Pahang

  • Cherating,  Family travel,  Pahang

    Suria Cherating Beach Resort

    August 28, 2012 /

    What is the best way to enjoy Cherating beach? To me, it is certainly walking along the shore and combing the beach to see and photograph things that have been washed ashore with the tide, while letting the gentle breeze kiss the face.

    And where is the best place to stay after the excursion along the beach? Certainly going back to my choice of resort—Suria Cherating Beach Resort (Suria Cherating); the perfect spot to kick up my feet and continue to feel the breeze. I love it here.

    Suria Cherating  is renowned for its Bali-inspired accommodations that spell comfort in style. Its 114 cozy guest rooms are decorated with stylish teak furniture with a touch of Balinese art. The room during my stay here was a two-bedded Superior room with a garden view. Choice of accommodations at Suria Cherating ranges from a variety of rooms with garden or sea view and amenities include TV with selected satellite channels, coffee/tea-making facilities, refrigerator, IDD telephone, ironing board upon request, wireless Internet connectivity in the room, safety box and more. Room rates are ranging from RM175 to RM345 (excluding tax), depending on type of room and time of year (normal day, school holiday, national holiday).

    I love the corridor area where I got to view beautiful canvas paintings painted by local artist. At the end of the corridor there is an elevator and a gift shop and further down the steps is the swimming pool area, which overlooked by the Bunga Padi Restaurant. Right before the beach, there are dedicated areas for team-building obstacle course, mini playground, beach telematch and beach volleyball.

    Buffet breakfast at Bunga Padi Restaurant was okay. There’s cereal with milk, toasted bread with jams or butter, sausages, baked beans, scrambled eggs, rice porridge, fruits and heavier food like fried rice and fried kuew teow. Alternatively, there will be nasi lemak or fried vermicelli or mee. Drinks include coffee, tea and orange juice. Breakfast is free for 2 persons. The rate is RM20 for adult, Rm13 for a kid. A-la carte is available for lunch and dinner and room service starts from 11am to 10pm. On arrival, all guests will be given a welcoming drink.

    Overall, my stay here was great. My son enjoyed playing at the beach, the swimming pool and the playground area. And as for me, I mostly enjoyed walking along the beach and sitting outside the restaurant watching kids playing while taking pictures. I wanted to draw but I left my pencil somewhere and was not much in the mood to draw.

    Because I enjoyed the stay so much, I want one of my lucky readers to have the chance to stay here too. Suria Resorts & Hotels management has kindly agreed to sponsor a 2D and 1N stay in a Superior room!!

    To stand a chance to win, you need to:

    Easy 4 steps!  The lucky winner will be selected based on the most creative comment. Judging will be done by Suria Resorts management. Closing date is 11 September 2012, 11.59pm.

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    About Suria Resorts & Hotels:
    Suria Resorts & Hotels is a Malaysian – based resort and hotel operator and management company founded in 2003. Suria Resorts & Hotels presently managing a chain of hotels in Merang, Terengganu; Cherating, Pahang; Johor Bahru, Johor; Janda Baik, Pahang and Cambridge, London.

    For more information, please visit: http://www.suriaresorts.com or visit  Suria Resorts & Hotels on FB.

    For inquiries, please contact 03-7806 4752 or e-mail: sales@suriaresorts.com.

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  • Family travel,  Lanchang,  Pahang,  Temerloh

    Kuala Gandah National Elephant Conservation Centre

    August 5, 2012 /

    Visiting Kuala Gandah National Elephant Conservation Centre at Lanchang, Pahang last month was a great opportunity for my family and I to learn more about elephants as well as to meet and greet them up-close and personal. Reaching the place around 12.30pm, I went in the reception area with my son to find out more information about the place while my husband takes a quick nap.

    National Elephant Conservation Centre is a base for Elephant Relocation Team dedicated to locating, subduing and then trans-locating problem elephants from areas where their habitats are constantly being encroached by plantations, to other suitable habitats throughout Peninsular, including Taman Negara National Park.

    We found out that admission is free and in order to get in the sanctuary, we need to register; full name, IC, address and phone number. Later we were given sticker passes to stick on our shirts.  By having done all that, we’re free to visit the sanctuary already but activities with elephants only starts at 2pm, so we use the extra time to visit the exhibition near the reception area to learn more about elephants.

