I'm watching with great interest of what was going on in Perak and frankly speaking, I feel sad about it. Uphold the nation constitutions is what everybody say including the Royals but what have really happened now ?. Was the Perak constitutions really being up hold by the Royals or it was just a mere statement to cover its own unseen intentions from the Rakyat?. Anyway I just hope that the people power willl be given back to the rightful choices which we the Rakyat have voted in March 08. Being a son of the Perakians, mother and father are from Kuala Kangsar , anything that happens to the 'motherland' will never fail to get my attention like any other Perakians. To the PR people, be patient and keep give em a hell of a fightback and please learn that lessons too!
So Melaka trip as intended weeks ago after the Bukit Malawati journey didn't materialised considering there was no proper planning as I was too busy with works and focusing on the coming holidays wasn't really in my blurry mind at that time. Since there wil lbe 3 continuous long holidays due to Thaipusam, then only I feel the need to fill this long holidays and we agreed to head north of Selangor again. This time we went to a place call Bagan Nakhoda Omar (BNO) in Sabak Bernam and with the mission to get some fresh 'sea creatures' like fishes, crabs, squids or prawns for mom in Pasir Penambang, Kuala Selangor.
The journey was smooth sailing until before we reached Kuala Selangor town when the Kavadi's bearers were on their way to one of the temple, just in front of Tesco hypermarket. The police were busy controlling the traffic while the Thaipusam parkers were seen swinging from left to right or vice verse just to park their cars on the left or on the right side of the road leading to Kuala Selangor town. Damn! I should take Rawang - Kuala Selangor roads to avoid this however Mr Policemen did a great job in making sure parkers would not block the road and we had been given a smooth ride to Kuala Selangor town. The traffic jammed wasn't that bad after all!.
Forget about sniffing your nose trying to smell the fresh fishes around Bagan Pasir or Bagan Tengkorak because Pasir Penambang wet market can give you what you want. Yes, the freshly caught of all kind of fishes, crabs, prawns, squids, cockles, lala, belitong, all you can get under one roof with modern facilities. I was told by one of the "taiko' there that these fresh 'sea creatures' were brought in as early as 6 am every day. Any leftovers at the end of the day would be sent to Kuala Lumpur or Klang but most of them will be sold to restaurants and food court centers. If you love to fill your plate with fresh seafoods then Pasir Penambang wet market is the answer. But if you just don't care, then hypermarkets like Tesco, Giant or Carrefour is the right choice. Suit yourself!
This is what Pasir Penambang wet market looks like. Here you can find various choices of the 'sea creatures' I have mentioned.
You can tell the difference between fresh fishes through its color, texture and smell. Fresh fishes look shiny in its scales and bright clear eyes that almost protruding and the flesh is elastic that springs back when gently pressed with a finger against the older ones. I could see Z randomly inspected some fishes and would always finds bright firm coral red-grills in them. Lively blood cockles, freshly crabs, bali tongs or lalas anyone ?
Bought myself 4 L size Kerisi fishes at RM9, more than 1Kg of medium size prawns at RM14 which I think is cheap and 1.5 kg of crabs at RM22, put in a cooler box and stuffed it in the car boot for a long back home later that night. Oh, a small cooler box in a big cooler box belongs to Z and I don't think she admires fresh fishes that much, but would certainly feel different when it comes to shoes, clothes, lingerie, tudungs and I would say a load of 1 ton lorry might not be enough!.Women, sigh!. So be a judge yourself and tell me if it is cheap or otherwise, yes?.
It was almost 1.45 pm in the afternoon when all the sightseeing and buying activities in Pasir Penambang came to an end and the weather was so damn hot when we walked out from the market and decided to quench our thirst at the 'air kelapa pandan wangi' stall runs by one makcik and her daughter.
We continued our journey to Tanjug Karang and to Bagan Nakhoda Omar (BNO) in Sabak Bernam beacuse our journey was just half way accomplished. It took us another 1 and half hour to reach BNO in Sabak Bernam.
