Canopy walk at FRIM – Forest Research Institute Malaysia is one the places that I had always wanted to go and yes, I got to do that last year! Yay to me .  FRIM is located in Kepong which makes it a perfect day trip to include a visit of stairs climbing up Batu Caves Hindu Temple in Gombak, Selangor. If you are clueless, Kepong and Gombak are somewhat near to one another, so it makes perfect sense to visit yet another famous tourist attraction along the way.

Let’s get back to the FRIM Canopy Walk, shall we.

Getting to FRIM

It is fairly easy to locate FRIM thanks to the huge FRIM signboard on the roadside. Simply keep your eyes peeled for the signboard and you will definitely find your way towards the entrance of FRIM. Entrance fee is RM5 ( car & driver ) and RM1 (each passenger, I think).  As usual, it was our first time and we simply followed the crowd and guessed our way to the main car park which was quite a long straight drive and later on turn left at the T junction and park your car there. A lot of regulars actually parked their car outside of the entrance because if I’m a regular at FRIM, I would have done the same thing too. RM5 for car park! Come on!

Getting to Titian Canopy Walkway from Rover Track

Since it was a public holiday, the information center was closed and we looked at the map and understood nothing out of it and again we followed the crowd. There were a lot of hikers going up a hill next to the surau and we found out that we were trailing along Rover Track. If from far away, you could see a toilet, than you will find the Rover Track signboard a few meters away from the loo.

This is Rover Track and the building is the Toilet

We were walking with a lot of other people along the wet, red soiled track going up a hill and we were still clueless to where we were heading and I had to ask a panting girl ( she seemed friendly enough despite struggling her way up the hill) to guide us for our directions. Apparently we were on the right track. There are two paths to choose from ahead of us – on the right will lead you to the Canopy Walk, while the other going straight ahead will lead you somewhere around the huge FRIM park where I saw most of the *cute mountain bikers heading that way. Hehe.

Trekking Duration from Rover Track to Canopy Walkway

FRIM Canopy Walkway Signboard

I would say if you are averagely fit, hiking up the trail towards the Canopy Walk is fairly easy. It took us 12 minutes of slow walk from Rover Track to meet the Titian Canopy Walkway signboard. Another uphill trek for the next 15 minutes will take you the the starting point of the Canopy Walkway.

FRIM Canopy Walk Fees

Canopy Walkway starting point. This is where we paid up the RM5 fee each

Going up the canopy walk is not free. Simply pay up RM5 each to the staffs waiting at the wooden platform/cabin and you can begin your journey on those wobbly suspension bridge. The view from the canopy walkaway is magnificent. If you are like me who craves for greenery and the fresh jungle air, this is the place to go to. Immersed yourself totally with the environment, capture those beautiful moments in your head or if you have a fancy DSLR camera, snapping pictures up the canopy walkaway is a must. I even went all the way to persuade a nice Chinese guy with a huge DSLR to pay up RM5 and take up beautiful pictures up the canopy. Of course he didn’t seemed excited with the extra RM5 charge but I think I did see him making his way to the canopy walkaway entrance.

I did get some sudden jitters while I was on the bridge. But then again you had to pretend all cool like everything was not scaring the heck out of you when you have another buddy who was walking right behind you. What if the both of you freaked out up there and who was going to come to our rescue? Haha. Also, thank God there weren’t any monkey up there. Monkeys would have dampened my ‘act cool’ spirit on the canopy walkaway.

It’s THE Place To Go for the Outdoor Junkie

Lush green forest at FRIM, Kepong

Canopy Walk at FRIM, Kepong is yet another place I would totally recommend for city people who are looking for a quick jungle getaway and of course for all outdoor junkies out there. FRIM is also a perfect place for mountain bikers, joggers, hikers and you could even go for camping and enjoy a picnic by the river. You really should take a day off to take a look at this place and enjoy yourself with the lush green forest. It would certainly be a great day out for everyone.

