The Dinding river in front of Lumut town

On to the final article of the 26 March-4 April trip to the East Coast which has reached its return phase.

In the last article on the trip, Views from on top of Kellie's Castle we were then in the town of Batu Gajah not far from Ipoh. Afterward we headed for the town of Lumut to spend the night there. The town is famous for being the embarking point to get to the resort island of Pulau Pangkor.

Still the town is scenic on its own. The following day, Tuesday 3rd April 2012 I brought the family to savour the views. Facing the wide Dinding river quite close to its estuary, Lumut has a long promenade which provides superb vistas of the surrounding. Here's a look upriver.

A look across. The Dinding river is among the widest river in Peninsular Malaysia. Its waters is navigable by big ships up to some distance.

A look towards the estuary. The water flows into the Straits of Melaka some 4.5 km ahead.

Notice the white-coloured buildings in the centre? That is the Royal Malaysian Navy shipyard next to the naval base. The silhoutte of hills behind lies on the resort island of Pulau Pangkor. Oh. Actually I've featured the Dinding river from the town of Lumut in the article And now a look around Lumut... made more than 4 years ago. But there's no harm making a similar article based on the latest visit right?

From Lumut we went to Teluk Intan before entering the state of Selangor and spent the night at the town of Kuala Kubu Baru. On Wednesday 4th April we returned home. So enough of this trip ya... :]

The actual part connecting Bandar Tasik Puteri to LATAR Highway...

OK. About 4 months ago I've made an article called The part that should connect Bandar Tasik Puteri to the LATAR Highway and show pictures as per the subject. Later I've learned that the part that connects the residential area to the highway actually lies at a different point.

Today after Friday prayers I decided to check out the point. Riding my trusty big bike to a part of Bandar Tasik Puteri I found a gravel road (seen in the picture) and  followed it up to an uncompleted junction.

Turning a bit anti-clockwise one could see a row of houses.

Turning more until making a right angle from the previous gravel road one could see another gravel connection. Let me mark this as Exhibit 1.

Turning another 90 degrees anti-clockwise and one could see a mostly red-earth road which actually leads to the part which I previously thought is where Bandar Tasik Puteri would be connected to the LATAR highway.

You see, all three roads converge into this junction. Ahead one could see the LATAR Highway...

Zooming in.

Looking at the landscape closer I could now better see how Bandar Tasik Puteri would be connected to the highway. The problem I understand lies in land acquisation. It is said the owners of the plantation have put a hefty unreasonable price knowing how much the piece of land ahead is valuable to both the developers of Bandar Tasik Puteri and operators of Latar Highway. I could surmiss... apart from land acquisation there is a tussle as to who should foot the bill and how. After all building a connecting road across what looks like marshland with a number of streams is also costly.

What is sure the connection would benefit tens of thousands of residents of Bandar Tasik Puteri. It could VERY significantly cut time travelling to many places especially to Rawang and Kuala Lumpur. Seen here is the part of the residential area after I took the road shown in Exhibit 1 till the end. This is the portion residents pass by daily.

This satellite image should put things in better persective, never mind it's an old image before LATAR Highway was even completed. Point A is where I previously thought Bandar Tasik Puteri and the highway should be connected as shown in the article The part that should connect Bandar Tasik Puteri to the LATAR Highway. Point B is where 3 roads, 2 gravel 1 red earth merge before connecting to the highway. And point C is where I came out as shown in the previous picture. Enough.

A visit to Bukit Lagong waterfall

This is from last weekend.

Last Sunday we decided to have a picnic and went to the Bukit Lagong waterfall in Selayang, Selangor.

At first we wanted to go to the place called Templer's Park (refer The seven level waterfalls of Templer's Park... or rather the Kanching recreational forest). But there were just too much people. And what used to be open lawns easily accesible from every direction there has been fenced and this turned me off...

Baby Johan enjoying the scene, his first time here. This is probably the 3rd or 4th time I went to Bukit Lagong compared to Kanching or "Templer's" which I have been to countless times. It might not have multilevel watersfalls and many pools of varying depth but it is good enough for a dip.

What we needed that weekend was a quite place to take a peaceful dip close enough to our place and Bukit Lagong fitted the bill.

That's me and Rasyid after taking a dip. We were then wading in the stream.

Johan testing the water with mummy's help. For the record this is the 959th article in this blogspot.

Views from on top of Kellie's Castle

Back to the 26 Mac-4 April trip. Continuing after Entry point to the Royal Belum forest.

After Royal Belum forest we stopped at Gerik and then spent the night in Kuala Kangsar. The next day Monday 2 April 2012 we left for Ipoh and visited a number of places before going to Batu Gajah where lies this stately building called Kellie's Castle.

It is a castle built by a wealthy British landowner who ran a nearby plantation about a century ago.

But due to some mysterious circumstances the owner died before it could be finished and the castle was left like this.

But here I don't want to talk about the castle but rather share the views available.

For that I decided to climb all the way to the top...

To not just the top floor but on top the highest roof itself...

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.