.: ShaolinTiger - Kung-Fu Geekery :.

So my trip is almost coming to an end, 3 weeks seems like an awfully short time when you are having fun!

I thought it'd seem like a longgggg break, I guess life in KL is too hectic sometimes - it's a good feeling to have nothing to do, to be away from the Internet and have nowhere to rush to.

It's so much more relaxing driving here as everyone is so civilized, thankfully the weather has been pretty nice too.

Been down to Minehead in Somerset for some seaside and awesome food cooked by my aunt, been up Malvern Hills, been up to Birmingham a couple of times (not my favourite place), been up to Liverpool and even further up to Blackpool!

Had a pretty varied trip really, seen a good portion of UK.

I'm not looking forwards to the 20 odd hour flight back...leaving here on 26th afternoon and reaching back on 27th afternoon!

Emirates service has definitely gone down, the movies are on demand though and you still have a personal screen which is bigger, the food is still pretty good but the service is gone, they hardly bring drinks around, the stewardesses seem to not want to serve you, you can press the service bell and get no response.

Will pop down to Worcester town to get some stuff this afternoon, it's weird getting used to the fact that the shops close at 5.30pm - can't imagine how I managed with that when I lived here.

Sometimes England seems so backwards.

I've had a great time though, wish I had another couple of weeks to catch a premiership match, head to the lake district, maybe over to Dublin too.

So many things I want to see still, lots of Europe I haven't seen either. Oh well plenty more years to go, just have to save up the moolah.

Back to KL soon though, back to work, back to Starbucks, back to parties, back to lots of sweating.

The weather has still been a bit hit and miss, it's raining pretty hard now and was miserable yesterday.

We had a few good days before that though, had a nice walk up the Malvern Hills.

We didn't make it all the way up to the top because my Mom bought a car on the way to Malvern, a lovely mercury silver Renault Kangoo from 2005.

Off down to Minehead after that, my aunt is such a superb host and an amazing cook, we had some fantastic meals.

We had a ride on the West Somerset Railway too, real oldskool steam train.

And of course some cream teas! This was a very good one with clotted cream, strawberry jam and scones. These are scones!

That was one superb cream tea! Back at home now for a day, maybe take a break from travelling around today. Caught up with an old friend last night, went up to a Casino in West Bromwich in his new Audi TT Quattro...nice car that!

Probably head up to Blackpool and Liverpool, skip the lake district as the weather isn't so great at the moment

The weather hasn't been too bad really on and off.

Quite a lot of rain, but it hasn't been too heavy - quite a bit of blue skies too which is nice! Quite a lot of grey skies too which isn't quite so nice...but can't have your cream cakes and eat it!

Been eating plenty, popped up to Birmingham a couple of times going to head down to Minehead for some season action on Wednesday.

Headed down to Worcester Cathedral as well of course.

Perhaps pop up to the Lake District and maybe Blackpool too - that's the plan!

So far so good!

So tonight I'm flying off to UK for 3 weeks! Finally a well deserved quiet time, some time to do nothing, take some pictures of flowers and insects and nature (ok maybe some hot white chicks too if I find any..).

Time to relax, read some books, walk in the countryside, eat some cream cakes, pork pies, scotch eggs, mushy peas, fish and chips, full english breakfast, sunday roast, bangers and mash, bubble and squeak, toad in the hole, chicken cordon bleu, gammon steak, chicken tikka masala, crispy aromatic duck, strawberries and cream, apple and blackberry crumble, meringue...and the list goes on! I'm salivating already.

Bacon and Egg sarnies of course.

Fish and Chips and Mushy Peas with a nice cold BEER!

3 weeks with no parties, no events, no forced late nights, no meetings, no nonsense, no nothing except what I want to do!

I'm taking Emirates, my favourite long haul airline. The service is good, they've never been delayed so far, the planes are in good condition, the crew are very professional and polite and quite chatty, the food is decent, the movies on the plane are excellent, Dubai is a pretty nice airport to spend a few hours in and the prices are reasonable too!

Qatar Airways was slightly cheaper, but they only fly to Manchester, which is a few hundred miles further from my places than Birmingham airport.

