Hutan Lipur Kijang - We didn't make it :(

This is one trip I couldn't be proud of... sob... it was one gungho morning that I dragged 2 buddies to Hutan Lipur Kijang, with the hope of reaching Lata Kijang, one of the tallest waterfall in Malaysia. Found a trail on the GPS and a waypoint of Lata Kijang - N3 11.684 E101 59.278. It's actually on the north peak of Negri Sembilan bordering Pahang, north of Titi and Kuala Kelawang.




We stopped for breakfast @ PJ State at the Chinese Coffee Shop next to the UOB bank. The porridge, prawn noodles and pork ribs wan tan mee are really good here.









After breakfast, we took head to Cheras and went into the Silk highway but immediately cuts into the old road to Hulu Langat, from there, we hit B32, winding road up and down hills with fantastic view of mountains and forest, fresh air and full of pro-looking cyclist along the way, not mention orang asli too. We passed the Semenyih Dam and I must say the view is magnificently breath taking!









The B32 highway then crossed into N32 and we turn to N25 to reach the small road to Hutan Lipur Kijang. We took the first trail we found, it passed through chicken farms in small narrow uneven tar road that's partly covered with mud and rocks.

It looks like an abandon road and we are now in between Felda's operated rubber estates. Once we reached the junction that joins the 2 trails to our destination I realised that the other road is in much better condition! Dammit :(

Anyway, the road starts to get windy and soon we are passing orang asli's settlements which you can see either orang asli's farm house and villages. Soon, we are 10 kilometeres into the road and we hit the signboard "Hutan Lipur Kijang and Gunung Hantu Besar"! Gunung Hantu Besar, hehehe... so distrubing, scare or not.

Like heroes, we hit the trail, no more half tarred road but good old muddy trails with shoulder high lalang (long bladed grass) on both side of the road. Its really a scary feeling because we couldn't see what's in front for too far and there is no place to u-turn, and the worst is my truck is only a 4X2 hehehe... sor chai or not? :P

Anyhow after another 10-15 mins into the muddy trail, we passed through more orang asli settlements and soon we reach the side of a rapid river. Across the river used to be a campsite but now most of it is being blocked off as a private farm. The road condition for worst with big gaps and we need to get down to navigate the truck through. Soon we reach a slippery hill which the truck got stuck halfway. Common sense tell us to either walk the rest of the path or turn back, being lazy city slickers, we turned back :P. At this point of time, I could no longer see any thread on my AT tyres as its fully covered in mud. We settle for the rapid river and took a much needed dip there, the weather was killingly hot that day.

The water is cold and current is strong, but at the turn of the river, its deep and nice. 3 guys in the jungle, so stupid game came up. Trying to see who can make the rock skip the most of the river. Turn out that Ah Choo is a pro at this :) who later started collecting rocks for his plants.

Anyhow, as noon near, we head back out to civilization, although I have this boh kum nguen feeling of not making it to the falls and pledging that my next vehicle will be 4X4, we are just hungry and wanted food. At the cross road, I took the other small road out and it passed through a whole lot of villages and I could see people fishing by the river as it flows down from where we were. We later hit the further part of N25 and made our way back.

Wanting to use an alternative road and see what's good to eat nearby, we head to Titi and Jelebu area. These are small villages before reaching Kuala Kelawang. Basically you see small rows of shoplots and signboards to fruit farms and small villages along the way. So happened at that point of time I remembered one of my colleague's hometown is Jelebu, gave him a call and hey, he's in town!










So, we got hooked up and he brought us to a family run small chinese stalls in town for lunch. Funny thing is all the shops are closed including eating places we saw along the way. Life seems so much more relaxing here. Anyhow, story cut short, we ordered a simple vege, fried marinated pork and 2 noodles. The noodles are ok but I love the marinated pork, superbly tasty. Price is relative cheap too, small town standard la.

Although we didn't quite make it, but I had a good time overall, but one day, I will shall be back and I shall conquer it then!

Kg Subang BKT & Klang's Curry Laksa

Did a sunday rounding trip last weekend, first Dan and me head to Kg Subang for BKT again. This are just the bunch of shops opposite Monterez near the supermarket. Its not too bad but I still prefer the chew chow one by the road side.

