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This blogspot is a medium to share my thoughts and adventures apart from promoting my books. Below are the books which have been written or authored and published by myself.


"Berpetualang ke Aceh: Mencari Diri dan Erti".

ISBN 983-42031-0-1, Jun 2006


"Berpetualang ke Aceh: Membela Syiar yang Asal"

ISBN 983-42031-1-x, May 2007


"Berpetualang ke Aceh: Sirih Pulang ke Gagang?"

ISBN 978-983-42031-2-2, November 2007


It is interesting to note that while these books were written in Malay it has gained enough attention to merit being part of the collections of the American Library of Congress and National Library of Australia. Look here and here.


While the first three books were published by my own company, the fourth titled "Rumah Azan" was published in April 2009 by a company called Karnadya with the help of the Malaysian national literary body Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka. It features beautiful pictures along with stories behind selected mosques which could be related to the history of Islam and the Malays alongside the formation of the Malaysian nation. Look at the article A collaboration of old collegemates - the book "Rumah Azan".


My fifth book "Ahlul Bait (Family) of Rasulullah SAW and Malay Sultanates", an English translation and adaptation of the Malay book "Ahlul Bait (Keluarga) Rasulullah SAW dan Kesultanan Melayu" authored by Hj Muzaffar Mohamad and Tun Suzana Othman was published early 2010. Look here... My 5th book is out! Ahlul Bait (Family) of Rasulullah SAW and the Malay Sultanates... . For more information check out my Malay blogspot CATATAN SI MERAH SILU.



Like my fourth book "Rumah Azan", the sixth book "Kereta Api Menuju Destinasi" is also a coffee-table book which is published by the company Karnadya with the cooperation of Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (the main Malay literary body in Malaysia). Coming out January 2011 it features pictures and stories on the adventure travelling by train to all of Peninsular Malaysia along with the interesting places which could be reached this way.


My seventh book "Jejak keluarga Yakin : Satu sketsa sejarah" in turn is a coffee-table book which is written, editted, designed and has pictures taken by me. Coming out of the factory October 2011, this book which combines family history with history of places such as Singapura, Johor, Batu Pahat, Muar and in fact the history of the island of Java and England has been reviewed with me interviewed live in the program Selamat Pagi Malaysia at RTM1. Look at the article Siaran langsung ulasan buku "Jejak keluarga Yakin : Satu sketsa sejarah" dan temu ramah di Selamat Pagi Malaysia. Some selected contents have been featured in Sneak peek "Jejak keluarga Yakin : Satu sketsa sejarah".


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The "Berpetualang ke Aceh" series of novels could be obtained in e-book form. Enter http://www.e-sentral.com/, click general novel and go to page 4. You can also type the word "Aceh" at the search box. Or click straight Book 1, Book 2 and Book 3.


Thursday, March 20, 2008

The hills at Tanjung Keramat, Kuala Selangor...

OK... I don't have much time before the Cyber-Cafe where I'm writing this from is closed and I'm also very very weary... So let me tell this story in brief ya...


Somewhere in Kuala Selangor lies this small hill with a certain building on top.


The signboard says on top lies the tomb of a saintly virgin...

Here is the tomb... Actually it is not a real tomb but some sort of "grave" to mark the place where the said saintly virgin just vanished into thin air and was never to be found...


Besides it is a lake...


In front is this place...
OK... Locals said there are many saintly miracles and magical happenings associated with the tomb. The Malay word for such miracles is "keramat". As this whole place lies on a cape towards the Straits of Melaka and the Selangor river, it is called Tanjung (cape of) Keramat.

Behind the tomb is another hill which used to have a fort on top. Thus it is known Kota (fort of) Tanjung Keramat...


A look at the hill from below...


Time to climb to the top...


The view down from halfway up...


A signboard saying this hill was also known as Bukit (hill of ) Belanda (the Dutch). Because it was once captured by the Dutch and turned into their fort...


The way into the remains of the fort...


But first, a look from the sides facing the north...


For from there on could see this lake and the little hill which has the tomb of the saintly virgin on top...


