TravePhoto @ Malaysia Bird Parks

KL Bird Park is one of the must visit places in Kuala Lumpur. The open aviary concept of the bird park ensures close encounter between human being and the flipping cuties.

We have visited the bird park few times last year, and, for sure, we will visit the park again in future. With our Nikon P100 super zoom, the beauty of the birds escapes no more. We would like to bring to you some of our photos taken in the park. Hope you enjoy them!

These photos can be viewed at highest resolution on Ling Shing's flickr.

Special Notes:
-While keep the slideshow playing, keep your mouse out of the slideshow "screen" to see the "full-screen" photos.

Go back to Our TravePhoto page. Or read more about our experience in KL Bird Park at:

[KL Bird Park] [All Our Destination]

A Day Tour around Sibu

Thanks to my brother's wedding, we received a band of Perakians in Sibu. They are young, energetic, full of curiosity, adventurous and, that's their first time in Sibu. The town by the River of Goose had plenty to offer. As their tour guide, I had to reveal the hidden gems of Sibu to them.

Sunday, mid of December, 9 am, clear blue sky with merciless blazing sun. We started our journey from Kingwood Hotel to scout for renown dian-bian-hu (鼎边糊) at Sibu Butterfly Garden. Along the way, the story of why the Rejang River is crowned with another name- the River of Swan was told. We stopped at Sibu Express Boat Terminal for a while to visualize the importance of the river to the people in Sarawak.

My original plan- visit Yong-An Ting and the pagoda first before breakfast. But they were really starved. So plan B- the food first.

How good was the dian bian hu? You can tell from their expression. I had to order the food for three rounds to feed their appetite. By the way, they were sitting in Ah Hee Kopi Tian, while ordering dian bian hu from the food stall beside the coffee shop. They tried char mian (fried noodle) and char meehun (fried beehun) as well at the coffee shop.

This is a bowl of the traditional Foochow delight with cuttlefish, home made fish ball, black fungus, blended with Sarawak black pepper. Beware, it is highly addictive!

After the breakfast, they stormed the souvenir shop beside the coffee shop.

Out of a sudden, three samurai appeared in front of Alih Craft (the souvenir shop) ...

Knowing the place of worship is always nearer to heaven, some of them had actually tried to fly right into the heaven...

They did it... for a short while.

Then, I brought them to Sibu Heritage Centre at Central Road. This building used to be the head office of Sibu Municipal Council. We spent nearly one hour in the centre.

Security.... someone is taking photo inside the exhibition hall!!

 12:30 pm, we left the heritage centre to find something to eat (what, eat? Again?).

So I brought them to this very old gom bian shop, Seng Kee at Market Road.

And all of them really "give-face" by eating the gom bian right in front of the shop. Btw, I think the shop owner should give some advertising fee to these ladies to stand a bit longer in front of the shop.

Next stop, Sibu Central Market. I showed them the hand made soo-mee (a special type of local handmade noodle), dried kampua mee (another type of noodle), and some indigenous fruits and vegetables.

This is how the dried kampua mee looks like.

They were lucky. One of the seasonal fruits- Dabai was found in the market. Besides, they found buah Sibau, ikan masin terumbok (Sarawak famous salted fish), and paku (a kind of edible fern). Driven by the tiredness, I couldn't show them many other things, such as tebaloi, the mountain durian, buah terap, sago, mulung, and fresh midin.

Sibu Central Market guarantees no empty hands!

Our tour officially ended at 2 pm, after I successfully brought them back to the hotel. I didn't bring them to Wisma Sanyan, Sibu Town Square and Masland Church at Island Road as all my tour members had visited the places a day before.

A solid five hours tour ended with one conclusion- Sibu is not as small as we thought. Summary of the places that we visited- Rejang Esplanade, Sibu Express Boat Terminal, dian bian hu for breakfast, souvenir shop, Yong An Ting and the pagoda, Sibu Heritage Centre, traditional gom bian for refreshment, and Sibu Central Market.

Finally, I wish to express my deepest gratitude to all my tour members- Trass, Vernie, Yi Mei, Yong, Jessie, Tong Yuen, Jiunn Wai, Ken, Kun, Lih Yik, Pook, Kit Ling, and Xing Jiun, for the opportunity and the experience as a tour guide, especially for the tour on my beloved hometown.

Regards, Ling Shing.

