What you can see around the factory are logs lying all around in a very organized method.

Logs are arranged nicely for peeling.

Peeled skin.

Looking to the other side of the river, logs just shipped from the mangrove forest.

Puppies that will grow into guard dogs for the charcoal factory.

Fire started to burn the logs into becoming charcoals.

All of us going around finding nice angles to shoot.

After we’ve been there for a while, the sun rises and it gave the whole place a golden glow!

Glowing hair~

Workers travel around the factory by bikes.

Bricks storage.  Bricks are used to close up the kiln when the logs are burning inside.

The whole inner floor is filled with ashes from the burning.

Sunlight going through the wooden wall.

My shadow.

Striped.

A candid shot while Siewmei is posing.

Horizontal and vertical.

Through the gap.

Cart that is use to transport the logs.

Logs are arranged nicely for burning.

Female workers starting their job in the morning.

Long grass growing beside one of the building outside the factory.

Siewmei enjoying the morning light.

Out-fo.

The guardian.

Rays of light!

Posing behind a curtain of sun light.

Opposite the river, this scene looks like it’s from some war movie.

Transportation.

A path.

Stacked.

Bokeh logs~

Another guard dog spotted!

Mangrove forest in the background.

Slimmer logs for different variant of charcoal.

Worker carrying out charcoals that are ready from the kiln.

Stripped logs.

Worker waiting for the next batch of charcoals to be carried out.

Andrew’s proof of bring there.

Letterboxing Siewmei. Got the movie feel oh!

Logs against broken wall.

One of the worker wearing a G.I.Joe t-shirt.

Not sure if they can tell the time with the shadow casted on the floor or not.

More baking!

Dusty.

Night shift guard dog taking a rest.

After the charcoal factory, we went to this fishing village nearby. Need to take a 20 cents boat ride over to the island itself.

Salted fish drying under the hot sun.

Coloured wall!!!

Monkeys on roof. They came out from the forest to take food from the houses around I think.

Nicely tilted shadow.

They are using fishing net as fence.

Window looking into the house.

Siewmei acting like she’s going out from the house. Good acting!

Wooden planks as path on top of  a ground of cockles shell.

Behn on the boat ride back to the main land.

After the fishing village, we got a rare chance of visiting this prawn farm. And in the photo, is one of the boss and our guide. It was a very informative visit.

Prawn pond next to the mangrove forest.

Spinning blades to generate oxygen to the water. (I think)

After the prawn farm, we actually walked into one of the mangrove forest that is built with walk ways and chalet for people to stay.

Nikon ad.

Light shone on part of the tree highlighting the smaller branches.

A blocked path with lots of leaves lying around.

Here they are! The brother and sister team who organized the whole trip. Sherrina and Behn. Thanks again.
This is where we waited for our transport up Maxwell Hill. The ride was quite scary as the road conditions are really bad and only meant for their 4WD cars.

Up Maxwell Hill. Didn’t let go of the chance to shoot some portraits. Hehe.

Siewmei hiding behind flowers. Hahaha. She said the photo looks like she’s eating the flowers. But I find the photo itself quite nice.

Behn the nature photographer in action.

Good morning~

Yan and Siewmei sitting on stairs going up a very nice banglo.

After walking around, we were tired and walk back to the place where the transport dropped up to wait for the transport back down. So since there’s some time, more portrait shooting! Hehe.

The sun was playing hide and seek with us for a while.

Sun shining on Siewmei’s face.

We don’t even know what we’re posing as. Hahaha. But I like the shot.

Relaxing~

The cafe at the waiting area.

Not sure if the plant finds the spiderweb annoying.

Still waiting for her transport to arrive.

Next to the cafe there are these benches for people to shoot!

A bit vintage feel.

Can you see me inside this photo?

Thanks to the boss who didn’t chase us out the cafe for shooting in the cafe.

Finally the transport going down is here.

I was quite bored at home during the first day of Chinese New Year since most of my friends all went back to their hometown. So after my dinner I was looking for some place to go shoot some Chinese New Year stuffs, obviously since it was Chinese New Year. The first thing that came to my mind was Thean Hou Temple, 天后宮, which is located in Kuala Lumpur, near Mid Valley. There was a huge jam going up the temple, so I decided to park my car at the bottom of the hill and walk up, cos I saw quite some people doing that, so it should be safe.

