Roaring Forties

Manchester United won unconvincingly 2:0 in Old Trafford against Chelsea in a scappy match to extend their match winning streak to 5 games. Apart from the full points, the other positive outcome from the match is that Carlos Tevez finally got his goal and let’s hope that this goal will spur him on for more to come. Louis Saha took the easy way by reacting to a poor tackle and won a penalty. He would need to brush up his acting skills to avoid being red carded in future matches for diving as he was lucky to get his penalty in this one. Overall, it was a poor quality match and the Blues clearly missed Jose Mourinho.

Sir Alex Ferguson then field the second stringers for the Carling Cup where the only notable regulars included were John O’shea and Luis Nani. The second stringers flopped against Conventry which resulted the Red Devils losing 2:0 at home. SAF may not put much emphasis on the Carling Cup but nevertheless, the game was dissappointing especially for the 74,055 fans who came to see their team play. Unless the second stringers show much improvement especially Oliveira Anderson, there isn’t much hope for Manchester United to last out the long season.

It was a dissappointing week espcially for Man U to drop off at the very first hurdle in the Carling Cup.

Sept 22, 2007 – Heard of the Elephant sanctuary, search for it in the net and finally decided to check it out at the spur of the moment on a fine Saturday afternoon. What was decided impromptu turned out to be a lovely outing at Kuala Gandah in Pahang.

We arrived at 2.00 p.m. at the Elephant Sanctuary just in time for the bathing and the feeding of the elephants. There were a total of 14 elephants at the Kuala Gandah Elephant Sanctuary but only 7 elephants were brought out for display. The oldest elephant was am Elephant from India named Lokimala. She is 67 years old and she is really the gentlest of all the elephants we seen there. The largest is a male from Myanmar aged 30. There was another elephant from Myanmar aged 12 while the rest of the elephants were caught locally. There was a large crowd of foreigners easily numbering about 120 and the elephants entertained the crowd with rides and river dunking.

The place was decently run. It was clean and the elephants looked well-taken care off. It was sad though that there were only 14 elephants at the sanctuary. When one hears of an elephant sanctuary, one would imagine that a real sanctuary would be for 50 to100 elephants. But that was not the case and even though the Kuala Gandah Elephant Sanctuary was decently managed and the elephants looked healthy enough, I couldn’t help but to think that more could have been done for the elephants in Malaysia especially only about 1,000 is reported to be left in the wild.

After the elephant sanctuary, we ventured to a deer farm about 3 km away. We met the most docile looking Indonesian deer that came running to us when we entered its enclosure. You could pet them like a rabbit and they would eat from your hand. We also had also encountered the gentlest python, which changed my perspective of snakes. She was so beautiful and having her in my arms gave me a sense of the wonder of nature. She was really the highlight of our trip.

The icing to trip was a Sun Bear who was absolutely adorable and playful. He loves been stroked and groomed. May and I were mesmerized by the Sun Bear and we would have loved to spent more time with the Sun Bear but the heavy downpour cut short our plans and the Sun Bear quickly climbed up a tree to sleep.

The short trip reminded us of the wondrous of nature and what mankind missed.

The Red Devils slogged on with narrow 1:0 away victories over Everton and Sporting Lisbon as they continue their 2007/2008 compaign. Good news is that Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo are back but Manchester United has yet to show their fire power. So far, they have been shooting blanks.

The highlight of the month would be the dismissal of Jose Mourinho whose departure will not be felt only by Chelsea but also by the whole English Premier League as the Chosen One, which Mourinho called himself, was indeed one of the most outstanding and colourful managers in recent years.

Would be interesting to see if the Red Devils could capitalise on the Blues’ shortcoming this week end. 

Sept 8, 2007 – Rendezvous was set for 7.30 am at the Kota Kubu Baru post office where the 11 of us arrived in 3 cars and a motor cycle. S. Ann, S. Leong, C. Fong & William car-pooled from Melawati & Kepong while May, Emelia, Tay, Casey, Joo T & I convoyed in 2 cars from TTDI. Thong went solo on his scooter from Wangsa Maju with an enormous back pack.

After breakfast, we proceed towards Fraser’s Hill and seek out the landmark iron bridge where the trail starts. The route was very scenic bypassing a recently built dam and some beautiful stretch of highway.

It took only 15 minutes from KKB to reach the starting point where we found a huge crowd of about 30 gathering for a picture taking session. We immediately geared up, took a couple of our own group pictures and started trekking. We were closely pursued by the group of 30 for a good 20 minutes until we reached the Fisheries Department Outpost where we have to cross a suspension bridge which could only take a maximum of 3 persons each time. We crossed the river without haste but the other group appeared to have bottle-necked at the suspension bridge due to their numbers.

After crossing the suspension bridge, we have to trek through a field of 5 feet high fern which quickly brought back memories of the horror flick “Children of the Corn”. I was imagining a child jumping out of the fern with a sickle in hand when my day dreams were quickly interrupted by the sound of rushing water. We came out of the fern wilderness and reached the edge of the river.

From here, it was trekking along the riverside until the falls. There were a total of 3 river crossings which was necessary each time we ran out of trail. Thong brought along his floatable static rope which was specially geared for water conditions. The deepest spot was about waist deep and the current was relatively weak despite a heavy down pour the night before.

After a hour and a half hour of trekking at a leisurely pace, we finally reached Chilling Falls.

The sight of the falls was quite impressive especially the sheer 100 feet height of the falls. What’s absolute special about the place was the absence of litter and the presence of hundreds of fishes swimming in its icy cold water.

Thong topped our outing when he boiled “Lor Hon Kor” using the water in which the fishes were swimming in. Even though fears of aquatic bacteria momentary flashed through my mind but what the heck, the “Lor Hon Kor” tasted absolutely delicious, even better than one from the famous stall in Petaling Street.

We spent a total of two satisfying hours at the falls, absorbing all the negative ions which was supposed to be in abundance in such a natural environment. We could hav stayed longer but our return trip was hasten by the arrival of a large group of students and the darkening skies. The return trek took us only one hour.

The finale of the outing was a detour to Ulu Yam for a late afternoon “Lor Mee” lunch.

Overall, it was quite an easy trek but not for children under twelve. Chilling Falls is definitely one of the better ones in close proximity to Kuala Lumpur and the clean surrounding it-self is worth the effort.

I would love to go there again.

September 5, 2007 – was a shocking day for me and for all Paulians, class of 1982. We were all in an euphoric mood after celebrating a 25 years renunion during the weekend when we learnt that a class mate of ours, Peter Paul Nonis was brutally attacked outside his place of work at the Shell refinery in Port Dickson as he was leaving the office.

In school, Peter Paul was absolutely the friendliest and the nicest chap you could find. He was one of those guys who was always helping others, who was smiling all the time, who was never imposing and who was soft spoken, without a hint of agression. I have not seen him for years but I definitely have fond memories of him and I would never expect him to be involved with any violent characters. It is just not his nature.

Peter Paul had slash wounds to the back of his head and his left wrist was almost severed. He was warded in the intensive care unit in the Seremban GH for four days. Peter Paul was declared brain dead on Saturday, September 8, 2007 without regaining consiousness.

This is an utterly shocking chapter of my life. We read about murders all the time in the newspapers but this happened to someone I know and someone whom I have spent a good 10 years of my school life with. I just can’t imagine the pain and the sorrow that the family has to go through. It is so senseless and it is a reality check that life can be so fragile.

Peter Paul, my prayers and thoughts are with you. May you rest in peace. May your family find comfort. And may the people who did this terrible thing be caught and brought to justice.