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The following day, the stench of the ‘garbage’ seemed to be lingering around the outside of the car. We finally thought, probably we should check out the tyres and see if anything got stuck in between them. We started spraying water at the tyres and suddenly, one of us suggested, why don’t we check out the hood. We opened the hood and we saw this!

So then, it was confirmed that garbage like, foul smell came from that furry thing that seemed to be stuck between the engine. I peeked under the hood and tried to figure out what that furry thing could be. I saw a tiny paw and the tail and of course it was a cat, rotting away under the hood of our car. Hence, that is where the foul smell had been coming from for the last 1 day and a half. It was right there under the car’s hood.

The cleaning up process was a messy business not to mention the smell was horrendous. However, at the end of the day, we managed to get the carcass out of the way. It was really troubling to think of where, how and why this little creature decided to hide in the car’s engine. There were many speculations on why it got inside there and we also thought that it could be one of those stray cats from our neighbourhood. The cause of death was unknown.

It was definitely a tragic loss for that poor cat and I am not going to post pictures of the animal due to its bad condition. Suffice to say, by the time we got the carcass out of the engine, it was pretty roasted. Poor little cat, may you rest in peace.

* The only one thing we were relieved about this whole situation was that, it was not one of those furry tailed cats from our neighbour’s who once used to invade our front yard with their endless play and pooping. Phew!

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Thanks to the majority Chinese neighbours that I have, I got to see fireworks everywhere around the neighbourhood at the stroke of midnight to welcome the New Dragon Year. But no, I think a lot of people got all excited and started to fire up things 10 minutes before midnight.:)

For some unknown reason, I’m having the feeling that everyone is welcoming the Dragon year with a much higher energy and spirit than the last year – The Rabbit year . In a way, I think it is a great spirit to kick off the year although come to think of it, we are kicking off the year  yet again after the New Year 2012 celebration we just had 3 weeks ago.

With my room and almost the entire house completely filled with firecrackers smoke, I  am hoping to retire to bed with a good feeling that this year 2012 or this Dragon year is going to be filled with a lot of great surprises, loads of success, more fun and adventures.

Gong Xi Fatt Choi, Xin Nin Kuai Le, everybody – regardless you are a Chinese or not and I know I’m not or probably I am like a quarter somewhat Chinese blooded.

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I do not know what took me so long to get here but that’s not the point and no longer an issue. I was there at Batu Caves mainly for these few reasons.

Why did I finally decide to visit Batu Caves?

1. To count exactly how many steps it takes to climb up the stairs of Batu Caves temple
2. To check out the caves and the humongous, gold plated Lord Murugan statue which is visible from far away as you pass the MRR2 highway.
3. To cross “Visiting Batu Caves” out of the list of places that I wanted to go and finally surrender with the fact that I’m just yet another tourist in my own beloved country. Yes I am.

I was there with my old friend and we were both first timers, Batu Caves visitors. We weren’t the only first timers for the day. I find that Batu Caves is a well developed tourist spot or for the other half of those visitor it will be a well developed and maintained temple complex.

What to expect at Batu Caves?

The list can go on and on but these are the major things you can expect out of Batu Caves :

• Loads of tourists and when I was there, there were more tourists than worshippers. Tourists varies from the Arabs with their hijabs, Japanese, Indonesians, Indians and of course the local Malaysian tourists; that will be people like me.