So here I am, took me around 15 to 20 minutes to walk from bottom of the hill to the entrance of Thean Hou Temple. There were a lot of people, friends, and family going up there to worship for a good year to come. And since it was also Valentine’s day, you see a lot of couples go there to take pictures.

There were a lot of lanterns there, and the biggest one was most probably this dragon lantern. Lots of people queuing up to take picture with the dragon.

The main entrance of the temple. Very nice signage.

Dragon bokeh anyone?

Lanterns or Tanglungs were everywhere to celebrate Chinese New Year.

No more candle lanterns.

One of the signature scene for Thean Hou Temple is most probably this. I think due to the reason of saving energy, the “lanterns roof” had an interval where it’ll light up for a period of time and then it’ll be off.

Very very nice roof fixture built from money that are donated to the temple. The temple is basically surviving on donations.

Luckily the lanterns on the edge of the roofs are always on.

More lanterns!

A phoenix statue standing on the roof. The details on the statues here in Thean Hou Temple are really quite nice.

This is quite a funny shot for me. Do you notice anything abnormal in this photo? After I shot this photo and viewed it on my computer only I notice there was a camera flash diffuser on the edge there. It blended in quite well I must say.

Far shot of how the above “mini dragon head” roof fixture actually looks like.

A pillar of dragon and clouds (the Chinese style).

Finally the “lanterns roof” light up and this is how it looks like below.

Lanterns overdose! Hahaha.

Went back upstairs to shoot the “lanterns roof” from above.

Big and small lanterns aligned nicely.

The lanterns bokeh.

Close-up of the dragon pillar.

The main joss sticks “pot” at the entrance to the inner temple.

Looking up from beneath the “lanterns roof” to see the “Dragon Ball” on the highest roof of the temple.

Was quite happy with this shoot, manage to get some shots that I like. Hope you’ll like them too.

But seriously have to thank Hamyu for bringing us there. I really really didn’t expect to see what I was going to see… and feel. Never knew Cameron Highlands got such beautiful sunrise. I tot the only place was in Sungai Lembing.

It was 5:15am when we started our journey. Not all of us went, so there are only 2 cars going.

When we reached there, we didn’t expect it to be that cold. Some of them wearing jeans just longer than knee-length, some of them wearing those thin long pants bought from Bangkok. Before we climb up the tower to see the view, it was very cold, Hamyu lead us to a lower tower next to the communication tower as seen from the photo above. After we climbed up the tower, it was speechlessly super very ultra cold! I think it was like less than 10 Celsius, and the wind is like constantly attacking us. Our fingers were hardening and our body was shaking like mad.

But what we see from the top of the tower, made it damn worth it for us to be staying up there freezing our asses off.

Sea of clouds like cotton candy.

Lights from buildings which operate the communication towers.

Feels like you can walk on them.

The people that successfully conquered Cameron Highlands’ sunrise. All smiling in the photo, but is all fake! Hahaha. Look at the refugee Shyng with her blanket covering herself. Respect Hamyu the most. He was wearing a football jersey and shorts!

After we took the group photo, Dawn spotted the real dawn! We faster aim our cameras and started snapping.

Windy Siewmei and Shyng.

From the tower looking down. They all can’t stand the wind blowing constantly so they went down. I was trying to snap some more.

The sun lighting up the land!

So pretty.

View from the top of Cameron Highlands.

This is the tower we went up to. The stairs was one of the steepest I’ve climb before.

The Olympus Pen photographer of the trip, admiring the sunrise.

After the top, we drove down lower to this place where it has path way like this built for people to walk.

From the path, we can see the tower that we went up just now. The tower under the tallest communication tower is the one we climbed.

Also can see some other nice views from here.

The path leads us back to nature.

Dawn exploring Cameron’s flora with her red hoody and her white Diana.

Yippie the Eskimo still finds it cold up at Cameron’s peak.

Siewmei leaning against nature.

Me and my surfing Brands on top of Cameron Highlands.

Brian the Olympus Pen explorer.

Sue-ann is lost.

Shoot another shot of the tea plantation on the way out. Magnificent scene.

After the sunrise, we went and have our breakfast and tapau-ed some food for those who didn’t went out with us. While we were driving up to the tower, Hamyu noticed the car’s brakes got some problem. So we went to the workshop after sending the people back to the apartment.

While waiting, what can we do? Shoot la!

Want to fix your car?

Jook’s garage – your car’s best friend.

