SEG KL 2010

Early morning start

Niah NP

Lepak2x

Batman, et toi?

Chasing sunset at Tg Lobang, Miri

Some Birds at Kampong Merkang Paddyfields, Pasir Puteh, Kelantan

A snipe lurking around in the paddyfields in the wee hours of the morning.

It was supposed to be a 10 day birdwatching and bird photography extravaganza ... NOT! The twice a year sojourn back home almost always has children, family and other folks involved, so putting birdwatching as THE agenda is sort of wishful thinking and almost bordering "dream on, you kidding me right" , it would never work.

Day 1 Friday - day of arrival, busy catching up with siblings, nieces and nephews and cleaning up the house and procuring supplies for the coming days.

Day 2 Saturday - managed one morning of sustained 2 hours of birdwatching while getting breakfast for everyone at home. The rest of the day gone to a trip to the airport to pick the other half who flew separately.

Day 3 Sunday - family picnic at the paddyfields, fishing and a bit of birdwatching.

Day 4 Monday - family trip to Kuala Besut

Day 5 Tuesday - family trip to Kuala Besut and Bukit Keluang

Day 6 Wednesday - Hari Raya Korban, forget about birdwatching

Day 7 Thursday - family trip to Bukit Keluang, the kids wanted to go to the beach and do some fishing. Came back in the afternoon to rush the preparations for a kenduri at home.

Day 8 Friday - another family trip to Bukit Keluang for the kids.

Day 9 Saturday - a sustained 3 hour bird photography from the car around the paddyfields, very productive.

Day 10 Sunday - a sustained 2 hr bird photography from the card around the paddyfileds on the way to fetch breakfast and get a couple of items from the Pasir Puteh market. The rest of the afternoon taken up by another trip to the airport to send my other half to the airport.

Day 11 Monday - left for the airport very early in the morning to catch a 0900 hrs flight to KL onwards to Miri.

A birding holiday is generally never a truly birdwatching holiday when family and young ones are involved, as evident above even a break intended for birdwatching (gear hauled for the purpose is proof) can be filled up with tonnes of other non-bird related activities.

When a vacation is with family, birdwatching may be relegated to when there isn't anything else on the cards. Fortunate for me the kids are ok with being outdoors for prolonged periods, at least for now. An opportunist birder can perhaps get many hours birding as well as getting a few other non-bird related items done while at the same time having fun with the family.


Mostly Cattle Egret flying by searching for breakfast.


White-bellied Munia. All these years in Sarawak we are pretty much resigned to Chestnut Munia, even Dusky Munia doesn't excite us as much anymore as it used to.


Common Kingfisher.


A juvvy Scaly-breasted Munia, these are apparently common in Kuala Baram too.


A Pond Heron.


A White-throated Kingfisher, numerous around here posing on all kinds of perches, one need not carry a perch from home for the shoot.


Cattle Egret are also numerous, newly harvested and tilled paddy provides ample opportunity for food.

With large expanse of paddy all around the neigbourhood, there are plenty of birding to do still. One good thing is that the locality is in our own home town, so every homecoming can couple as a birding holiday when time permits. It's only 5mins from home.

Any holiday is a good holiday!

Nazeri Abghani/Nov 2010

The coffee sub-culture in backcountry Kelantan is alive and thumping

We may not have Coffeebean or Starbucks but that doesn't mean that the coffee culture isn't thriving in the backcountry of Kelantan and maybe other remote parts of the East Coast as in the bigger more metropolitan cities in teh country.

The tastebuds and what defines cool coffee culture maybe completely different from that the svelte coffee drinker of Bangsar or KL is used too. You definitely will not find coffee Luwak here, even if there is it probably wouldn't fly like at the other swankier coffee digs.

What may not be so obvious in the beginning gets pretty clear once you carefully read the prints on the promotional posters pasted all over the stalls, restaurant and coffee stops in the not so hip hang-outs though swarmed for reasons less than chic.

The target market seemed largely if not all seemed slanted towards men (not sure whether it is for obvious or not so obvious reasons) ... "Siang minum saje ... Malam jadi Raja ... Isteri pun bahagia"!

Some immediate eye-catchers :

Kopi Kucing Galak ...
Kopi Jantan ...
Black Stud Cappucino ...
Kopi Kerbau Jantan ....

There are apprarently serious pre-requisites for some of these blend; hipness, coolness, swankiness is not one of them. If it's got caffiene, it's got to be coffee, just I would not be the first to try.

Anyone for a cuppa, my place or your's?














Nazeri Abghani/16Nov2010

Finds in Kuala Besut old town

An abandoned old engine in an abandoned old shophouse in the old part of town, surprised it's still there considering the craze for all things metal these days.

Back in the old days, there were not much here either other than a few trishaws, a jetty and a smallish but cosy market. These days it's a hodge-podge of new buildings housing a few commercial endeavours, tour agencies (being gateway to Pulau Perhentian and others), fishing related government agencies, several smallish hotels, coffee shops and parking lots for island holiday makers.

The trishaws are all but gone, and only a few of the old wooden shophouses are still left standing ... some have been coverted to walid houses for the bird nest industry. The quaint little market have been shifted to a new location in a bigger and allegedly better form ages ago it seemed.

Though the town didn't seemed as laidback as it used to be when I first roamed it with an FM2n and Ektar back in 1987 and a few more times after that, you still feel the quaint-ness here and there. The old shady tree by the main bus depot is still there standing taller, shadier and bigger. It even has a large bench built under its shade over the overgrown roots for idling the afternoon away.

And there's always a checkers game on at the benches ...


The brand spanking new tourist center equipped with tour agents, internet cafe, souvenir shops and other. All were closed the day we were there, off season I supposed.


