Holiday and Travel Bug

The thing with holiday and traveling is... I need time to recover from the holiday and traveling mode :) I'm still not at 100% productivity yet. Time is spent doing laundry (yeah it has been slow due to cloudy weather for the past few days), cleaning the house after guest left (not much cleaning required though as I've cleaned top to bottom before they arrived), sorting through pictures and creating a photobook. Here's how the cover looks like.

Photobook Cover

This holiday KL-Kuala Gandah-Cherating-Kenyir-Dungun-KL has been planned quite some time ago. I choose AsiaWeb Direct to book hotels and found a homestay in Dungun from Mudah.my. I wanted to use Agoda since I'd like to get more points but it is so troublesome to key in all the guest name during booking and I can't login to see how much points I have or whether I can offset some of the charges with my points. So no to Agoda this time. The thing with online hotel booking, you have to look at the fine print. As I have experienced, sometimes the offer shows with breakfast but upon checking-in, the hotel said no breakfast. Lucky for me, AsiaWeb Direct confirmation printout clearly state with breakfast so Holiday Villa Cherating didn't argue with us on that and gave us 6 breakfast coupons we're supposed to have.

Our first stop is Kuala Gandah Elephant Sanctuary. If you have impatient people in the family, I suggest you didn't come here. Furthermore with the heat in recent days, waiting can really rile people up. As for me, whenever I'm in holiday mode, I tried to be patient and just go with the flow. What's the point of stressing yourself out when you're in a holiday. We arrived at the sanctuary in the morning to register ourselves. Many blog stated entrance is free and by donation only but we have to pay entrance fee of RM30 per family and RM10 per person for whoever wants to bathe with the elephants. Not much but I prefer if the website is updated accordingly. We were also assigned to a tour guide who will take us around. After the registration, we went to Deerland nearby to kill time while waiting for the video session in the afternoon. We thought of wanting to go to Chamang waterfall as suggested by some blogs but upon checking Chamanag is like 40kms away so going to and fro is a total waste of time so we decided against it and just visit the Deerland less than 10kms away. There are also other animals in the Deerland. They look well-fed. The boys played with the snakes to their hearts content. No fees. We took many photos of them with the two snakes... as for me ambil gambar and tengok berani lah. Very worth it for RM6 entrance fees for adult.

Other animals - birds mostly

Hungry deers

Our timing seems OK. After spending time at Deerland, we had enough time for lunch and then off to the video session. What a combo... lunch, heat and cool air-conditioned room. Some of the boys took a nap instead :) The video is in English and would not interest little kids. After the video, off to feed the baby elephants with sugarcane or peanut that you have to buy from a stall, then the long wait for adult elephants to come and bathe with their caretaker, then for the adult elephants to show off some of their skills, feeding the adult elephant with papayas and finally the bathing session with the baby elephants. By this time, some of the big boys have decided not to go bathe with the elephants. Kena bagi rasuah baru nak bawa adik-adik mandi dengan gajah. Sigh! Darling hubby pun dan muncung2 time ni for whatever reason. Told you... must be the heat and effect of the long wait.

Baby elephants waiting to be fed with sugar canes and peanut

Dengar suara Adib jer terjerit2 tak nak pegang elephant :)

After the show, we went to Cherating to spend the night. The Holiday Villa staff are wearing a badge that says We will provide a MANJA experience to our guest or something like that but during check in two of the staff almost got into a fist fight near the reception counter. Apparently 1 one of them got pissed off with the other staff who calls him on the radio to get something done. He said, "ingat aku takder kerja lain ker!" several times on a high tone. I didn't dare look. They sounded really serious. Other staff managed to calm the angry staff down. That bad experience was countered with helpful receptionists... 2 lady staff came down to help us with our luggage and show us our room.

The bonfire

That night is Earth hour so we returned from dinner to a dark hotel with lots and lots of candles. They even had a bonfire at the beach. Hmmm... you save the planet by switching off lights for an hour and then burn woods and release CO2 in the air? Not so earth friendly. That night has a very clear beautiful sky with full moon and hundreds of stars that we decided to walk at the beach. This is when Azim and Adib played in the sand like turtle who wants to lay eggs and got bitten by sand flies. They even lie down and did a snow fairy act on the sand. The effect of the sandflies can only be seen the next day just like what I experienced in Kuching. My red spots are bigger but I'm sure they itch the same for my poor darling boys.

Sunrise captured by one of the boys

Swimming pool in the morning taken by me

The three of us at the beach - hubby, me and sis

The next morning, walk at the beach, swimming for hubby and the little boys, pack and off to Kenyir. We had lunch at Kuala Berang and reached Kenyir Resort at around 3 p.m. The room was amazing. We had a lake view and quite near to the parking area. Quite a distance to walk to the reception counter but we managed and didn't need the buggy except during check in and out. After check-in and perform our prayers, we walked to the car and went to Pengkalan Gawi to buy some food for dinner and surveyed boats. We decided to go to Lasir waterfall and herb garden for RM300 per boat. We tapau food and probably right timing again as they are closing down by 6 p.m. Even the boat counters were mostly not manned by the time we arrived. We approached the first one we saw and made bookings. I'm sure the price would be the same.

Everyone was excited looking at the pool and the lake. Nobody seems to be playing in the lake though. They could have done something similar to Carolina Hotel we stayed in Lake Toba. The boys would love it. It seems the wooden jetty was not safe anymore. We could see it from far and it does look dilapidated with broken section and falling off parts. The pool is awesome though. I even played on the slide and tried to swim and accidentally breathed in water and started sneezing. I spent the night with stuffed nose. Sigh! Asked hubby to switched off the aircond. Thankfully the temperature was cool and nice. There is one incident that I won't forget though. I was in the washroom when I heard a loud shrieking sound like a bird or bat. I thought they sounded really loud that I can hear them inside. On my way out of the washroom, I saw a tiny hole by the door at a wall that is adjacent to the outdoor. I saw the front nose of a furry thing... maybe more than one. Yikes! They didn't try to get in though. Quickly went out and put all our bags on the sofa instead of the floor. The 'thing' were nowhere to be seen when I called hubby to have a look.

The next morning, we had breakfast, played in the pool for a while, then pack and check-out. We promised the guy to be at the jetty by 11 a.m. According to them, the water in the lake is high so we didn't really see much of jutting tree branches from the lake. The herb garden is OK. They could have commercialized and let us buy some of the herbs there though. The view of the lake is amazing and Lasir water fall is breathtaking. The best part, people are starting to leave as we arrived so we have the place all to ourselves for like half an hour before out boatman called us to return. Sigh! Wish we could stay longer.

Kacip Fatimah, Tongkat Ali and Mahkota Dewa

A boat house - we'll probably try this on our next visit.

Amazing lake view

View from the canopy walk

Paradise on earth

After taking a bath in the public toilet, off we went to our next destination in Dungun. I SMSed several homestay but only 3 replied. One is full, one said OK and one replied very late. So we settled with the one who said theirs is available. Dungun stop is to visit sis adopted family when she was studying here. We visited one for dinner and another during breakfast. After that, time to go home. Kalau dapat pakej bot murah and available ke Tenggol, mungkin dah sampai Tenggol for a day trip but day tour is fully booked. So balik rumah jer lah. Memang tak plan ke Tenggol. Hajat hati nak berjalan lagi, mungkin singgah Lentang waterfall... tapi semua dah penat sebenarnya. Reached home at 6 p.m. That's the end of first holiday in 2013. There'll be one more in May and after that the big boys must focus on exams. Mak-mak kena sabar dulu before planning for more holiday trips :)