A review from a customer Mr Ham: “The price ah… veli afordable lor. If you don’t come here, rugilah.”

Across the workshop got this nice wall.

Siewmei hitch-hiking on the back of a Nissan pickup.

In Cameron Highlands, you can see a lot of trucks with my initial on them.

After the car fixed, went back the apartment, packed up and checked out. We to the pasar pagi.

Happy morning shopper.

Justine trying the honey comb. The uncle told us if you eat the whole thing, it’s good for preventing asthma.

Sweet or not?

Strawberries: “Me, me, me, buy me! Buy me!”

Siewmei bought some nice flowers to bring back home.

Yippie with a strawberry umbrella… with lace. But she didn’t buy it.

Brian and Sue-ann shopping for their whole week’s food.

After the pasar pagi shopping, we wanted to go try some strawberry juice at this place where you can pluck your own strawberries. Too bad the juice stall wasn’t open. But we still had fun plucking the strawberries.

Siewmei trying to pluck all the perfect strawberries.

Hamyu trying to find all the perfectly red ones… but the shape… erm…

A perfect shape strawberry waiting to be plucked.

So big!

Hamyu still aiming for the colour… only…

Deformed! Someone told me it looks like a-hole. Hahaha.

Finally! Hamyu managed to find a perfectly coloured and shaped strawberry.

Arranged so nicely and almost same size strawberries. Done by the pro of cos. Hahaha.

Lunch time at Old Frenz restaurant. This is at Tringkap.

The food there was very nice. Just that the fly is a bit too much.

Along the way of the restaurant there’s this Rose Valley. RM4 per entry.

All sorts of plants can be found. But I don’t think all are for sale.

A tree that produce some kind of bean. I think i remember seeing these when i was young.

A small snail searching for food.

Brian and Sue-ann. Looks like they’re in China. Hahaha.

Siewmei found this weird fern. It is emboss on one side! The theory was it was eaten by worms to create this effect.

Natural unbrella.

Under the tree~

The jungle people.

Very very nice coloured flower!

Mini canopy.

Quite like this shot.

Fat tomatoes in Rose Valley.

This is how they plant tomatoes. Using strings for the tomato plants to climb.

Sue relaxing after some walking.

Erm… I think inside these dried plants can carry water.

Another huge hibiscus.

That concluded my 2 days 1 night Cameron Highlands trip. It was fun and eye opening. I’ve been to Cameron before when I was young. But I’ve kinda forgot how it looks like. So this trip is also a refresher for me. The sunrise itself is worth the whole trip for me. Will never forgot the experience we had on that tower.

After some stops and makans, we reached Tanah Rata at around 11:30am. Went to find the owner of our apartment, took the key, put our stuffs in the apartment, off we go to explore Cameron Highlands for our first day trip.

Went to look for this Bala’s place cos we heard it’s quite nice. The houses in the picture are not Bala’s place, we took a wrong turn and ended up at someone’s porch, manage to snap some shots of the view from their porch.

Found! Bala’s place. It’s a hotel that looks like those old British houses.

A lot of plants around and over surrounding the hotel.

Old-skool swing at the little garden.

In case you got lost.

Loving the bokeh in this photo. We stayed for a while to do some shooting outside the hotel, saw the clouds and thought it might rain, so hurry to our next destination to get some strawberries!

Raju’s Hill Strawberry, a place we had our first taste of strawberries, the fat style! Haha.

There’s a little strawberry farm here for people to visit.

Strawberries with icing sugar on top. Leslie is enjoying it.

More strawberries with icing sugar! Shyng promoting it.

Justine is holding the strawberries with whipped cream. She just re-dyed her hair days before coming up to Cameron Highlands, just to blend in.

If strawberries with whipped cream is not enough, you can always add honey on top. Yummy~

After having those special strawberries, we moved to our next location, we always heard people visiting butterfly farm / garden, so we decided to visit the neglected bee farm. Siewmei and Shyng on the way down to the bee farm.

Worker bee busy gathering honey… just to be sold in pasar malam! I’ve supported the colony by buying them to eat later that night.

Artificial beehives fore honey gathering. As you can see one of the bee at the top right of the photo is working happily gathering honey.

A lot of flowers around the bee farm so the bees doesn’t have to fly too far to gather their honey.

Steps going back up to the exit of the bee farm.

