The Hunt is On

Calling all Treasure Hunt Fans.

On the 3rd Oct 2009, there are 2 hunts on in Kuala Lumpur.

1. Klang Valley Food Hunt 2009
Summary of the hunt: It is a hunt about foods. Hunters are to use the sms based location finder directory by Maxis.
Fee: RM 90 (non Maxis user); RM 70 (Maxis user)
Registration: Before 28 Sep, first come first serve, max 120 teams.
Flag off location: National Sciene Centre, Bukit Kiara, KL
Team Register In: 6.30am
Flag off time: 8.30 am
Prize: Total 20K worth of prize, including cash prize. Goodie bags for each team
More Info/ Contact: 03-5621 4818

2. Walk KL Treasure Hunt by The Podium @Menara Hap Seng
Summary of the hunt: Promote people to support green activites by walking to places in short distance instead of driving.
Fee: RM 150/ team (min 2 person, max 4 person)
Closing date: 25 Sep 09
Flag off location: The podium, Menara Hap Seng
Flag off time: 3pm
Finished Time: 6.30pm
Prize: Teams will receive a RM75/team cash voucher to be use for dinner at participating F&B outlets at The Podium. Valid on hunt day dinner only.
More Info/ Contact: http://www.thepodium.com.my; Michael Pang. 012-2899782

Happy Hunting & Selamat Hari Raya!

Maaf Zahir & Batin.

Kuala Gandah Elaphant Santuary @ Pahang

Wanting to get close with the giant mammoth? You need not go to Thailand. And there’s no need to pay a single cent to get close with these gentle elephants. Kuala Gandah, Pahang is the place to be. You’ll get the chance to get close to the elephants at its natural habitat.

History of Kuala Gandah – Orphanage Elephants’ Santuary
This centre is established in 1989 by the Department of Wildlife and National Parks of Malaysia. It serves as a base for the only elephant relocation team in Malaysia. Over the years the team had help more than 300 wild elephants relocate.

The aim of the centre is to promote and educate the public on elephant’s conservation, and its habitat and environment preservations. It opens its door to tourist on year 2000.

The Kuala Gandah Sanctuary is open daily from 8am to 4.30pm. However, activities start from 2pm to 3.45pm. If you keen to know more about elephants you are welcome to watch the short film about elephants shows on 1pm at the information centre. There’s no admission fee to enter the centre and watching the video. Donations are welcome for funding the protection and conservations of the wild elephants.

Since this centre is getting more popular in the recent years, the management team decided to limit the numbers visitors that get to bath and ride the elephants. Visitors are requested to registered themselves at the information centre before proceed to the ground where the elephants are. Upon register, the helpers will issue a pass for you. You will either get the full access pass (yellow colour sticker) or the limited access pass (red colour sticker).


A yellow, full access pass will be issued to the first 100 visitors of the day. With the pass you’ll get the chance to feed, ride and bath the elephant. And for limited access pass, you only granted the permission to visit the centre. Yet, don’t be too sad over that, you’ll still have the chance to pet the grey giant and feed them. The friendly staffs at the centre will demonstrate and guide you the correct way to feed the elephant. They will also happy to explain the type of elephants at the centre.

The first activity which starts at 2pm is feeding session. The staff will starts with cleaning the area and the elephants. The staffs will then explain and demonstrate the way to feed the giants. Visitors can take the food from the staff and feed them. Usually, they’ll feed them with bananas, sugar cane, fruits and vegetables.





After the feeding session, those with the yellow pass can queue up for the elephant riding. I recommend you wear long pants for the ride. The elephants are hairy and have rough skin.




After the ride, the elephants are guided to the river for the elephant bathing! Yes, you get to bath the elephants and get yourself bath. You’ll understand why once you’ll there. Don’t worry, the park have public bathroom for visitors who wants to take bath before leaving the park.


And if you are lucky like me, you get the chance to pet and feed the baby elephants. I got to see 2 of these cute elephant babies. I feed them with peanuts which some other tourists offered to me. And the experience is totally different from feeding the adult elephant. The babies would sniff at you for food. They sniffed my pocket, bag and my hand. Once they found the food, they’ll use they trunk to suck the food which tickles me. Unlike the adults elephants the babies are free to walk around guided by the staff. Just be gentle with the babies, you can pet, feed and take photos with them.