Batu Caves temple at the top

• Loads of photographers too and I think a lot of photography clubs in Malaysia do organize photograpy trips in Batu Caves and I personally think Batu Caves is an excellent and unique place to capture beautiful photos.
• There will be monkeys and people who are either scared of them ( like me) and people who are mesmerized by the smart monkeys who are happily waiting to grap or rather snatch whatever food you toss their way. I don’t quite fancy monkeys and I do my level best to avoid them especially those male ones.
• You will get to see some chickens roaming around the temple. I don’t know how and why they are there but these animals are there. I wonder if the chickens got anything to do with any of the prayer rituals. I’m not sure on that.
• If my calculation and observations are correct, there should be about two temples in the huge cave. You can stand and watch how the rituals are done and at one of the temples, there is a big enough flat screen TV and you can view the prayer rituals from there without having to go farther inside the little temple compound.
• While you are there in the temple, do look above you and spend sometime there to have a good look of the structure of the caves and snap away on your camera. And don’t spend too much time trying to feed the monkeys or the chickens. The main attractions here are obviously the limestone caves and the temple okay people!
• On your way back, you can visit the Dark Cave Tour which you can see on your left side as you are climbing up the stairs. I would have taken a quick peek over at the Cave Tours but of course I did not get to that that thanks to the jumping monkeys right at the entrance of it.

Dark Cave Tour at Batu Caves

• As we were making our way down the stairs, we came across this really old woman. I couldn’t resist myself. I had to stop, really have a good look at her and snapped a picture of her. Haha. Hey, you don’t get to see this view everyday you know.

Old woman at Batu Caves with super long hair

• There will be a lot of souvenir shops and even vegetarian restaurants aorund the temple complex as you make your way in and out of the temple’s entrance. I wouldn’t recommend you to get your souvenirs there but then again it’s you choice. We didn’t make our way to the vegetarian restaurants although it was really tempting and it was just about lunch hour time because I know the best place to get your North Indian Banana Leaf rice fix is at Nirwana Maju, Bangsar or some other restaurants around Petaling Jaya (PJ) area.

At the end of the day, I was pretty happy and contented with my short trip up and down the stairs of Batu Caves. It was a good workout, the day was hot and that place was jam packed with people aka tourists.

Oh yes, you may be wondering how many stairs exactly are there to climb to the top of Batu Caves? The answer to that question is I have no idea how many there are. Haha. I lost count after steps number 4 because you really need to watch out for your steps and not going around bumping people while you are going up those somewhat steep and not so wide stairs. I had checked with my Indian friends though on the exact number and it is confirmed and even Wike-ed that the total number of stairs at Batu Caves is 272 steps.

Batu Caves is definitely crossed out from my list of places to visit around KL and if you haven’t already been there, I think you really should to experience a wonderfully new cultural experience altogether.

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Listen up, download it and have an awesome run people!

Moves Like Jagger – Maroon 5 featuring Christina Aguilera:

Click below to purchase from Amazon.com :

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Do you send postcards to people at home when you are traveling? I recently do! I would like to make it a ritual when I travel to send people at home really interesting postcards. It’s going to be exciting for the receivers don’t you think?

Here are some of the Travel postcards I sent to family and friends while I was on a 24 days, adventurous travel road trip in New Zealand :

Postcard of Shotover Jet – Jet Boating in Queenstown, New Zealand : http://www.shotoverjet.com/

Maori Warrior Dance postcard where performances are held each day at Te Puia located in Rotorua, North Island, New Zealand. For more on Te Puia, click here:

Postcard of a beautiful lake view with the reflecting mountain range effect on the surface of the lake.

Last but not least, a postcard of Mount Cook!

I’m happy to announce that everyone who received the postcards were really happy to have them in their mails. I’m pretty sure the happiest out of all of them would be my little 3 year old niece who can already read  and recognize her name. Unfortunately, one recipient didn’t receive hers and I’m sorry for that girlfriend.

I know sending postcards are really old school but I think it is one of those really nice surprises you can give to anyone when they check out their mails. Postcards are nice, colorful, you can leave short lines of nice things to say and for that, what’s  not to like with postcards?

Do you send postcards when you are traveling? If you haven’t make it a habit of sending one just yet, I think you should start doing it now. It’s nice to hear what are the reactions you will get from the recipients and I’m very sure they will all be  more than happy to get at least one postcard any of these days. On that note, if you have no one you can think of who would like to get a postcard, why don’t you send one to me? I’ll be happy to blog about it then.

