VHanded lalala

Lost in China: Day 9

noreply@blogger.com (VHanded Cheepeng) — Fri, 25 Dec 2015 02:03:00 +0800

It wasn't the most comfortable night in Tibet, as the altitude that we rest last night was getting higher and air was thinner. However, the day has come. We are heading to Mount Everest Basecamp! Depart early at 5am from our basic hotel,

Breakfast in the canteen, accompanied by a cat.

Stars. Wasn't sure what is that stretch of trail. Is it satellite? Space Station? or UFO.

Sunrise.

Due to the Nepal earthquake that struck during April, minor roads are damaged by it. For the restoration work to carry out smoothly, the government allowed cars to pass through in only 2 sessions per day. So to catch that timing, we have to be early.

The checkpoint is guarded by full armed soldiers, and no photo allowed.

This is the most deserted and isolated road in China, but they are very well maintained. A lot of corners and turns.

Several world tallest mountains in a view. Too bad Everest was covered by cloud.

Almost there!

A clearer view of Mount Everest!

We visited Rongbuk Monastery, the highest monastery in the world. This monastery is unique, as it has both monks and nuns living in the same place. Unfortunately, due to pressure from China, most monastery has lesser and lesser monks.

The view of Mount Everest, the tallest mountain, from Rongbuk Monastery, the highest monastery in the world. Double most.

Sheep in the monastery.

A few more minutes of driving, we arrived at the gathering point, before base camp. Here, some merchants setup basic shelters for visitors to overnight, food, etc. We were overnight at one of the tent, said is made from Yak skin.

Outside view of the tent.

Inside view of the tent.

Tent keeper cooked for us. This is the egg soup, slightly more expensive that lower altitude. What you expect? It is 5200m above sea level.

When you are cold, fear not. We have yak shit. Tibetan burns dried yak shit in the tent to steam up the inside to keep warm. It does smell weird at first, but it is better than cold. It was consider summer in Tibet, but for us from tropical country, it is consider very cold. Can't imagine visiting this place in winter.

Everest Base Camp is about 1km away from this gathering point, and is accessible by special bus or walk. It is the starting point of Everest hikers. However, most hiker who challenging the tallest mountain in the world, are starting from Nepal, mainly due to easier permit application.

Monument of Everest Base Camp, check-in.

Catherine with Tibet praying flags

Stone stacking is the greatest pass time in this place. No internet, no TV. There are any kind of stone stacking from large stone, flat stone, etc.

Our version of stone stacking by the river. I think we spent 1 hour to get this high. What for? because we have all the time.

Bobby and stones.

You think I forgot about toilet photo? At this altitude and temperature, human feces are difficult to degrade. They do less smelly though.

Everest Mountain uncovered. It just pure magnificent.

The closest contact with yak! They just non stop eating for hours.

Our mattress and thick blanket.

The night was the longest night in my lifetime. None of us could sleep well, if we ever sleep at all. After sunset, it was so cold and dark, and by slightly moving in the blanket, we need to warm up the blanket again. Headache, short of breath. Our tour guide prepared a few portable oxygen tank for us, but it don't seems to help much.

Going out for a pee is quite challenging too. A torchlight from your phone, with some courage, going out into absolute darkness. It is too dangerous to go toilet, so a nearby spot is always the better choice. Anyway, not much people use toilet, we prefer to do it "in-the-wild".

Before the trip, I was imagining watching the Milky Ways under the sky at night, enjoying the stars. In real, I just want the hour to pass faster.

Lost in China: Day 8

noreply@blogger.com (VHanded Cheepeng) — Sat, 12 Dec 2015 12:52:00 +0800

The place we overnighted in Shigatse is called Gesar Hotel. This hotel is great, with standard facilities that you can find in most major hotel like sauna, meeting room etc, even the carpet in elevator will change everyday.

Usually, my style of travel, is to avoid hotel as much as possible, and as close to the locals as possible, but in Tibet, able to find a proper 'civilized' toilet is close to impossible, they are only available in hotel and diplomat places.

Guys are still 'ok' with it, but for girls, good luck for not having your menstrual visit suddenly.

In the room. The interior is in Tibetan/Chinese art style, and it comes with robe~

The morning breakfast buffet area

First destination of the day, was Tashilhunpo Monastery, founded by first Dalai Lama. Similar like most monasteries, it is located below the mountain. We were left to explore the monastery ourselves, as our guide was visiting nearby police station to prepare the permit for next day's Everest Base Camp.

Main entrance of Tashilhunpo Monastery

Walked by monk in red robe. This picture created an illusion of depth, do you feel it?

Large stupas in the monastery.

Prayers and visitors of the monastery queuing to climb up stairs into the praying hall.

The Thanka Wall

Overlooking Shigatse from higher ground of this monastery

Group photo with one of monastery's architecture

Without tour guide, and with adventurous spirits, we got lost in this huge maze. Spent quite some time to get out to main entrance.

China did a great work in connecting isolated places with this super long highway, connecting from Shanghai to Tibet, call 308. It is 5000km, almost as long as the Greatwall of China. To develop an area, first thing, transport infrastructure.

Monument of the highway

Still, there is no traffic jam here, with occasional waiting for sheep herd crossing the road.

*Look here*

*Look there* (Where can I find toilet?)

Tibetans in a group

花田错

A local restaurant near Sakya Monastery. Food is great, large portion, and price is relative more expensive, the further away from city.

Menu and pricing of the food

Tomato Egg Rice, never stingy with their eggs.

Can't remember this, but I remember is fish with rice. No one usually have fish at 5000m altitude...

After meal, time to release. This is one of the cleanest public toilet, with no door, and an auto flush mechanism through the drain from left to right, all slots at once. Be grateful.

Our next visit, is again, a monastery. But this is unique. It is call Sakya Monastery, with Mongolian architecture. The major colors are red and black, which never seen at other monasteries, and one of the least damaged monastery during the revolution, partly due to it's deserted location.

A monk is reading at the rooftop of the monastery

Panorama view of the main plaza

Resting at the rooftop

Surrounded by mountains.

Entrance to Sakya Monastery

Time to hit on 308 highway, to our destination of the day, New Tingri, the last town before Everest Base Camp.

Praying flag along the highway.

And, toilet break! I promise this is not the last toilet photo!

After days of travel, our first sign of the far tip of Everest Mountain!

Stay tune, tomorrow will be the climax of this trip.

Lost in China: Day 7

noreply@blogger.com (VHanded Cheepeng) — Tue, 18 Aug 2015 22:46:00 +0800

Today is the day. The day we step into wilderness, far away from modern civilization. The ultimate goal is to step foot on Everest Base Camp, but that will be 3 days later. According to itinerary, we will visit few places first, with altitude getting higher everyday.

Tibet's terrain is mountainous, and I believe the government spent quite a huge effort to link highways and train system to this area. Be it political driven or not, this infrastructure is good for the region.

Our destination for the night is Shigatse, Tibet second largest city. It is a 10-12 hours drive distance, just relax.

According to our tour guide, this is mustard farm. It can be seen throughout the whole journey. Ironically, we never see mustard sauce in Tibet, wonder what they do with it.

Mountain 1

Mountain 2

Mountain 3

Small temple with praying flags.

Weird ladders drawings on rocks.

Curvy road up the mountain, just like Initial D.

We took a break at Kampala Pass with altitude of 4797 meters, enjoying the scenery, minimum air, and photo with a Tibetan dog.

Tibetan Dog. It cost 10 RMB per person to take photos with him, but manage to get 15 RMB for two. Don't get cheated by his innocent look, he can eat you for dinner.

Tibetan has the best stone stacker in the world. They manage to stack up any kind of stones, anywhere, any shape.

The holy Yandrok Lake. From far it is unreal turquoise in color; while from near, it is crystal clear.

This weird phenomenon was formed on top of us, like a rainbow in a circle ring. That Chinese tourists who saw this shouted like saw an UFO.

Yamdrok Lake from near.

Yamdrok Lake 2. Because it is too magnificent.

The pressure is getting weaker. This pack food is gonna burst any time.

Mountain Noijin Kangsang glacier.

Noijin Kangsang glacier 2, with the stupa and praying flags view.

Glacier 3 from another view.

It looks like a frozen river that flows toward us

Gyantse Dzong, a fortress built in 1930s, was referred as "Hero City", because of his responsible in defending British invasion around that time.

Pelkor Chode Monastery.