After that we head over to Dan's new place (yes again) to check out his unit. Good thing is that, the day is not as hot as expected as it was in the previous week.

From Dan's place, we follow the GPS map and head up along the road heading to Puncak Alam, just before reaching Puncak Alam, we found some stalls by the road side selling pineapples and tapioca roots. We stopped for a pineapple drink and bought some pineapples. The pineapples prices are ok, RM1 each, quite sweet too. Later on the GPS, we found a road leading to Meru just near where we are.

So we made a quick u-turn and cut through Kg. Budiman and end up in Jalan Meru, Klang, from there we met up with Cicak at Setia Alam. From there we head to food court in Klang Parade (its a hot day, we wanted to somewhere with aircond and easy to park... so food court also ok la) and tried the Curry Laksa there. This curry noodles is huge! It's RM4.50 per bowl, the serving is as good as 2 person's and its filled with chicken, potato, egg, foochuk, fish ball and fish cake!!! Taste is not bad and its really value for money :)

Hutan Lipur Jerangkang

All makan and no adventure makes George a dull city slicker :P

So the above says it all, hehehe... one fine crazy holiday, I dragged Cicak and Daniel to join me on a trip to Jerangkang, Pahang. This place is basically a forest reserve in Pahang after Maran (heading to Kuantan). From the old road of Maran-Gambang, there's a turning on the left into Hutan Lipur Jerangkang. It turns into a small road of kampung houses around it just before rubber estates where the road starts to get muddy and rough. This is a 16km trail into the Jerangkang waterfall. After the rubber estates it just pure wilderness and jungle, but the trail is quite ok till you went through the underpass of the new Karak-Kuantan highway. Rough muddy, uneven and a river crossing awaits you, but work is in progress and there is already a bridge to cross the river. However for now, its still recommend to at least have a lorry or 4WD to get in especially if its raining. The trek is light so good for urban trucks like mine.



After about 45 mins of slow drive (taking it easy on my truck's suspension), we reached the waterfall. There is a big camp site, but the toilet facility isn't well maintain and the water source for the camp site don't seems to be working. But anyway, its the wilderness! What you expect? :P. The stream from the falls is just next to the camp site and when we were there its just a bunch of 4WD expidition campers whom are moving out. After they left, there is virtually only the 3 of us there, quite scary as the mobile phone signal is also weak!



















We didn't trek up the to the waterfall and just swim around the stream at the bottom of the falls. I read from some blogs that the falls is awesome, Daniel is complaining a lot like usual but didn't want to trek :P. Anyway, the water is superbly cold, clear and sweet. I am sure the falls will be great :). Maybe next time and the spot looks good for bbq.



After the falls, we head out back towards Maran and had lunch at Pekan Sri Jaya. I remembered this used to be the stop our bus to Endau Rompin the last time. We went to Futian Xiang, which is a small restaurant. Quite a number of locals eating there, but the scary thing is the flies are flying freely here and non of the eating locals seems to mind :o.

Anyway, we ordered a cantonese style fried noodles, yee mee, lum yee pai kuat (pork ribs) and a veg. The noodles are good especially the cantonese fried. The ribs is rather funny, usually in KL the will just fried it but they seems to like to add a layer of sauce here. All together with tea for 3 pax is only RM35!!! Good value!

Carey Island - Kang Guan Seafood

This is one of my favourite Seafood places, been going here for like 10 years or more now. Its located right next to Langat river which flows into the Malacca Straits. It used to take ages to get here through small town road heading from Klang to Banting. Now we can just access it via Kesas, then turn to Banting direction and passing Teluk Panglima Garang.

Parking is plenty and you can even bring along a fishing rod and try your luck if you fancy ;). They don't serve pork here as a lot of malay folks dine here too. I happened to went there on a public holiday and its packed with people, the wait is long and most of the good stuff are out!

The food quality have also changed over the years, used to love their mango fish which is deep fried fish top with sweet sour sauce and mango. Now I usually go for Assam fish or teow chew steam. This round I ordered the assam fish, wanted the red snapper but they are out so I opted for siakap instead. The fish is steamed then top with sour and spicy assam fish, which the overall comment is good.

Next on is Tow Foo Kang which is tauhu soup which is cooked starchy added with crab meats. Usually such soup the tauhu are chopped up and mix with the soup but there they use fried japanese tauhu. Something different for a change :).