At about 4.15pm all the activities ended. Visitors started to leave the place and or purchase souvenir from the souvenir shop located inside the park.

How to get there?
Use the Karak Highway. Exit at Lanchang. Turn left at the junction after the Lanchang toll. Head towards Bolok and you’ll able to see signage to the Elephant Santuary. You’ll also pass by an orang asli settlement before reaching the park. About 200km from Kuala Lumpur.

The Urban Tarzan

Day in and out, we are busily rushing with our routines. All we face with are works, traffics, computers and the gloomy news. Want to get away from the busy urban life, for a little escape? Longing to get closer to the nature and add some spice into your life with a little adrenaline rush?

Be an urban Tarzan. Test your agility and face your fears with series of aerial obstacle challenges in the air. And you can get this experience by participate the Skytrex Adventure in a forest reserve located only about 30 mins from town. Yup, the Skytrex Adventure Park inside the Taman Pertanian Bukit Cahaya, Shah Alam offers such thrills.

What’s unique about this park is that the agricultural park and farms are inside a tropical rainforest. You only need to pay RM 3 (adult) or RM 1 (children) to enter this park which covers 817 hectares of land. The Skytrex Adventure Park is 3km away from the entrance of the park. A shutter bus to the adventure park departs from the bicycle rental shop every 10 minutes before each booking slot.

The adventure park operates on weekend and public holiday. For weekdays, they cater to pre-booking made for group with a minimum of 25 pax. This adventure park open to anyone young and old, so long that you meet the health and fitness requirements. They have 3 different adventures challenges for one to try on. The challenges are – Little Adventure, Big Thrill and Extreme Challenges.

Little adventure is the easiest among the three challenges. It is specially designed for children, however, adults who want to join in the fun are welcome too. Big thrill have 23 challenges, ranging from easy to difficult. The challenge ends with a 100m long high speed flying fox. And for those who like bigger excitement the extreme challenge is the choice. A total of 21 extreme challenges with some platforms build at the height of 22m from ground. S person must reach at least 16 years old and reach the height of 1.5m to qualify for the challenge. They recommend the person to have upper body strength and experienced their Big Thrill. Rates range from RM 25 to RM 40 per person depending on the challenge you choose and the age group you fall into.

Below is my personal experience of Big Thrill Challenge.
I rode the Skytrex shuttle bus to the adventure park. The park is in the middle of a rain forest. I could see the trees are high into the air (unable to the summit of the trees). Also saw some platforms, cables for the challenges, some young kids enjoying the challenges excitedly gliding over the pond to the platform located at another side.

I started to feel some excitement within me after I got off the bus. Me and my group walk towards the reception area to checked in ourselves for the challenge. All of us were to hand in the health declaration and indemnity form. They provide lockers for us to keep anything we don’t want to bring for the challenge. So long the items you bring with are not dangling dangerously and the person is comfortable with, they will allow you to bring along. Oh… how can I missed out the chance to take some good shoots, so I bring my camera long, I hanged it on my neck safely. I also bought a pair of glove (optional item) at RM3 to prevent my hand from any injuries. If you don’t mind to use recycle ones, you can also try your luck at the glove recycling bin.

Once cleared from the registration, we headed towards the gear up platform to equip ourselves with the harness. They hand in the harness to us but sadly they didn’t have the official briefing on how to wear the harness. Most of us try to figure it out ourselves, but got it wrong and waited for the instructors there to help us re-wearing the harness or adjust it to perfection.

Afterwards, all are to head towards the training ground. A lady instructor introduced us to the harness we are wearing. She guided us to check on the equipment, explained on it’s functions and the correct way to use the gear. She then demonstrated to us the way to handle the challenge on the training ground. And it is compulsory for each of us to complete the circuit of the training to familiarize with the activity and ability to handle the equipment in compliance with the safety standard.

