Bukit Tinggi, Danau Maninjau and how to get friends to be jealous

From the busy of Padang, (where nasi Padang originated) we went into the central mountains towards Bukit Tinggi. Along the way, we detoured into Danau Maninjau. Its a lake in the mountain.

The chair that i'm sitting on is just outside our room and we have a perfect view of the lake. Cool, quiet and breezy.

One of the view. Nice?

Going down to Danau Maninjau, we have to swing through 44 hairpin curves and it's numbered on every curve.

A night in Danau Maninjau really peaced our mind off. The next morning , we shifted to Bukit Tinggi, which is only 90 minutes away. We stayed in Rajawali Homestay with Ulrich, a German Sailor that fell in love with Sumatra when he first visited some 40 years ago. Ulrich organized some out of touristy site tours to the outskirt of Bukit Tinggi. He brought us to local paddy fields and hidden caves.

Ulrich explored the areas around Bukit Tinggi and finds hidden trails. I don't think there are any tours from the commercials that will lead us here.

View of Panarama Park, walking distance from our base. There is also a very deep cave fortress built by the Japanese during World War 2.

We walked around Bukit Tinggi and found a nice neighborhood. Can only be accessed by motorcycles and foot.
The houses are clean and beautifully painted with extraordinary colors and we felt like walking on the street in Europe.

View of the main junction from our hostel.

Central Market.

Tower clock of Bukit Tinggi.

Sharp blade just above my neck for a shaving session. I understand the meaning of 'never argue with your barber'.

It's actually quite cooling in Bukit Tinggi. On every morning, Sam and I would walked to a porridge stall to have our coffee and breakfast. The young lady that was handling the shop is of Chinese ethnicity. She speaks less than 10 words of Mandarine. The way we observed her working in the shop is so special. She is very attentive to every order, treated every customer equally with her best courtesy. To all old and young, to all men and women, to all cars and bikes and to all rich and poor, she gave her fullest attention to her customer. It was a small shop but the service standard she gave was more than a 6 star hotel. Base on her qualification university education, she could have work in the office of big companies but she has other priority in life.

She loves traveling in Asia. She told us that its affordable and there are many rich culture that she could see. When we asked about her busy schedule being in the food industry where she needed to run the business 7 days a week, how would she have the time to travel for few weeks in a year?

She told us that it was a tough job. She needs to start preparing all the ingredients from 3am and the food would be finished around noon time. then she needs to clean up and prepare for next day's operation. On every Ramadan (fasting month on the Islamic calander), there will not be anybody buying food on the street so she will shut her stall and go for her travels.

To us, Singaporeans, working in a small stall selling porridge may seems to be a 'low class' profession. waking up at 3am to many Singaporeans is almost impossible rather, most of us sleep at 3am, especially on week ends. When it comes to class gathering, selling porridge is definately not the most 'ideal' jobs that most Singaporean would be proud of.

Com'on, does it sounds nicer when you tell your classmate: 'i'm working for Temasek Holdings' rather than 'i'm selling porridge'.

I respect this young lady very much because she put in her best in her work and she treated every one with respect and best of all, she made us of the situation in Indonesia, where Ramadan is a big hinderance month to the non-muslims in Indonesia to travel. The places she traveled to are not for shopping or to take pictures to put in facebook to get friends to be jealous of.

Sam and I wanted to invite her to Singapore and she commented something about cost verses experience. Would anyone like to 100% sponsor this young lady to see Singapore? Her name is Maria.

I had found that the motive of travels from many people is to go and take pictures of themselves infront of a famous building or secenery, or holding on to big paper bags from the expensive shopping outlets, put these pictures on the blog or facebook to make friends jealous and tell people:

'i have done it, don't be envy about me, can you do it? this is my lifestyle, i travel a lot to xxx (some branded countries). I fly here and there.'

Is there a meaning to such travels? I am not saying that it is a wrong thing because different people has different ways of de-stressing. Some like to drink a beer, some like to go shopping, some like to smoke, some would go for a motorcycle ride, some would go fishing, some would sleep as long as they could and many many more methods. What i'm trying to say here is that Maria is a very special person we met in Bukit Tinggi and she really deserved a visit to Singapore as she had been to other parts of South East Asia except for Singapore.

