Vietnam Day One:3 places in one day

I am heading Ho Chi Minh City. I prebooked air ticket way half a year ago during AirAsia promotion season. I bought depart to and return from Ho Chi Minh City without thinking much.However, train from HCM to Hanoi take 33 hours, with my only 10 days trip in Vietnam, 33 hours is a disaster. So, we bought Jetstar from HCM to Hanoi.

I saw something funny in jetstar plane. Why the hell Jetstar has malay words. Jetstar is an Australian LCC and serves various destination in Vietnam. I wonder, didnt they buy old AirAsia Boeing airplane, did they?

I reached Hanoi at night, and we linger around Hanoi old quarter. Its kinda cold in the month of December and we lost in hanoi old quarter when we try to get back to our hostel.

However, Hoan Ho Kiem Lake at night is pretty nice to enjoy. It is a superb place for couple to date. Lots of couple make out there around the lake. Perhaps french colonial had left this big impact on nurturing the romantic environment for these vietnamese.

Hanoi has preserved its old vietnam style architecture in this old quarter. Though many tourists coming in, i do wish that Hanoi still remain its own style of old vietnamese atmosphere.

End of the day, i realised that i had breakfast in KL, lunch in Ho Chi Minh City and Dinner in Hanoi. Three cities are 2000 km away from each other.

Good Morning Vietnam!

USA has Uncle Sam and Vietnam has Uncle Ho.

Last year end holiday, i teamed up with my buddy backpack to visit Uncle Ho. We have yet to experience so many jaw opening phenomenons, drowning experience, strange encounter, eye opening scene, crazy bargain, all time emo and unique friendship.

Following blogposts will be my day to day diary. I am intend not to write what Lonely Planet can write at its best and so do other travel guide. i would just note down my view about the places and my personal unique experience which i hope readers would found it different from others and could not get from other places else except here from me.

Positive Energy

Atomics Physics tell us that atoms are surrounded by electrons, electrons possess energy and they jumping in and out, conducting electricity, forming bonding between another atoms and forming ions etc.

Well this is also true for human being. We have energies around us. I would like to category them into merely positive and negative energy. These energies influencing people around. Well...most of the time, people around you conducting negative energy like : oh thats difficult, oh shit, oh what the world is so unfair, you can never make it, thats sucks, forget it and give up and so on. Your friends might giving you a negative thinking and make our day down without noticing it.

Well, we should have positive energy around us. Things like we persevere, motivate, aspire and inspire are very important. You probably just wanna give a sigh on how bad your day is but this conduct some portion to other people around you.

Hence, you should keep positive, believe there is hope and the world is not as bad as you think. Change and empower will make up your day and light ups people's life and eventually they will shine you in other way some other time.

what will you do if 2012 dooms?

The movie "2012" is showing in theater soon, the trailers are indeed thrilling. We wonder, what if it is true in 3 years time. Will you still reading the textbooks in your hands, will you doing the routine activities daily, will you still keep the words you want to say, will you still restrain yourself from what you wanted to do long time ago?

If you answers Nos for above, then you haven been really doing what you want. You still have dreams to catch and wishes to achieve. Probably, you are trapped in this place, time and things.

Steve Jobs been diagnosed a heavy disease last time and he sense death. Everyday, he is thinking, if there is no tomorrow, what i want to do today. This thought lifted him to do a lot of extraordinary things and when he get back to doctor. It was a misdiagnosed. Having sensing death, he appreciated life.

Human will not change until we come to a point where change is a must to survive. Many times, we have been doing something doesnt really important in our life and keep the important ones aside for future. We would say, nah...there still a lot of time. However, mostly what left is regrets.

Hence, love your family, appreciate friends, care the youngs and respect the elders are the basics of all. Show them your love and care, live your life.

What i want to do in future?

In future, it will be the era of saving the world as much as you can. Europe is taking the initiative to develop the green technology, sustainable effort to preserve the Earth. However, developing countries keep their pace fast to catch up the developed countries status but they follow the old way which US and Europe did last time. Rapid development and taxing the environment. for example, building tall building in nights and install as many as air con as you can. Producing cars as many as you to satisfy the billions population. Do they think of redesign the product for green concept? not really.

In my point of view, speaking about green tech, clean tech, sustainable stuffs are only the games of Europeans and partially US. People in India, China, Middle East do not really care about this in order to achieve the longly admired American Dream.