After the bee farm visit, our next stop will be the famous ‘BOH’ Tea Centre at Sungei Palas. This tea plantation destination is one of the must visits in Cameron Highlands. On the way going to the ‘BOH’ Tea Centre, you’ll see hills and more hills of tea plants. Very very beautiful. In the photo is the common transport they use to transport goods such as tea leaves in within Cameron Highlands, very very cool. Can you spot the car’s number plate?

Reached. The ‘BOH” Tea Centre. There’s a factory here where you can visit and the cafe.

Here’s how the cafe looks like. A bit hanging over the hill.

So you’ll have your tea and scones while having a very nice view looking at the tea plantation.

This is the view looking out the balcony of the cafe.

Rows and rows of tea leaves. Respect those tea farmers / pluckers that go through here and pluck those tea leaves.

Trying to shoot some Microsoft Windows default wallpaper here.

A funny shot of Siewmei and Shyng shooting their own shoes.

Done shooting their shoes.

Strawberry in a tea plantation.

The couple enjoying the view out here after Jook had his tea and “scones”.

Tea and flowers.

Sue-ann and Jacque.

After the drinking and eating session at the cafe, we walked down the the tea plantation to snap some close-ups with the tea themselves. In the photo Hamyu and Siewmei’s random poses.

Solo time! Siewmei very happy to be with the tea.

Jacque and Leslie. ‘BOH’, ada Ummph…

Sue and Brian. In search of the Ummph-est tea leaves.

Yippie or tea?

Shyng popping out from the leaves.

Shyng’s fashion is in tune with the nature!

Jook is not prepared. But this photo is cool.

Dawn trying to blend in. I think her face expression trying to imitate the newly grow tea leaves.

Sue: “Ummph-est tea leaves, are you there?”

Spokesperson for ‘BOH’ Tea. Just ignore the t-shirt’s “Canon Expo 2007″.

Finally, me.

The path to where we park our car after the tea plantation.

Along the way there are bushes and there are a lot of spiders there. Can’t imagine if you fell in.

On the way out, found a spot for shooting, but ended up this shot I like the most. Volvo, reliable.

Cactus Point. A place where you can see and buy a lot of different kinda cactus and plants here.

Assorted cactuses.

This plant looks like those communication tower.

Have you been to Pandora lately?

This hibiscus is bigger than Justine’s face!

Some kinda cactus. Looks damn cute.

I named this the bloody flower.

Not sure if this is some desert type of plant or what.

Yippie communicating with the flowers.

Got strawberries there too. 3 different colour straberries here. S, M, and L size.

The word is “vibrant”.

Very complicated small cactus, but very nice.

Cactus shooting. Look at the cactus behind Siewmei, damn tall!

After Cactus Point. We went dinner! How can a visit to Cameron Highlands without Steamboat! Kapal Berstim!

The gang dinnering! The price here is quite reasonable. The vegetables are like unlimited!

After dinner we went walking at the Cameron’s pasar malam. Waihoong mentioned to use there’s the Beer Ice-cream somewhere here. But it’s no where to be seen. Some of them quite disappointed.

First time see-ing this kinda fruit! Actually it’s guava, just that the skin is peeled and it’s marinated. The colour looks very artificial.

Chocolate coated strawberries.

Cut Comb. My throat was having some problem that few days before i went up Cameron. Leslie recommended me to have this as it is very good for the throat. So I bought and ate it. Very very sweet. But it works!

Souvenirs for tourists.

Bought some Apam Balek back to the apartment just in case. To our surprise a lot of malay people in Cameron Highlands know how to speak mandarin.

Back to the crib after waking up too early in the morning and walked whole day. All lazying around and it’s only 9:15pm. But we have to rest early for the night, because some of us will be going sunrise shooting the next morning which we have to wake up at 4am.

Stay tune for day 2 of the trip.

So we reach Taman Pertanian / Bukit Cahaya, Shah Alam around 9a.m. Gathered at the entrance there then took the shuttle to go into the jungle! All was quite excited about it because some of them are first timer and I can’t wait to go on to the Extreme Challenge itself.

The bus stopped and we got down. Some of them already shaken up looking at the ladder going up the tree.
Aivee: “Can I go on the Big Thrill one instead? Why did I signed up for this?!”

At the gearing up section waiting to grab our gears. Gloves are sold for RM3 a pair, recommended for Extreme Challenge.

Aivee still can open her mouth so big and laugh. Didn’t know what’s coming up.

