Mini Escapism : Gunung Lang, Ipoh

Kedah - Perak - Selangor - Part 2 :

The first place Af brought me after we checked in was Mount Lang not quite far from where we stayed. We used Waze  most of the time to shorten our time in finding ways and fast routes - so we used a lot of small roads instead of the city's busy road. The recreational park located at Jalan Kuala Kangsar, just Waze the destination and it will bring you there :D

The rocky limestone hills were huge ! Look at this one picture on the right where I stand right in front of hill. Tres petite compared to the hill, no? 

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We had to buy a RM 3 speed boat ticket to go across the lake and reach the other side of the park; between all of the mountains. So there's a park in the middle of all the mountains and the only entrace is the lake. It was so cool. It was also the spot where they shot the famous 'Sepet' movie, the one with Orked and Jason :D

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I saw one huge labi-labi taking its breath before it went down into the lake again. The hills, the birds, the big lake, the greenery, T^T I cannot tahan. This is yet another city in my wish list ! Perhaps when I'm much much older and a multi-millionaire, I'll make one mini 'The Banjaran' for my family and I.

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Here is a panaromic view from the tower we hiked :

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We headed Padang Polo right afterwards to see the field and sunset. There were hundreds of people, kids, families, friends, they were actually having their outing session on public holiday. This is a huge field with many little stalls along the road. In the KL city, we can see this many crowds probably only in KLCC and malls :p And because I hardly go out to crowded places much especially on public holiday, that was quite new to me. 

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Mini Escapism : Kedah - Perak - Selangor

Kedah - Perak - Selangor - Part 1 :

It's a long holiday !  

2 months back I received a wedding card from my colleague, Sha. AF and I always find reasons to explore new places and go on a mini escapism, so we decided to go to her wedding in Kedah. Of all the places and all the wedding that I missed in my life, suddenly I chose to go :D

We started our journey early morning on last Saturday around 6.30 am thinking that we might be able to avoid the traffic, considering it's a festive season. We were wrong. Waze's time estimation was around 4-5 hours, but we arrived after 9 hours on the road. The traffic was really-really bad. There were 4 accidents along the way, by the time we arrived at the wedding, it was almost over. We greeted her father and he said that Sha already left for her outing photo-shooting. So we went to eat and left shortly afterwards :o

The wedding took place in the paddy field area near Mount Keriang, so we took the opportunity to visit the place after the wedding. We just simply visited the recreational park to see the place thinking that we might go on a hike the next morning because I was starting to feel my 'usual' throbbing pain in my head. That 'famous' head-ache that I still don't know the cause yet. So we headed to our hotel around 20 minutes away and checked in.

I slept in for almost 12 hours.   

The headache disappeared and we decided to head to Perak after breakfast instead. We were ready for our road-trip and planned to make several stops before arriving at our next destination : Ipoh. So it was a really short stay in Kedah. I wish we have more time to take nice sunset photos alongside of the paddy field but it wasn't in the season.

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To enjoy nice scenery and explore new little kampungs during our journey from Alor Setar to KL, we used old roads instead of the highway. It took a bit longer but I'm glad we did. 

My favorites are : 

• We took almost 360' circle around Mount Jerai in Yan because I wanted to stop by near the beach right at the mountain.
• The first time I saw ikan belacak (mudskipper) in pantai Murni in Yan. I've never saw one ever in my life until that time we stopped in Yan. 
• 10 years anniversary for Hot fm brought us all the famous songs in those 10 years, it's a perfect playlist for the road-trip
• The paddy fields along side of the road from Yan to Butterworth
• The hills and mountains on our way to Ipoh were magnifique ! I can't even write enough about the magnificent view we got along the road. There weren't even pictures big enough to show how beautiful they were. Lucky northern people, perhaps they don't even notice what they are missing.
• Chatty AF - when we visited all his childhood places while he was growing up.
• Mount Rapat + Mount Lang
• Sunset in Lumut

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Our path on the 1st day :

Highway - KL to Alor Setar > Gunung Keriang

Our path on the 2nd day :

Alor Setar > Gurun > Yan > Tikam Batu > Butterworth > Bandar Ipoh > Gunung Lang > Padang Polo. 