We reached BNO at 3.30 pm under the scorching sun on that day. We straight away got out from the car as soon I got a nice parking space under a three. Then we looked for a 'Mee Udang' stall that I have read so much on the net.. You know Z will get cranky due a heat on that day that could made her makeup melt and her face turned reddish while consistently begging me not to park under the direct sun. Women, sigh!. The taste of 'Mee Udang' was superb and that grilled cockles too. It reminded me of Kuala Sepetang 'Mee Udang Mak Teh' that we unable to try during our journey to that place last year so unfortunately we cant make any comparisons between them. Z slowly counted prawns in one plate and found that were at least 10 prawns in it, wow! and I finished it all in less than 5 minutes. Can you get that XL size blood cockles anywhere in KL, no ?
You see BNO is famous among people in northen of Selangor for its recreational and fishing activities. I could see families coming all over Selangor and as far as Teluk Intan or even from Kuala Lumpur who know this place very well. BNO is not a suitable place to do any swimming activities anyway. Its a place for sightseeing, relax and recreation for families. Go find in the net yourself if you want to know more about BNO cause I am not going do it here. I give you some of the pic taken on that day. Enjoy!.
Fisherman village in BNO.
We left BNO at 5 pm as we had one more exciting place to visit in Kampung Kuantan, Kuala Selangor, the place of the famous fireflies. I never been to this place in my life before. We actualy planned to visit the place during our visit to Kuala Selangor weeks ago but due to the bad weather, we posponed the plan until this date. The weather was fine and Z was so persistent in persuading me to make a stop in Kg Kuantan. So we headed southbound back to Kuala Selangor for another one and half hour journey. Reached Kuala Selangor at 6.30 pm and being a environment lover herself, Z told me that the best time to visit fireflies in Kg Kuantan is around 8 to10 pm. It still too early for the visit so we made a stop at Taman Alam Kuala Selangor to perform magrib prayers at one of the mosque there before visiting Kg Kuantan. This was what we found at Taman Alam Kusla Selangor. A bunch of primates being 'entertained' by people around there. One incident that I can't forget was when two monkeys were obsecenly 'humping' right in front of these children and one of the elderly shouted to the children, "Adik tutup mata cepat"!. I saw these kids were caught in a 'shock and awe' situation as they cant understand of what was going on. All of sudden things went quiet because everybody was so damn suprised!. We laughed our butts off after that. Too bad I wasn't able to record 'the incident' on video, or else, I could upload it on YouTube for you to see and I shall be famous! No?
So we headed to Kg Kuantan after magrib prayers and drove to another 7 km from the Kuala Selangor town. We reached Kg Kuantan at 8.15 pm and to my suprised there were lots of cars parked in the compound. Wow, this place is famous! However the place is so dark with limited lights probably not to disturbed the fireflies. Foreign tourist and locals were seen at the jetty when we arrived. We bought the ticket RM10 per person and we had to wait for another 2 persons to share the same sampan with us because the maximum load the sampan can carry is 4 persons. Some pictures at Kg Kuantan Sg Selangor jetty!.
Pardon me for the blurry picture due to the wrong setting I guess. While on the jetty, I said to myself of what on earth this people were looking at as it was so pitch dark out there and I could barely saw some people on the sampans on the other side of the river. There were not a glimpse of fireflies on the tree and not even a single light came out from there. But as soon as four of us got onto the sampan and slowly make way to the river and got nearer to the trees, our perceptions changed! Yes, thousands of fireflies were on 'Pokok Berembang' along side of the river like a christmas trees and it was so beautiful!. We were unable to get any clear picture as the normal camera is not capable to capture any fireflies in that kind of darkness. Now I understand why some environmental activists are trying very hard to preserve Kg Kuantan as the place for fireflies habitants. The Sungai Selangor that flows from Kuala Kubu Bharu is the place where this fireflies live and now fireflies are facing an extinctions due to developments around the area. We have been told by the sampan man that during his 30 years working as the sampan peddler there, thousands of people have visited them. People from all over the world like from Japan, Europe, South America and mostly from the arab countries have visited this place. The fireflies were so beautiful and we left Kg Kuantan at 10 pm and hope someday we will come back again.
Go find the truth in what I'm saying about fireflies in Kg Kuantan, Kuala Selangor. As for me, 3 different places in a day was just priceless !
