day by climbing up a certain hill in the suburb area called Giri off the town of Grisek some 20 km from Surabaya.

The hill used to be the ruling centre for the saintly religious master known as Sunan Giri more than 500 years ago.

Sunan Giri used to study under his uncle Sunan Ampel in Surabaya. Then he was instructed to study under his father in Pasai (now in present day Aceh), on the island of Sumatera. The father then gave him a sample of soil from Pasai. He said find a place in the island of Jawa which has the same exact soil composition. That's where Sunan Giri should open his own school.

After searching for a while he finally found such a place here.

The place is called Giri and that's where the young man whose real name was Raden Paku began to be known as Sunan Giri.

Sunan Giri built a religious school on top this hill. Later when Giri gained enough influence and following to be considered a kingdom, the hill became known as the Giri Kedaton.

Entry point to the Royal Belum forest

Switching back to the 26 March-4 April travel which covers the East Coast. At this juncture you can't call it the trip to the East Coast anymore as we were headed  back to the West Coast.

Sunday 1st April. We left the city of Kota Bahru and state of Kelantan via Jeli and entered the state of Perak where lies this place.

The signboard practically welcomes us to the forest of Royal Belum.

But this is just the entry point. The actual forest lies ahead to the north. But at least you can see it from here.

This entry point lies at a vast man-made freshwater lake called Tasik (lake of) Banding.

Frolicking around with the wife and kids.

Seen to south-east is one of the two bridges crossing Tasik Banding. It forms the East-West highway connecting Kelantan and Perak.

It happened that the waters was overflowing.

We were told that while Kelantan was dry these parts of Perak were rainy.

Just look at the level of water. This is a roofed rest area.

Even then the water has subsided after a heavy flood that lasted for days...

Oh. This lake is formed after a certain part of the Perak river was turned into a dam. This is actually a far upriver part of the mightiest river of Peninsular Malaysia's West Coast. Water from tributaries as far north as southern Thailand flows into the lake and after the dam flows into the better known parts of the Perak river, that is to the south.