Here We Go Again!

We’ve been planning a thorough field work schedule for months ahead with more places in Sabah to cover. But for this year first trip, from 7^th to 14^th April, we’ve gone to the same place again. I thought this time it will be more adventurous since in the plan, we were supposed to go to a hot malaria spot, Sonsogon Magandai –  a very remote area that cannot be assessed by car and will took you an hour or more walking to the villages. The kind of place that you have to stay overnight there with no electricity and water. Sounds like I'm going to a camping trip. Interesting huh? 

Do I look like a scientist? No?

But! (lol, what an anti-climax)

But it was raining every evening in Kota Marudu. For safety reason, we had to postpone our trip to Sonsogon and proceed with a normal routine, visiting the villages with recent malaria cases nearby. And God, this is the most tiring field work I’ve ever been! The rain is no joke! Our land rover got stuck in the mud on the first day when we went to Lembiding. And we were not able to go to the village down the hill because of the flood. 

Raining oh so heavily!

Waiting for the rain to stop in the unfinished house. We were so lucky to not have to get ourselves drenched.

Our land rover got stuck in the mud

To avoid dying of a heart attack (because of the thrill in the land rover), we decided to walk the slippery road.

Half an hour later, the driver managed to get our land rover back on track :DDD

Working till night.

And I’ve met with Kelly, a student from California. She joined the trip for four days. Super friendly Kelly!

On the fifth day, we decided to go back to Lembiding. The flood have runoff but the road was really bad, so we had to walk to the village. Going down the hill is easy but I almost couldn’t make it back up where we parked our land rover. I was physically exhausted when we reach the unfinished house that we used for shelter from the rain the other day. We rested for about 10 minutes before continue our journey. The Sabah staff told me that going to Sonsongon is twice harder than this! I told my team that I would rather got fired than going to Sonsogon! (Of course I'm kidding!)

Happy faces because at this moment, I really thought that I am prepared mentally and physically for the challenge.

And the journey starts. 

Already drenched in sweat but still maintain for camera.

Almost an hour later: Do not care about camera anymore.

Had to cross the river (and cool off a bit)

Finally arrived at the village. Catching up my breathe before the screening started. Phew!

Had trouble standing straight during the interview :P

We didn't get many positive case. Reason could be the weather. It was raining almost everyday, so villagers movement were limited, thus reduced the chances for mosquito biting. We only got one positive for P. malariae from hospital and one P. vivax from active case detection. And because of that, we went to do screening until the last day we were in Kota Marudu. 

And I really couldn't get myself into the mood of photography. I don't know why. The only interesting shot I got with Sam is this shot of beetle. If that could even spark an interest.

Poor beetle got a splash of color.

But at the end of the day, this trip is still fun. Even though I often have this dreadful feeling about not wanting to go to field work anymore – throwing tantrum a week before and while packing my bag – I actually felt the opposite when I’m there. At least, that’s how I feel with Kota Marudu so far. Yeah. Till the next update, be good people!

Let The Waves Tell Us Where To Go

Yuna's new single Island from her self-titled album. Her album was released on 24th April 2012. Gonna get myself a copy for sure!

So. Freakin'. Amazing.

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Yeah.

Sekian terima kasih.

Right Across the Riverbend, There Are Trees With Yellow Leaves

What could be more refreshing than having a nice chit chat with friends with your legs soaking in the cool flowing water, surrounded by nature on the lovely Sunday morning? 

Okay, maybe lazy-ing around in bed is likely how I would spend my Sunday morning (lol, membuka pekung di dada), but it was nice to relax your heart and mind once in a while, and went for a picnic! That’s right, I was indeed, had a picnic session with my friends at Sungai Tengkala last Sunday. Some of the girls couldn’t make it the last minute, so in the end it was us (the same team from my last Pangkor getaway + Jue-a’s husband) again. But we had fun nevertheless~ It was supposed to be a potluck picnic but we end up buying 8 + 6 packs of nasi lemak for 4 people! So nasi lemak for breakfast, nasi lemak for lunch…  nasi lemak FTW!