Can we, Singaporeans show her how we would like to invite her (as a neighbor).

Stop talking to the world media about how much did Singapore help the Tsunami that happen in Ache.

Stop telling the world on how much money Singapore helped to the XXX countries when they have disaster.

Stop 'gaining points' for the good things that we help our neighboring countries.

It shall not be done because of fame.

It shall not be done because we are a member of an international organization.

It shall not be done because we want to built better relationship to gain benefit.

Helping people shall not be classified into: how much is that person going to return my help.

Sorry, it's a bit out of the topic, lets go back to Maria. Anyone interested to host Maria, please let me know.

I have removed the Cbox on the right of our blog because there are many spammers. Do leave me a message on my comments link.

View of the town from a high bridge.

The Bridge.

Does anyone knows where to get a proper kid's size helmet?

We went to the zoo in Bukit Tinggi. The animals there were fed by visitors with potato chips, mineral water bottles, plastic bags cigarette buds and any other things we can think of. The above is an Orang Utan. The plastic bags are all over his body. I think he is used to it. The moment we walked close to it, he looked at us. The eyes of this Orang Utan tells us that he needs to see Hope Too.

The fierce aligator got frustrated about his life there. I would recon he would find his way out of the zoo someday.
The playground in the zoo reminded me of the 'fun-fair' in Singapore when I was very young.
We would never see this kind of technology again in Singapore. Does this reminded you about your childhood? If it does, you must be not less than 30 years old now.

A stray cat went into the deer's territory. The deer is curious about what a cat is and tries to sniff the cat. the next moment, the cat stretched out his pussy craw towards the nose of the deer and the deer ran away.

Ulrich has made servral GPS maps of Sumatra. These maps are the real maps that he had traveled to and up to date. He has very good knowledge of the area and very informative. The stay with them was really great! We would like to go back to Bukit Tinggi again to stay with Ulrich, to meet Maria and enjoy the place.

We told Ulrich that we are going to ship our motorcycle from Dumai (Sumatra) to Malacca (Malaysia). He told us:

he had met many motorcycle travelers that had shipped their bike into Dumai and had a lot of problem. At this time, we may not be able to get out of Indonesia from Dumai. The road to Dumai is really bad.

Sam and I would still want to try to ship out from Dumai, which is a 2 days bad road riding from Bukit Tinggi. If unsuccessful, we need to return to Bukit Tinggi on the same 2 days bad road and go north to Medan, which is about 7 days riding to ship our bike over to Malaysia.

how bad can the road be?

At this point, I would like to interrupt the Sumatra posting. I really have to mention an issue that happened in Singapore 3 days ago (October 15, 2010).

I had 2 Swiss friends that came to Singapore to visit and travel. They are on budget too. They stayed in backpackers hostel and they need to set priority on what they want to see base on their budget.

They are those that can sit on the back of my dirty truck and tour around Singapore with us.

Sam and I recommended them to the night safari as our night safari:

Is the world’s first wildlife park for nocturnal animals is an eight-time winner of the Best Visitor Attraction Experience, awarded by Singapore Tourism Board. This internationally acclaimed leisure attraction embodies innovation and creativity in products and services, and service quality, thus attracting more than 1.1 million visitors yearly. Over 1,000 animals from 115 species (of which almost 30% are threatened) inhabit the 40-hectare park.

(Extracted form http://www.nightsafari.com.sg/l2_t1.aspx?l1=1&l2=1&langid=1)

My Swiss friends would love to see night animals and they went on their own.

Somehow that night, Sam received an SMS from them and we rush down to the night safari to rescue them.

When we reach the night safari at 830pm, it was very crowded. It seems like everyone was going into the night safari to party. It is exactly the same like how party people queue up outside St James or the bar at Clark Quay. Many of them are dress in Halloween dresses and party poppers.