Time to enter the confines of the fort... Below are pictures of the remains of the fort. That's all ya... Got to start work on the blogspot CATATAN SI MERAH SILU . Good night! :]








The Selangor royal tomb at Bukit Melawati... And my fetish for numbers!

Greeting dear readers. Normally, I would post pictures of old tombs at the blogspot SENI LAMA MELAYU (MALAY OLDEN ART) . I have these pictures of the Selangor royal tomb at Bukit Melawati ready to be posted there when my peculiar (or rather, superstitious?) sense of number prompted me to post it here instead!

You see, by right I should have started my travel to the East Coast via a certain route in Negeri Sembilan yesterday. But while on the way from Kuala Lumpur, my gut instinct somehow told me to change course and rest somewhere first before officially starting the journey on Thursday, today that is. Anyway, let's move to the pictures. Here goes...

OK... Here is a sign-board marking the place where the royal tomb stood at Bukit Melawati. For information, there's a few other buildings on the hill including a museum and a tower for viewing the moon.

The royal tomb is actually the last place I visited at Bukit Melawati in this trip. Earlier, I had a looked inside the museum among other places, the Selangor History Museum and took some pictures... Pictures which have been posted in the article Senjata Melayu lama di Bukit Melawati (Old Malay weapons at Bukit Melawati) at the blogspot SENI LAMA MELAYU (MALAY OLDEN ART) just before I started this article.


Another signboard explains a bit what's in store. But I'm not sure if it is open to the public. After all, it is a royal tomb and normally such places are not open to visitors...

Now, when making my last posting here, Finally. Back to KL... But with excursions to Tronoh, Kuala Kubu Baru and Rawang... on Sunday, I thought I'm finally done with story-telling of past travels and would go the East Coast afresh with no backlog of stories that needs to be let out.

Then I realised that my digital camera actually got 87 pictures taken after my last long travel, the Kedah and Perak trips were done over a month ago... If I want to start afresh for the coming travel, I must erase all the pictures in the camera...

This I must do by first tranferring the pictures elsewhere. Then, I should tell the stories about those pictures, mainly the 80 plus or so taken in Kuala Selangor on the 8th of March 2008 which happens to be the 12th Malaysian elections polling day!


Nevertheless I got inside the tomb area. Here is a signboard explaining a certain exhibit there...

Anyway, the 87 pictures put me in a quandary. As it is stored in an SD card, I need a computer with an SD card slot or reader before I could use any of it for my blogspots. At least then I could transfer it into my pen-drive and this could then be used at any Cyber-Cafe where I tend to make my postings nowadays.

The problem is normal home computers such as the ones used at Cyber-Cafes don't have SD card slots. I need a laptop for the job (since all modern laptops have one) but my own beloved laptop was still stranded for repair in a shop in Kuala Lumpur since over a month ago!


Back to the tomb area... The exhibit in question is a cannon. The yellow-clothes wrapped around it is to signify the cannon as of royal status... And perhaps it has magical powers.

So I was in this quandary on how to tackle the pictures inside my digital camera when later in the afternoon, people from the shop where my laptop was under repair finally called... Imagine, after a month having my computer languishing there because they had to wait for the right inner component to arrive before they could make the repair. So I immediately rushed to Kuala Lumpur to grab the laptop, never mind I had to pay more than RM400 for the job.


The main tomb building itself is locked. Inside, lies the bodies of Selangor's first 3 Sultans, Sultan Salehuddin (officially said to have ruled 1766-1782 but noted by some to have been installed as the ruler of Selangor since 1743), Sultan Ibrahim (ruled 1782-1826) and Sultan Muhammad (ruled 1826-1857) and their close family members.

At least one problem was solved today... I could transfer the pictures from the camera into my pen-drive using the laptop. And that means I could upload the pictures on-line later...


This board gives a simple Selangor royal genealogy. Also shown is a brief history of the first ruler, Sultan Salehuddin who is also known as Raja Lumu, son of the famous Bugis prince Daeng Chelak.