One of the three original old shophouses still left standing in the center of old town, favorite haunts of oldtimers.


You cannot do without an internet cafe these days where ever you go, and purple is in this year.


The town's several hardware store catering to the used to be the fishing fraternity but now mostly tourism players.


An old Chinese shophouse, half of which has been converted discretely to a walid house, it's presence isn't too discrete though considering the constant chirping to attract the birds.


A lady proprietor of the only jeweler in town, the shop's seen better days for sure.


Closed for business.


Passing time.


The tourist center from the other end leading to jetty.


Would care to wait? Please have a seat.


Kitty cat in front of a blue shophouse by the main road.


A good checkers game is fun to watch for the inpromptu exchanges that takes place between regular opponents.


A bright and cheery bus cum taxi depot at it's original site. When we got off the bus, they were only one other passenger on board. Total take for that particular PPuteh-KBesut trip was less than $15.


A taxi driver waiting for a passenger, any passenger.


$10/person for a one way trip to Kota Bharu from Kuala Besut, by bus it's $6.50/person ... but you'll have to follow the bus schedule, perhaps the only reason to take a taxi.


Wheels by the blue shophouse.


Window at the side of a yellow shophouse.

Nazeri Abghani/15th Nov 2010

The Kuala Besut bus this morning

It's 9am departure instead of 8am we were expecting! By the time we got to Kuala Besut it was 930 am with the hot sun shining full force. But we did roam around what's left of the old fishing town.

Mt Murud Trek - the walk from Ba' Kelalan to Pa' Rabata

19th October: After three days of seemingly idle, relaxing strolls amidst the greens of Ba' Kelalan's paddyfields and sometimes purposefully high-school-ish coversations in the dark after dinner was quietly jolted by the arrival of the rest of our trekking team from Miri on Monday, a huge amount of luggage as well as a sudden realisation that we were in Ba' Kelalan to scale Mt Murud, the highest mountain in Sarawak at 2413m.

The team was made up of a motley crew of walkers and trekkers in it for the adrenaline rush of another challenge and a couple of birdwatchers intent of birding Murud. Chris Haneveld, Sara Wong, Jackie Fong, Faye Osman, Sparrow Tan, Edward Ong, Yeo Teck Seng, Ting King King and Dr Rangamal. Some have been training for this for weeks if not months on various other peaks like Lambir and Gunung Nuang before this.

Our first task was to conquer the Ba'Kelalan outer ridge and to make it in one piece to Pa' Rabata, our first jungle shelter on the same day before the trek proper to Mt Murud Church Camp at 2200m. Apparently the ridge is supposed to be the first measuring stick of whether any of us would make it to the summit.

We set off at approximately 0900 hrs 19th October after sorting out our packs and load allocation for the porters. We had with us 2 guides, Gukang and Ating, as well as 5 porters with us for the trip.


Sorting out the load before the start of our trek.


Jackie trying out the porter's load for size at our first stop before the ridge.


Our porters raring to go ... looking at the weight on their backs gave a new meaning to travelling light, they move along the trails like a ghost, silent, sure footed as if they are flying along weightless.


We all made it to the ridge which a good sign to the days of more trekking the next couple of days. Leeches encountered weren't as many nor problematic as we had predicted, perhaps because of the drier weather in the area the past few days that we were there.


View of the canopy from the ridge. The trek up to the ridge was through a community forested cherished by the Ba' Kelalan folks. There were quite a few birds heard along the trek however our paced didn't allow any prolonged stop. We were eager to make it to Pa' Rabata before nightfall.

We had our first break at 1030 hrs, and we made it to the first rest stop at a very good pace. The porters with all their allocated load caught up within 15minutes of our arrival. Considering the weight they had on their backs, they either took the secret elevator up or flew. After a short break we continued our journey uphill to the ridge.

We got to the ridge top in one piece at almost 1130hrs, the porters joined us shortly after. The cool wind sweeping across the ridge provided the well deserved respite. Having made it this high was a good sign that we'll all make it to Church Camp the next day. Surprisingly there were only a few leeches encountered along the way. But there was one pesky little guy that made to the mid thighs of yours truly and actually drew blood, this fact was only discovered upon a thorough body check at Pa' Rabata a few hours later, the slimey bastard!

The rest of the trek was mostly downhill on disused logging trails towards the valley. If going uphill was tough, going downhill on a sunny day at noon was tougher considering the constant jolt to the knees and lower back. It seemed like a never ending trail and there was very little in terms of anything interesting along the way.

One curious note was the presence of cow hoofprints all over the hills and along the overgrown logging trails. Apparently these were of cows belonging to the surrounding villages which left their charges to roam free. The cows are apparently hunted for meat as and when needed, sometimes by the owners themselves, and at other times by more opportunistic individuals.

We made it safely down the valley to Pa' Rabata about 2:30pm, by then utmost in everyone's mind was to stop moving altogether. With knees wobbling and back aching, it was a huge relief to finally be able to sit down knowing fully well that the tough part is over, or at least we thought it was "the toughest" if only for that particular day.

In almost high spirits, packs were opened, cups of tea and coffee were distributed around the shelter. In a short while one by one, took to the rocky stream next to the shelter to clean up in cool clear water.

Phew! We made it over the ridge!!!


The 5 hour trek winding uphill and downhill after the ridge did not affect our porters at all, they all smiles. Either that or we provided them with enough comedy all along the 5 hour trek that day.


Our porters taking a breather after promptly making tea and coffee for the team.


The view of the canopy from the grounds near Pa' Rabata jungle shelter.

Next up: The trek up to Lepo Bunga and Murud Church Camp, 20th Oct 2010.