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I know I’m like four days late to do this shout out but it’s better late than never. How was your New Year celebration? I hope it was great enough to keep you going and pumping with excitements throughout this year!

My celebration was fantastic. It was fantastic because we being a true Malaysian celebrated the coming of the new year with a simple yet delicious home cooked dinner at home. We had some tandoori chickens on the BBQ, chicken tikka masala, raita, papadoms, rice, some fried vegs, and ‘siakap bakar’ ( grilled Barramundi, I think that’s what it’s called in English) and cold Root Beers with ice creams for desserts.

So all in all, we had an outdoor dinner right on the front yard with the main theme of North Indian dishes. Of course we had to have the BBQ  for the boys to start playing with fire and that’s just more than enough excuse to have the tandoori chickens too. Initially we wanted to buy some Roti Naan (Naan Breads) from the nearest Mamak shop to compliment the tandoori but thankfully we were all out of hands and if we did get some Naan breads, I think we would have an awfully stuffed tummy hours before the countdown of the new year begins.

I had a splendid pigging out session with my family during New Year’s Eve and I think we badly needed that little time to have everybody finally sitting together at the same time and have a good meal to kick start the New Year.

So here goes the pictures.  Some really decent ones that I’m really willing to share with the general public. Haha.

A bowl full of heavily gravy-ed Chicken Tikka Masala, Papadom and some diced cucumber to make the raita

All in a plate - rice, chicken tikka, papadom and raita minus the fish and tandoori

Tandoori chicken on bbq - very Malaysian style lah!

Finally, let’s have a wonderful, happy, healthy, wealthy, lots of travel and more adventures for this year 2012! Happy New Year 2012 Everybody

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So let’s get talking about Broga Hill at least from how I see it last weekend.

What is new at Broga Hill now?

- I spotted a couple of make shift toilets hidden away at the corner of the oil palm parking lot and another one just at the beginning point of the hike

- There weren’t a lot of people last week comparatively to the throng of human processions I’ve seen over the days. I’m blaming the holiday seasons so people are getting out of town.

- There are more food stalls and the usual Chinese aunty who sells her cold drinks is still there but she is sitting way up to the starting point which will be the first stall hikers will meet as they reached down from the hill. Business is getting really competitive these days at Broga Hill. hehe. Surprisingly there is also a burger stall. I was like WT* for a second there thinking that it is so out of place. People someone should note to them that people who are hikers are usually health conscious and we care about what goes down into our stomach. Burgers will mess up with our system dude!

- As for the track itself : it is the usual track. I was wearing someone else sport shoes and it does get a bit slippery on some trails. We didn’t climb up the last point of the track too. It was rocky, with a bit of rope climbing and not to mention slippery because we were people watching and so quite a few slipped down and got them hanging on the ropes. But not to worry, it is fairly safe provided you have people around to give you a hand.

- I think quite a number of people were actually climbing up Gunung Tok Wan which starts at the highest point of Broga Hill. Yes, I was somewhat suggesting to my fellow hikers to do this Tok Wan hike last month but we didn’t because the timing was all off. So yeah, I have enough reason to come back Broga Hill again next year so that I can finish up Tok Wan.

- The view has always been stunning at Broga Hill so I didn’t bother to really pose and have a nice shot taken. I’m silly like that so silly is the only thing I know when it comes to posing for pictures. It’s fun though and you should do it too!

Me being silly and look at the view! That's Broga Hill peeps

There you go! The final report on the things that has changed at Broga Hill for 2011. I’m expecting things to ‘develop’ more at this place. I hope it’s only  for the better. You still have this weekend and next week to hike up Broga Hill if you haven’t already. Go there. Get hiking. Get sweating. It’s really fun and hiking never gets old despite how many times you walk up the same trail.

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Quote of The Day is : If You Hesitate or Doubt on Something, Don’t Go For It!

