Sungai Lembing, Pahang （林明）

In March 2010, an unexpected trip to Sungai Lembing, organized by my newly joined photography club - Freezed

The town of Sungai Lembing is located in a suburban area of Pahang, a hidden village in middle of nowhere. It was once the richest tin mine in the world.

Long forgotten mining factory

Our first stop is to Gua Charas. It took us around half an hour drive from Sungai Lembing town to Gua Charas. It's a cave of Buddhism. The cave itself have nothing much special compare to other caves, but we had a great explore above the cave, which there's a slightly hidden staircase on the left hand side of the cave's main entrance... if you able to find your way up there.

Gua Charas

Next stop, is Sungai Pandan Waterfall. Few staircase steps will bring you to the waterfall. None of us get into water as all are photographer. All they care about is the slow shutter waterfall shooting...= =!!

Ouh, please remember to bring along your mosquito repellent. 

Sg Pandan Waterfall

Later at that night we went to the famous roast pork shop in Sg. Lembing, only available on weekends night. It's not a shop but a home-based roast pork factory. The place is at the other side of the Lembing river. We took the bridge opposite our homestay, make a right turn and walk for about 20mins to reach the place. There are few more turns along the walk, look closely for the "shop"'s signboard. It is deep in residential area and kinda hidden. We kept wondering whether we are on the right track. At last, we reached, starving and craving for food!! The roast pork is reaally good! Crispy and well-marinated. With slightly strong pork taste, but who care?! We were too hungry, mayb that makes the roast pork more tasty than it could be. By the way, they only serve roast pork, do not have any other things, no rice nor noodles.

Sg Lembing Roast Pork (林明周末晚烧猪肉)
Tel：+6017-909 3580 / +609-541 1975
Address ：A-259, Jalan Jeram Takar, 26200 Sungai Lembing, Kuantan.
GPS Coordinate ： N 03° 55.500’    E103° 02.185’

Next morning, our destination was Rainbow Waterfall. The route is rugged, it's not recommended for self-driving unless you got a 4WD and experienced with hill site driving. It took one hour drive to reach a river as a starting point of a 45minits trekking to reach the waterfall. The trail do not have stair case, but walkable soil steps. It is not too hard, but need some strength on your leg to climb some big gap between the steps. Our group have 40-ties year-old photograher uncle and aunty manage to get to the top.

Quick stop before trekking started

The 4WD

The view of the Rainbow Waterfall is awesome! You could see rainbow right in front of you! It is said to be able to see rainbows all year long as long as there is sunshine. You manage to see larger rainbow if the water flow from the fall is bigger.. it depends on season or it rains the night before. V, who was the pioneer go right under the waterfall, bring us to the biggest adventure. Rainbows are just all around you when u out there in the water~~~ Try check it out yourself!

The next attraction seems like a must-go in Sungai Lembing as well - Bukit Panorama/ Panorama Hill (林明山). We woke up at 5am to catch the sunrise. Hundreds or thousands stair cases? I could not count... killl half of me though (I am a stair case loser). It took me around 1 hour to get to the top of the hill, while others already got their best place with tripod... But, I still had myself some good view and good pictures. The cloud river (云海?) is the best part of the hiking. The small township beneath the cloud with seven colours, best feel ever...

林明云海

That's all. We bring back lots of photos and great memory.

Accomodation/住宿:

We stay at Sungai Lembing Hotel & Cafe (林明旅社） . It is right at the entrance, with "Welcome to Sungai Lembing" big signboard/arch once you arrive Sungai Lembing township. It's not a hotel but a homestay that is clean and cheap. Good for budget traveller. The owners are father-and-son and brothers. The are kind local residents. They have most basic but necessary facilities like air-conditioner, water dispenser, hot and cold shower. Some of the rooms have attached bathroom, some are not. They also provide services guide you to Rainbow Waterfall from their homestay with 4 Wheel-Drive.

Sungai Lembing Hotel & Cafe
Address: No. 81, Jalan Sungai Lembing, Kampung Melayu, 26200 Kuantan, Pahang Darul Makmur.
Tel: +6019-9981126/ +609-5411924

Room Rate/房价:
Twin-sharing (2pax) : RM60
Quad Room (4pax) :RM80
Deluxe Room/Dorm (6pax) :RM120

4WD to Rainbow Waterfall : RM35 per pax (include 1 cup noodles and drink)

Gunung Jerai, Kedah

I had my birthday at Gunung Jerai, Kedah in February 2010. Special day with special person...

