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Kuala Kubu Bharu locality and activities

Welcome to the small town of "Kuala Kubu Bharu". The pre-war building of the new Kuala Kubu Bharu town has its unique beauty even at night as shown in the photo.

Ampang Pecah River

Kuala Kubu Bharu is also known as ‘KKB’. It is a small town at the foothill of Fraser’s Hill. It’s the mining industry that this little town started in the 18^th century. There was a town called Kuala Kubu nearby. In February 1883 the Kuala Kubu town was destroyed by a great flood caused by a broken dam near the town. Many civilians drowned or lost their home. The flood victims included a district officer of Kuala Kubu during the British era named Sir Cecil Ranking. The old town was severely flooded and most of the old town's facilities were damaged beyond repair. A Buddhist temple and a mosque survived the flood. The old town has since been known as Ampang Pecah, or Broken Dam in the Malay language as shown in the photo. The tragedy was probably known as Tragedi Kuala Kubu by local civilians. After the tragedy, the British government decided to build a new town near the remains of Kuala Kubu. The new town was named Kuala Kubu Bharu, with Bharu meaning "new" in the Malay language. 

The new Dam on the way to Fraser’s Hill from Kuala Kubu Bharu is a new attraction where you can find eagle flying around while enjoying the breeze. In these areas, there are interesting pre-war bungalows and left over old Pre-War lost train in the middle of the jungle.  The Pre-war lost train was discovered by the Orang Asli (Aborigine) and someone asked me to go into the jungle to take the photo as people wanted to see the photo of it. So, in 1990, we took a full day hiked into the jungle with the “Organ Asli” as our guide, crossing a few rivers, climbing hills, enter into secondary jungle seeing gigantic plants and insects (the ants are bigger than my palm – imagine how big they are) and the worst part is getting rid of the “leeches”. After seeing the photos, some groups started to hike in to see. At one point, KTMB thinking of airlift it out but didn’t materialize. In this case, this area should be proposed to classify under “Heritage site” with Malaysian Heritage Ministry and also with Malaysian Guinness book of record as “The oldest Lost Train in the middle of the jungle” hardly known to many. This will give the locality a new brand image when promoting to visitors.

Chilling Waterfall @ Pertak

Besides being a historical site, there are popular activities around this locality are for nature lover with high adrenaline who can go for “white water rafting”. Jungle trekking and visiting Chilling Waterfall - one of the most beautiful waterfalls in Selangor are something not to be missed. Chilling Waterfall can be reached after an adventurous trek along the river, which has to be crossed a few times. Now, you get to cross the 1^st river through the newly constructed suspension bridge. We have the adventure when we embarked to search for this beautiful waterfall (don’t even know the name then) in the early 1990s without any trails that we used “parang” to open up the walking trails, make marks along the way for return journey and with ropes that was used for crossing the river since the water is really strong. There is underwater current at this waterfall that has claimed a few lives so we have to be careful. There have been a number of development in this locality cater for the tourists here and this has been a popular destination too. The Chilling Waterfall becomes popular after the dam was project completed in 2003 inundated the valley in which the river used to flow, so that now the waters of Sungai Chilling feed into a lake instead. 

In the evening, there is a nice lake at Taman Milllenium Kuala Kubu Bharu especially the sunset if the weather is good.

Peru Adventure

It took me more than 36 hours to get to the other end and landed in Lima Peru, South America from KL. South America has not been the popular destination for Asians but it’s a wonderful place to visit. I travelled there alone since I didn’t manage to find anyone to travel with me. Today’s internet world has made the world smaller. I found a friend from “Couch Surfing” and I stayed at her place in Lima. I arrived late at night and the cab went a few round to find my friend’s apartment. My ears were so badly infected that I had to visit the hospital nearby the next day. I was very glad to have my friend as a translator. I was grounded for a week due to ear infection so I could only spend the rest of the week in Lima, Peru before I could fly to other parts of Peru. Below showed parts of Lima where I stayed – the hill with no trees, the hospital, the public transports using the van and the local surrounding. 

