4th Tourism Conference, FHTM, UNITAR

Faculty of Hospitality & Tourism Management, Universiti Tun Abdul Razak, Kelana Jaya hosted a 4th Tourism Conference organized by Event Management students from Bachelor of Hospitality and Tourism Management (BHM) students. Tuan Hj. Idrus bin Yahya, the Pahang Director of Tourism Ministry officiated the event. This event was held at UNIRAZAK main campus on Monday, 19th April 2010. The theme for this conference is “Coastal Pahang Community Involvement in Tourism Development”. A total of 31 participants from final year BHM students participated for this conference comprise posters, publishers, seminar papers, and story boards. This conference is based on their project papers subject for semester January 2010. The research project was lead by Prof. Dr. NorKhomar Ishak. The project involves 11 research team comprises 32 students and 11 lecturers from Faculty of Hospitality and Tourism Management. Each lecturer will supervise 2 - 4 students and they will be divided into sub districts and Kampungs along Pahang coastal from Chendur to Tanjung Gemuk, Pahang. The students involves in fieldwork at their study location for 6 days from 18 – 23 February, preparing publishers, story boards, identify new tourism product and packages and conference paper for Seminar in Industry Perspective subject.

Tuan Hj. Idrus was officiated the event by hitting the gong with the mallet

one of the story board prepared by the research project student

Best Story Board

Group of Research Project

Group of Event organizer. Congratulation to them for organizing a successful event

Tour to Panorama Hill, Sungai Lembing

My tour to Panorama hill is just an unintentional. When I saw one of a blog showing a beautiful view of the hill during sunrise, it’s really grasp me which I plan to go there to see an amazing view of the Panorama hill on my own eye, even though I’m not a hiking person. So I plan to buy a Canon SLR compact camera just to take a good photo once I was on top of the hill. Panorama hill located at Sungai Lembing town, 40 km from Kuantan town. From the Sg Lembing entrance it takes about 5 minutes which is behind the SMK Sg. Lembing. To go here actually you have to be early in the morning if you want to view beautiful sunrise scenery. Some of the hikers climb as early 5 am. The journey takes 45 minutes to 1 hour to reach on top of the hill.

The tracks is very convenience where you just follow the staircase made from concrete, yet I saw some of them wearing high heels (maybe they are local) to climb the hill. While I was climbing, I did saw blind men on the way down from the hill. We when there with three of my research project students. We are suppose to reach there at 6.30 am unfortunately one of my student (a driver) overslept cause us reach there at 7.15am. Even though it’s really disappoint me, but it’s ok, I manage to reach on top of the hill at 8.10 am. The weather on that day is not so good so you cannot see a good view of sunrise. However thanks to my students Fiqri, Rao & CT who assists me in hiking the Panorama hill.

this is one of the track before you reach another 10 meters to the uphill

the peak view of Panorama Hill

view of cloudy Mount Tapis (1512m)

The view of Kenau & Kuantan River from Panorama hill was the only mode of transport during tin mining activities in early 1900

Beautiful flora & fauna maybe as not as amazing as Taman Negara but you will really appreciate it

Journey to Sg. Lembing Part1.

Journey to Sg. Lembing take me breath away. The view of the place is really amazing surrounded with the Kenau and Kuantan River, Panorama Hill and a very greenly and clean town. It is really enjoying for the first timer came here like me to see the serenity of the town. Sometime I wonder if I could buy a piece of land here and built a house after I retired. I really had a great time here with my three bachelor students who are doing their final year research project at Kuantan town, unfortunately we cannot cover this area as our study area.

To go to Sg. Lembing if you are from Kuala Lumpur you can use East Coast Expressway/ Lebuhraya Pantai Timur within the 4-hour journey. Immediately after the Kuantan exit, you will reach a T-junction traffic light, turn right to Sungai Lembing which takes another 45 minutes to reach there. You won’t miss the place because there is the two-lane trunk road with a proper signage to guide you until you reach Sg. Lembing.

Along the road, a way to Sg. Lembing, you can see other villages that was surrounded with palm tree and rubber tree plantations. You may encounter some local drivers with laid-back driving. When you are approaching the town you will see a facade showed “Welcome Sg. Lembing”.

The entrance of Sg. Lembing and on the right side of the facade there is a budget hotel located at the entrance of the town and another 300 meters there is another accommodation name Tiara Guest House just to cater the guest who wants to have overnight stay and see a panoramic view of the town.
The landscape at the entrance of Sg. Lembing shows a big ball. This ball design is to show on the previous tin mining activity at Sg. Lembing where it's call chopping ball which was once use to reduce the size of the rock.