Under served, less developed countries suffered the worst. They lost connection with the world. While all 90 percent of technology and innovations only benefit the top 10% of the population in the social economy pyramid. Poor people in Cambodia rural areas have no light at night. Edison invented light bulbs decades ago. This is really strange.

Having this thought in my mind, i think we should adapt Europeans' Ideas, practice Chineses' working spirit, and seeking sustainable solutions like the Africans and Cambodians. Being a global player, we should have only one home to be bounded. That's earth.

Think of sustainable solutions, think green, help the poor and lets turn the 90/10 principal down in future.

Vkuan happy birthday!

My 21st birthday. Its been a quite a pleasant one. I do plan for a special one for myself but somehow got engaged with lots of stuff especially after raya holidays. Well, i guess i ll have to celebrate with myself, used to.

30th sept, one day before the BIG day, i received my first wishes from my old buddy, Chen Kang from England. He's always being the first one to wish me.

Afternoon starting 2pm: wishes from course mates, secondary school friends, my college buddies.

Evening: wishes from course mates, secondary school juniors, wishes from Australia.

Night: wishes from course mates, wishes from Cambodia, wishes from seniors.

Midnight: Went out "yum cha", course mates who finished karate training sing me birthday songs at mamak stall. Sweet!

1st Oct starting 1 am: wishes from family members,wishes from the other potion of course mates, wishes from Peruvian Chicas.

2 am: Indulged myself seeing at my facebook wall.

Sitting and staring in front computer right now, been reminiscing what i have done, how i treat my friends, how i behave for last 2 years. I am pleased with wishes from all around. Love my buddies in university, Miss my overseas friends, If i were in the States right now, i might get seco. (bottom's up in spanish).

To my secondary school friends, thanks for still remembering me. To my friends in study/live in oversea, take good care and have a great time. To my oversea friend from Cambodia, thanks for counting down for me over there, Peruvians, i am waiting for your peru time to 1st oct.

Last but not least, my dear course mates, its been a warm night for me with all your wishes. I think i will have sweet year following up.

Lastly, to myself happy birthday, the 21st.

You can get drunk and gamble legally.

You can vote for your country and decide the suitable government.

You can marry a above 21 year old girl without parents' consent.

21 year old is the age you have to take the responsibilities of every action you taken or choices you have made. You have to be mentally, physically and financially independent. You must take care of people's feeling. You will not get forgiveness easily for every childish mistake.

Because you are a MAN !

Batu Hampar Waterfall

In a fine Sunday morning, my company and i cycle to find a nice hideout. If you want to stay away from campus and go for a speeding and refreshing activity, you may follow my trip.

Trip starts from USM engineering campus, head to bukit panchor recreation park. When you reach the small kampung area, instead taking the right turn for bukit panchor, take the left one head along till the end. If i am not mistaken, you will be in Sungai Kechil.

There will be another T junction, right is the detour to bukit panchor recreation park, and left is the place we are going to. take the left one, go along and you will see Air Putih. thats the place we want to go.

It will be a 20% slope i guess if you on the right track, it is a tough cycling experience, hate sloping. BUT, after you reach certain height for example, when you pass the ANISARI village resort, you can start sliding all the way down to the waterfall. It is indeed a very very fast cruising. Almost 80kph with your bike, imagine. Cruising down, we will see a board written Batu Hampar recreation park and immediately turn left and cycle for another 3 minutes, you will see the waterfall.

It is a very nice place especially for me. Not many universities is located near to a waterfall.

I like this place although it is not a very significant huge waterfall, but sometimes i would like to go there, speeding down the slope for more than 5 minutes, and take a cool dip in the water or have a natural waterfall massage.

My Bike, My Friend

This evening, i woke up from a nap and i was heading to have dinner.

I thought of a friend, Jun Lii and so i decided to call him come along. His phone got a bit problem and i was trying to call him lots of time and finally, i managed to reach him in the last attempt.

Okay, we went out eating. Everything is fine as usual. Till, we stopped by the mini market just to simply buy some food. As usual i didnt lock my bicycle as does jun lii.

I got my Chipsmore and he got his eggs for tomorrows breakfast.When we step out, i saw my bicycle missing. DAMN!! My bicycle is my leg in university, my only transport here.

Jun Lii quickly do a regional search while i observing whos the possible thief. Darn...after a half an hour search, we are pretty much helpless and sadly i walk back to campus.

Half way to campus, Jun Lii asked me whether do i believe in curse,...i said damn, the thief will get hit by bus. I was pretty much sad but what to do, nothing to be done except thinking a way get a new bike.