Like a boss!

Oh, there was a little funny incident. There was a group of monkeys around – on the trees, on the ground, inside the trash bin. They were waiting/looking/digging for foods and quite fearless to come near human in order to snatch anything they can. Well, I forgot to keep our plastic bag of Cheezels inside my bag, so while we were at our berendam session, I saw a monkey hopping from where we keep our bags to a nearby tree and with him was my plastic bag of cheezels. I was like, Oi, our cheeezels! They got our cheezels! Furiously, I speed all the way from the river to the said tree and fortunately the monkey dropped the cheezels to the ground.  I think he had trouble to open the plastic bag. I was scared that the monkey would pounce on me and he probably thought the same, heh (ape ke gile aku nak pounce die pulak kan?). It was intense, how we had a quick look at the cheezels and then had like 5 seconds staring contest before I quickly bend down to pick up the cheezels. The monkey actually hissed at me, showing his not-so-pretty un-brushed teeth. But, I won anyway. 

Bangga~

Let Your Feet Wet, Get Your Toes Sandy

Have a getaway with my besties to Pangkor (again!) last week. Yes, I know it hasn’t been a year since I last went to Pangkor, but going with family and friends bring a different kind of fun! Plus, I need a break so badly~

The trip went well, despite just the three of us. It really was a santai one with no specific activities in plan because urm, this is really a last minute decision. But I think I’ve heard this somewhere, that the best plan is actually not having a plan at all! (okay, maybe I make that up :DD) So we went, gambling our way to Pangkor island in hoping to have the best getaway a girl like me could possibly have~

Riding the famous pink taxi-van!

We had lunch, play UNO on tablet, sightseeing, took pictures, watching the sunset, window shopping, had a perfect dinner, counting the stars, mandi at at our private beach in the morning, lunch, check out at noon and off to tanah besar (as what Jue-a likes to put it)~  And above all that, we practically having girl talk that I've been missing so much all the time~

A Hornbill! They were everywhere!

I always wonder how great it would be to have a private beach, so we could shamelessly act like a retarded kid at this age would feel comfortable to play in the water. Aaanddd, guess what? Wish granted! We took a boat ride to go sightseeing and feeding the fish at snorkeling area and then the beach boy leave us at the small island nearby and promised to comeback for us after 30 minutes. And we were the only people there and it does feel like we own the island for 30 minutes! And a private beach!  

Playing with Mia's camera~ So cool! Can go inside water one!

We dropped by Kellie’s castle at Batu Gajah on the way back. It was an unfinished and ruined mansion built by William Kellie Smith, a Scottish planter in 1915. He was the owner of Kinta Kellas Estate and the Kinta Kellas Tin Dredging Company. He brought his wife, Agnes over to Malaysia in 1903. The couple was blessed with a daughter whom they named Helen but he wants a son to take over his empire.  One of his workers from Madras told him that by praying to Amman (a Hindu Goddess), his wish will come true. So Smith prayed and after a few years, Agnes delivered a baby boy names Anthony. As a token of appreciation, Smith built a Hindu Temple for the Goddess. He went back to Britain for a short trip with his daughter to visit his wife and son, but unfortunately never made it back to Malaya. Smith was caught with pneumonia and passed away in Lisbon in December 1926. His wife then sold her interest in the Kellas Estate and Smith's distraught family never returned to Malaya.

Remind me so much of a Taj Mahal as this castle was built as a symbol of love. Saya sayu di situ. And we went to Helen’s room and it was written there that a couple of visitors saw Helen’s ghost walking along the corridor. Oh spooky!  Do they really have to state it there like that? You could admire the building for RM4 per person. I just wished they would replaced the faded history-tale (which they placed on the first floor) with a bigger font because it was really hard to read off the wall. 