Finding a public toilet outside Lhasa is not a difficult task. Here is the photo of 1 standard toilet: you just pull down your pants, and start doing your stuff. No flushing required too! And, they have no door too. In fact, some tourist rather just do it in the bushes/wild.

If I drop my camera or phone, I would just buy a new one.

After around 12 hours journey, we arrived Shigatse. Altitude there is 3800 meter. Let's settle the night, get familiar with the pressure, before tomorrow higher altitude challenge.

This is the Tibetan curry rice that I missed in Lhasa, since appetite was recovered, I will have it all.

Tibetan dumpling.

Interior design of typical house or shop. Those photos are their past and current spiritual leaders.

What surprise me is, during the whole journey, even in rural area, my phone was mostly had full signal strength. Why can't we have this, even in city like KL?

Tomorrow will be heading to New Tingri, the last town before Everest.

Lost in China Day 6

noreply@blogger.com (VHanded Cheepeng) — Sat, 8 Aug 2015 23:44:00 +0800

Situated at 3500m above sea level in July, Lhasa is hot during day time, and sun is strongest around 4pm. Not the Malaysia kind of hot, it feels hot on the skin, but accompanied by cold wind and strong UV.

Today should be a fine day. I seem to adapted to this altitude, no more headache and nausea.

The first destination for the day, is the great Potala Palace. This is the winter palace of Dalai Lama, another UNESCO Cultural Heritage. The structure is located on a hill, makes it look taller and magnificent. It has 1300 years of rise and fall, mainly by natural disaster and war.

The great Potala Palace. It consists of 2 parts, which are Red Palace and White Palace. Red Palace is used entirely for religious study, while White Palace is for living, resting, diplomatic use.

Center View

Prayers are practicing with a tool which they swing clockwise, while walking clockwise around the palace.

Waiting for the gate to open. Tour guide waited here yesterday since 6am to buy ticket, as they have visitor quota each day. Much appreciated.

Walking up the palace

Most parts of the palace are no photograph, so nothing internal to show here. It has a very thick wall to insulate from cold weather or maybe external threat. We were walked through the White Palace first, which is living quarter of several previous Dalai Lamas, their resting room, study room, meeting room etc.

The interesting one is the Red Palace. It housed the Relic of several previous Dalai Lamas, hundreds of thousands of Buddha statues, countless of Buddhism teaching scrolls, the Dalai Lama throne made from real gold and precious stones, and a lot exotic stuffs.

It was here that I learnt from our tour guide, there is no Dalai Lama in Tibet anymore. The current Dalai Lama is the 14th, and are currently in India as political refugee. Historically, when Dalai Lama passed away, they usually left a clue of the next Dalai Lama. Personnel will be sent out to find for the boy according to the hint. When they found the candidate, several previous Dalai Lama's items or relics will be shown to test the boy's reaction. This had been how it works for thousand years.

We also learnt that, Penchen Lama, the second most powerful leader of Tibet, were having 2 candidates for their 11th term. First one was a boy which hinted by previous Penchen Lama when he passed away, while second one, was politically elected by Beijing. The original boy were later in China's custody at age of 6, and no one knows his whereabouts now.

Anyway, discussing about these stuff in Tibet is not recommended, as these are political sensitive issues. Polices are everywhere, uniform or not, but glad that our tour guide spoke good English.

The behind view of Potala Palace is the new Lhasa. China developing the area with modern high rises, industrial factories etc. If you still hesitate to visit Tibet, next time it will look like Chengdu.

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Lunch at a nearby rooftop Nepalese Restaurant. The boss and the food do look like Nepalese.

One of the member, Li Zhi, just entered the toilet for his High Altitude Sickness treatment.

Nepalese Curry Chicken. The Dal is awesome.

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Noon, we went to Sera Monastery, one of the great 3 monasteries in Tibet. It was located at the mountain leg, and one of the most damaged monasteries during revolution, still recovering most structures.

Instead of following the path of most tours, our tour guide leaded us to a hidden store room, which keeping 2 Tangka arts. It was made by arranging color powder, just like what we seen during Deepavali in Malaysia, but with much greater details. If not mistaken, these arts are telling story about hell and relic.

The spotlight of Sera Monastery, is the weekday monk debating party. Monks gather at the same place, and start debating anything, from religion to science etc. A monk will raise a topic to challenge another monk, then sit down keep quiet and listen to the 'challenger'.

Challenger will response, with sometimes clap their hand with points. The whole picture is quite funny, I just wish I can understand Tibetan language.

See for yourself

We were explained by our guide about 天葬, literally Sky Funeral, one of the most used funeral type in Tibet. The dead will be carried to the mountain, removed the skin, and feed to the vultures. Such cultural difference.

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Since the day is still early, our guide treat us to a nearby Sweet Tea shop. A lot of Tibetans as well as tourist enjoying their afternoon here, chit chat, playing card games, just relax.

Yak skull decoration. Why do people loves these kind of souvenir?

Last day in Lhasa, tomorrow will be a long ride to slightly higher altitude with more awesomeness!

Lost in China Day 5

noreply@blogger.com (VHanded Cheepeng) — Fri, 7 Aug 2015 23:58:00 +0800

Woke up by sunlight at 7am. This is so not right. Tibet is located at west of China, and sharing the same time as Malaysia. Shouldn't we receive sunlight at much later time? Maybe is the altitude.

Oh yea, there is a little dizziness. High altitude sickness started to kick in.

The place that we stayed is call Shambala Palace, a hotel that preserved classic Tibetan architecture, with modern sewage.

Bed with marble robe decoration

Toilet door

Toilet view

Toilet view 2

Shower

Wardrobe

Busy burning precious oxygen, do not disturb.

Above the hotel's cafe.

This hotel is located at the dead end of an narrow alley, so car don't usually drive in, guaranteed peace of mind.

Breakfast is served from 8am to 10am, with mostly Tibetan style food, like butter tea, Tsampa, oat.

Oat + yogurt, not sure how much Tibetan is this.

Butter tea, this is 100% Tibetan. I started to miss this, where can I find in Malaysia?

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Welcomed by our tour guide TenChuong, our first destination of the day was Norbulingka, the summer palace of Dalai Lama. This place was listed as UNESCO Cultural Heritage, this place had been badly damaged during Cultural Revolution, and had been undergoing restoration.

This is where Dalai Lama hangout during summer season. It consists of teaching room, bedroom, diplomatic room, a private toilet of dalai lama, and several rooms for religious purpose.

An old lady is practicing prostration

Tibetan cat. Animals in Tibet wasn't view as low class species, they are freely enter and exit temples no one really bat an eye.

At that moment, I wasn't really paying much attention to the scenery and stuff that explained by tour guide. The headache since morning is getting worst. We had been swallowing some High Altitude Sickness prevention pill since 2 days ago, but the effect don't seems effective. Trying to calm myself down, "this is not the worst yet". Maybe a puke and throw out everything in the stomach will feel better.

Quickly found a toilet at the corner of the site, in fact, is just a drain with flowing water. Coming from modern society, that is consider gross. Anyway, the smell and "product" left by previous toilet goer in the drain DOES help me to release everything, now I am feeling better. For now.

The worst is not over yet, now everything I put into my mouth will come out from my mouth later.

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We were suppose to be welcomed by the tour guide and served with meal when we arrived at Tibet, due to the flight delay, that meal is our lunch now, after visited Norbulingka. Really, I am very appreciate seeing the great delicious lunch in front of me, but knowing if I eat anything now, I will puke again.

Let's don't waste the food, let me go to the toilet and release my 2nd round of vomit first. Still don't have appetite to eat after that. Why only me?

Anyway, the curry soup is awesome. I will order one when I adapted to this altitude.

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Our tour guide knows people. When Jokhang Temple closed at 6pm, we entered at 6pm, we were told that there will be a closed chanting ceremony in there after 6pm. Climb up the stairs to the top, very tiring, but the view on there is able to see Lhasa surrounded by mountains in panorama view, just breathtaking.

Gold symbolic on the top of temple.

#FunFact by Bobby: no matter which direction you look in Tibet, you see mountains.

The grand Jokhang Temple rooftop.

The grand Jokhang Temple rooftop 2

Mountains at different angle.

Prayers outside Jokhang temple practicing prostration. Throughout the day, we see people doing that, facing the temple, and repeat for thousands of times. Prayers also walk around the temple in clockwise, too.

We wasn't allowed to take photo in the chanting hall, so nothing to show you here. And we just knew that tour guide was a monk. He put down his monk identity and left the monastery to learn new knowledge, but years later when he is done, new China policy made him very difficult to become a monk again...