The worst so far is still KLM, bad food, HORRIBLE staff and can be quite often delayed...the upside is you do get to transit in Amsterdam with all the PORN!

The last time I was back in UK was in 2006, I didn't manage to get back last year...so this trip is going to be awesome! The fact my photography has improved a little is a bonus.

I've persuaded my Mom to get a new computer too so no more Pentium II 333mhz for me! Hopefully will be able to upload some better stuff this time.

I'm hoping the weather is more like this.

And less like this.

Updates may be a little infrequent until I'm back on August 27th, but I'll do the best I can and I've drafted up a few things just in case.

I'll probably check back in when I'm in Dubai in the middle of the night and I'll reach UK around midday tomorrow (about 8pm tomorrow night).

Chiling Fall is one of the more popular (but quite difficult to reach) waterfalls in Malaysia, you can check out some info and pics at Waterfalls of Malaysia: Chiling.

Basically you have to be prepared to get wet, hike for a good 1-2 hours and cross a river 5 times (each way!) which can be quite scary if the current is strong and the water level is high. And it's still only listed as a moderate fall...haven't tried a difficult one yet.

The entrance looks like this, nothing special.

Then you cross this suspended bridge.

The River looked pretty strong when we crossed the bridge, which didn't bode well for our coming adventure.

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So after we visited Kuala Gandah Elephant Sanctuary, we headed to this really cool place nearby called Deerland. We thought it was just a deer park but it actually had all kinds of animals inside and was really interesting..

It was more interesting than the Elephant Sanctuary, which was the main purpose of our trip!

So the first thing we did when we went in, was feed the deer of course!

Up close and personal with a deer

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So after a morning at Chamang Falls we headed off to our main destination, Kuala Gandah Elephant Sanctuary!

It's about 20km or so from Chamang and we were to get there by 1pm to make sure we got the activity passes so we could play with the elephants..unfortunately as it was a public holiday the passes were finished - so we didn't get to play!

There was a huge ass elephant skull though.

There were nice murals and paintings around the place.

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So during the public holiday last week (Labour/May Day) a bunch of us decided to head out to Kuala Gandah Elephant Sanctuary in Pahang.

Our friendly guide Happy Yen also suggested that we check out Chamang Fall and Deerland.

A bunch of us have decided it's a good idea to explore Malaysia a bit more and get out of the city as often as possible - this was our second trip.

Which reminds me I still haven't posted about Chiling Fall! Oh well will do that soon.

Anyway we rounded ourselves up pretty early and had some Dim Sum in Taman Megah before hitting the highway, we were heading out to Pahang - this waterfall is nearby Bentong/Raub area.

To get there you can...

1. Head towards Genting, pass Gombak Toll.
2. Follow Bentong signboard, pass Bentong Toll, about 200m, turn left.
3. In Bentong town, follow Raub signboard, about 1km watch out for Camang waterfall.
4. Follow the signs, after turning off the main road it's about 8km in and you'll reach the park.

We reached there pretty early around 10.30am - there wasn't that many people there yet.

The noobs arriving.

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Nearby to Masjid Ubudiah there are some other interesting sites like the Muzium Diraja Perak and the Galeri Sultan Azlan Shah.

Seen as though we were nearby we dropped by, sadly the museum was closed on Sundays.

Just grabbed a quick shot of it over the fence, its pained in the royal perak colours.

A very cute building it was, after that we headed over to the Galeri Sultan Azlan Shah which was a beautifully laid out place. It somewhat reminded me of Putrajaya though.

Wide angle power!

The fountain was beautiful.

And there were some very nice leading lines.

It was very very hot then as it was reaching midday, we headed back to Cinta Alam for lunch then to one final destination before coming back to KL.

So last weekend a group of us from Shutter Asia headed out to Perak for a weekend away from the city, the occasion was the 1st anniversary of the forum!

We were staying at Cinta Alam Kelimat Eco Village, nearby Sungai Siput.

A short stop at Ipoh on the way for some food and street photography! It's a great old city so it's good to capture some of the details and faces there.

Family Time

Decrepit

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