     

    At around 1pm, we went into the area where the elephants are. Although activities have not started yet, visitors can go in and see and feed the elephants.


    Here is Yassin feeding an elephant with sugarcane.

    Some of the elephants here were found injured in the jungle of Malaysia while some were brought in from Thailand and Myanmar under the trans-location program to ensure their well-being and continued survival.

    The Peninsular Malaysian elephants (Asian elephants) are listed as critically endangered species as there are only 1,200 wild elephants existed in Peninsular Malaysia. Protecting these elephants help safeguard thousands of other species within its habitat. The elephant creates vital natural pathways by knocking over trees, allowing smaller species to feed, as well as dispersing plant seeds in its dung. However, due to habitat loss, elephants are forced to hunt for food in convert areas surrounding forest such as plantations, where they raid crops on a massive scale. This is why the trans-location team has such a dire responsibility to move these elephants, to prevent them from otherwise being shot by farmers, or simply dying of starvation.

    The activities kicked off at 2pm with an introduction of 6 elephants.  These elephants are highly intelligent and delightful – each one has a different character, personality and temperament. All of them showed off a bit of their talents.


    An elephant saying thank you.

    Later, we got to interact with elephants by touching and feeding them. Yassin was so happy to be able to do that.


    Touchy moment.

    After the feeding session, all visitors were allowed to ride naturally on the elephants; without seating basket and all. The queue was quite long…we waited almost an hour.


    Long queue.

    Yassin with Ali and Uncle Helmy. Whaddaya know; of all the places, we bumped into them here at the sanctuary. Ali loves elephant.

    Last activity of the day was bathing with elephants! Everybody; young ones and old alike, were very much excited. Yassin and Ali was having a blast washing the elephant. I did not join the the fun as I like being dry and just take photos. My husband joined in to take closer pictures in the river.

    The bathing activity ended around 5pm and just before we could get to our car, rain fell down. So, my clothing was wet in other way. Ah well, hujan rahmat. Been quite a while since I last got soaked in a rain.

    Here’s a video to sum it all up:

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

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  • Kuantan,  Malaysia,  Pahang

    Tourism Pahang Blogger

    July 29, 2012 /

    I was invited on Saturday (28th July) to join a Tourism Pahang Blogger colloquium organised by Tourism Pahang, in Kuantan, Pahang. The event kicked-off at 3pm with a speech by Dato’ Shafik Fauzan bin Shariff, the Pahang State Minister for Tourism Malaysia. Pahang Tourism is handled by Fraser’s Hill Development Corporation (Perbadanan Kemajuan Bukit Fraser – PKBF).

    Other blogger friends that were also invited include Yafielda, Jard, Rayyan and Lilyriani. All of them are also the Malaysian Travel Bloggers members.


    Dato’ Shafik Fauzan

    In his welcoming speech, Dato’ Shafik explains about Pahang’s plan to boost its tourism sector with the help of bloggers. He added that traditionally, the tourism body has mainstream media to spread tourism information and activities but however, as part of the efforts to boost tourism industry this year, they decided to invite the new social media — bloggers. Stating about the state’s ‘naivety’ about social media, Dato’ Shafik said that he is open to any suggestions by bloggers to help improve tourism in the state. He explains that bloggers are very powerful when it comes to dissemination of  information as they often come equipped with social sharing tools such as twitter, facebook, etc and that they exert strong influence, reaching millions of people.

    During the colloquium (informal meeting), bloggers were presented with information about Tourism Pahang website by the CEO of Secretlab.Media, Mohd Khairul Azizi Mohd Razali. Azizi emphasised the importance of social media and he revealed the fact that previously, the global ranking for the Tourism Pahang is 13M. When his company was given the task to revamp the website, he integrated social media buttons such as twitter, facebook, foursquare, G+1 and many more for easy sharing. Now, Tourism Pahang website’s rank has improved to 3M and as such, it is hoped that it will improve when bloggers shared their articles on the website. This feature is still under testing and will be released soon.

    There were also talks about blogging basics by two Pahang-based bloggers, Azwan and Fatin Suhana.

