Perlis Road Trip and My First Casino Cruise

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This is a long overdue post but here it is none the less. Gaaahh, for almost a whole year I’ve got such a backlog of posts that I’ve not bothered blogging yet. Anyway, think I’ll go all out and blog blog blog now that I’m in the mood and then set it to publish on a later date. So the 30/9/2009 me was writing this…… creepy eh? (actually it doesn’t make sense because reading old posts IS by the Jolene of the past too. I’m not very clever.)

While waiting for our Year 4 results, a few of us made a day trip up to Perlis and stopped by Alor Setar on the way. Alor Setar is Zhu Zen’s turf and her parents took us to this awesome dim sum place. (actually all dimsum places are awesome). 

L-r: Zhu Zen, Myself, Cze-Yin

Sett –  satisfied after using the makeshift toilets.

Ah Thong who introduced us to his beautiful homeland – Perlis – brought us to check out Robert Kuok’s sugar empire. Sugar canes stretched on for miles on end, it was quite a humbling experience. Bimbo thoughts: Why does the world need such a vast amount of sugar? 

And they have little passageways too.

The roads looked different too and hardly any cars came along so we could camwhore all we want on that stretch.

The Perlis boy clearing the tracks for us.

This part looks very LCCT to me.

Sett runs to the sugary horizon. There’s actually a factory at the end. A sugar factory perhaps? According to Ah Thong, they burn all the sugar canes when it is time for harvesting. 

.. sniff.. speaking about harvesting..I can’t seem to log in to Farmville. I think the game is too popular and the servers are not sufficient for the extremely high traffic. 

The definition of freedom.

If Sett had facebook, this would be his profile photo. I’m actually hired to start his account for him. Hehehehe. So if you see him on Facebook, it’s me. Like I’m supposed to create everything for him, add all his friends for him and then give him the username and password the next day. -_-

L-r: Ee Chean, Sett and Ah Thong. Maxis came along too, but Maxis being Maxis, he was asleep in the car.

The girls!
L-r: Myself, Zhu Zen, Lie Yuen, Cze-Yin. 

Obligatory hiau por photos with the sugary view.

A long straight road to diabetes.

For a phone camera, Lie Yuen’s phone actually takes pretty awesome shots. I think it’s skills also. Someone get the girl a real camera, quick! Oh yeah, she’s into lomo alot. I’ll be heading to Bangkok soon… anybody know where I can guy some Goldtwin or something? One of her films la.

See how the sugar canes dwarf me!

Cze-Yin emerges from the sugarcane. Ah Thong was saying that if we tried to consume a little bit of the sugar from these sugar canes, we will faint almost immediately due to the extremely high sugar content. 

And one photo of Lie Yuen too to complete the housemates photoset.

Group photo without Maxis and me(obviously).

I’m really glad we went to some sort of plantation. I hardly get to explore plantations so it was quite a fun experience.

No souvenir shops nearby though.

The roads look so clean.

More of Robert Kuok’s pride and joy.

Our journey went on and on. It really seemed like it would never end.

Suddenly, they decided to drive into the plantation! 0_0

Ee Chean was equally confused, but he followed anyway.

Never driven into a plantation before. So exciting!

My excited face.

Ah Thong even knows hidden sights like these! Amazing! All we need now are ducks frolicking in the pond.

Lie Yuen and her fascination for ordinary beauty. (old houses, plants growing in the wild, weed..etc)

Two humps in the distance.

Looks like a scene from some movie about Merdeka struggles.

Fancy seeing a lake in the middle of a sugar plantation!

Perlis boy picks up a coconut tree leaf like a true country boy. If you read Lat comics when you were younger, you’d know that coconut tree leaves can be used as kiddy transportation!

Sun Wu Gong!

It catches wind too.

L-r: Zhu Zen, Lie Yuen, Cze-Yin, Ee Chean, Ah Thong, Maxis, Myself.

Lie Yuen’s turn. LOL I forgot to bring my tripod okay.

Padang Besar! I’ve heard a lot about it. We didn’t go check out the duty free area though.

Snacks of all kinds were available.

Plenty of imitation clothes in a big marketplace.

For the football fans.

I bought boxers! Not photographed here is a sickly looking Sponge Bob one. He gets blue in the face. So so comfortable for when I’m at home. Can pee through the hole too. Haha… kidding lah. Maybe it can shoot out further if I’ve accumulated enough.

Sett bought one too!

Ah Thong brought us to this coffee near Gua Kelam (which we went as well). 

