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Hulu Selangor visit

June 21st, 2010
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Hulu Selangor came under the limelight recently due to the by-election. If I’m not mistaken its the biggest district in Selangor, yet its among the most laid back in terms of living style, and with among the lowest population among the districts. Its also my father’s hometown.

The trip was initiated by fellow blogger and photographer Amutha. Newly minted MP, YB P.Kamalanathan invited the photographers and bloggers down to Hulu Selangor for a walkabout. 6 people turned up, including yours truly. The others were Amutha, Then, Puvanan, Parimala and Selian. We left Puchong at 9.15am and reached Kuala Kubu Bahru around 11.15am (Yeah, it took that long due to GPS that asked to take a different exit along PLUS highway). You can exit at Rawang, or use the old road via Batu Caves.

We met up with Kamalanathan who was in a sports attire. He had some senamrobik event in the morning. Had a chat on issues in Hulu Selangor, his election campaign, MIC and other stuff. Had a good breakfast as well.

From Trip to Hulu Selangor
From Trip to Hulu Selangor

After about one hour, we left for our first destination, the Sg Selangor Dam, along the way to Fraser Hill. We reached the dam (its about 4km from KKB town) at 12.35pm. There’s a visitor center for public to learn more about the dam. Took some pictures of the dam (but the fences blocked a clear view). The office closes at lunch time, so we took more pictures on the grounds. Some a steady stream of visitors but rarely more than 20 people at a time. Most come to take picture or have a snack there (you have to bring your meal, no shops here!).

From Trip to Hulu Selangor

We spent about two hours there, until 2.30pm. Puvanan and Selian had to leave due to another appointment, so we decided to move on. On the way out from the dam, the rest of decided to visit the Orang Asli settlement nearby, called Kg Gerachi Jaya. The road was a bit steep and narrow. Took us about 10 minutes to reach the village. To our surprise, the houses were newly built and looked very comfortable.

From Trip to Hulu Selangor

Along the way down from the village, we took some photos of the dam (opposite side from earlier location).

From Trip to Hulu Selangor

We went back for a quick lunch at Indian Village restaurant (they close by 4pm, that shows you how laid back the place is!) and also had cendol and ABC at a nearby stall.

From Trip to Hulu Selangor

We ended up taking the federal road back to KL, and along the way, passed by my father’s hometown, Ulu Yam Bahru. Took some pictures at the picnic site there.

By the time we reached Batu dam, it was already 6pm. There were few families there. We stopped to take some photos and continued on our way back to Puchong.

From Trip to Hulu Selangor

We spent a lot of time on the road since the district is big. There are lot of scenic places in Hulu Selangor, and eco-tourism can be developed to provide employment and revenue for the folks. However, as with other similar projects, the concern is that over-development will cause the tranquility and beauty of the place to be disturbed.

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Posted in I Was Here, Personal

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Maha Mariamman Temple Batu 14 Puchong Kumbabhishegam

June 15th, 2010
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From Maha Mariamman Temple Batu 14 Puchong Kumbhabishegam

The 105 year old Maha Mariamman temple Batu 14 Puchong had its Maha Kumbhabhishegam last month (23rd May). The event was from 10am onwards, but we went a bit early. About 20,000 people were expected, but I don’t think it was more than 5000 during the day.

I noticed that quite a number of youths were involved in the crowd control and miscellaneous work, something seldom seen in other temples. In fact, crowd control was quite good.

Highlight of the day was the helicopter which showered flowers on the devotees.

From Maha Mariamman Temple Batu 14 Puchong Kumbhabishegam

The interior was quite spacious and nicely designed.

From Maha Mariamman Temple Batu 14 Puchong Kumbhabishegam

The kodi maram had glass panels on the ceiling to allow sunlight to enter. Similar to Bala Thandayuthapani temple in Seremban.

From Maha Mariamman Temple Batu 14 Puchong Kumbhabishegam

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Posted in Events, I Was Here, Personal, Religion

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How much money do you save each month?

April 20th, 2010
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Some of us may have had parents in the similar situation as below about 30-40 years ago.  I think back then, people could scrimp and still survive, and hopefully try to provide a better living for their kids. But in current high cost of living, is it possible to save something for the future, let alone spend for children’s education, good food, or invest in own house?

Which brings me to the question: how much do you save every month in terms of percentage of your income (either individual or household)? Is it 0%, 5%, 10%, 20%, 30% or high as 60%? Do you have a saving plan that you follow or its an ad-hoc kind of thing?  How much do you think you should save every month in terms of absolute amount? RM100? RM200? RM500? Rm1000?