We asked our Swiss friends what happened:

They have to pay S$45 each into the night safari instead of the usual S$22 because it is a Halloween Special night. Refer to http://www.halloweenhorrors.com.sg/tickets.html

They paid the S$45 each and went in, they could not see any animals because the place was filled with party people (or party animals?) and many visitors just want to go in to get the feel of being ‘attacked’ by the dressed up Halloween costumed staff.

The place was a little messy. Our Swiss friends saw more spooky things than the animals that they want to see. Feeling very disappointed, they got out of the area and went back to the ticketing office and requested for a refund, which was rejected. Along side at the ticketing office, there were some other foreigners hanging around seeking for refund too, feeling disappointed and did not get any refunds back.

Sam and I feel so ashamed, so ashamed that we are adopting our Singapore way into the western festival. Wanting to increase more visitors to the night safari to increase the revenue for night safari by doing the Halloween thingy, we had lost our reputation, turning the authentic night safari into a party place!

Can we have a feedback from the relevant authorities?

foreign talents in Singapore dream blogpost

I waited 16 minutes to get an operator to clarify a small issue on my new DBS bank ATM card.

Heard from my friend that there are many big companies that outsource their call center to other poorer or cheaper country. Example, when we call to XXX company, they will divert our call to their call center situated in Republic of Banana United where cost of living is cheap and the salary for the operator is only US$150/month!

Thats why, save cost..... customer service in singapore had been getting to a lower standard since we get more foreigners to take up this position. did you realize that position like

1) walk in customer service officer

2) receptionist

3) tele-marketer

4) any job related to 'robotic speaking'

will hire people from a particular country? lets not point finger at that country now because by putting the name of that country in my blog may cause trouble to everyone. ok... lets call that country Republic of Banana United (RBU), so people from that country is call Bananaians.

ok, Bananaians speaks english with a very strong accent. the moment they speak, we know they are a Bananaian. Yes, as compared to many other 'Foreign Talents' in Singapore, they are the ones that could handle English better but so what?! they understand English but they do not understand what we want.

We went to repair my Fujitsu laptop. we bought it just for our round the world trip. It had been a very good traveling laptop. We bought Fujitsu because they have

#1 WORLD WIDE WARRANTY!!!

The specification is the same as the other brand we wanted to buy but the other brand is 30% cheaper and do not have WORLD WIDE WARRANTY.

#2 Fujitsu provide free

1 year WORLD WIDE WARRANTY

3 years LOCAL WARRANTY.

when we were in Brazil, Sao Paulo, something went wrong with my laptop. we need to wait about a week to get a reply from singapore to know were can we sent in our laptop for servicing since it is still within the 1 year WORLD WIDE WARRANTY. yes, after one week, we got the right person to talk to and the nearest place to sent the laptop is USA! we have to ship the laptop to USA?! no thanks. this is what they call WORLD WIDE WARRANTY.

then when we come back, we went to the Fujitsu servicing center to resolve the problem of our laptop that had been bothering us for the last 2 and half years. The laptop is still under the 3 years LOCAL WARRANTY.

friends, do not think that warranty is everything is FOC. We have to pay S$80++ to the company just to let them have a look at the laptop that they sold me 2 and half years ago. then i have to wait almost 1 month for a part to arrive in order to get it solved. when the part arrive, i have to hang around Funan for 5 hours to wait for them to repair.

What's worst is they did not solve my problem! WHY?! I also don't know why. anyway what I want to say here is that the customer service officer that served me is a BANANAIAN!

I told her my problem is ABCDEFG.

She gave me a look that I need to understand her because she just broke up with her boyfriend and she had her period today. There was no smile involved.

She looked around my laptop, type a lot of things into her PC.

Asked me to fill in some particulars and I need to sign some papers.

Then I read what she understands from what my problem is:

GF ED CBA.

She totally took my words, made into her own translation and mis-understood what I want to say.

'Yes sirrrr, your problem of your Laptop, problem A-G is in my list'

'yes lady, but ABCDEFG is not the same as what u meant by GF ED CBA'

then she took the papers back, continue typing at the same time, i realize that there is more than her breaking up with her boyfriend, she gave me a stronger look that she had lost all her shares market and going to the court next day.

I was so afraid.