Though the training ground trial is short and the height is low, I have few moments of hesitations on doing the challenges. I climbed on the platform, done the walking on the plank up in the air, performed a fly to catch the net and did a crawl up the net like a spiderwoman and finally did another flying landing on the ground. Phew! That was fun and it certainly needs some good strength to go through the challenges.

Since I am the first few who completed and passed through the training, the instructor called us to start the big thrill track while the rest waited to pass through the training. A friend and I headed to the starting point of the challenge. However, there weren’t any staff or instructor at the starting point, we inform the instructor at the training ground and she called someone to assist us. Maybe, it is because lunch time that instructor came running with a lunchbox in his hand and kept telling us it’s ok to start and ran off to else where. We waited few minutes still there weren’t anyone. The first challenge is a climb up to the tree. I don’t know the exact height, it roughly as tall as 3 to 4 storey building. I thought maybe someone would have waited us in the second challenge point up there where we could see. So I decided to start the track.

Yikes! The 90 degrees stair up the wood platform up at the tree weren’t as easy as it seems to be. Half way up the stairs, I already feel my stamina running low, I shouted out to my friend, “I’m tired.” Friends who were waiting at the ground encouraged me to move on. How can I stop at the beginning? I took a deep breathe and push myself up. I used my hand to pull myself up and leg to push upwards. Finally, I arrived at the platform. I’m relieved to accomplish the first challenge. I waited for my friend to climbed up the platform. Next, I proceed with the next challenge. Walk on a net bridge to another platform. I couldn’t see where’s the next platform is as there are trees that block the view. After finished crossing the net, still nobody was sighted. A bit annoyed at the bad service yet I’m excited to challenge the next adventure. To cross a zig zag plank.

Whoa! It is not easy to balance myself on the narrow zig zag plank. I pulled harder at the carbina to balance myself. Though the track wasn’t long, but I feel it is endless. My friend was asking me something behind, but I couldn’t concentrate what she said and kept silent. Focusing on my steps.


After a hard struggle on the zig zag, I finally arrived at the platform! I put up a smile and asked my friend what she was saying. I rest at the platform for a few minutes while wait for my friend to join me.

I couldn’t remember the sequence of the nest few challenges. But all are equally exciting and fun at the same time. The only setback was nobody at our track until I completed about ½ of the challenge.

Air hopping with the help of the ropes.

I'm getting ready to swing over to the big net at the opposite platform.

Finally I swung to the other side. Catch on to the net and perform a spider climb to the platform.

On our track to the end of the challenge, we saw few chicken exit for those who unable to take on the challenge. There also some short-cut paths to skip through a challenge with a simple flying fox.

About 2 hours later, I finally complete the track with a high speed 100m “wild revenge” down to the finishing platform. I’m tired, thirsty, sweaty, ecstatic and satisfy to be able to arrived at the finish point. Both of us rush to the reception counter and brought ourselves a can of cold 100 plus (isotonic drink). Ah… so cooling and refreshing. This trip is worth while.

It would be better if there were more staff stationed at the platform giving us advice and encouragement. I chatted with one of the staff stationed near to the end of the track, he mentioned that it not suppose to be this way. But some staff actually went for lunch break without informing their superior. So my advice is don’t take session near to lunch hour to avoid encountering the same scenario like us. Another piece of advice is that don’t go on too large a group. Like our group was 26 pax. Some participant had actually waited a long time before it is their turn. And due to safety reason, each platform can only hold 3 people and one must wait until the participant in front of you completed a challenge before you start. So those at the back wasted quite some time waiting. Especially if the person in front is having hard time to initiate for complete the challenge. Well, my recommendation is organize small group of about 10 to 15 and not more than that. But please don’t tell the organizer because you read my blog so you organize small group. They won’t like the idea. Ideally, their group size is 15-20 pax.

We retried our items, can got back to the finish point and cheered for those at the back of the line. Finally after 6 hours at the adventure park, all participants at our group completed their track. All were smiling and laughing, sharing their own experience. All of us eagerly want to get out from the Bukit Cahaya park and have our lunch/dinner. Very very hungry after all it’s already 4.30pm. And we had our breakfast at 8 something in the morning. Yahoo! Finally we can have our meal. We climbed into our cars and started the hunt for good food!!