There are no crabs that fine day because the fishermen which supply crabs and lala to them are on break. So we order prawns fried with oats, quite big in size and the oats are salty and sweet. Quite fresh and not bad. We also ordered chok tan which are shell bamboo like shellfish but most of the plate are actually the shell and very little meat :(

The sweet potato leaves fried with garlic is good and young. Next is fried mantis prawn paste with dried chili. Its rather sweet and the paste are fried to crisped.

Lastly we have the deep fried sotong but its quite dissapointing because there seems to be more batter than squid. Plus because of the large crowd, they fried it in a strong fire all the way which causes some of the squid to be over fried. Hopefully normal days they can do this properly but too much batter, not recommended.

So how do you get to this place? Finally I can say this now, hehe... the GPS coordinate to get here is N2' 53.215 E101' 27.129

According to the GPS map, if you go straight from Kang Guan to the other side of Carey Island there is actually a scenic view of the Malacca Straits, I think this place will be perfect for sunset ;)

Kg Subang - Chew Chou Bak Kut Teh

This place is just opposite Monterez club @ Kg Subang, was on the way to check out Daniel's new house and we decided to stop here to makan. I have been to this place once long long ago like 6-7 years back.

The bak kut teh is lighter here but still tasty and nice. What I like most is they have a lot of foo chok. Not too oily and the taste is just right :)

We also ordered a pot of Chicken Rice Wine, which I considered the wine taste to be relative light compared to those my mum cooked at home. Just as other rice wine chicken, you get lots of fungus and ginger. The chicken is quite old, so I am guessing they are using kampung chicken.

BKT soup can be added but the rice wine you will need to order another one just like how the Indon worker there reply Daniel in English "order 1 more pot only" hehehehe :P

Kota Kemuning - Pork Mix Soup

This is my favourite Pork Mix Soup, basically its a mixture of pork with internal parts plus lots of ginger, salted veges top with chinese cooking wine. They serve it with a choice of white rice or yam rice. Usually white rice is good enough for me.

The soup is addictively, pork wise is just like having bak kut teh but in a different kind of soup and less fatty. The yam rice is not bad, lots of yam and other stuff inside but its too heavy for me ;).

The stall is located at Poh Yap Restaurant just opposite Kota Kemuning's McDonalds.

Medan D'sara - Kar Soh

They have several branches, but I prefer the one @ Medan D'sara because its nearer for me. This place is famous for their fish head noodles, RM8.50 per person's portion. They use the thick type of meehoon like vietnamese, soup is quite clear, normally they put a lot of ginger and salted vege but this is quite moderate.

Noodles are a lot but fishes are not that much. Funny thing is they also provide fried pork to go with it, sinful but yummy :). My friend Cicak (nick) cannot seems to get enough of the lard... hehehe.

Their dishes are good too, I have so far tried their lotus roots friend with macadamia nuts, deep fried pork intestines and deep fried fish with apple. The lotus roots are my favourite so far, basically sliced lotus roots stir fried with carrots, celery, water chestnuts, macadamia nuts in "lum yee" paste. Very unique among most fried lotus root I tried but must be eaten hot otherwise the flavour is lost.

Pork intestines are fried to crisped, superbly good served with sweet sauce. It reminds me of this stall in Temple Streeet in Hong Kong where I used to frequent when I went there for work for their deep fried pork intestines.

The fish is just ok, basically deep fried toman fish top with a light sweet sauce and apple slices. Prices are above average here, quite expensive also but the food is good, so you still see the place pack weekend dinners :)

SS2 PJ - Seo Gung Korean Restaurant

Daniel took me to this place on our way up Sin Land ;). This is place is in SS2, on the top floor same row with Hong Leong Bank. This place is simlar to other new Korean Restaurant in town. You can either sit on normal tables or they have raise up floors where you sit on the floor. In the middle is a bbq stove with an industrial looking range hood. The experience is similar to the Korean in Taipan.

As usual the korean appetizers are included, I don't really fancy these much but the anchovies, kimchi (not too spicy) and vege is good. Since its a quick dinner, we ordered glass noodles with beef, tasty and sweet. Price is not bad for these individual dishes, but for bbq meat will cost more, but looks really good :P