Visit to Orang Asli settlement (con't)

This post is continuation from here.

So after we finally break free from the muddy seashore, our boat finally able to get close to the land. There was no proper jetty or anything so we just Hop, Hop and Away! LOL.

On land 2 pajeros (or is it Landcruiser?) were waiting for us. So we after loaded up the things, we started our journey into the interior via land. The roads were really narrow and bumpy and muddy, with alot of trough (longkangs) here and there. Nothing unexpected of jungle roads. The vehicle was trudging through, our bodies were swaying left and right like coconut trees... We smelled some petrol odour at one point, and the driver gone down to inspect his goods. Apparently he put the petrol containers on the top of car and the petrol leaks out due to the heavy "swaying" just now. Gosh! Luckily the car didnt went up in flames LOL

 So after about half an hour of swaying, we finally reached our destination. There is a sign that says "Perkampungan Orang Asli RPS Kemar". These are quarters for staffs who work here, including the aborigines welfare department and us.

Granted that i didnt expect 5 star hotels here, but the quarters here are in pretty wretched. There were 2 tiny houses side-by-side. One for men, the other for ladies. Silly me went into the wrong house LOL. I think the ladies house manage to "seduce" me because it looks more livable than the men's house. Ahem...i mean the house definitely looks cleaner and more neat. Haih....no luck.

So this the how the inside looks like. Pretty bare, kind of dirty looking (yiaks!), kind of untidy with things littered around. Lucikly i didnt find any cockcroaches or other crawlies!
There were around 10 men living inside this small house so its pretty crowded. Stuffed with men's stench to the max! These are not the culture-refined metrosexual men we are talking about here, its your average middle age men clad in sarongs! OMG!!! Since I'm the only chinese around, i definitely feel like any alien there... The electricity was sourced from an indoor generator, the type u often see in pasar malam. So imagine how noisy the house is. I didn't sleep AT ALL the entire night! Poor me.... The water supply is from some nearby river i think...the water is brownish colour but no funny smell luckily. Good thing i brought my own water supply. I even have to use mineral water to brush teeth! Looking at the dirty water makes me lose my appetite LOL

This is how an average orang asli (aborigines) settlement looks like. High-stilt wooden house here and there in the middle of jungle. These are the more "advanced" orang asli i guess because they wear shirts and don't live on treetops. Though i do see some old orang asli ladies baring their chest while happily chatting away with their neighbours (but clothed when they see foreigners of course!).

The environment is very serene and peaceful. Sound of chicken mooing, dogs meowing can be heard here and there. But sometimes i smelled the odour of human excreta... most likely because they don't have Indah water there LOL. Or is it because im standing too close to their lavatory? Hmm... 
A bamboo house to the right.

The more populated villages have some simple drainage system like these small drains. Not too bad...

Notice the gas containers in this pic? Apparently not all orang asli nowadays use dry wood planks or coal to cook, they have gas stoves!

This is the actual work we did there. We loaded the trucks with whatever necessary medical equipments and go from village to village providing medical service. This journey we were more concentrating on investigating the gastroenteritis outbreak there. But it seems the situation was not too bad with none needed referral to hospital. According to the mobile team who frequently visits these villages, apparently the medicines or whatever food we were supplying sometimes does not serve its intended purpose. This is because the food does not go to the malnourished infant, it goes into the tummy of the parents instead! And the medicines? They just take it for storing in the house. For what purpose im not sure...as good luck charm? mojo? Haih... We did told them how to use the supplies and its purpose. But if they themselves do not use it wisely it serves no purpose. But then again, certain things are beyond our control... Just like when we were touring around, i saw alot of "Astro Totem poles" in front of their houses (Astro is a satellite broadcast provider). Yes! They even have Astro in their house! Even my house doesn't have it! See... im poorer than these orang asli ... sob..sob..

IMHO, it all boils down to the question of PRIORITY. They can afford satellite TV service but cannot afford to feed their malnourished babies?? Does it make sense to u?  To the city dwellers, a typical family average has 1 or 2 children only. The parents put alot of emphasis on children wellbeing and education. Where as for the orang asli, their family size is much bigger  and thus, their children might not be their foremost priority. Although it does not make their children any less precious!

A hazy early morning there...

p.s. Apparently they still havent found replacement for the office-in-charge of the mobile team, thus me and another guy have to take rotation go to this place again!! My next rotation is next month!! This time its 4 days 3 nights! OMG!OMG!OMG ! Im gonna die there :(

Looking forward to my HK vacation in two days time. Wanna enjoy it to the fullest before coming back to dreadful working life!

Are u cut?