#FunFact: Summer sun in Tibet set by 10pm.

Lost in China Day 4

noreply@blogger.com (VHanded Cheepeng) — Thu, 6 Aug 2015 23:17:00 +0800

Not a productivity day. We had missed the train to Lhasa, and not gonna miss this flight too. Still having the trauma from day 2. Got breakfast, walked around, and stayed at guest house till 3pm, before grabbed airport bus to catch flight at 7pm.

Electric bike that widely used in China.

No one put on helmet in Chengdu.

Say good bye to Sha sha

How I describe Chengdu? It feels mostly like Malaysia, things are still in order, taxi drivers are using meter, drivers are not very friendly. However, it is cheap to travel here, cheap food, if you can take spicy, cheap accommodation, cheap transportation.

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Arrived Chengdu Shuangliu Airport at 5pm, waited till 7pm, but not seeing our plane. Airport announced that our flight was delayed, and distributed dinner boxes for us.

At 9pm, another announcement came in: Flight to Lhasa will be delayed until next day, and arranged a bus to bring us to temporary hotel. God! This trip just can't be smoothed!

We checked in the nearby hotel arranged by airline with 2 buses of passengers, when all of us turn on lights and aircond at the same moment, the hotel power safety switch was triggered. It came on and off throughout the night. Our only pass time is to play poker cards in dark.

A new announcement came at 11pm: flight to Lhasa will depart at 1am, and require us to check out and depart to airport immediately. It wasn't a convenient hour, but I am glad to depart as soon as possible.

It is finally here! A 5 hours delay.

The original plan was to enter Tibet by train, because it might help in acclimatization. Flight into Lhasa took 2 and half hours, once arrived, will immediately exposed to low oxygen and low pressure environment, thus easily trigger high altitude sickness.

The plane arrived at Tibet Gonggar Airport at 3am, and greeted Tashi Dalek (Tibetan greeting) with silk scuff by our poor little tour guide who waited at outside airport since 9pm, with cold wind and 15 degree Celcius. There has no arrival hall for that small airport.

It was an hour drive from airport to Lhasa, our accommodation place. Sky was very dark, and stars are bright. That was something only available at 3500m above sea level.

Checked in at our classic Tibetan hotel at 5am, very tired. But, we just made into Tibet, finally, the real adventure just began.

Lost in China Day 3

noreply@blogger.com (VHanded Cheepeng) — Thu, 6 Aug 2015 00:04:00 +0800

Continue from previous incident.

I wasn't suppose to be here, none of us. We are suppose to crossing desert, weird town, enjoying the perfect boredom without internet and cellphone signal.

The fact is, we are still in Chengdu. Not too bad, at least we have the time to visit places that we missed.

The familiar view from our guest house window.

First destination today is 宽窄巷子, literally Wide Narrow Alley. 300 years of history, the alley is combined of 3 parts which are Wide Alley, Narrow Alley, and a Well Alley. The allies inherited old
Qing Dynasty architecture, which now already merged well with tourism, snack shops, classic theater, souvenir shops, and and and, Starbucks.

Find the odd.

A number of people are selling something call 老冰棍 (Old Ice Stick), in a polystyrene box. Out of curiosity, so I approached a boy and asked:

什么是老冰棒？

the epic reply is: 老冰棒就是小时候的味道啊!

Meet the original Panda 1000

Entrance to Wide Alley

Is just this wide.

This is special. They called it ear picking. Kind of like lock picking, the sifu has an arsenal of tools with various shapes. The purpose is not just to clean your ear, but to make you feel comfortable and relax too. Some ancient art...

The place below is call 龙堂戏院, a Chinese Opera Theater. We were attracted by it, because the Sichuan Face Changing Performance will start in half an hour. How can we missed this stuff? The Face Changing is not an whole hour show, so they added several other performance like Long Kettle, Chinese joke opera, knife throwing(?!) performance, and finally face changing to end it.

Moral of the story, do not have eye contact with those people. If not because of this video, I thought it was real stuff.

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Next, after a quick lunch, we went to 锦里古街。This place has been around since Three Kingdom era, with a slightly merchant/tea house/whorehouse feel, just like how you see in most Hong Kong/China drama. Buildings had been modified to be restaurants, snack stops, souvenir shops etc.

This is magical, walk through that gate, and immediately feel like passing through time tunnel.

Welcome to Jin Li!

Map

三国蜀汉城

Blessing tree

Our dark secret alley :)

Scene just like in drama: a lady will row a boat crossing under the bridge, calling people to buy her Little Boat Porridge.

Quite a hot day, with chance of shower. Tomorrow evening will be the flight time to Lhasa. God bless everything is fine.

Lost in China Day 2

noreply@blogger.com (VHanded Cheepeng) — Tue, 4 Aug 2015 23:17:00 +0800

China has the same timezone as Malaysia, despite her large geographical area. This is in my opinion better than United States who separate their areas by timezone, and day light saving, my god.

Good morning, city of Panda. Morning in Chengdu during July is quite similar in Malaysia, except more pedestrians, more bicycles, more honks.

Guest house uncle drew the nearby convenient destinations in his wall, bravo. Breakfast is quite accessible everywhere, after a short stroll, we decided on a restaurant, and start our first interaction with local people.

Surprise, no one understand local dialect. It sounds like Mandarin, but we only can get a few keywords in between. We read the menu item in proper mandarin, they understood, but they just replied in their dialect, so we just replied 好。

Almost every meals in Chengdu, Sichuan are spicy. Not the curry, rendang, merah, type of spicy. It starts with numbing your tongue, warm up your stomach, sweat gland fully open, and end up in toilet few hours later, every time.

Plan of the day: visit Chengu Panda Breeding and Research Center, pack up, redeem our prebooked train ticket at 6pm, and board the train to Lhasa, Tibet.

Transportation in Chengdu is not as advance like Tokyo or Seoul, but straightforward road design makes it easy to understand where am I standing in this city. But the famous Panda Research facility located at outskirt of Chengdu and not reachable by subway, so bus is the better option.

It is not hard to travel in China, you just follow the crowd. When crowd get on the bus, you follow; when crowd get off the bus, you followed, and you will get to your destination. Joking. But seriously people mountain people sea. After 1 hour of ride and interchange, we are there.

This is the giant panda breeding and research center, housing more than 100 pandas from wild and new birth. Never seen a real panda in my life, curiously want to know how the real one made the world burns.

The park is big, mostly covered in greens, especially by many species of bamboos, the main food source of panda. There are options of taking tram in the park, to several major stations.

Summer is not a good timing to visit here, because panda hates hot, so all pandas were relocated to indoor.

We are lucky, a baby panda was just born few days ago (photo is a little blur). They look just like mochi. Very soon, they will start having kilograms of bamboo everyday.

Just like mochi

A slightly older one. All newborns are placed in incubators.

They were suppose to hanging out here....

But instead... Let's hope hot summer ends soon.

This is not raccoon.

Weather at 2pm is just as hot in Malaysia, maybe hotter. Suppose to visit another attraction call 宽窄巷子 (literally Wide and Narrow Street), but we out of time. Save it till next time.

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The trip back to the guest house is another 1 hour, we were discussing what to do on the 40 hours train ride later, what food to bring, what games to pass time. We even bought a lot of grapes, apples, some weird local fruits, cup noodles, drinks.

According to the tour guide in Tibet, we are required to collect the prebooked train ticket at North Interstate Train Station, sounds like easy job. Carrying our luggage and just bought food, we reached there by 7 pm, passed up our passports, waiting patiently for the officer to process our tickets.

And here comes the nightmare:

3 out of 5 persons are unable to retrieve ticket, due to error on the name. Fuck. Immediately, I called my tour guide who bought the ticket for us about this issue, but China now is not China then. The "I help you you help me" policy don't seems to work that well now.

你给我点时间，我们这里办事都是靠关系。 My ass.

For 1 whole hour, we talked to at least 10 officers, face to face and via phone, no one can fix this shit, the officer can only advice us to get partial refund. Until 8:15pm, right before the train depart, we gave up on this, and requested partial refund... Fuck my life, my wasted roaming phone calls, my sweat, my time, my money.

Tour guide was very sorry about this, sending me proof that he didn't make mistake when purchasing train ticket. So whose fault? System? But that don't matter anymore. He is very responsible in this issue, and purchased flight ticket for us to enter Lhasa on 2 days later.

If life is a movie, this is a fucked up beginning of an adventure.