Why do you save money? I guess its for use in the future – buying house, children education, retirement, buying luxury/dream stuff, medical cover, for emergency, and so on.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to preach about some savings/investment scheme :-) Just blogged about this out of curiosity.  I’m sure all of us have bills to pay, loans to settle, transport costs, communication expenses and so on. Money just flies out so easily.

Well, read the article I mentioned and think about the poorer section of our community.

Extract of an article from Malaysiakini:

Clutching her payslip for the previous month in her right hand and a paring knife in her left, S Letchumi rants about how tough life is on the estate where she has lived for 25 years,

She points at the RM217 take-home pay printed on her payslip, agonising over her family’s monthly trials with three children in secondary school and two sets of sickly parents to care for, not to mention putting food on the table.

“We have supported Barisan (Nasional) for so long. Every time they come here they tell us to vote for them, they promise they will help us. But after they win, they never show their faces here until they need our votes again,” she said, absent-mindedly brandishing her knife.

Letchumi, 42, and a group of women in Ladang Kerling were getting ready to cook food brought in by Puteri Umno in time for a 4pm gathering scheduled at their temple on Monday.

Mariamah Subramaniam, 39 and a single mother of four, said the workers don’t mind the “gifts” that political parties normally bring while campaigning, but that they would much rather have a concrete solution to their poverty.

“It’s nice. PKR gave us some help with rice and some money for our children’s bus fare, but they can’t just give this year and stop giving after that. Of course it’s better than nothing… BN didn’t give us a single thing when they came,” she said, bouncing her nine-month-old daughter on her hip.

Depending on the weather, estate workers say they can earn as much as RM890 in a good month or as low as RM100 when the rains come.

Second-generation estate retiree Ragaraman Kolican, 58, is still poor after tapping rubber for 29 years, and not for lack of trying.

“I was born here. I grew up here. I continued to work the estate after my father died, but with my earnings being so low, I can’t afford to buy anything, not a house, not land.

“This whole area was 100 percent BN for a long time. In the past, even if you say you will cut our throats, we would still vote BN. But the BN politicians never keep their promises. 

“Palanivel held the seat for so long and every election he told us he will listen to all our problems after he wins, but he never came,” he said, referring to former four-term Hulu Selangor parliamentarian G Palanivel, who lost the seat to PKR in 2008.

No love for MIC

Thirumurthy Appalanaidu (left), 48, admitted that the estate workers know little of BN candidate P Kamalanathan but stressed that they have already made up their minds.

“We are not angry with (premier) Najib (Abdul Razak), but we know very well that MIC has not done anything for us.

“We read the news, we know that Najib announced (allocations of) millions (of ringgit) to help the poor but when the money reaches MIC it does not go down to the people.”

Thirumurthy added that PKR has done more for them over the last two years than the BN has over the decades that it held Hulu Selangor.

“If BN had helped us we can vote for them, but without helping us how do we vote for them?” he asked.

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Posted in BornInMalaysia, Indian, Personal

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Can Nestle help me?

April 20th, 2010
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I take Nesvita 3-in-1 (the new name for Nestum) for breakfast often. The other day there was a sale at a hypermarket, so a grabbed a pack. I was wondering about the price (it was RM 7.99 if I’m not mistaken) because earlier, I bought a pack for more than RM10. Surely there can’t be that much of a price cut, can there?

That’s when I got stymied. Why not you guys help me out here. Refer to the images of all the four sides of the pack:

Can you guys tell me how many sachets are there in this pack? Yup, its kind of a small print issue here.

Maybe Nestle can give a hand here. Can you guys print the number of sachets in a more prominent location so that can help consumers like me who are getting old and having poor eyesight?

Oh yeah, I have sent this to Nestle Malaysia, and nope, not expecting any hamper from them as measure of goodwill or whatever. And forget about asking to remove this article from the blog.

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Posted in BornInMalaysia, Personal

3 years and still running…

February 17th, 2010
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Time really flies! I barely noticed that poobalan.com has been running for 3 years and 8 days now, from the day the first article was posted on 8th February 2007.  Its great to note that there’s 2,916 posts (minus this) and 5,738 comments till date.

I hope to carry on for as long as possible, and hope that it benefits readers in one way or another.

Thank you guys for the support all this while.

Let the voyage continue…

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Posted in Events, Personal