It says after cut, u can do it faster and more syiok ....I already cut 1 year ago when the craze began. But no syiok also...still so slow and and lack fun! How come so unfair?? I cut first one de leh...should be more syiok right? First come first serve mah!

What's your cut experience? ^_^

visit to orang asli settlement

Last month I got a call from the district office asking me to follow a mobile team into the interiors of Banding Island in Perak to investigate some outbreak of acute gastroenteritis there. I was like "huh? ur kidding me?". Cos seriously i never get this kind of request before. Well, apparently the officer in-charged has been transferred elsewhere and with no replacement whatever, they simply have to find some Tai Sei Guai （替死鬼） somewhere to Sek sei mau （吃死錨） (meaning to look for replacement to do something nobody wants to do). So im their next target in the rotation until the new replacement officer comes (which could be next year or next millenium).

It was supposed to be a 3 day 2 nights stay in some orang asli (aborigines) settlement so remote that we can ony reach there via speed boat and 4WD Pajero. And stupid me I thought this kind of place only exists in Sabah or Sarawak. But luckily the trip was cut short to 2 days 1 night. Reallly lucky cos i dun think i will come out as a normal human if it was prolonged any longer. I might have mutated into a zombie for all u know. Will explain why later LOL

So we reached the Banding jetty after about an hour drive. Here:

The overhead bridge connects to the eastern part of peninsular Malaysia.

The Royal Belum Forest of Perak lies just 1 km from here. No time for sight seeing though. Hmm....i wonder if there is anything worth visiting there. Should appeal to those botanist, geologist or biologists i guess. Maybe got some unexplored old civilization or dinosaur fossils, who knows?

There is even a small little Marine post located in a cosy corner. When there is no emergency around, probably the officers will have plenty of time fishing or simply cruising on the speedboat on government enpenses. So nice eh?

The boat ride lasted a glorious 1+ hour. The strong wind makes my hair indented to one side after the boat stopped. LOL. There were some waves in the water so whenever the boat goes through the waves, the boat will literally jump up and down, together with the 10 of us on the boat. Luckily no one fell into the open sea. Some say there are crocs in the water. Gosh! How come they never tell me before i take the boat ride?? I don't have insurance, u know?

Then when we were about to reach the shore, something happen. Our boat was stuck in the muddy water! And we were still about 100m away from the shoreline.In my mind i was actually laughing cos i thought since the boat cannot dock, then the trip would be cancelled. But unfortunately, the navigator managed to get us out from the mud. He was using the oar cucuk here cucuk there in the water. God knows how many unlucky fishes died in the process. Its too late.... My dream of patah balik was dashed...completely :(

Farewell to the civilised world...There was no mobile phone coverage. TO be continued.......

Change of heart

If only change of heart or heart transplant is so simple..






Having flu today, making wanton with my nose secretions the whole morning....no mood to work :(

p.s. Anyone want some wanton?

sleep while working...work while sleeping...

This weekend finally back to hometown after 2 weeks of imprisonment in the "jungle". Just wanna slowly enjoy my hard-earned weekend off.

Lately hasn't been sleeping well, wonder why. I was dreaming. But it wasn't a pleasant dream. It wasn't a nightmare either. In the dream, i was actually sitting in my office working! It felt so surreal...its cold because of the aircon, i was scribbling something on a sheet of paper, doing my routines....Then I wake up surprised to find myself still sprawling on the bed. It was still dawn. The sky outside is still in deep blue hue. I thought i had finish my work for the day! Then lazily I have to move my ass to begin "another day" of work!! LOL... Is this not depressing or what?

Im definitely not a workaholic but why is this happening? Is it stress? Is this cue from the higher order that i should take a break from work? After all, its been more than 2 years since i really had a vacation. Last month was the first time I taken one day off for MC after working for 2 straight years... I want my break! :P

Nobody but you

I love their performance to bits! Awesome ladies! Wondergirls-all girls group from Korea.

Nobody original MV:



Live performance:



This song is so popular there are so many imitators out there.. :D







Rainy  Tuesday here... I wanna nap...LOL

40 things You May Not Know

1. Money isn't made out of paper; it's made out of cotton.

2. The 57 on Heinz ketchup bottle represents the varieties of pickle the company once had.

3. Your stomach produces a new layer of mucus every two weeks - otherwise it will digest itself .

4. The Declaration of Independence (United States of America) was written on hemp paper.

5. The dot over the letter 'i' is called a "tittle".

6. A raisin dropped in a glass of fresh champagne will bounce up and down continuously from the bottom of the glass to the top.

7. Susan Lucci is the daughter of Phyllis Diller.

8. A duck's quack doesn't echo ... no one knows why.

9. 40% of McDonald's profits come from the sales of Happy Meals.