Jook, Tay, Faris, Zaheer, and me covering our vital part because after wearing those harnesses, the “package” really “comes out”.

Instructor giving safety briefing.

Aivee thinking: “Why did I signed up for this again?”

Can’t wait to go up!

Siewmei carefully locking her carabiners one by one.

Aivee climbing up the ladder with doubt.

Hamyu: “Don’t think! Just do it!”
Aivee: “Did I really signed up for this?”

The first flying fox to start the Extreme Challenge course.

Woooo~ hoooo~

Me after the first flying fox. Siewmei took this photo for me! I didn’t camwhore!

Prepare for the 2nd flying fox! Already sweating.

Spot Siewmei in the photo!

Fun gliding through~

Our first non-flying fox challenge. Erm… what do you call this? Floating Logs?

This monkey bar is one of the hardest for the whole challege. For me la.

Swinging Tubes. Instructor behind Siewmei telling her how to do it.

A shot of Lay completing the Floating Logs.

The first Rope Walking. It’s quite hard to aim for the rope in front when you’re shaking.

Mr. Ham on Swinging Tubes.

2nd Rope Walking. This time the handle is lower thus easier.

Me on the 2nd Rope Walking. Half way through. Like I’m walking on air.

Resting before going for the next challenge.

A very easy task for Hamyu. Look at him! Like walking on the ground!

Another killer ladder climb. But Mr. Ham still keeps the cool.

Siewmei: “Looks like very hard wor.”

Walking on the Tightrope. First time on my life.

Eh… not that hard only~

Completed jor.

Hamyu coming through the Tightrope.

Easy job for him too. Not much of a challenge.

3rd Flying Fox.

Hamyu clearing the way by kicking the branches sticking out.

2nd Tightrope. This time with 2 cables for you to hold.

Balancing is the key.

Rope Bridge. Not much of a challenge for us also.

This one is another variant for the Tightrope walking. Instead of one rope, there are 2 now.

Going through this challenge is not quite a pretty scene. Me wallking kangkang.

Siewmei completing it with ease.

Floating Planks.

Feels like a character in Avatar. Ho ho…

The Yellow Man in the jungle! Got line lor… look at those he’s holding and walking.

One by one finishing the challenges.

Got some kind of liquid on the cable.

Hamyu’s turn to learn the way of the Na’vi.

Ladder climbing down. Finally no need to climb up again.

A lot a lot easier than climbing up.

Check your harnesses before attempting any challenge.

For this challenge, the stepping wooden planks are quite solid and non-shaky.

This one is even easier. Just like walking on a hanging bridge which will sway from front and back.

The location of this challenge actually kinda intersect the Big Thrill Challenge. So we can actually see the Big Thrill group playing.

Walk walk walk, shoot shoot shoot.

Done.

This is the final challenge. It’s also the Tightrope walking, but this time you’ll be holding those handles like you would hold in a train or bus. So no problem for those who always took public transportation la.

Justine performing some “high” fashion pose during one of the challenge.

Za and Faris waiting for their turn.

*Super Mario Bros music playing in the background*

Tay is not impressed.

Zarzan. OoooOOOooooOOoooo~

That’s it! The Extreme Challenge ended with no big finale. Just a path like how they use for their “Chicken Exit”. Am quite dissapointed. You’ll see how the Big Thrill challenge ends with the longest Flying Fox.

Yippie got stuck on one of the Flying Fox and the instructor went and help her out. Failed.

Jook locking himself to the big rope before jumping onto the big net.

Is he using his feet to hook onto the net? Weird pose. Like Cirque de Soleil performer.

Spiderman Tay.

The people who finished all the challenges waiting for the rest to finish.

You see… this is how it’s suppose to end!

After SkyTrex it was already 1 something pm. The gang went back to Subang and stuffed their faces.

Ben and Syam. Ben was in the picnic / chicken gang.

Leslie and Jacque.

Mr. Ham and Tay.

Eli and Waihoong didn’t bring Joey out for this adventerous trip.

Jook and Shyng.

Aivee and Siewmei.

Yippie, Justine, and Dawn.

Ending the entry with Karen and Lay with his signature pose.

Overall this trip was quite a fun trip. But some didn’t like the challenges cos it’s too hard or too tiring. But hey, once a while coming out to do these kinda outdoor stuffs is good for you!

For more information about SkyTrex Adventure click HERE.