And so here I am in a Cyber-Cafe starting the process of telling the stories around the 87 pictures transferred from the digital camera. After having a look at the whole lot, I decided to start with pictures of old Malay weapons posted at the blogspot SENI LAMA MELAYU (MALAY OLDEN ART) ... Then these pictures of the Selangor royal tomb would follow...

I thought when these are done, then I would make piece on the hills at Tanjung Keramat, some 2km west of Bukit Melawati specifically for this blogspot. Afterwards I would sum up everything in Malay for the blogspot CATATAN SI MERAH SILU ...


Outside the tomb building are these other tombs wrapped in black clothings. Some said the colour signify warriors of certain standing.

But as it turns out the posting on old Malay weapons, called Senjata Melayu lama di Bukit Melawati (Old Malay weapons at Bukit Melawati) is the 115th in the blogspot SENI LAMA MELAYU (MALAY OLDEN ART) . I thought it would be the 114th but a check at the blogspot's dashboard showed I was wrong... I already made the 114th posting (titled Masjid Universiti Petronas di (Petronas University mosque in) Tronoh, Perak... ) on Sunday!

That sort of distrupted my whole plan for distributing the pictures into articles for all my 3 blogspots. You see, if I decided to go on with my earlier plan, then by the end of the night, I would end up with a total of 116 postings in the blogspot SENI LAMA MELAYU (MALAY OLDEN ART) , 177 here and 262 in CATATAN SI MERAH SILU ...

Somehow the totals don't feel right... Somehow, I don't feel it to be in harmony with my expectations that tonight's posting should clear all my backlog of stories (and even some emotional blockages!) before I finally embark on the journey towards the East Coast...


The name in this picture should say it all... Translated to English, here is the tomb of the "Black warrior".

So instead, I decided to put the pictures of the Selangor royal tomb in this blogspot instead of SENI LAMA MELAYU (MALAY OLDEN ART) ... As it turns out, among the 87 pictures transferred from the camera today, there's also a few pictures of Kuala Lumpur that also "screams" to be seen. So I thought I would use it for some sort of farewell article in the blogspot CATATAN SI MERAH SILU .

These changes should sum up to a total of 115 postings for SENI LAMA MELAYU (MALAY OLDEN ART) , 178 here and 263 in CATATAN SI MERAH SILU... That is by the time everything is let out tonight. Strange as it is, somehow to me, the number brings back equilibrium and thus I may travel to the East Coast in peace without any more baggage or worries. Ends! :]


Sunday, March 16, 2008

Finally. Back to KL... But with excursions to Tronoh, Kuala Kubu Baru and Rawang...

Peace be upon you dear readers. Let me get this over and done with...
After some 2 weeks being on the road, I longed to return back to Kuala Lumpur. The visits made to certain places in and around Teluk Intan on Thursday and Friday practically closed all that needs to be done in Perak. It's just a matter of when to return to KL and I thought I might as well make it 3 nights in Teluk Intan and start the journey back to KL on Sunday.
However early Saturday, a dear friend from KL called to say that she and a few other friends were in Tronoh, Perak for a certain function. Two of our friends, one from Sungai Siput another from Ipoh were also around for the same function. So I decided to head there... Later I could return to KL with this dear friend...

I can't remember where this picture was taken. But I know it is somewhere on the way to Tronoh through Kampung Gajah and Bota Kanan.

Relying on public transport can be a pain sometime, especially when it is very scarce and unreliable like the Teluk Intan-Kampung Gajah bus service. To get to Tronoh, there's 2 main routes by bus but none direct. One is to go to Ipoh some 60-80km away north-east of Teluk Intan through Kampar and then take the bus heading for Bota Kanan, retreating some 20km back to the south-west using a different route.

A more economical route at least in terms of milage is to go through Kampung Gajah and Bota Kanan. The problem is the bus to Kampung Gajah is unreliable and was not available when I arrived at the Teluk Intan bus station before noon.

The main mosque of the Petronas University in Tronoh, Perak. I've just made a posting featuring the mosque titled Masjid Universiti Petronas di (Petronas University mosque in) Tronoh, Perak... in the blogspot SENI LAMA MELAYU (MALAY OLDEN ART) .