Then she gave me a newly printed revised edition of what I wanted:

instead of

GF ED CBA

she improved it to

GFEDCBA

'i told myself, com'on. i just came back to singapore. maybe this is happening everywhere.'

i accepted her correction and yet, in the end after 1 month of waiting, after paying $80++ to see a lady and understand Banananian lady had just broken up with her boyfriend and had a bad day coming to work to serve me, my laptop is still the same.

I love foreign talents.

But why is this group of Banananians had such a special attitude? Is it because their mother married a western man and they are kind of a upper class citizen as compared to their fellow Banananians, then they could migrate out of their Republic of Banana United to come to Singapore, thus making them very 'high class' citizen in Singapore.

I remembered I did praised her, I said: lady, u looked very pretty. Are you a Bananian?

She added on, with her nose pointing up: Yes, but my dad is from America.

Q)Do we owe the Banananian a living?

A)I bet not.

Q)Do they have communication problem in Singapore?

A)Absolutely not because they can speak English and many of them are University Grads!

Q)Are the local big business company welcoming the Banananians?

A)ABSOLUTELY YES! they can pay 3 Banananians the same as hiring a Singaporean. So this poor Singaporean, after working for so many years for the company, got a little 'pension' and had to leave the company. or what's worst, the boss look out for some opportunities to kick the Singaporean out so that he would not need to pay the 'pension'.

Q) Are Singaporean adapting to the Banananians?

A) I really hope so.

Another thing I notice that the 'operating system' of a Banananian is different from us. They think differently. A very good example is telling numbers.

We input info from our eyes, we see the number, goes into the 'CPU' (our brain), then we speak it out.

Example the number 912312.

I see 912312, goes into my brain, then output from my mouth is:

Nine One Two, (with a pulse), Three One Two.

But for the Banananians, they are:

Nighty-one, (with a pulse) Twenty Three, (with a pulse) Twelve.

YES! THEY ARE CONVEYING THE SAME MESSAGE!

But whats wrong?????? do u get what i mean?

I really welcome foreign talents. We need them to be here for certain roles to BENEFIT SINGAPORE and SINGAPOREANS! Lets support our leaders in their plan for the Singapore. We should not look down on them even they might be different from us. yes, i am not happy with their work standard but it takes time for them to adapt to us. Singapore too, is made of people from many other countries and today, we are going to built a stronger Singapore by welcoming people that migrated from their country to Singapore. Just like our grandparents did. (for my case, it's my father that came from China).

Now, I am going to google to see which nationality falls under the list of Foreign Talents in Singapore. I hope the Thais fall under it because they had contributed their lives for the construction industry in Singapore for the past decades. Without them, we will have no new buildings today, that you and I are stepping on.

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.

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oh, what the hell im writing about all these, i want to show you guys on our next blog posting on how we ship our bike across the 7 island of Indonesia, how people scribble and vandalize paint onto Hope Too. How we took on the last gamble that we 'show handed'.

Singaporedream on live TV.

Singaporedream on Good morning Singapore, TV8, 31st August 2010.

Before the show, Sam was very nervous and i was very calm,

BUT

During the show, I was very nervous during the show instead, Sam was very calm.

Thank you Jiajia and your team, you guys did a good job!

My Singaporean hero... the list goes on.

WIT*e 2 Sep 2010 from WebInTravel on Vimeo.

BTW, things aside of my trip, in my greatest respect for the first Singaporean, the VERY FIRST SINGAPOREAN 1960s to win a Olympic Medal. In the 1960s, times were hard. If any boy would tell their parents that they want to be a sportsman, they will be scolded. At those times, to get a decent living is also hard and yet, Mr Tan Howe Liang made it. Compared to now, any sportsman that win a medal for singapore would be reward with a $xxx,xxx.xx but what about our forgotten hero, Mr Tan?

Take down your hat now, he is 77 years old and coaching Gym in Bedok. We should not forget our locally grown talent. He stays in Singapore after his achievement, stays in a humble 3 roomed flat and still contribute to the society of Singapore. We should learn alot from him.

I want to take time off to Bedok Gym to meet my hero...