Our path on the 3rd day :

Bandar Ipoh > Gunung Rapat > Lumut 

Our path on the 4th day :

Lumut > Sg Besar > Sekinchan > Tg. Karang > KL > Home

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Summary :

• We travelled around 1070 km on car in 4 days 3 nights.
• 3 different 2-stars hotel booked on Agoda ranging RM 70 - RM 95 per night
• We spent around RM 250 - RM 300 per person for foods, accommodation, gas and tolls. 
• Total : RM 270 (accommodation) , RM 100 (tolls) , RM 130 (gas-return)

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Sunsets :
We missed the first sunset because we were both exhausted from the 9 hours ride. We had a nice sunset at Padang Polo, Ipoh on the second day. That was the field where Af used to train for parkour during his younger years :D We got a great sunset view at the beach in Lumut on the third day. 

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Note :

If you are an escapee like us, waiting for chances to explore on weekends or public holidays or any random time because of  your commitment to work/family/school, be a part of us. We put up a car sticker; 'Eskapi' on our car's window. Promised we use the car for a great cause of exploring new places, road-trips, new destination :) It's never too near to find new places to explore.

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Mini Escapism : Raub + Tanjung Sepat, Selangor

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First mini road-trip : Raub, Pahang

Well, it wasn't entirely a mini escapism because we actually went back to AF's hometown. But it was definitely our first official road-trip because we finally bought a car and we are both married ! :D I guess no more public transport to go back to his kampung for now, and we'll do road-trips all over Semenanjung.

We planned early that week because we haven't went back for almost 3 months - if I'm not mistaken, and no one in his family knew about the car. It was supposed to be a surprise. 

So on that Friday, Selangor was having a public holiday - AF spent his off day at home while I went to work because I work in KL, boohoo. He waited for me until I finished my work. Our start-off point was in Wangsa Maju where we had our dinner. 

AF brought my mini blanket and pillow, we bought some biscuits and everything was ready. I guess we were both too excited. It was almost 9pm when we started our journey. It rained hard on and off the whole way. I was also too nervous to sleep so I chatted with AF the whole way. We arrived several hours later around 11pm-ish.

It was such a short eskapi, so we managed to stopped by at both Raub's towns, the newly built Uitm Raub, and Sungai Chekas. I was so excited to visit the place I went for my home-stay program with Tourism Pahang several years back - *in this post, I haven't even know Af personally :D Interesting to see how comments from my blogs lead to our friendships and marriage. If I didn't go to the home-stay, we might not even know about each other today.

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We actually planned to have a picnic and mandi2 at the river. But Af's parents mentioned about how the place wasn't really suitable for swimming during current rainy season. Even the water looked reddish and muddy from all the rain for the whole month :

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Second mini road-trip : Tanjung Sepat, Selangor

We took that half day from the extra long weekend due to Christmas & Maulidurasul's public holiday to go to Tanjung Sepat, again :D

We both love the place so we just decided to make a second visit, this time only both of us. On second visit, we will usually notice all those things we missed in the first visit : just this time I noticed how dirty the beach was :( Plastics, bottles, dirty foams, everything you don't want to see in such a beautiful place. It is too dirty to even dip your feet in, in case there will be unwanted rashes.

But indah khabar dari rupa, I did take nice photos out of it - the place isn't as clean as it looks in these pictures. I hid it from the eye of my lens :

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We waited for 2 hours for the sunset.

There weren't as many people as in Pantai Morib and I am so glad for that. I think this spot is not commercialized yet, maybe in another year seeing how they are building concrete paths alongside of the beach yesterday. There were several little hand-made wooden chairs and tables so we can just pick a place and rest. Not so many places to eat though. I hope they will do something to clean up the beach.  

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I'm hoping for more random mini road-trips in the future.

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