photos

Well Mama still won't let me see you. Papa sometimes think Mama is a little bit...nuts. Anyway Papa is not going to mention her again today, Papa just wants to put up some pictures of Tasik Chini when Papa went there for a short trip.

The lake is currently one messy place (although to Papa it seems it has always been messy), even the token canteen has closed down ("for renovation").
Papa went in the dead of the afternoon at 1pm yet the lighting seemed almost imperceptably to change from moment to moment. Presumably in the golden hours, the lake may actually be beautiful. It seems the orang asli kids used to swim in the lake. They no longer are allowed to, because inevitably the children fall sick after a dip in the waters.

Pahang general Store

school daze

Papa went to your kindyschool on Monday, and saw you for a while. Seems Mama left instructions that Papa cannot take you out from school. Papa spoke to the teacher and told her about some of the things Mama did. Just a teensy bit.

Papa got an sms from Mama yesterday, out of the blue. Mama had totally disappeared for more than a month. Seems the teacher had spoken to her, because Mama suddenly agreed to let you see me on Saturdays again. Mama probably doesn't want the school to find out more unsavory details about the things Mama has done.

Anyway, Papa was outstation yesterday, at an experimental research station. This place is restricted to the public and most probably radio-active....Papa saw the most beautiful lake in the middle of what was formerly waste-land ten year ago. This lake beats out many of those you would find in public parks hands down. However, this being a top-secret research facility, its not open to the public. Papa would tell people where it is, but then Papa would have to sink them down into the lake, which at 300 feet deep, would ensure ...secrecy.....300 acres of man-made jungle with less than ten people in it, deserves secrecy.
There were egrets and hornbills flying over when Papa came there in the afternoon. Unfortunately Papa missed out on the pair of birds of paradise. There is in fact a pair of thses birds here, Papa kids you not. Along with other exotics, and by which Papa means exotics. As in aliens to Malaysia.

There is a electric fence around the lake perimeter. You can just about see the fence in the photo. Why the fence , you would ask? Well, There are grass carp as big as Papa in the lake. 200kg monsters.

"No fishing" is enforced strictly, this keeps the poachers away. Nobody wants to get zapped.

Birds in the distance, perched on some trees. Hornbills and egrets (or storks, I forget) . But you can't really see them in the photo, they are just specks in the distance.

Small pond nearby. No fish here. Water is contaminated with heavy metals.

Walk in the jungle in the afternoon. Blazing sun, Papa and everyone else got dehydrated...It was a hot, hot day.

PRC in Malaysia

They work pretty hard...These are engineers at a mine site.

Just as a 100 years ago, the chinese have been coming, first to the Straits Settlements, then Malaya, and now Malaysia to earn a living.

(Actually, its more like a thousand years ago, when the state of Kelantan was known as "Tan-tan" in some little known chinese archive records.)
Same people , same country [sounds like a political slogan of some sort]

sleepless in kuantan

Its 130am in Kuantan. Papa is in Kuatan again, twice in 48 hours. Papa can't sleep coz his paperwork is not finished.....Cant think...tired...So lets post a photo or two.

Papa was at Sg Lembing the other day, this is the view leaving the main mine site in Sg Lembing.












This is the view looking in towards the wagon track leading out of the mine shaft. Its DARK....and CREEPY. Papa has marked a ed arrow to show roughly the location of the exit/entrance to the railway. Which by the way is locked. (whether to keep people out or things in.....well, imagination runs riot in the wee small hours of the morning...)

Papa might go in one day soon just to look around. 300 plus kilometers of tunnels, down to 2100feet deep. Bottom 2000 feet flooded....

The state government tried to keep the water out after the mining company PCCL closed down. Pumped and punped for two years at the cost of 2million Ringgit a year. But the water rose and claimed everything for its own in the mine. Sort of an extreme "dark Water" scenario.

twilight of a town

Papa was outstation yesterday, looking at the remnants of a town, Sungai Lembing.

Once called the El Dorado of the East, this little town is practically in its bardo, where time seems to have stopped. This town was built on tin, mainly by the Pahang Consolidated Company Ltd which operated a concession just a stone throw away, on the hill overlooking it.

Anyway Papa was in a small coffee shop in town , looking for the former tin miners who used to work in the mine shafts. No luck that day, a lot of these miners have moved on, either to a better world , or closer home, to bigger towns, ie Kuantan etc.

Seems there are only three coffee shops and a barber shop around. Papa was on the corner of the main street, hardly anyone about.



Contrary to popular belief, the town is not named after the malay spear "lembing". It is a bastardised version of the name Lim. As in "I'm going to see" "Lim Beng"....

















gunfighter off market street

unprocessed

colours

more photos...not as good as from film I feel, although I guess there will be people who disagree.

other photos

No pictures of my girl this time. Shots above were taken by my friend on his tours. I'm fiddling with the jpegs. Not too bad from a bridge camera, but not as good as film.