When you have to make a choice and if ever you start to hesitate even on one small thing, you SHOULD SKIP it, PICK another and yeah, get on with the next best thing. Hesitate = doubt = your subconscious mind telling you, ” Don’t do it baby!”

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Bukit Tokun Bukit Mertajam 500 m Until Celcom Telecommunication center - highest point of the hill

Most of my fellow hikers resides in Penang and they have been posting loads of beautiful hiking pictures at Bukit To’kun with the Mengkuam Dam view that made me said to one them that I really need to go there and check that place out. Thankfully, I had a chance to drive down to Penang for a wedding and of course, I had to extend the stay for another day to check out Bukut To’kun.

View of the Mengkuang Dam from Bukit Tokun, Bukit Mertajam ,Penang

If you are thinking for directions to Bukit To’kun, I truthfully cannot direct you from here because my friend was driving us all along and the next thing I new, I saw the Cherok To’kun signage, we passed the Mee Ketam Pak Man Restaurant around the corner, approached straight to Taman Rimba Bukit Mertajam, drive farther up a bit and the journey begins.

Bukit Tokun Clouds - view from the wooden platform

I was told that there are 2 routes to hike Bukit To’kun which is the off-road jungle tracks or the tarmac road which was the one that we used since all of us girls want to take it easy and slow and no wants to get wet and dirty in the jungle track. What do I feel about Bukit To’kun? I think people in Bukit Mertajam (BM) are really lucky. The place is jam-packed, loads of people are hiking, young and old – I’m talking grannies and grandpas with sport shoes and walking sticks hiking solo all the way up the really steep hill. It is a tough hike because of the gradient level/slope and these veterans are really rocking it out man. For younger and more adventurous ones, they are really a lot of cyclist – properly dressed of course, cycling up the steep hill and I saw one guy, he must have cycled a lot and I thought his calf muscles is going to break out of his skin at any time. That is exactly how intense it really is to climb up Bukit To’kun with your bicycle.

Cyclists at Bukit Tokun

We pretty much took our time to hike and there were lots of stops and picture moments. Hence we round up the hill as in our return trip up and down took us about 2 hours 43 minutes. We only took 44 minutes to come down hill so you can guess how much time we spent for the photo taking sessions. I was really looking forward to see the view of the Mengkuam Dam at the wooden platform area, somewhere just a couple of meters away from the peak and that was basically the highlight of the whole Bukit To’kun hike. We had a pretty good day, cool and it rained the night before and we got to see beautiful clusters of clouds just beneath us, as though suspending right below from where we were standing and it was hands down the best view of the day. At some point, it didn’t feel like we were in Bukit Mertajam but felt instead more like we were up on a really beautiful mountain view.

The gang *picture courtesy of friendly guy with the Penang Bridge Marathon singlet

Most people who hike up the hill are usually regulars and it is really a very vibrant and exciting place to meet a lot of people. I really love that kind of exciting hiking vibes where everyone is so friendly and nice. We even met with a friendly bunch of guys and one guy fell victim to become our unofficial photographer. Friendly guy, very nice to chat with but no one bothers to at least get his Facebook name. Hahaha.

Anyway, if you are a Penangite and hiking is your thing, this is the place to go. With 2 routes to choose from, there are more fun to come back at Bukit To’kun often enough. For you hardcore bikers, this hill is the place to be! I’m thinking probably some path may be up to 45 degrees incline or slope which is really intense and will make you work it, man! For social hikers like me, this place is really worth to find and hike especially if you intend to travel down to Penang although this place is located at Bukit Mertajam not in the island. So yeah, Bukit To’kun or Bukit Tokun or Tokun Hill or Cherok To’kun hill (however you want to call this place) is really great, vibrant, happening and has an incredibly beautiful view right at the wooden platform. This is a must place to go hiking all the way in Bukit Mertajam, Penang.

*pictures thanks to Miss M

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