Sg. Lembing is a small town which was once a famous place of tin mining activities. A tin miner leader, Lim Ming signed an agreement with Sultan of Pahang on November 8, 1883 for a land of 2500 square miles for 75 years. The land included Sungai Kuantan, Sungai Triang Sungai Rompin. He and two partners who were staying at Singapore formed the company called “Pahang Company”. The PCCL took over the concession and rights of mining tin ore from The Pahang Corporation Limited and began its operation in 1888. Among the directors of the PCCL were J.E Champney, J.A Bell, A. Currie and Henry Frisby Jr.

After WWII, a new mining company called Pahang Consolidated Public Company Limited (PCPCL) took over the management of the mine in 1946. The local thought they could have a peaceful life after the surrender of the Japanese, but in 1948, outbreak of communist insurrections started, the Malayan Communist Party began sporadic attacks. In order to bring order and stability to the Peninsular, the British administration declared “State of Emergency”.

One of the mining activities Source: Zulkifli (Majlis Perbandaran Kuantan)

During the early 19th century, Sungai Lembing has three big mines namely Willinks Mine, Gagak Mine and Mayah Mine. The depth of the mine is 700 meter and the length is 250 meter which is one of the deepest mine in the world during that time. Willinks Mine was closest to town and was spared from guerilla attack; Gagak Mine was unfortunate to have a British engineer and an administrator badly injured which caused the mine to be closed. Until now you can still see the previous part of the mine area even though the mine has been closed to the public. With a guide by En. Zulkifli (MPK) we had a chance to visit one of the mining area.

This is the entrance to the mining area which had been closed since 1986

 

The view inside the tunnel, it is quite chilled but we only manage to go about 50 meters walk.

This is a previous base of PCCL big engine

During our journey to Sg. Lembing, we manage to meet one of previous PCCL hospital attendant. According to En. Samsudin, the Sungai Lembing residents were given a special pass to exchange and for those who got a pass will get a special rate for any facilities and material sell at Sg. Lembing. Even if you want to buy any product from England such as Clark shoes, chinaware, glassware, branded cloths and others you may get here. The facilities such as post office, hospital, cinema, garden, wet market, school, quarters for miners and officers and recreation club are provided at this town. This PCCL company are very concern on cleanliness of the place where if any of their staff housing area that is not clean, they will get a panelty buy cutting off their salary.

Interview with En. Samsudin a former of PCCL hospital attendant

 

  One of the previous residence of PCCL officers

If you come here you will see 4 same wooden bridges along the Sg. Lembing town use to attach the other side of the settlement

One of the facilities provided to the local during early 1930 at Sg. Lembing is PCCL Cinema.
Sungai Lembing will be continued to Part 2: Kembara to Panorama Hill

Chinese New Year Decoration at Suria KLCC

Every time when Malaysia celebrating festival such as Aidilfitri, Christmas, Chinese New Year & Deepavali, I’m never miss to go to Suria KLCC to watch a fantastic decoration. What I can say that Suria KLCC is among the best festival decoration.

CNY decorations inside the Suria KLCC shopping mall, located at the base of the Petronas Twin Towers, Kuala Lumpur

A Remarkable Place to Visit

Quite sometime I’ve not visit Aquaria. So, last Saturday I plan to visit the amazing place that can release my strain. This is my 4th time I visited Aquaria KLCC since it was open to public on 24th August 2005. If you really concerns about the environment and ecosystem you should come here. A visit to the Aquaria KLCC will take you through a journey of discovery of eco- tourism, flora and fauna with an exciting ambience. The starting point is jewels of the jungle, deep forest, Malaysian rainforest, Amazon flooded forest, the living reef, the living ocean, the interactive imaging zone, and ended to the Aqua zone fish therapy centre. The entry ticket for adult is RM28 (promotion rate) & child RM22. Even though it is quite pricey but it is worth it.

The walkway to Aquaria from KLCC

Aquaria is located in Suria KLCC adjacent to the PETRONAS Twin Towers, you just need to take LRT and stop at KLCC station. Aquaria KLCC is a world-class aquarium that showcases animals and various types of colorful marine life species from Malaysia and around the world. The aquarium occupies 60,000 square feet in the Concourse level of the Kuala Lumpur Convention Center.

Underwater tunnel walkway to view the living ocean

White Sharks


Malaysian Rainforest Living Creatures

Kura-Kura Berkepala Ular (Snake Necked turtle) is one of the largest freshwater turtles in the world

Tarantula the name 'tarantula' comes from the town of Toranto, Italy

Kura-Kura Buaya (Alligator Snapping Turtle)

A Colourful Butterly

The Electric Eel and inside of Eel organ have many muscle-like cells, called electrocytes which each cell can produce 0.15V

Moon Jelly Fish one of my favourite fish

the information centre of the living coral

Education Centre: the information of the importance of mangrove to the ocean which protect coastlines against erosive wave action and serve as natural barriers against tsunamis and torrential storms.