Then, i found a forum about him:

http://comment.straitstimes.com/showthread.php?t=13451

or u can wikipedia about him.

Beautiful Sumatra

Sumatra is a hugh island!
The moment we stepped on, we felt the freedom and we knew what it was like riding a bike. unlike i Java, Hope Too's clutch cable nearly broke as there wasn't much chance for him to lift up till his last gear.

The locals in Java warned us about traveling in Sumatra. They told us that traveling at night must be avoided at all cost. There would be hidden bandits around. This is what they told us.

The second advise is that the road condition was bad as compared to Java. When we travel around, it wasn't so bad, as there were pot holes and some dirt road which doesn't really matter to us alot. Especially we had gone through the East Timor phase.

In Sumatra, we had to keep a look out for buses when we overtake them because the passengers on the bus would spit, throw rubbish or pour out unwanted fluid out of their bus onto the road. So we had to do a quick manoeuvre to escape being 'bomb'.

The first town we stepped on was a busy town. We stopped by a shop and took out our town map to digest. A few locals came over offered help. In the end, one of them escorted us to our destination and said goodbye after that. They were so helpful.

Typical Sumatra Taxi.

Sumatra styled building with curved roof.

Nice beach with good diving sites.

It's not uncommon to see buildings converted into swallow nest.

the very first time we had durian for 2 and half years. Also the first time we had sumatra durian. We were very surprise that the native Sumatra lady could speak Mandarin as she worked in Malacca for a few years in a kindergarten before she came back.

This reminded us of Chile.

The buses in Padang.

we had a quick meal with this lovely family stall by the road.

cool bike.

We crossed the equator again.

We took this picture just by the side of the road.

Sadly, we could not travel all the way north to Ache. We missed Lake Toba. We decided to ship our bike to Malaysia from Dumai because we wanted to meet Crystal, which is Samantha's best friend. She is stationed in Malacca and we would like to be there for her birthday. Meeting up with friends are more important that seeing things, especially those things that are dead!

Indonesia is such a lovely place with lovely people. It is so near Singapore and yet we had not explored it. The decision of traveling Indonesia had made our trip worthwhile.

Many said that Indonesia is messy and dangerous. I guess it is only Batam and Jakarta. Even Johor Barhu is not safe and yet many of the Singaporeans still visit.

There are still many things to see in Indonesia. So my friends out there, forget about going far far away place to visit, have you experience the beautiful Indonesia?

Are we using the road correctly?

I was traveling from Eunos, on the Pan Island Expressway, towards Jurong. the traveling speed that I experienced was the same as the Indonesia Java speed. Which means there was a massive traffic congestion through out this expressway.



1) The speed of traveling in the congestion here is EQUAL to the speed of traveling in the congestion when we were in Java (Indonesia).



2) Singapore's Pan Island Expressway had a total of 8 lanes on both ways, Indonesia Java had 2 lanes on both ways.



3) if u look at point 1 and 2, ain't our driving skills 4 times less efficient than the Javanese driving skills?



4) Indonesian uses horn to say 'hello' or 'do u want a taxi'.

Singaporean uses horn to say 'Get the F out of my way' or the longer horn means 'Get the FFFFFFFFFFF out of my FFFFFFFFFFF way!'



5) do we need to go for social driving ettiquate course? There are so much to learn from our neighbours.

Keeping blood pressure at normal

On the 2nd or 3rd day when we were back to Singapore, we brought Hope Too for a body checkup. We highlighted to the doctor that there might be some issue with the charging system or the battery but the doctor say it's ok, no problem.

I took Sam on Hope Too, to Johor Barhu (Malaysia) on the 7th day of our come back to Singapore. Hope Too need a rest by cutting off the ignition wire. We were stucked there. I need to go back on the same day urgently as I need to report to the army on the next morning.

I took out all the cover, used a small torch light and looked all over the battery compartment, charging system, fuse box and wiring. Trying to catch some loose wire hanging but no chance.

I realised that when ever i turn the handlebar, it cut off by itself.

In the end, I took a rope to tie the wire at the ignition, hoping it would be a little tight. Then i had to ride back to Singapore while maintaining the handlebar straight all the time.