There is only one accomodation you can find in Gunung Jerai - The Regency (formerly known as Peranginan Gunung Jerai Resort). It was renovated and reopen in 2010.

We had ourselves a standard twin bed room. The view from balcony is awesome as we can see the long stretches of paddy field which you can't even see the edge of it. Unfortunately, the time that we went there, the paddy was harvested and field burning was in progress. So, do check the season before your visit.

The room is not very big, but clean and new with balcony, all facilties work well. As a RM180 standard room, I think it's how it should be. For chalet in Jerai, I think the view is surprisingly not as good as the standard room.

separated toilet and bathroom

The restaurant in The Regency is the one and only one restaurant in Gunung Jerai. The food is expensive and tasted so-so, cost around RM10-RM30, not worth for a try I can say. 

Not sure chalet allow to cook, do check it with the management.

It was funny as things really really did not go well in this trip. There were 2 attractions in our list for Gunung Jerai, waterfall and museum.

On the day we reached there, we found that the Forestry Museum was closed down for quite some times already. It was kinda disappointed. And then we went to waterfall, the entrance located opposite the museum, short trek down hill. We saw the waterfall....but... without water on it.... =.=!! There's a season for waterfall too??

We walk further down and came to the recreation park, it was abandoned and scary. We didn't walk further as it felt unsafe.

There's another waterfall nearby the hotel, but it only allow to go with the tour guide from the hotel. As we only have two person, we gave up that plan eventually. There are several trails which we not manage to try out too.

However, I still enjoy my trip very much. There are so much more than a trip.



overlooking a nearby secret island



How to get there:

Drive along North-South Highway heading to Alor Setar. Exit at Gurun.

After exit you will see signboard along the way that took around 10-15 minutes lead you to the foot of Gunung Jerai. Drive less than 30 minutes then you will come to the resorts' doorstep.

My Proton Saga BLM 1.3 enough to handle the sloop.

Weather:
Daytime: Casual without sweater
Nighttime: Light sweater might needed at outdoor

Trang, Thailand@ Dec 2009

Decided to record down the footprints in my life, I created this blog, just to give myself a chance to make my travel memorable and keep those precious moment forever.

I will begin my travel blog with my visit to Trang, Thailand.

One day, one of my colleague asked me, am I interested to go a place call Trang in Thailand. Trang... where the hell is this? Never heard of it. Asked around, still nobody have any idea where is it and what's out there.

But since I already lived in northern region, Thailand seems like a place I must explore, so why not?

And package of RM298, 3 days 2 night (include everything except lunch and dinner), sounds really attractive~

We had a long queue at Thailand Immigration. After 4-5 hours of stuck, we finally stepped on Thailand's ground. The first meal was pretty impressive, I like seeing people deliver our food with boat~ :p



Low-Ceiling Cave (Le Khaokob Cave)

You can't imagine how low is the low-ceiling they mean... You got to see it yourself~ It's really fun and advantures but not suitable for those people with claustrophobia (幽闭恐惧症), a phobia of closed spaces or situations which are difficult to escape from.

On the boat to Le Khaokob Cave



Cave in the Sea

Another attraction is an island on Trang. The boat just bring us to an island and I thought we gonna have some normal snokelling. However, we were asked to queue in one line in the sea, by holding each other's back. The tour guide lead and drag us from front towards the island. There's some spaces beneath the island that allow us to swim over it and eventually leading us to a cave in it. The cave is really really dark where you can't even see yourself! We swim through the cave with only some of them holidng waterproof touchlight. However, it's so crowded in the dark cave. There were many tour group went to and fro the cave. After around 10 mins swim. we saw lights in front. It is a hidden beach beyond the cave! Our line start broken up and everyone can't wait to swim themselves up to the beach... It was real nice~



Beyond the cave

One thing I so love about the tour guide, he doesn't talk much. So we actually do not know what do we expect when we enter the cave. Another good thing is we did not being brought to some places that force you to buy things like usual tour package did.

The hotel we stayed was mayb a past 4-star hotel. The facilities are old but still clean and workable. Not too good but not bad either. Most important, we got a comfortable bed and clean toilet.

The trip is kinda different from the trip I had before. Exciting and unexpected~

Contact of my Tour Guide:
Jeff Chong: 017-4783843/0331289507

*Photo credited to Liong and CK... heheh...