CNY 2020

It has become a tradition that Aric organises a family party on day 3 of the Chinese New Year in Parit Baru, his hometown. The year of the Rat started on 25 January 2020 and a few months earlier Aric began thinking already about this party.

The Chinese character for Rat is the same as that for Mouse, so he decided to use the mouse as a theme. All family members had to wear a t-shirt with a mouse, a Mickey Mouse or at least something in the shape of a mouse.

For the decoration of the house, Aric had bought a large quantity of multi-colored LED-lights. When I arrived, on day 2, he had already made a lot of mouse-like decorations. Here he is standing in front of the kampong house, where he was born and grew up.

Three families have been living in this house, Aric’s father and two of his uncles. During CNY, children, grandchildren and relatives come back to this house, resulting in a big crowd. All families have their own rooms and in the common kitchen they prepare their own meals. Quite interesting.

I had chosen a t-shirt, combining my interest in stars and planets with a kind of mouse shape. But… I forgot to bring it to Parit Baru! Officially there was a penalty of RM 50 for not wearing a mouse shirt, but fortunately Jenny, Aric’s sister in law, could not attend the party and gave her t-shirt to me.

WHen I arrived, Aric was still busy preparing more decorations, here with his nephew Andrew. The (air-conditioned) office of the house was occupied by several of Aric’s nieces.

The LED decorations are not so special in daylight, but in the dark they become very attractive.

After editing the picture to the right, I have created a CNY-wish with it and sent it to friends and family 🙂 .

Here is the designer with the final result.

That evening we had a steamboat dinner with the family in the kitchen, while in the living room others were playing card.

Sleeping can be a problem for me, during these meetings, I am a sensitive sleeper and need some privacy. Fortunately the family has a bungalow, a few km away, and we could have an undisturbed sleep there 🙂 .

Next morning started with coffee.

In the morning more family members arrived from KL and preparations started for the steamboat lunch. Parit Baru is surrounded by fishing villages, so the fish , prawns etc can not be more fresh. With so many people we had to eat in shifts 😉 .

In the afternoon a stage was constructed in front of the house, using two lorries and material from the hardware shop.

While Aric and his helpers were busy, it was a good time to take some pictures. Notice that everybody is wearing a mouse shirt (including me haha).

When the construction of the stage was completed and it was still light enough, Aric arranged everybody for the traditional group photo. Almost fifty people!

We had a buffet dinner outside, using a catering service. Later there were several games and there were fireworks.

The grand finale of the evening was a show were many attendees showed their skills, karaoke, wushu, dancing, singing. Not easy to take acceptable photos, quite dark.

It was another successful CNY celebration. Here are some group photos from earlier years.

Kuala Selangor trip

Rodney, a UK friend of us has been in Malaysia many times, but never visited Kuala Selangor! A good reason to bring him there on a half-day trip.

On our way, near Bukit Rotan, we passed a Hindu temple that I had never visited myself. The present Sri Shakti Temple was consecrated in 2013 and is a monumental building, unfortunately closed during our visit.

The front of the temple has beautiful statues of elephants.

Because of the time of the day (3 pm) it was almost impossible to take good pictures of the temple. We will have to come back another time to visit the interior.

Our next stop was the Kuala Selangor Nature Park. We were the only visitors, maybe because it was very hot, but also because Malaysians and tourists hardly know about its existence. It is a mixture of secondary forest and wetlands.

After paying an entrance fee of RM 5 at the visitor center, we entered the park.

We climbed the view tower. During my last visit you could see a lake, with many egrets, but trees had grown, obscuring the view.

There was another visitor on the top floor, enjoying its siesta. We didn’t disturb it, but we were sure our presence was noticed.

It was a pleasant walk. We crossed a mangrove forest on a concrete walkway. Sturdy, but less romantic than the wooden plankway we remembered from an earlier visit.

It was low tide, there were only a few places where we could see water. The whole walk was about 3.5 km, we were very thirsty, almost dehydrated, luckily the visitor center was still open ,so we could buy some cool drink.

Our next stop was at Bukit Melawati, the main attraction of Kuala Selangor. From the top of the hill you have a good view of the countryside.

The cannons are a memory of the past, when there was a fort here. Of course Rodney and I had to prove our manhood 🙂 .

The present lighthouse was built in 1907, the original one was built in 1794 when the Dutch were still ruling this part of the peninsula.

The attractive lighthouse is a good background for pictures. We met a friendly Malay couple there. Left Rodney and me, right with Zarina and Rosni.

And there are monkeys, a few macaques, but mainly the silvered leaf langurs. The young ones are beautifully golden/orange, Zarina told us that there were no babies at the moment, but we were lucky to find a single one, down the road. Changing into an adult, its face grey already.

Bananas and beans are for sale, you can feed the langurs, and they are not shy, some even climbing on your shoulder.

A hidden, almost unknown, gem is the nearby Bukit Belanda (Dutch Hill). From the Dutch fort Utrecht, on top of the hill, not much is left, but the small lake at its foot is very scenic.

Before dinner we drove to the fishing village of Kuala Selangor, at the other side of the Selangor river. We watched the sunset from the Chinese temple there.

The Kuala Sungai (Ah Yu) restaurant in Pasir Penambang, chosen by Aric, has a splendid view of the Selangor River.

And the food was high quality too. Rodney and I could not resist the temptation of big bottles of Carlsberg.

Here is the food we ordered. Forgot to take a picture of the fish ball soup.

After our dinner we visited the Fireflies of Kampung Kuantan, before going home. It was almost full moon and the sky was clear, not a favorable time to see the swarms of tiny fireflies, blinking on and off in a synchronous way. But as it was a first visit for Rodney, still a nice experience.

A rewarding outing!