It cost me S$160.00 for a new ignition changed. At the change, I asked another doctor on duty to check for Hope Too's charging system and battary... he twisted the throtter to almost 4000RPM and tell me it's ok...

the above is the old igniton.

2 morning ago, I need to go to 'work'. I started Hope Too and he said he was too tired to move. the battery gone flat, like what happened in Pakistan during Febuary 2008.

I have to take a taxi to Siglap... that cost me more than $20 to report to 'work'.

Why is Hope Too performing badly? So what when we had brought this baffolo back to Singapore and yet it broke down again and again.

Where is our stolen Hope?

We learnt to see through. It's so normal for me to face difficulty and obstacle. So, when ever we face obstacle, we take it easy and smile at the air. This method made my day better and kept blood pressure at a normal rate.

what we did so far for the past 1 month in SG

It has been almost a month since we are back to Singapore. So what have we been doing all these while?

The first week:

Getting use to home, doing home ground orientation, we were having dinner with family and friends all the night. Then we had to push some over to next available date.

Second week:

I went for my annual army training for 2 weeks. It was a great catch up session with all my close friends.

Fourth week: start to look around for $$$ opportunity.

Meanwhile, Sam is taking her driving lessons.

When ever we meet our friends, we talked over our trip. Most of the questions they would ask were:

Where is the best place that we ever been to?
Which country is good for retirement?
How did we ship our bike from different continent? Some strangers asked me did we ride across the sea.
And the best Singapore question is: how much did we spend on the trip.
Many would only want to hear our answer ONLY (the technical answer, either one or zero) and the rest they would shut their ears. We felt so sad for them.
Some even asked about things that had not happened before: Mr. Goh, what if you travel on and the bike breaks down.
Well, we don’t really have an answer for that because that has never happened before. Most of the time I am able to rectify the breakdown. We are sorry for that guy because our answer for him will be the biggest obstacle for him not to go for such trip.


There is an issue in our life, which is settling down.

Many asked: so how? Have you settled down?

What is settling down? Having an 8-5 job and a regular pay? Have baby and have the phone ringing all the time about work and tell friends around that we are very very busy with work?

No!

We had always not settled down. The day that we really settle down would be the day we pass away. Even we pass away; family around us would need to find a place for us to settle down, that is to look for a cemetery. Then they have to pay the cemetery some fees for us to settle down. It would be never ending.

So what is settling down? Is it ok not to get an 8-5 job?

We have more meaningful things to do other than earning money. Now we are back home, life is simple. We look at other people, being so busy with their life, chasing for things that they do not need.

We do understand that some have to be busy earning money to feed their family.

We met a friend, he is so busy. Let’s give him a name: Rat.

Rat has secondary education and he is now working as a crane operator in a shipyard. He has to wake up at 4am and reach home at 8pm. He has to work 7 days a week. His wife is people that gamble a lot. His 2 children, 16 and 13 years old, are in their secondary education.

We know Rat’s family. The eldest daughter is having her O’level examination in 2 month’s time and her results were bad. When ever she finish school, she needs to come home to do some housework and get lots of scolding from Mrs Rat, so that Mrs Rat could go out for gambling sessions.

I asked Rat: why not give her tuition sessions?
Rat answer: you know, some people after getting tuition, their results become worst.

The only hope in their family is on Rat. The children needed guidance from the adult. Yet Rat is busy working earning money for the family which he think it is the most important thing to do at this moment.

As an outsider we see the problem easily.

Mrs Rat care about the gambling and her own hobby.
She took money from Mr Rat to gamble.
Mrs Rat need not care about the housework because the eldest daughter is handling it.

Why not she stops spending the unnecessary money for shopping and gambling?
Why not she lightens the burden of Mr Rat, then Mr Rat would have more time for the children.

What do you think?

Sam and I thought of giving the eldest daughter tuition to prepare for her examinations since the Rat family ‘couldn’t afford a tutor’.

But we stepped back because it would be a hole that would never be filled up. It’s like a black hole.

There is a root to these entire problem and we are studying all these cases.

Friends: what do you think?