Apparently the Char Siew Paus there are so famous that people actually make the pilgrimage to this northern coffee shop to buy back boxes of it for family friends. Some lifestyle blogger I am right, can’t even remember the name of the place to promote it. T_T But the pan meen there was AWESOMEEEEEEEeee. The leafs are like the real daun type. How to explain ah, only pan meen got one. Not like some vege..but just the kind of leaf that they always use in pan meen. 

For extra excitement, there was a train that would bring us into the cave.

River beneath the train tracks.

The carriage was kinda dodgy.

We had to wait quite awhile before the train took off. It went at quite a scary speed too!

Into the tunnel of eternity..

As you can see we really had to wait quite awhile for the train to fill up.

Train turning corner.

What you see in caves. 

Lol the artificial lights made for more entertainment than the rocky formations.

woooo~

Didn’t dare to touch it, but it looked like rock sugars/moss/foam.

Girls in the hole.
l-r: Zhu Zen, Cze-Yin, Lie Yuen, myself 

Monsters.

Wah Cze-Yin so strong.

Chinese people have apparently came here before us.

More trekking in the cave. 

Next up was a snake farm which doubles as a mini zoo as well. There were otters there! So so so cute!!

And this tortoise which we cheered “JIA YOU JIA YOU!” for it to flip back onto its front. Really turn-turtle.

<3 my favourite animals in the whole wide world!

LOL Tongue action.

But the poor cobras’ fangs have already been removed.

Just nice for Lie Yuen.

Being the monkey that he is, he was the first to go up the ladder.

Next up was to a paddy field plantation.

I remember coming to Kedah in my first year thinking that I would always be able to get up close and personal with the rice fields… but clearly it was not the case.

I was still very much a jakun! So this is how my rice looks like as a baby.

Don’t you just love the greenness of it all?

Good advertisement idea. Fly with emirates and come see our beautiful rice fields.

I’m finally touching a stalk of rice!

If FarmVille means this should be about 78%.

We had to walk carefully for fear that we might fall into the water and be eaten alive by bullfrogs.

Don’t know what they were doing.

Postcard material!

Cze-Yin and Lie Yuen tries to form a heart.

Birds flying over the field after a long day. 

If only the colours of the pic was better.

Bit of a rice stalk!

Preparing for our group photo.

Group photo without Lie Yuen.

Saw a puddle of water that looked rather disturbing.

Trying to tell you that Thailand’s just over the hills.

Really one.

Maxis reckoned that I should have something more Thai, like Thai Boxing.

Sort of a domino effect on the rest. Haha.

Ah Thong so cute!

Many weird inhabitants at the paddy field. The only dragonflies I know are black in colour.

Dinner courtesy of Ah Thong. So kind right! I also must learn, if out of town friends come to visit my hometown, I’ll have to pick up the bill as well.

Last stop was to the Perlis jetty. 

The gazebos in the distance are nice aren’t they? 

One more group photo before we go. Wish the rest could’ve come with us.

Proof that we really went to Perlis.

The NEXT day, we took a ferry from the Penang Jetty and went for a one night cruise. The main point of the trip was to try and see if we could get lucky that night. I didn’t do so well at the roulette table. Sigh.

 
Only five of us went though – Maxis, Andy, Zhu Zen, Ee Chean and myself.

Zhu Zen and me.

While waiting for the ferry to move, we saw fireworks from the Bon Odori festival which was being held next to the jetty.

We were expecting some run down thing judging from the operators (a booth outside the jetty with dodgy fluorescent lights) but the buffet spread was pretty good!

Clearly we were one of the very few young people there. I even made friend with an old retired uncle who apparently used to stay near my place in Subang.

Yam seng for passing year 4.

60’s pose.

We went up to the deck but you could hardly see anything as you peer out at the darkness.

Yeah I know, weird combo. The only “going out” clothes I had in Sg. Petani. A few of my other stuffs were back in Subang.

Ee Chean and me.

To entertain the uncle-y crowd, a guy dressed up as a woman ( he was not an Ah Kua though, just a chubby guy with a great sense of humour. Which I would have enjoyed a whole lot more only if I understood Hokkien/Mandarin.)

Those are fake boobs by the way. Some Uncle naik syok until he broke the breast as he was squeezing it.

After that, we went down to the casino and spent hours there looking at people play, trying to bet a little bit, chickening out and then observed a little more. The people there were seriously scary. Some dvd seller type cashed in three thick stacks of RM50 notes. Easily about RM50,000. That was his capital. Crazy.

Being students, we didn’t want to pay for the rooms so we slept on the deck. Wish I had pictures of us all splayed out on the benches, under the morning sky. 

Breakfast was good too!

This adds to another one of the craziest things I’ve done. Stayed awake an entire night in a gambling den. @.@