Still grateful that the tour agency willing to take full responsibility.

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Checking in the same guest house, saying hi to the same people, and the big dog 莎莎!

Dinner suppose to be fruits, biscuit, and cup noodles on train, put it aside, let's go for local steamboat.

Yup! This the what local call the best Sichuan steamboat. Even the air in this restaurant is sell like chili and pepper makes you can't stop coughing. The way we have it is, most meat and vegetables are cooked in the middle herbal soup, while the hot spicy soup which covered in chilies and peppers are for quick dipping only. Look at beside's table, those local people actually finished the spicy soup!

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Now, we just unexpectedly got extra 2 days of travel time in Chengdu.

Let's call it a day, ok?

Next day, back to the past.

Lost in China Day 1

noreply@blogger.com (VHanded Cheepeng) — Mon, 3 Aug 2015 23:30:00 +0800

This is the dream trip. Something we had planned for 5 years (At least the first idea happened since then, and a few emails had been exchanged with the tour guide). Just like typical graduates, I worked hard, but seldom play hard, especially the last 3 years, it was the most tiring period of my life. So, right after delivered the letter, we resumed the emails, fixed the date, and get the flight.

Tibet, is the destination. one of the most isolated place on earth.

Tibet has one of the most kaopekaobu policy for foreign tourist. Technically governed by China, Tibet requires special permissions and VISA to enter, and with compulsory tour guide service. Because there can be 'sometimes' politically unstable, and the Chinese (From now on, Chinese means China resident) would not want foreigners to see it. (Dumb, we have Internet). The funniest thing is when you apply for China VISA, we can't tell the officer that we are going to Tibet, because they will ask for Tibet VISA; but you need China VISA first, before you apply Tibet VISA. Inception.

So, this is not the place you can just pick up the backpack and go. I wasn't thinking much when I bought the ticket, I just want to escape, I don't care. And lucky to have few companions who are crazy enough to join me.

Located at average 4000m above sea level, Tibet is a plateau that only accessible by train, some domestic flights, and a few brave souls who love driving thousands of kilometers for days from nearby cities. So we just booked AirAsia from KL to Chengdu, and back from Xi'an to KL. Why? Because that is the cheapest combination at that time.

After exchanged more than 140 emails with Dhondup, our tour agency person, everything seems fully prepared. The plan is, we are flying to Chengdu on 15th July, and take the world highest Qinghai Railway to Tibet on 16th July, 40 hours later, we will reach Lhasa, largest city in Tibet. On 26th July, we take flight from Lhasa to Xi'an, and back to Malaysia on 28th July, macam yes.

So, 15th July is the day. Get to airport, to the gate, shown some fuck face by the rude AirAsia lady for being the last one to board, and took off. We didn't even late, just last.

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Everyone knows how often Chinese notoriously get on news, especially on flight. It is true. I had never sit in a plane that noisy and always full of requests "I want beer", "I want this", "I want that". No one gives a shit to safety signal, and people DO SMOKE IN TOILET.

This is little gross, and that might not be from Chinese, but since 90% of the flight are them, so I would be racist for this. Out of sudden, Air Stewardess job don't seems that glamorous at all. Now every time I see Air Asia advertisement, I can image a gross face air stewardess picking up a lady napkin from toilet, because it is not flush-able (I tried).

Now I know why that AirAsia lady at the airport gate show us fuck face, because we look like them.

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Arriving at Chengdu Shuangliu airport at 11pm, deal with hogging taxi driver who willing to fetch us all in one shot, and 5 of us decided to take 2 metered taxis to our guest house, still 2 times cheaper with night rate.

We overnight at an apartment using prebooked Airbnb service, and first thing in the house surprised me --

莎莎！

View and layout of the guest house living hall during day time. Night time will be turned into projector room, everyone watching 《中国好声音》

It was pass twelve when we reached there, dinner was limited. Followed a map drawn by the owner, we had 串烧for dinner. Got to specially ordered 微辣, because the spiciness is just unbearable.

王老吉is in fact very popular drink in China, people drink it in any occasion.

So this is day 1. Next day: Shit does happens.

Insomnia

noreply@blogger.com (VHanded Cheepeng) — Thu, 9 Oct 2014 03:42:00 +0800

One of the rare night.

Must be the can of coffee at 3pm. So tired yet the sleepy mood is not kicking in. This is again a long procrastinating night.

Study shows that the more time you spent on Facebook, the more terrible you feel. It might be true, mostly by peer pressure, especially looking what others had achieved, while I am still standing at the same spot. Feel like I am not the master of my life, unable to achieve what I want.

This is the place that I was quite active during my university moment, read back what I wrote, I seems to proceed not much since I stepped out that gate.

Felt into the trap designed by the society, money, capitalism, live the life that society wants you to live, to serve the needs of the power, everything is about profit and value.

So many things want to do, to achieve, yet so little time to do it. Seeing time flies, chances wasted, doing uncertain things, and still try to persuade myself to push a little more, just a little more, and more, just because I believe every time is so close to hit the jackpot, yet still see nothing.

Guess I just need to try get back to sleep.

After A Year

noreply@blogger.com (VHanded Cheepeng) — Tue, 1 Jan 2013 00:57:00 +0800

As I promised last year, I would follow up my new year resolution when another new year came, and it is time now.

These are my 2012 "Resolution"

Run my first startup.
Travel to Tibet, and hike to Himalaya base camp.
Being able to do Toe Fake 20 cones (inline slalom move).
Join a major freestyle slalom competition at overseas.
Gain weight to 55kg. (I find it the hardest challenge)
Skydiving. (See if Groupon provides cheap one or not)
Travel to East Coast Malaysia, include .
Get a MacBook Pro 15. (ouch!)
finish 3 books: In The Plex, Steve Jobs Biography, and one more still pending)
Sponsor a child with WorldVision.

How many had I achieved? Technically, 0. Will elaborate more on this.

Run my first startup

Running a startup is not easy, especially a tech startup. Partners play a very crucial role in the process, and self determination and the guts to take risk comes first. Gave up to start mine, but glad, I joined a mobile game startup, Top Fun Cool Games, published *uncountable* games for Android and iOS. Sushi Friends is our hit game, not sky high, but is our first time taste the juice of success. Still much to learn, much to fail, and finally, great success. Startup is not easy, but I enjoyed it so much, even working on Saturday and Sunday seems so fun, when you see the numbers are growing everyday.

Travel to Tibet

This should be a group resolution with Bobby and Nana, and when one can't make it, mission postponed. A lot researches had been done, flight route, cost, tour guide, and all I need, is time, time, time. Startup is crazy.

20 Toe Fake

Startup is crazy.

Join Slalom Competition

My last competition was Malaysia Slalom Series in June, which participated by Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, and Vietnam. It was Malaysia largest international freestyle slalom competition, thanks to the support from Penang Inline Skating Association. My skills can hardly catch up the young one, and I know it's time for me to focus on what's matter now. I still love slalom, just that, startup is crazy.

Gain weight to 55kg

When I said it was the hardest, I almost achieve it. Current weight is 52kg, and growing. Unfortunately, it is the fat that count, not the muscle. The culprit is lack of sports. Again, startup is crazy.

Skydiving

Let's blame Groupon for not offering a cheap offer! The truth is, I totally ignored this. The arm injury caused me difficult to use strength while lift up my hand, which is very important to control the parachute. Let's see.

Travel to East Coast Malaysia

Startup is crazy.

Get A MacBook Pro 15

Haha, a free MacBook Air 13 from boss, so, mission success or failed?

Finish 3 book

The only moment I read, is in the train, while traveling from Cyberjaya to KL Sentral everyday. Still in the first book, In The Plex. I do enjoy reading the every details of the Search Engine giant, Google, their business strategy, and their ultimate mission to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. But, I would only read while standing. Every sitting moments I got are spent on coding. Yea, coding, in train, with internet access, extra 20 minutes of productivity. Startup is crazy.

Sponsor a child with WorldVision

Regret to say that, I have not done this. In the last hour of 2012, when I reading this blog, this particular task, I immediately entered World Vision website. World Vision US allow us to choose which children to sponsor, so I chosen a boy from Brazil who loves Mathematic (programmers first choice). Sadly World Vision is operate by country, and I was redirected to World Vision Malaysia. Malaysian site is not allow to choose children, and I can only make choices by country. While checking out, credit card failed, and bank debit system offline-ed. I promised to sponsor for a year, tomorrow.