    Tourism Pahang is considering to organise many interesting activities (as per suggestion by bloggers during the meeting) including familiarisation tour for bloggers, contests, blogger’s award and many more. Apart from that, Tourism Pahang which has yet to launch its newly revamped website, is very much excited to invite bloggers to join the launch soon.

    Pahang, situated on the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia, is blessed with a variety of natural and cultural attractions. It is a home to Malaysia’s national Park as well as three major highlands, namely Genting Highland, Cameron Highland and Fraser’s Hill. Apart from the highlands, Pahang boasts some 210 kilometers of shoreline that includes the famous Cherating beach. For marine life fans, there is Tioman. The island park is teeming with an assortment of exotic marine life that turn the colorful coral reefs as their homes.

    I am planning to explore more of Pahang soon. Being a Pahang-born blogger, I feel that I need to explore my birth state. My recent trips to Fraser’s Hill and Deerland Park (Gandah Elephant post still in draft) were some of the starters.

     

     

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  • Family travel,  Lanchang,  Pahang,  Temerloh,  Travel illo

    Exotic animals at Deerland Park, Lanchang, Pahang

    July 24, 2012 /

    Visiting Deerland Park in Lanchang, Pahang not only gives the opportunity to meet deers, but to also to meet a collection of pheasants like Golden Pheasant, Vulturine Guineafowl, common pheasants, other type of birds like quails, cockatiel, Mandarin duck as well as the four-legged ones; ferret, Bengal cat, Guinea pigs, rabbits not to mention the hissing ones; couple of pythons.

    I found that these two pheasants have very interesting plumage so I took them as subjects for my pen drawing.

    Golden Pheasant caught my attention as it has a very beautiful intense shimmering plumage. The crest is in golden yellow and rump and bright red body. The deep orange “cape” or tippets can be spread in display, appearing as an alternating black and orange fan that covers all of the face except its bright yellow eye, with a pinpoint black pupil. According to the keeper, this pheasant is not that friendly despite it’s beautiful plumage. When it saw me aiming my camera, it came darting across the lawn and walk non-stop and made it hard for me to take the picture. Unlike Golden Pheasant, Vulturine Guineafowl has primarily bright blue body with interesting black and white streaks and  dots on the back feathers. There is a band of tiny brown feathers on the back of its head and the eyes are fiercely red.

    My son was in awe with the cute quails and the keeper told me that these were the meat-type not the egg-laying type. He also added that meat-type quails are bigger than egg-laying ones.

    After walking around the corner of this quail area, I saw a couple of creepy crawlies! I dared not go near but my son and his dad went near and touched them! Yikes. I ran—like quail—away from the pythons and later got to meet a cockatiel.


    Photo captured by my husband.

     I looove this cockatiel! It has orange blush spot, so cute. I must draw this cute bird in color when time permits.

    Cockatiel is an exotic bird, popular for its attractive yellow crest, bright orange patch in its cheeks and its long sleek tail. Cockatiel is usually gray colored, however, some domesticated cockatiel breeds are found in colors of yellow, peach, gray, orange and white.

    And later we got to see Bengal cat sleeping. I called tsktskstsk (the sound when one calling out to cat) but it ignored, must be in deep slumber. The Bengal is actually a nocturnal loner and very shy—that explains why it was in deep slumber. The Bengal is a hybrid breed of cat, formed by the cross of a domestic feline and an Asian leopard cat (ALC). The Bengal cat has large spots, rosettes, and a light/white belly, and a body structure reminiscent of the ALC.

    Next, we got to feed rabbits!

    Later we got to see pretty Mandarin ducks. I love the plumage, so beautiful. This will be my next pen drawing subject too.

    You see the pretty one in the middle? It’s the male one; the female ones are those two having not so attractive plumage. The male duck has a red bill, large white crescent above the eye and reddish face and “whiskers”. The breast is purple with vertical white bars, and the flanks ruddy, with two orange “sails” at the back. The female is similar to female Wood Duck, with a white eye-ring and stripe running back from the eye, but is paler below, has a small white flank stripe, and a pale tip to its bill.

    And the mandarin duck ends our trip around Deerland Park. We really had great time here getting to know more animals. We waved goodbye to the animals and dropped some donation to support them before we leave.

     

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