Sorry for giving up blogging for so long. Been busy. Enough about that.
Had a crazy year! As I am growing my connection here in KL, my roots up north start to get all dried up and shriveled and now I'm left in a state of confusion of not having a sense of belonging neither in KL nor up north! That sucks! But I am not complaining, as the saying goes, home is where the heart is... So that'll be my chest! Hah!
The trip started on a mundanely boring typical day at work when I was juggling 50 tasks in one go and then I received an email from Natasha of Tourism Malaysia with a very long winded title of "Tourism Ministry Media Trip to Lata Lembik and the Launch of Cuti-Cuti 1Malaysia Healhty Bike Ride @ Tersang 1, 2, 3, Kuala Klau and Krau ". So I flipped through the itinerary and as the media invitation stated - TENTS WILL BE PROVIDED. PLEASE BRING NECESSARY ITEMS LIKE BLANKETS AND TOWELS AND TOILETRIES and I said to myself, I'm going, because I love myself that much.
At 8am on a Saturday morning, I received a call from Tasha, we were supposed to leave at 8am and I missed my alarm- SATURDAY=NO ALARM! So I got dressed and grabbed whatever clothing items I could manage to cram inside my back together with my laptop and chargers and headphones and within 10 minutes I was standing by the roadside waiting for a cab to go to PWTC.
We left on time (45 minutes late) but thankfully I was not the one who caused the delay... Hehehe... There were 20 of us from various medias from all over the world (reads- various members of the local media and 1 travel writer/photographer from Canada- Ms. Vanda Patel).
The ride from PWTC, KL to Raub took us about 3 hours and another 30-ish kilometers into the scenic solitude of Lata Lembik (no phone coverage what so ever from Taman Teknologi, about 15 minutes away- which is heaven if you want to escape the frequent calls from the office every time you're out station some where, but a big baga when you have to do a phone-in cross-over).
The place was stunningly beautiful. Lots of huge balak trees, ice cold clear water and you know the nature sound (to be drowned with loud karaoke music and a projector movie marathon screening showing Sanctum, Avatar, Predator 3 and Apocalypto that evening).
We were told by the Camp Commandant that we basically had the afternoon to ourselves and the whole area was dedicated just for us for 2 days and that we could choose to sleep in either the tents, the dormitory, the jungle huts or the challets or the hammocks (there were 3 hammocks versus 20 of us, so none of us opened our mouths and gave a nasty poisonous stare at any one of the members of the media who ever dared to touch them comfy, lovely hammocks).
After lunch (the best nasik putih, ayam tomato, I don't know but the media friends all lapped up the Masak lemak tempoyak ikan patin- I eat no fish!) I was taken to the nearest place with phone coverage (15 minutes away) to do my 3 minutes phone cross-over and then another 15 minutes back to the camp site.
We started our activity of the day
and I was tricked into giving up the weekend and
into trying the short 30 meters flying fox
The sweet guide
sweet-talked me into trying a walk across the rapids on a log, followed
by a "short" skywalk (the part visible from the start of the circuit was really short but the hidden part was almost 1 kilometer winding among the tress).
The sky walk was interrupted by 3 sky obstacle courses and then we were persuaded into
hiking up a hill with a promise of a can of cold Red Bull only to be
dangled across the valley over river rapids and rocks for 200 meters.
As the group went over the final stretch of flying fox we observed that some made it across and some stopped about 30 feet from the platform- the guide told us that the trick is to stretch them legs to slow down and keep them together and tight to go fast- ending with yours truly almost crashing into a towering meranti tree.
I cannot swim and I am afraid of height!!! Dangling 50 meters up the rocky rapids is not my cup of tea. Hahaha.... The afternoons' activity ended with us finally being hoisted
down from a height of 30 meters from the tree top and I would like to remind you that this is just the first of 9 phase planned for the the project!
In short, the trip was
bloody AWESOME!
Tourism Minister, Yang Berhormat Dato Seri Dr. Ng Yen Yen, Encik Lisham and part of the 9,000 visitors at the event!
The crew at Lata Lembik Recreation Park!
Even media people know what it's like to be tired, regardless what the public say!
p/s: part 2 is coming soon with pix- the author needs to do his own laundry as he is a very happy, single and confused 30-ish but boyish looking Malay male. *smirks
I've got this song stuck inside of my head!!! Gah!!!!