Update: I sponsored a child on 1st of Jan 2013, for a year. So, 1 task completed.

Screw New Year Resolution for 2013, startup to the max. Work hard, play hard.

I am back, with 2012 Resolutions.

noreply@blogger.com (VHanded Cheepeng) — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 20:52:00 +0800

Can’t imagine, the previous post I wrote, is about 1 and 6 months ago. That period was my working life, a lot of up and down, was fucking busy, and glad I grown up a lot in this 16 months of working life. I mentioned ‘was’, as I am in a jobless position, yet it feels so great.

I don’t have a clear 2011 resolutions, which makes me slightly regretted, so I will have 2012 resolutions. hehe.

Been asking myself, what’s the purpose of life (yet, until now, I don’t quite able to answer that, by the fact that, everyone dies at the end, LOL), at least when achieved goals, make me feel life is meaningful. It’s a journey, a game, with strategy to win it. While it can be won, it can be lost too, that’s the fun part of it. It’s important to make sure the goal is clear and specific.

Here are the resolutions of 2012, in summary, start from most important.

Run my first startup.
Travel to Tibet, and hike to Himalaya base camp.
Being able to do Toe Fake 20 cones (inline slalom move).
Join a major freestyle slalom competition at overseas.
Gain weight to 55kg. (I find it the hardest challenge)
Skydiving. (See if Groupon provides cheap one or not)
Travel to East Coast Malaysia, include .
Get a MacBook Pro 15. (ouch!)
finish 3 books: In The Plex, Steve Jobs Biography, and one more still pending)
Sponsor a child with WorldVision.

That’s it. Check back 1 year later, and see what I done.

10 件毕业感言

noreply@blogger.com (VHanded Cheepeng) — Wed, 2 Jun 2010 23:36:00 +0800

4年的大学生活已经结束了。虽然有好多的不舍，但生活还是要往前走。

离开了大学生涯，虽然带有一点点伤感，但整体来说，还是蛮开心的~ 因为这段期间认识了好多人，大大小小，明明暗暗，好好坏坏，（大多数都是好人啦）。

4年里学了好多事情，这里不谈课业里学到的，想把自己在4年里学到的道理写出来，有10个，就让那些还在上着大学的朋友分享下：

钱不是最重要，开心才是关键。但不要搞到自己没钱吃饭。
对不起不要随便说，说了就要实践它。
这时间很大可能会遇见生命中的伴侣，请认真地考虑和珍惜她/他。
课可以旷，但请确定自己有本事旷。
除了学业外，最好有一项会让自己骄傲的运动。
不要凡事都怪老师不会教，只要是看你自己要不要学，Google已经很发达了。
很多时候都是朋友陪我们度过一切，所以要好好珍惜他们。珍惜，其实就是感激。别忘了自己也是好多人的朋友。
控制好自己的脾气，否则很容易犯下后悔一生的错误。
在这段时间跌倒，只需要站起来笑一下，然后继续走，没有人会笑你的；如果你坐在地上不肯爬起来，才会被笑。
不要装可怜来让别人注意，因为没人会每一次都同情你的，遇到问题就要自己去解决，写一大堆和说一大堆，要给谁知道？

每个人都有不同的体验吧，你们在4年里有体会到什么？

其实，我好幸运。

感谢我认识了你，珮如。

最后一个夏天

noreply@blogger.com (VHanded Cheepeng) — Sat, 1 May 2010 11:54:00 +0800

在你我他都没意识到的情况下，4年已经来到最后的两个礼拜。

现在已经是五月，考完试后，大学生活就结束了。

我不能说我开心，因为我很害怕失去；

但面对的还要面对，一些事情，是掌控之外的。

你相信距离吗？人和人的距离会因为实际上的距离而疏远吗？

那就要看你肯花多少心思去保持。

毕业后，一大堆的问题会跳出来：PTPTN怎么还？在哪里找工作？什么样的工作？hometown 还是 KL?

不想了，过后才想。

每个人，请加油，就请你去拼命，当最后一回的学生吧。

金莎，《最后一个夏天》，很有毕业难舍气氛的一首歌，请看好歌词，很感动~

Finally

noreply@blogger.com (VHanded Cheepeng) — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 00:40:00 +0800

Finally, I completed my FYP.

FYP is Final Year Project, a term that widely used in MMU, but most local university prefer the term, thesis.

And I believe, most people hate it. (right?)

This project had been started since last year November 2009, duration until April 2010, about 7 months of planning and implementation, which I learned A LOT A LOT A LOT A LOT A LOT x 10000.

Project successfully implemented on time, with most expected features. When I submitted it just now, a sudden feeling of emptiness in my mind. Not because I had nothing to do anymore, but this project already took about 85% of my brain capacity, and I need time to get balance.

Computer was my best friend, my primary language become C#, sometimes woke up at 8am with the whole brain full of codes and algorithm, ish.

I can’t remember the last time what movie I watched… I can’t remember when is the last time I walk in a mall… I can’t remember when I got haircut, I can’t remember when I back hometown…

(actually I do remember, just the time is too long~)

This project, makes me realized that everyone has weakness. I have my weakness, you have your weakness, and I shall not assume everyone has the skill that I have.

To my FYP partner leekian, sorry for some quarrel during this project, I learned my lessons, and thanks for your all kind of support, directly or indirectly, you do did a great job. I did promise will score A for this project, and I can see we really tried our best, thank you to make this project complete on time, the rest is up to the moderator and supervisor. Thanks again to be my partner.

So, FYP completion present came early. I bought a new Seba iGoR skates for myself, and train hard to get to Korea for my first big competition~ (hopefully)

Congratulation to everyone who completed the FYP on time (and myself). I need to slowly get back my life!

辛苦

noreply@blogger.com (VHanded Cheepeng) — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 17:44:00 +0800

一点都不简单

一点都不容易

我真得好辛苦。。。你看得到吗？

Finally, you are gone…

noreply@blogger.com (VHanded Cheepeng) — Tue, 9 Mar 2010 12:02:00 +0800

Remember the first time I saw you, you seem special, and you were my only one. I spent quite some time with you, until she appeared.

She had a foxy tail, and, definitely, better than you, in everything. So, slowly, I gave up on you…

Ok, enough crap. It’s just about Internet Explorer 6 and Firefox.

Since Google remove the support for old browser like IE6, it forced organization to upgrade their browser to the supported version. This is Google’s initiative to push the Internet forward, and I totally support it~

Internet Explorer 6 died on 1st March, 2010.

Aten Design Group organized a funeral for IE6, which quite hilarious, but it’s a respect for a browser which been on the Internet for 8 years… RIP.

Visit the official website at www.ie6funeral.com

Photos of the funeral, from flickr.

Handwritten message from Team Microsoft. SAD.

R.I.P.

IE6 last look.

Don’t cry my friend, IE6 will be remembered.

Before closing the coffin.

We will miss you.

Wonder will they make a funeral for Windows 98 or 2000?

Hello~

noreply@blogger.com (VHanded Cheepeng) — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 18:10:00 +0800

Been abandoned this site for some time.

Not because I lack of blogging idea, I have quite a lot to share, but workloads are pressing me so hard.

So, here is another blue moon EMO post~

Been trying to accept what I lost, forever. But things can never be so easy. Memories are something that can motivate and push me forward, so powerful; yet if not ‘think’ it correctly, memories can kill.

Currently, still continue developing system for my internship’s boss, and at the same time, FYP aka Final Year Project. Double workload, with same 24 hours, caused me have to sacrifice most of my time with my laptop.

Last few months ago when my internship program came to an end, I was asked by boss if I want to continue developing the project, I accepted so happily, hoping I can learn extra knowledge to work on my FYP team, yes, indeed, I reused a lot of the concept on my FYP, and also some small extra income to support me until graduate.

All the while, I strongly believe that hard work and time can solve ANY problem, even how IMPOSSIBLE it can be, as long as DON’T GIVE UP. It’s true, and it’s always true throughout my life. Things I want, targets to achieve, I set it, I can reach it.

Then I realized, all the targets are seldom come from myself: study hard is for my family, work hard is for people I care, all for the future of a better living for them. If I am alone, I guess I won’t be studying and working this hard. I took this responsible happily, and wish only they appreciate and don’t treat me as outsider. (hey, there is nothing wrong with my family)

At some point, because of my ego, I lost my temper, and I lost the most important one in my life. Words that said out, can’t be taken back; apologise never been accepted. Everything is gone.

For now, I can never wish to return to any previous stage, things that I promised, I can’t fulfil. Just wish that, you can forgive such a silly guy.