Suddenly, i sensed a biker from my back. A middle aged skinny indian, looked more like a drug addict, he is cycling and the bike is exactly looked like mine. Well, i think in this place no one else's bike will looked my Bull Horn. My bike is 100% unique from other.

We yell at him, he must probably know that he meet the owner of bicycle that he is riding. He accelerates. My friend, Jun Lii speed up and chase the thief. They had demonstrated the real life bike chase. Its pretty dangerous though, luckily there wasnt much cars on the road.

I was running from behind. I saw my friend manage to secure my bike and that bastard stand beside. Oh man, i yell at him and proved the bike is mine. Of course, i knew my bike, every single part of it. He seems clueless and i warned him that the campus guard is coming soon. Actually the incident just happen opposite my campus gate across a road. He walked away.

I got my bike back. Hooray, Jun Lii, youre the man! after shortwhile of losing my bike, i appreciate my bike even more. This bike is the coolest bike i ever had. Also, i treasured my friend more, his quick reaction managed to save my bike from hell. Jun Lii, i owe you one!

p/s: i think my bike got some intuition, during the bike chase, my bike do actually off chain and the thief unable to cycle further. Cool~~

Setbacks

Recently, i had some setbacks...In the beginning, i feel everything goes fine just like planned. But somehow in the middle of the journey, some variation, some tests, some mistakes, some unexpected stuffs come it, i suffered some damping, resistance, back flow....

I have been overlooked those minor minor stuff and i scared i repeated the old big mistake. Anyway, i have experiences, i must realise the small spark of mistake will create big disaster in the future. Action in need.

System saturated. Reorganised and recharge.

below is a good phrase:

The pioneer step to start your journey towards achieving triumphant result is to identify your strengths and weaknesses and importantly actions have to be taken to remedy the weaknesses. In addition, utilize your strength to counter challenges and further excel it to increase your personal capability. Hence, the earlier you start building your foundation skills, the more benefits you may reap.

USM Project Cambodia

I am directing a group of students to work on a community service project in Cambodia.

We gonna tackle the water quality problem over there. Hence we came out some plans. Among those, we try to introduce LifeStraw, product of Vestergaard Frandsen. Besides, we also wanna work on ceramic and biosand filters.

This lifestraw able to filter 700 liter of water. It is sufficent for a man to use for a year. It also able to filter out 99.99% waterborne bacteria and parasites.

As for ceramics filter as shown above and biosand filter below, they are proven effective and well develop in many rural areas n Cambodia. This is a great project to work on and we able to engaged in community problem and come out with science and technological solution.

We hope that we can give these kids smiles and hopes. They have to be empowered to develop themselves, community and the country. Hence this water problem will be one of the way to break the poverty, sickness and inability to develop cycle.

Cycling Excursion- Tanjong Piandang,Kuala Kurau and Kuala Gula

Another crazy day yet amazing! This time we cycling around suburban area.

USM engineering campus--Tanjong Piandang--Kuala Kurau--Kuala Gula

Time: 0800 to 2000

Distance travelled: ~~80km

So there was a time, my friend, Vigren said: " lets go to Tanjong Piandang...its like 10km from here. A group of his friend including david (vkuan) agreed and its not that far also. So everyone said ok lets go to the seaside there.

Along the way passed Titi Serong, we were just cycling straight with paddy fields beside us.

Finally, after an hour plus, we reach tanjong piandang. This place is a chinese small town selling alot of dry fish stuffs. It is amazing seeing these. At least for me, i think these dried fish, prawns are cool. How patient the man is arranging them.

Obeying our plan we head to tanjong piandang seaside. It looks nice but sorry vigren no sand for the seaside. Cant go swimming.

We noticed that Kuala kurau is another 10km from here. so we decided to head there since we have plenty of time in the morning. Apparently, my great grand father lives there long time ago.So we decided to go there and see what kind of a fishing village will looked like.

So this is kuala kurau. Nothing much.

That time was noon, and rain was falling. So we hide under a bridge. raindrops keep falling on my head...da da da..

The bridge we hid under was a majestic bridge connecting kuala kurau and kuala gula. After we "consulted" with a kurauan. We been informed that kuala gula might has something special offered. Distance from here its like more than 10km.

After some sorta discussion, we decided to go there as we been so close and prefer not to give up until we satisfied. having no choice, aik soon and Sawadeekap boy "kot" followed us continue to Kuala Gula.