Mesti ade gambar gedik satu~

And that's how my weekend end. How was yours?

p/s: Jue-a point out that this is the AZ trip cause our names all starts with AZ – Azrina, Azurah and Azmilia. Cool fact huh? :DDD

A Moment Like This

She has gone back to that place.

Another 365 days of waiting.

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Wait patiently.

Family Day

When I first heard about the Family Day plan, I thought it was gonna be a long weekend for me. You know, spending your precious weekend in an agro farm resort with the elders, in a dormitory with double decker bed and one bathroom, away from internet and laptop, try to get to know your second cousins better – that sort of stuff. But what I thought would be a not-so-great weekend turned out to be a really great one. And I was so proud to tell you guys that we had a Family Day last week!!!

This precious event was held at Syamille Agro Farm Resort, Perak, which is an awesome place for gathering.  The place is surrounded by fruit trees, and there was a big rustic villa in the center, Japanese bridges to cross to the goats’ farm with shallow streams running through, mini zoo where they keep mouse deer and porcupines under one roof - it was like I was stepping into a real Farm Ville ready to harvest everything!

We had activities like telematches, BBQ session, birthday celebration, tahlil and solat hajat, tazkirah subuh, heart-to-heart session (where everyone got teary~), visiting the farm, mandi sungai, bla bla bla~

Borak-borak session

Morning exercise~

Petai team

Pick up guli with chopsticks

Guli counting~

The referees; Tok Chor and Nadia

Mum with her amazing drawing.
Anyone can guess what it is?

Kuliah Subuh

Cutie goatie!

Visiting the goats' farm~

The resort room, RM250 per nite?
(but we're staying at the dorm, too bad!)

Ah, I think I want to make a confession :DDD For game, we were divided into groups and I was in Petai team. And during ice breaking, we played lukisan karat (which you had to stay in line and they give you a clue for you need to draw, and the next person have to draw what he/she saw and continue on, and the last person have to guess what the clue was). See, we have Irfan age 5, the youngest participant of all in our group.  Irfan can’t really draw, so we had to put him as the last person to guess our drawing and I was the one who was responsible to make sure that Irfan can guess it right (pressure!!)

I didn’t mean to cheat but it happened so fast. We were standing in line and I turned around just to see what was going on and accidentally look at Amirul, who was the very first person to draw and he already got the clue. He suddenly mouth me what the clue was when no one was looking, which I didn’t really get it at first. I was like, ‘Did he just give me the clue? What was it? Arab?’ and since we knew the theme was animal, I thought to myself, ‘Are we going to draw a camel?’ But they asked me to turn around and I waited nervously (seems like having a clue makes me even more nervous. Or was it because we’re cheating? Kekekekek.) When Syuhada show me her drawing, I swear it looks like a mouse with elephant ears more than a camel. It got me thinking if the clue was really Arab. Then it clicked, ‘Oh, Arnab!’ (see, I don't mean to cheat but it was really hard to not to, okay?) and because we were given only 10 seconds to draw, I was panicked,so  I drew exactly like Syuhada's but make the ears longer. And when I showed my drawing to Irfan, he made a face (what the hell is this?) but then he said, ‘Arnab?’ And we were the only team that got it right. Hooray!

(Of course they asked us to show our drawings and questioning how on earth did my animal have a rabbit ears when Syuhada’s clearly had an elephant's, kekekek. But they were more interested at how genius Irfan was, so we survived.)

But we lose the second round though (yeah, yeah, what goes around comes around). We were asked to draw a pineapple but somehow it turned into a banana in the end. I have to share this with you guys because it was too funny~

Although it was only for a short period of time,  I think I did get closer to some of my second cousins. I experienced moments of bliss especially during the telematch, watching my mum and my dad playing the games carelessly like they were 10. It's something that I can't buy anywhere else. So I am really grateful to this event and most of all, I am thankful to be part of this family.  And I hope that we are able to continuously make more beautiful memories together~