Erm, what I want to deliver in this post? Is up to people who read it. I just wanted to shout out the thought that buried in me for 4 months… Always, jia you. And, some times, hard work don’t return, but DON’T GIVE UP!

Day 6: Last Day in Sabah

noreply@blogger.com (VHanded Cheepeng) — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 16:36:00 +0800

Continue from previous post.

Sorry for a long delay from Day 5 post. Life is getting very very hard and stress. But without writing day 6, things get incomplete :)

Day 6 is quite a resting day to all of us, after getting down from the mountain. Most of us have sore legs, that makes walking so pain!

The flight is at 7pm, so basically we had half day to walk around. We had a breakfast at Gaya Street, is Curry Mee. How to say? It’s different. The noodle is special, which looks like cintan mee, but it’s not.

The street of Gaya in the morning. Motocycle is rare thing at there.

The new mall, Suria Sabah. It’s still not yet fully open, with a lot empty shop lots. By that time has book fair with dirt cheap book, so I got 1 humour book, which until now I also not yet finish reading :(

X-Plorer Backpackers, our stay places. Got to check out by 1pm, haiz… Good bye! i will miss the people~

The transparent toilet, cool~

Lunch was Dumpling with Century Egg noodle. Not that impressive, and expensive… chop tourist one!

This is the central market. It’s full range of souvenirs, like pearls, handcrafts, batik, aiya, all sort of traditional toys and keychains. Do some head count, then bought some gifts to friends.

After some “long” and tired walk, is time to sit down and have some drink. Coconut drink is all time favourite. I still don’t know where they got that much of coconuts, and the whole street is selling the same drink, same price… Weird.

1 coconut is RM2.50, for cold one is RM3.00. Each of us ordered 1 coconut, drink till very full, a very satisfy one!

Some fruit I don’t know the name… With very weird taste, yuck.

People is playing chess under tree, so “happening”.

The guy at X-Plorer helped us hired a taxi to the Airport, RM25 just for a damn 10 minutes drive. If next time I am jobless, I will drive taxi in Penang.

At the airport, I saw clown fish, Nemo.

With his friend, Dolly. (ignore the uncle behind)

And another ugly friend.

See what Dolly is doing…? Ha.

The flight departed at 7pm, and reached KLIA at 9:30pm, roughly. Everyone was tired, but this trip is very significant to me.

This is the first destination that I been in my travel list, still have many more pending.
This is my 100% self sponsored trip, thanks to my boss who pay for my work~ Whole trip spent about RM1200 include 2 ways flight. And in the future, all will be self sponsored.
Whole trip was planned with Nana using Google, GPS, and read forums, and all bookings are done directly with the service, no agents involved. Cut cost~
First time encounter wild boars family, scare the shit out of us.
Thanks to mom who called me every night.
Thanks to Bobby, Nana, and Kelvin to be so sporting to say “YES! Let’s go!”
Thanks to my Sony Ericsson C905 phone camera.
Thanks to the weather to be so cooperative during our mountain hiking.
Thanks everyone who make my day so bright, in my worst ever mood of my life… Thanks.

Sometimes not because you can sacrifice, you can work so hard, you can fall down and climb up again, will come with success. By the time you persuade for something or someone, must set a ‘give-up’ point, else, the one get hurt will be yourself, and no one will feel pity towards you.

So, Kinabalu Trip is done.

I can sense my next trip could be Singapore and Korea, wohoo!!!!!

5th Day: To the Peak!

noreply@blogger.com (VHanded Cheepeng) — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 12:40:00 +0800

Continue from previous post.

Last night slept at about 8pm, even is very early, the tiredness just pawned us.

Our bed is double deck bed, I slept upper deck, while Bobby slept lower deck. Each person has a wool blanket, comfort. I thought it will be very cold at night, so I wore gloves and thick jacket that I will use to hike tomorrow. Very soon, I am in dream.

About 12am, I woke up, caused by nightmare. Actually the room quite warm, maybe is because the blanket is thick, so I removed my jacket and gloves, basically, top less. It’s getting so hard to fall asleep, because the air is quite thin and low oxygen. I notice my breathing rate getting so fast, even myself is not moving!

After rolled for 2 more hours, I get off the bed for early breakfast.

Our guide told us, if it rains, and too dangerous, we got to turn back… No~~ Please don’t rain~ But see the below clear sky, there is no cloud~ wahaha. We are lucky.

This is the star view in the morning, thanks to Nana’s super DSLR camera. I had never see this star cloud in my life before… so beautiful…

So we start the hike. Plants are getting short, like the one below.

In the first part of journey, the floor is quite slippery due to some stream water. My knee joints were pain, like the kind of rainy day pain, aka 风湿. Some terrain are manmade stair cases, thanks for making our life easier~

Until some point, there is no more stair case, and plants left grass only. The terrain is granite stone like you see above, with ropes to support us go up.

This is the way they locate the ropes into the stone, by screwing in.

The last part of the journey is not easy. I feel, the hardest part is not because your muscle pain, but is the thin air. I hardly walk more than 100 steps without taking a rest, and got to keep remind myself to breath faster and deeper.

The only motivation for me to keep going is to reach the peak on time, and see the clearest sunrise ever~ Was together with Bobby, but after hike for a while, Bobby is gone! Left me with some strangers…

Must keep moving.

At 5:56am, I reached Low’s Peak~ Sunlight has appear a little by that time.

Another side of the view.

Yea, finally~ While hiking, I not yet feel the coldness, maybe is the heat in my body; but when stop at the peak, I can feel the coldness on my lips and face, cold! My wool gloves are not working…

Around 6:10am, Bobby Reached. See his face, cold till numb.

Awesome view!

The sun rise is so beautiful. In our normal routine, we can never have chance to see sunrise at 10am (the time I wake up usually), that moment I feel a kind of “finally..!”. Maybe is after so much hard work, the beautifulness make me wanna cry~

Sooner, Nana and Kelvin arrived too. It’s time to go down, it’s cold!

Mini lake.

The famous peak of Mount Kinabalu.

Above the cloud~

This is the rope that guided us along the journey.

Nana hiking down slowly with his DSLR behind.

Coming down is making me dizzy. Maybe is because body lack of mineral, or water, or anything. While hiking in dark with only 1 head gear, we can’t see how steep the terrain is; when the sunrise, the terrain is scary… Going downward is quite dangerous. We saw Laban Rata from far, but no matter how long we hike, it’s still that far… And finally~

After breakfast, is time to check out from Laban Rata, there is still another 4 hours journey to the park entrance at Timpohon, damn.

Going downward is killing most of us, it hurts toes and knees.

Along the downward journey, we noticed porter carried supplies from bottom to above.

Check this, empty gas tank. Even the full one is also carry in the same way with legs! Bobby got stunned.

This 2 kakak is carrying food supply to Laban Rata. I asked them:

Me: Kak, ini berat tak?

Kakak: Berat.

Me: Berapa kilo ar?

Kakak: Saya punye 27kg, yang itu orang 30kg lebih.

Me: hebat…

Respect.

Squirrels are everywhere on the mountain. They appear at the places with human, like resting stop, hoping human give them some food. They are attracted by the left over food in rubbish bin too.

Forest~ This is so big different with the peak.

On our way down, it rained. Luckily we brought raincoat. The atmosphere is misty.

Carson Fall, a mini waterfall. This is near to the exit ~

Reached the exit at about 2:56pm. Finally, I had did something I feel satisfied in my life.

The food at Kinabalu Park is awesome. Maybe we are too hungry. Never feel so delicious before~

Certificate for reaching the peak.

Certificate for hiking from Mesilau Gate, wahaha.

This is one cool great experience for us. I not sure if this will be the last time I hike, or there will be another in the future.

For this journey, we used 7 hours from Mesilau Gate to Laban Rata; 3 hours to the peak; going down to Laban Rata for anothe 3 hours, and from Laban Rata to Timpohon Gate is another 3 and half hours.

Total up of 16 and half hours. Never exercise so long before! But everything is worth the price. I need to have something significant in my life, as proof that I live before~

**FYI, Mount Kinabalu still far away from Top 100 Tallest Peak in the world.

Day 4: To the Mountain!

noreply@blogger.com (VHanded Cheepeng) — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 15:34:00 +0800

Continue from previous page.

Finally is day 4, the scheduled climbing day~

Thanks to Mr. Weather, the sky is clear, no rains.