The bus to Ipoh was available when I reached the Teluk Intan bus station. So what should I do? Take this bus or wait for the one to Kampung Gajah? That is if there's nothing happening to it... There's only one bus serving the Teluk Intan-Kampung Gajah route and should anything happen to it , then the service is practically suspended. And service tends to get delayed or even stopped for the day if the driver simply don't feel like driving! So there...

My main problem was I have a time limit. It was already noon and the function my friends attended should end by 3pm... I would like to be around while it is still on.

After deliberating for sometime, I decided to get a taxi to Kampung Gajah. Yep, taxi would definitely be much easier but I got to stick to a certain budget... At least I got to pay RM15 instead of the RM25 the driver initially demanded...


The gigantic main hall inside the Petronas University campus. You wouldn't believe how huge it is!

So I managed to get to Kampung Gajah some 30km from Teluk Intan. On the way just about 5km after leaving Teluk Intan, I saw the Kampung Gajah bus heading for Teluk Intan! Perhaps I could have saved money if I had waited. After all the bus fare is less than RM3... But there's no way I could have known earlier if the bus was available and at what time!

Whatever, soon enough I arrived in Kampung Gajah. Then I realised, the connecting bus to Bota Kanan, another 30km or so away has been terminated for sometime! Dang...

The taxi driver offered to get me there if I'm willing to pay another RM25. I said hold that thought as he was leaving for his house somewhere nearby for lunch. He said he would come back to the Kampung Gajah bus station and should I decide to take the offer, then he's game...

Yep... Another RM25 and this time non-negotiable as he said there's few taxis plying the route... And most probably no passengers to pick up on the way back to make the trip worthwhile. But what about my budget constraint? Being a constant traveller for some many years and one that has no fixed income, I would be in trouble if I broke my own cardinal rule of keeping a tight reign on money flow... That is if I want to be able to continue travelling whenever I wish to and live my current free-wheeling lifestyle...


There... Got the idea now how big is this main hall? And that's not even half of it... I was totally astounded at the sheer size... Further astounded when I had at least 5 minutes worth of deja vu as I walked towards it.

And so from Kampung Gajah, I walked heading for Bota Kanan in the hope of being able to hitchike someone... At Bota Kanan, there's many buses plying the route from Ipoh to Lumut. So once I'm there, it wouldn't be too hard to get one. The only problem is time...

About sometime pass 1pm, my dear friend at Tronoh called to ask where I was. I said I'm still stuck somewhere in Kampung Gajah some 40km away with no available transport in sight. She said the main part of the function is done... What's left was just people loitering around to get to know each other and the products offered at the many booths there...

I walked at least 3km and was on the verge of giving up on making it within enough time when finally someone stopped. And guess what, he is going to Tronoh!

Lucky some more, the guy actually sent me up to the main entrance of Universiti Petronas some 2-3km away from the small town. Although I had to walk almost another 2km to reach the gigantic hall where the function was held, I thanked my lucky stars for being able to join the people just moments before they all packed their stuff.


And so I had the time to meet my friends there including the one from Sungai Siput and another from Ipoh. Then I hitched a ride with my dear friend from KL driven by another friend back to the city. But I decided to drop at Kuala Kubu Baru some 60km before KL...

Above is the view from the cheap hotel where I lodged at in the morning after, Sunday 3rd January. I always like the air in Kuala Kubu Baru and might as well savour it to satisfaction before returning to KL.


Kuala Kubu Baru had such a quaint feel that it is always refreshing to spend time here...


I mean just look at the tidy row of pre-war shophouses. Combined with the unhurried life-style and the fresh mountain air blowing from the foothills of the main range Banjaran Titiwangsa flanking its east-side, life here is just idyllic, good enough to get me all dreamy and such...


From Kuala Kubu Baru, I got a bus to Rawang, nowadays a very busy suburban satellite town of Kuala Lumpur. Here I slept at a mosque nearby...


Finally the next day, a Monday, I returned to KL... After all the 2 weeks of sweat in Kedah and Perak, I'm so glad that this particular chapter of travelling is finished and all wrapped up. Cheers all! The end... :]