More about our sharing on Sarawak are available at:

[Sibu: Attractions] [Sibu: Accommodation and Food] [Sibu Airport is Now Upgraded]
[Kuching][Matu-Daro to Dalat] [Mukah] [Tanjung Manis]
[All Our Destinations]

Penang Batu Feringghi Beach

If you think to put your feet down the beach with blue clear sea water, a touch of gentle wind with the hued evening sky is an experience of a lifetime, then, you might agree with us that Feringghi Beach is a place for you.

We heard many unpleasant news about the beach before- dirty, full with trash, accidents that brought injuries to visitors, and the list went on. However, the local authorities have their job well done, which recently had transformed the beach into a vacation paradise.

 This is the prove- no sign of trash on this beach. We could see couples were enjoying their romantic moment while the thrill seekers were busy with their parasailing and jet skis (far left).

Parasailing is popular at this beach. The rate was RM45 per person per trip.

The rates of the water sports.

 The lifeguards are on duty during the daytime.

We took our opportunity to take a walk from Bayview Beach Hotel to Parkroyal Hotel through the beach. Slowly, we made it in 30 minutes. Halfway down the beach, we enjoyed this beautiful sunset, around 6:30 pm.

We moved inwards, from the beach to the street after the sky turned dark. The Batu Feringghi Road turns into a night market belt after the night falls. The night market stretched more than 1 km from Shangri-La Rasa Sayang Resort to Bayview Beach Resort. The items offered by the night market were not that attractive to us, as they were basically a repetition of souvenirs, fake branded products, such as watches, clothes, and belts, as well as pirated DVDs. The only thing that attracted us was the food.

As we can see from the photos, there were not many people on the street and, it was not the off season. We learned from a taxi driver that the night market was targeting the tourists, with the items sold with the price slightly higher than other places in Penang. That's why the night market attracts less visitors. Trishaw is available at  Feringghi only during the night time (lower right).

We can get various food at Feringghi- Indian food, Chinese food, Middle East food, fast food, Western steak house, you name it, you got it. We tried asam laksa (some refer it as assam laksa) and fried oyster at Long Beach Cafe (it's a food court). The taste, so-so. The food at George Town and Gurney Drive taste better. We passed by some of the food shops such as The Ship and Golden Thai, and we personally felt that the food over there were over-priced.

This is how Batu Feringghi Road looks like during the day time.

Batu Feringghi and Penang Airport are located at the both ends of Penang Island, northern and southern ends respectively, around 30 km apart from each other. By taxi, we took around 40 minutes to travel from the airport to our hotel, and the fare, RM75. We stayed in Bayview Beach Hotel at Batu Feringghi for one night. The hotel is just by the sea, with astonishing sea side view. We chose the hotel as it is cheaper (bigger room and lower rate), compared to the other major hotels nearby, such as Hard Rock Hotel, Parkroyal Hotel, Shangri-La Rasa Sayang, and Holiday Inn. Location wise, a little bit to the western end of the whole tourism belt, but its still acceptably good. If we use the street, by foot, the hotel is 10 minutes away from Parkroyal Hotel and 25 minutes away from Shangri-La Rasa Sayang Resort (we did a brief calculation when we were moving around the night market). Long Beach Cafe is around 20 minutes away from our hotel.

Bayview Beach Hotel from the street (upper left), with a nice pool facing the beach (upper right). We didn't expect to get such a good view from our hill view deluxe room (lower left), and the room is really big, with many space to move around.

This photo was taken with handphone camera. The wrong white balance setting gives a totally different feeling to the photo. Well, this photo was taken at the beach side of our hotel.

We were lucky to get complimentary breakfast at Parkroyal Hotel, thanks to the conference that one of us had attended at the hotel. 

This is what we could see from our table during our breakfast.

We took the opportunity to walk around and enjoy the nice landscape of Parkroyal Hotel, and this was one of the picturesque scene we saw. In comparison, Parkroyal has better service and nicer landscape, a smaller room, and about RM200 more expensive than Bayview Beach Hotel. 

After we enjoyed our breakfast, we started our journey to Penang Butterfly Farm and Penang War Museum. Follow us now!

All our sharing on Penang are available at:

[Penang Batu Feringghi Beach] [Penang Butterfly Farm and War Museum]
[Penang World Heritage Site Part 1] [Penang World Heritage Site Part 2]

[Penang Accomodation and Food] [All Our Destinations]