So here is the plan:

1. Get transport to Kinabalu Park,

2. Start hike.

Of course step one is quite troublesome: take taxi to Kinabalu Park is about 2 hours, cost about RM180; or take minivan, RM15 per person. We took mini van for sure. However, mini van will only start when the vehicle is full…

waiting. It’s 6am in the morning.

There will be daily mini van to Ranau from Kota Kinabalu, which will pass by Kinabalu Park.

Our talkative van driver who likes to share his experience with us. He shown us his saman, his rubic cube, his 8 times Mount Kinabalu hiking experience etc. (Locals always hike Mount Kinabalu, like pass time)

Finally the van is full, start driving. On the way saw this Mount Kinabalu from far. It looks small, I know, wait till you climb it.

This Mr Russian is teaching me how to solve Mr. Driver’s rubic rube. I am noob, I still can’t remember the steps.

Reached Kinabalu Park! Nana, Bobby, and Kelvin, and camera man Me. FYI, Kinabalu Park is located at roughly 1950m above sea level, higher than Genting Highland.

This is the closer look of Mount Kinabalu, marvellous.

What the process at Kinabalu Park?
This is the place we report our arrival, hire a mountain guide, get our packed lunch.

There are 2 trails for climbers to chose, 1 is from the Timpohon Gate (left side), and another is the much harder one from Mesilau Gate (right side).

Mesilau Trail is 2km longer, but with more beautiful scenery than Timpohon Gate.

Since this is not the always opportunity, let’s take the hard one up, and come back down from the easy one, hoho.

To start from Mesilau Gate, we need to take transport to there for 20 minutes, cost us total of RM85 per van, kena chopped…

Reached, Mesilau Resort signboard.

Hiking Starto~ It’s already 11am, quite late.

The trail consists of all sort of surface, like the above one.

Our mountain guide, Simpson. He is like a super human, won’t tired one.

Nana with his super camera. The scenery is very beautiful, and there his camera start working.

Look down at KM1. HAHA.

KM2, hoho, still can smile.

Some random waterfall in the forest.

Starting, the road is going upward, after 1km, it going down until starting altitude… then going up for about 1 hour, then going down again!!!! Shit, this is killing my knees!

KM4.5, out.

This is the packed lunch from Kinabalu Park, not something special, but in hungry time, anything taste nice, plain water can taste like 100 PLUS, tea can taste like beer.

Along the trail can easily spot this kind of toilet. I wonder where the waste flush to….

My hiking permit card.

With names one, precious~

Like Alice in Wonderland.

Can’t smile anymore…. tired.

Big flower!

The background is awesome, we are above the cloud finally~

This is the water tank that can be seen along the trail. It written: “Air tidak dirawat; Untreated Water”. but it is safe to drink.

Beautiful…

Turn left to Timpohon Gate, turn right to the peak? Turn Right!

One of the hell terrain. Our steps are getting heavier and heavier, slower and slower, and the terrain is getting harder and harder… where is the end point?

Kelvin with his “lunch”.

Another terrain. The trees are getting shorter and shorter..

This is the white tree.

The air is getting thiner, breathing is getting harder. I need to inhale and exhale faster, else the dizzy feeling strike on me. Finally, reached Laban Rata Resthouse! It is already 6:08pm, a 7 hours non stop climbing, just to get our dinner on time, because the dinner will close on 7pm.

My first proper meal of the day, not very special, but is super delicious when hungry!

People playing sepak takraw on the cloud.

Check in, get room key, put down stuff… huh, tired! I shall bath first before sleep, the water is… VERY FUC***G COLD! The feeling same exactly like soak your hand into ice water, 5 seconds can make your hand numb!

So… It’s the fastest bath I ever had in 21 years.

Slept at 7:30pm, got to wake up at 2am tomorrow morning to conquer the rest of the mountain.

Stay tune!

Day 3: Do nothing Day.

noreply@blogger.com (VHanded Cheepeng) — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 22:24:00 +0800

Continue from previous post.

Damn the tent is so hard to sleep without a pillow, my bag is still too hard as a pillow… Kakak said the tent can sleep 6 people, but 4 people already damn cacat.

Small rains happened twice during the night, so got to wake up to close the tent, and reopen when rain is over.

Woke up by Bobby in the morning. When I opened my eyes, it’s already sunrise. WOW, Sabah sun raise at 6am, let’s breakfast~

breakfast is actually some leftover biscuit from yesterday: Chipsmore, Tiger cracker, etc, no shops on the island open yet. After that we visited another side of island. Sadly, my camera out of battery… but lucky is, Nana super DSLR still in business~

Till the next boat is 5 hours more, let’s get wet, hoho~

Again, damn my camera out of battery!

The sea water in the morning is quite calm than afternoon, so we can see clearly those creatures in the seabed. Fish started to appear, the further, the bigger and colourful.

I saw many kinds of fish: Retard-Fish, Zebra-Fish, Red-Fish, Long-Fish, White Fish, Blue-Fish, Oren-Fish, and many more~ (names come in my first impression, no offense to those fish).

Retard fish like to bite our legs; zebra fish is the super Tiger Cracker consumer; Red-Fish is red; Long fish is long; bla bla bla.

Again! Damn my camera with no battery! Else I can show you all how are those fishes look like.

Looking at those fishes, I feel that all lives are so miracle… After billion years, whole world is full of life.

Back to KK
Sun is getting hot, and it’s time to back to Kota Kinabalu… Oh man, I love these islands! Still stay back in the same X-Plorer Backpacker Lodge, missed their service.

All the food above was introduced by the friendly guy at X-Plorer, yummy, but, expensive la… After is a straight 2 hours sleep, never sleep well last night, with rains, wild boar, and hard pillow.

Malaysia Monument. Seems like abandoned, poor place.

Milo Cincau.

Cooks in prison.

“Tolong display kalau da jual Kalau tak, potong gaji. – Arahan Anti Max” (Please display the unit after sold one, else, deduct salary – order from Aunty Max)

Pork soup.

Then shopped for a pair of shoe for tomorrow hiking, and a shirt printed with Orang Utan, satisfied~

Stay tune for tomorrow main event~

Day 2: To The Islands

noreply@blogger.com (VHanded Cheepeng) — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 12:59:00 +0800

Continue from previous post.

When I woke up at 8am, Calvin was watching TV at outside. After woke everyone up, we went for breakfast. Luckily, we found 1 popular Pan Mee shop.

But I didn’t see where is 家嫂 … This shop has slightly expensive price, maybe to their reputation, or they chopping tourists.

But… it’s delicious~ With Aloe Vera drink.

The boss is a 70++ year old granny, who talked a lot of story to us.

Some things he told us:

Stephen Chou been to his shop.
香港无线电视 crews and actors eat at his shop while filming in Sabah.
And other actors etc.
He hiked Mountain Kinabalu twice in his life.
He has an illegal Philippine worker, who married at 12 year old, and has 18 children now… wow.
Sadly, they can’t afford to send them to school, and even worst, they don’t have birth certificates, makes them no proper identity.
bla bla bla.

Later on, is to shop for Nana’s contact lens. Because we are going to island hopping, spectacles are very troublesome. Lucky I already got my free contact lens sample.

After that, back to our room, checked out. X-Plorer backpacker also allow us to keep our luggage there after check out. So we can go for our activities without our heavy luggage~

Next planned destination is Island Hopping. We drove our rented car back to airport, and get a cab to Sutera Harbour Resort. Cost us RM30, if not mistaken.

Kota Kinabalu International Airport Terminal 1. High class.

Sutera Harbour Resort entrance.

Harbour at noon time. Undescribed beautiful.

I feel like want to jump into the sea right now.

Big big boat!

Price:
The price for island hopping is RM35 for 1 island, additional RM10 for each island. By the time we arrived at first island, we need to pay RM3 conservation fee to the park administrator. (all prices are for each person)

Boarding time. Everyone carrying few bottles of drink water and food, because we going to overnight on island, and the food there is crazily expensive.

Moving~ The boat driver is shy.

Call me dump, but I just never see sea water in blue colour. And when the sea water splash into my mouth, then only I remember: sea water is salty! It’s about 10 minutes boat ride, and we reached Pulau Manukan~

Pulau manukan

Bikini girl is having sunbath. The first thing in my mind when I step on the jetty, I want to jump in the sea right away!

FYI, Pulau Manukan is one of the 5 islands that formed Taman Tunku Abdul Rahman marine park. Another 4 are Sapi, Mamutik, Gaya, and Sulug, each with different properties.