In the middle of the bridge, we stopped and take a break. Looking the fishing village view is indeed very relaxing. I wish to become a one day fisherman. How does it feel like being a fisherman. erm...

Not to describe some crazy longer than we expected journey to kuala gula, we reach there with these 2 coloured small prawn catched my eyes.

It noon is Kuala Kurau before crossing the bridge, and few hours come to kuala gula. we were damn hungry and we, of course have a nice seafood lunch in kuala gula.

Crab bihun, female crabs is served.
Some vege fried with delicious small prawn. ( xia mi)
Nice fish curry.
Qute and mouth watering tiny fried sotong.
Ai Dee restaurant was the place we dined in.

We cycle into the fishing village.

pseudo off boat candid picture.

During our way back, we also been told by a Gulan that we should not missed their " theme park"--The Hua Sheng Palace.

It is like a theme temple. Lots of tourists there. I found a cave and i start meditating for 10 seconds.
Guess whats the theme. heaven and hell. You will have to walk along a corridor, then we reach a junction. Go upstairs see whats heaven and down stairs see whats hell. heaven seems boring with a little stuffs, but hell seems exotic. din take down some pictures because it is quite dark inside. check it out if you interested.
As for me, it is so so. Nothing much exciting but having a temple in an Indian estate is kinda unexpected. if you were in somewhere kuala gula, go there and have a look. admission is free though.
On my way back.

Looks like second round of raining is coming. we actually see the rain approaching us.
we stopped by a restaurant and have a plate of He Ko. It is a kind of shrimp.

Before we went back home, we stopped by sungai kota, our engine lab technician, En Zalmi's kampung. His brother is having a wedding.

Lastly, i have nothing to expressed except by flattened butt after 10++ hours of cycling.

Nah, I do things with reasons. This bicycle trip was been the most special one. I experienced sunny, rainy, muddy, and night cycling in a day. where else can you get? Is this the good of having a campus nearby suburban and urban and state border? You know it. I got it.

Imagine yourself in near future

Life is all about the choices you have made. Every step you choose, every decision you made brings you a step along your path to destination.

So, imagine what happen to you in near future, say 5 years later...

Two kinds of people... you will end up to be. One, fine. Two, Accomplished. A lot of people would end up become the fine group. You asked them, "hows life?" They answer:"fine." The fine group is indeed fine. Moderate life, sufficient pay, stable routine, pleasant and comfort.

However, the second group of people, the accomplished group would have accomplised something they want to do, something big for them and they feel great satisfaction in their heart.

Think about hows yours soon...

Looking back, for accomplished people, they have their own defining moment(s) which made them become accomplised people. Usually defining moment consist of 60% divine intervention and 40% hard work. You would never know your defining moment until you have become accomplised people and looked back." Hey..that the moment that changes my life." Hence, we have to work hard on what we want until oppourtunity comes in and you made an impact from that. Bang! Let there be light! You shine.

Usually, defining moments are the junctions you came across. When you decide which way to choose, when you struggle between dream and reality, these times are the critical moments you are in. This time, there will be many voices around, negative voices would come in and discourage you, ask you to stay in the reality side. Maybe they have been through and did not success and they tell you cannot do it also.

You want something, go get it. You have to protect your dream. If you fail. never mind, at least you tried. If you still want that dream, keep on doing it. When you have made a decision, go ahead and dont looked back, never even regret. You will never know the outcome if you choose the other.Two road diverge in the yellow wood, sorry you cant travel both. So, listen to your heart when you choose. Do what you actually want, life is yours and not others else. Pursuit your dream.Make the a reality but not sacrifice for reality.

Taman Negeri Bukit Panchor- Second Excursion

On 26th july, 6 brave souls exploring a jungle 8km away from their campus. The leader of the group is this red bull shirt crazy guy.

As usual we saw many many sky scrapping trees.

And some pathetic leech try to suck my blood.

We discovered something...something strange..do we?

Checkpoint. we reach a small "titi".

Indiana Jones discovered a new cave.

Some mushrooms...
MJ 45 degree classic move. We can do it too.

We lost in the middle. Which way to go?.....Nah..we are just fine. Taman Rekreasi Bkt Panchor is indeed a nice place to hang out for USM students. If you wanted a natural hideout, try that place. We cycle there for approximately 40 minutes. I totally like that place...i can just cycle there and back in a saturday morning. Its a cool place where you cant find in town universities.