10 Every person has a unique tongue print (no licking at the scene of a crime!).

11. 315 entries in Webster's 1996 Dictionary were misspelled.

12. The 'spot' on 7UP comes from its inventor who had red eyes. He was albino.

13. On average, 12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents daily.

14. During the chariot scene in 'Ben Hur' a small red car can be seen in the distance.

15. Warren Beatty and Shirley MacLaine are brother and sister.

16. Chocolate affects a dog's heart and nervous system; a few ounces will kill a small sized dog.

17. Orcas (killer whales) kill sharks by torpedoing up into the shark's stomach from underneath, causing the shark to explode.

18. Most lipstick contains fish scales (eeww)..

19. Donald Duck comics were banned from Finland because he doesn't wear pants!

20. Ketchup was sold in the 1830s as medicine.

21. Upper and lower case letters are named 'upper' and 'lower' because at the time when all original print had to be set in individual letters, the 'upper case' letters were stored in the case on top of the case that stored the smaller, 'lower case' letters.

22. Leonardo da Vinci could write with one hand and draw with the other at the same time.

23. Because metal was scarce, the Oscars given out during World War II were made of wood.

24. There are no clocks in Las Vegas gambling casinos.

25. The name Wendy was made up for the book Peter Pan, there was never a recorded Wendy before!

26. There are no words in the dictionary that rhyme with: orange, purple, and silver!

27. Leonardo Da Vinci invented scissors. Also, it took him 10 years to paint Mona Lisa's lips.

28. A tiny amount of liquor on a scorpion will make it instantly go mad and sting itself to death.

29. The mask used by Michael Myers in the original "Halloween" was a Captain Kirk mask painted white.

30. If you have three quarters, four dimes, and four pennies, you have $1.19.. You also have the largest amount of money in coins without being able to make change for a dollar.

31. By raising your legs slowly and lying on your back, you can't sink in quicksand.

32. The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law, which stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.

33. American Airlines saved $40,000 in '87 by eliminating one olive from each salad served in first class.

34. The first product Motorola started to develop was a record player for automobiles. At that time, the most known player on the market was the Victrola, so they called themselves Motorola.

35. Celery has negative calories! It takes more calories to eat a piece of celery than the celery has in it to begin with. It's the same with apples!

36. Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying!

37. The glue on Israeli postage stamps is certified kosher.

38. Guinness Book of Records holds the record for being the book most often stolen from Public Libraries.

39. Back in the mid to late 80's, an IBM compatible computer wasn't considered a hundred percent compatible unless it could run Microsoft's Flight Simulator game. 

40. Astronauts are not allowed to eat beans before they go into space because passing wind in a space suit damages them!

Its Monday again...Happy working! :D 

Can u bring me home?

Alzheimer's Disease is the most common form of dementia. It is NOT a part of normal aging, but a disease involving the progressive loss of brain nerve cells. Since these nerve cells are essential for normal thought, memory and other brain functions, people with Alzheimer's Disease suffer a decline of mental functions which eventually interferes with the patient's normal daily activities.

Over time, Alzheimer's Disease patients lose their ability to perform even the most basic activities of daily living like brushing one's teeth, putting on clothes, bathing, etc. In the end, the ability to walk and talk may be lost as well.

Known as the disease of "The Long Goodbye", the illness often stretches over 10 and even 20 years. Despite intensive research in recent years, the disease is still not yet fully understood, and there is still no known cure.

Those most at risk of developing Alzheimer's Disease are the elderly, and the risk increases with age. According to statistics worldwide, one in 20 of those aged 65 and above have Alzheimer's Disease. However, amongst those aged 80 and above, one in five have Alzheimer's Disease. There is also a smaller group of people who may develop what is called Early Onset Alzheimer's from as young as their 40s or even late 30s.

Other major risk factors include genetic predisposition such as having certain genes or chromosomes, and a family history of Parkinson's Disease and/or Down's Syndrome. Minor risk factors include belonging to the female gender, and head injury.

At present, 18m people worldwide have the disease. By 2020, 34m. In Malaysia, it is estimated that there are currently about 50,000 people with the disease. However, most of them are not diagnosed. This is because relatives think that the symptoms displayed are a normal part of growing old and thus do not seek medical advice on it.

Alzheimer's Disease affects not only the patients themselves, but also profoundly changes the lives of family members and close friends. Someone they love and care for gradually disintegrates as a person. Caring for a loved one with Alzheimer's Disease is sometimes referred to as a "36-hour-a-day" task. However, proper understanding of the disease and management of the patient can reduce the burden considerably and greatly improve the quality of life for patients, their caregivers and families.

visit Alzheimer's disease Foundation of Malaysia website for more info..