I bought Dicapac, some plastic container that can put camera inside and use under water. But sad is, the performance suck, but still better than nothing~

Anyway, this is Mr. coral.

Wa, never play in sea water for years!!!

Little Coral on the shore.

Crystal clear water.

Bobby and Nana.

This is the only resort on the island, cost minimum RM700 per night. For non Malaysian, even more expensive.

Quite a lot of Koreans visit to Islands, one of it is in the above picture.

Nana feeding fish with himself.

Small fishes swim around me. Fish naturally afraid of anything, they tend to swim away when you approach them, but after you stay there for a while, they get familiar, and start to swim around you.

Fishieeeeeee!!!

Trying to catch them. But human reaction can never faster than fish… So far only Nana caught one, with a big plastic bag.

Bigger ikan bilis (is it ikan bilis?)

Retard Kelvin stared at the fish, and start to sing song: “I wanna eat you, and you, and you and you and you~” yer.

Collections of fish that appear in this park. See there is shark in the list.

It’s about 4pm, we waited at the Jetty to hop to another island – Pulau Sapi, and the time we spotted these fishes.

Fishes from the Jetty.

All sorts of fish.

Good bye Pulau manukan…

Pulau Sapi
This is one exciting island, with not much people, and we are gonna overnight here.

We rented a 6-person tent for RM30, saved a lot of money~

Done. Doh, where enough for 6 persons?

Water here is not as impressive as Manukan Island, but the sand is much finer and white.

Sunset.

Kinabalu City at night. Sun set 1 hour earlier than here, it’s only 6:40pm.

There is no food on the island, so we already prepared damn lot of biscuits as our lunch, dinner and tomorrow breakfast.

After dinner is some nonsense activity…

Clear water at night.

We tried to dig a deep hole, hopefully will reach water, but we never expect, at night sea level is reducing… so, no water.

There are a lot of activity happen on the island at night, crabs will only come out to play water and find food at night.

Mr Crab smile at my camera.

Some funny incident in the night:

This island has not much infrastructure compare to Gaya Island and Manukan Island, so at night, the total people on the island is less than 10 I guess.

There is only 1 spot light on the island at night… Nothing much can do, Bobby and others wanted to sleep early at 7:30pm.

While my pants still not yet dry, so I decided to walk a while on the beach. Suddenly, I heard some noise in the dark trees, some rubbish bins being push down.

WTF? I looked in the shadow, and saw a big creature is searching for food, around it still have another 3 small creature… Damn, a family of wild boars.

I SMS Bobby not to come out or make noise, because they are just about 3 meters away from our tent. And also tie our biscuit tight, so they can’t smell it.

While I stay under spot light, holding my phones. When the wild boar leave, I quickly changed my wet pants, and sleep.

Wild boars came and leave, came and leave, the whole night is an excited one.

It rains lightly at night, twice, and the sandy tent is really not comfortable to sleep in, especially without a pillow… but is indeed an unforgettable experience~

Finding Electricity
I can’t sleep so early, and my phone out of battery, so I holding my charger walking around the pondok, hoping to find 1 electric port that can charge my phone, and I saw 1 only.

Damn, used by spot light, out only light source. If I pull it off, means if anything goes wrong, the wild boar came out again, or alien attack, we all mampui (in deep shit). So, after wandering until 11pm, I went to sleep.

Stay tune for day 3~

Day 1 at The Land Under the Wind

noreply@blogger.com (VHanded Cheepeng) — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 09:49:00 +0800

I don’t know how to start, or where to start. This Sabah trip had been planned for more than 3 months, with a sudden crazy thought out of no where: “Let’s go climb Mount Kinabalu.” Hoho, I just wanted to do something crazy before I graduate!

Did quite a lot of serious research, accommodation, transport, place of interest, price, booking, Google Earth and Google Map, GPS coordinate, equipments bla bla bla, finally it’s 7th January 2010~ hoho~

FYI, Sabah, which most other country known as Borneo, has a fancy name, The Land Under The Wind.

4 of us: Me, Bobby, Kelvin, and Nana. Woke up at 6am, trying to wake up Eddy to fetch us to Putrajaya Central… In the end we took bus there (Eddy slept dead d)

So, skipped those parts from on train to LCCT and breakfast, and finally, we are on the plane!

Even this is not the first time I travel by plane, but the feeling of force changes when the plane took off still makes me feel excited. This time is a 2 hours journey, I already finished reading the magazine, and slept.

Finally landed. Oh? Even Malaysian visit to Sabah requires permit! We are allow to be in Sabah for 3 months only, just like travel to other country, except without passport.

First thing is to rent a cheap car. The price is quite expensive than Langkawi car rental, we rented a manual Kancil for RM90 a day, ouch. At least still cheaper than taking cab everywhere.

So now I know, SAA cars are from Sabah… Seen a lot in Cyberjaya, don’t know how they carry here.

To cut cost, we lodge in 1 of the backpackers lodge located at Gaya Street. Have to say, I love their services and their friendly people!!!

The resting area of X-Plorer.

Makan Makan Makan!
One of the purpose of travel is to eat. Was quite excited to check out the local food, wish it’s special to us.

A Malay stall, in a Chinese shop. This is really rare in Penisular. But at Sabah, this is very common. In fact, I can’t really differentiate Malay, local Bumiputra, and Illegal Philippines, yes, there have a lot of plilippinos, illegally.

Sabah Mee Rojak. Super nice, till I can remember the taste when I typing this.

Beautiful Mosque. Available a lot of mosques and church in Kota Kinabalu.

We visited Sabah Museum. The only thing that impressed me is the 16m huge whale skeleton. Sadly, no camera allowed. But overall, I feel their museum has more real things than here, which only keep replicas…

Next, we need to confirm about the boat to Island hopping on next day, so we went to Sutera harbour. Sutera Harbour Resort is the giant player in tourism, they have business at Kinabalu Park, Poring Hot Spring, and also Mount Kinabalu, damn, I hate monopolize.

But undeniable, this is the most beautiful port I ever seen in my life. (Maybe I never visit to other places, so for now, it’s the most beautiful~)

Wish I own 1 of the boat behind~

The sea water is so clear, with a lot of fishes in there.

Fishieeeee!!

Mr Kelvin wants to eat fish.

Awesome…

After checked out the price and timetable, and damn lots of photo, we leaved. To makan again~

Market
Market is the place where we can see a lot of local things: people, their pattern, their economy, their FOOD etc. It’s a market consisted of wet market, vegetable market, and delicacy market, sluppp~~

Selling food. This looks like the Putrajaya Stall during Fasting Month. Good thing is, most of their things are damn cheap.

While we walk around, suddenly I saw this super giant alien prawn! It’s big right? Later on still have bigger and scarier one! They purposely arrange the giant prawn at the corner, and can see every tourist who pass by will have the same WTF look. Funny~ Prawn is expensive, RM18 for 1.

Philippine kids playing at rubbish dumpsite. This scene is so normal there, and most probably, they are children without proper identity, means no birth certificate, because of their illegal immigrant parents.

Poor scene. But our parents time is also playing like this gua~

Beautiful sunset…

Our dinner are big fish, prawn, and sotong.

Nana with a RM3 coconut. 3 persons share.

Pasar Malam (aka Night market). Nothing special, with a lot of Gucci, Nike, Adidas, LV, you know la, all replicas….

Back to our room…

From second floor view. Bobby and naked Nana. The room structure is very special, has 2 storey, second floor need to climb a 75 degree stairs, geli.

My night is to swallow 2 cans of beer, watch a funny comedy, then slept nicely till the next morning. First day passed very fast, quite satisfy one.

Stay tune to Day 2.

Another Live Example: Ants can Teleport.

noreply@blogger.com (VHanded Cheepeng) — Wed, 6 Jan 2010 01:11:00 +0800

While I work on my code on my desktop, suddenly, I notice an ant walk across my screen.

So I use finger to sweep it away.

Ei? It’s not on the screen..??

Damn, it’s in the screen! I got no idea how it dig into there.

Ant is on Firefox.

Ant is on IE.

On MSN chat.

On Desktop.

Ant on Facebook.

This little creature is walking inside the screen, somewhere between the light source and the crystal display, I don’t know.

Sadly, by the time I write this post, the ant is dead. Maybe too tired after crawling for 8 hours without food. So now it left a “dead pixel” that occupied 10 pixels on my screen… shit.

Another solid prove that ants can teleport, into your air tight jam container, your fridge, and now, your LCD screen.