On Monday afternoon, as I was trying to take a nap, my room shook very strongly. I imagined the TV was going to fall on me. Then, I came out of the house just like the rest of those living there. One lady upstairs came down with her towel as she had her shower at that time. I asked someone and the answer was an earthquake. Then, I WhatsApp my friend at work. She responded that I came at the perfect timing to visit the hospital here and experience the earthquake of magnitude 5.9.  

My friend’s uncle who is a chef brought me to visit biggest wholesaler in Lima. Gosh! The cones are in purple color not like ours in yellow and they are really huge. The vegetables and fruits are in varieties and huge. Basically, we could find all types fruits and vegetables. There were performers who just performed during traffic red lights in the middle of the road and collected some money from the motorists. We could even see them performing with fire at night if we were lucky enough.

I had an interesting time shopping for “Charango” musical instrument as well. The charango is a small Andean stringed instrument of the lute family – smaller than guitar with 10 strings. There were about 50 shops around the same area selling the same thing and we could easily test as well as bargained. An average “Charango” costs about USD 50 and professional one costs about USD 120. I learned to play one of the popular songs.

I went to Mirafloras and the sea wave was strong. This was a fantastic place for windsurfing and hand glides too. Mirafloras is the tourist area by the beach with expensive hotels, shopping etc. Baranco which was also by the beach with left behind Spanish historical buildings had bars at night. The interesting part was taking the bus to these places with bus lane only without any vehicles able to cross over to the priority bus lane. The usual place to be visited in Lima is the Cathedral museum and the surroundings. In Lima, a must visit at night is “Parque De La Reserva” - the water fountain.  We enjoyed the night with musical fountain and the show was great. We walked through the tunnel with mural and came to another place to take the bus back. At this spot, I was asked to keep my camera and keep quiet as it was not very safe since it’s late a night. 

Peru offers the magnificent tourism. Usually, people fly straight to Cuzco to see Machu Picchu but another option is to travel to Arequipa, then visit Colca Canyon, travel to Puna and then Cuzco and Machu Picchu for the best of Peru. Arequipa offers the historic centre built in volcanic sillar rock. This place represents an integration of European and native building techniques and characteristics. There were lots of small yellow colour taxis like Malaysin “kancil”. This is a good place to see parade from the top of the building. Here is the city to taste the speciality cheese ice-cream known as “Queso Helodo” – Yummy Peruan Ice-Cream.

At the right timing, we could see the Misti Mountain “smoking” – the active volcano mountain. We could see snow at the top of this mountain. During the day it was hot but during the night it was cold even though it was summer time. I enjoyed the monastery and the sunset at this place. 

The journey to Chivay a small town with hot spring was stunning as we passed through the Miracle de Ios Andes @ 4,910 m above sea level as shown in the photos. On the way, there wasn’t any snow but after the rain in the afternoon and night, there was snow along the same road the next day. We passed by the nature park and saw the wild “llama” running around. Furs of “llama” are among the most expensive in the world. We stopped in a local town before our journey to Colca Canyon where we could see the mountain covered with the snow cap. The locals here dressed in local dresses danced around the piazza.

Peruan Andes Colca Canyon is the third most-visited tourist destination. Colca Canyon is a canyon of the Colca River in southern Peru, located about 100 miles (160 kilometers) northwest of Arequipa. With a depth of 13,650 ft (4,160 m), it is more than twice as deep as the Grand Canyon in the United States. The Colca Valley is a colorful Andean valley with pre-Inca roots, and the towns founded in Spanish colonial times are still inhabited by people of the Collagua. The Cabana cultures still exist. The local people maintain their ancestral traditions and continue to cultivate the pre-Inca stepped terraces. We walked around this place to capture the “Condor” – the most popular and biggest bird in this region. There are others birds around and it is an excellent place for birds watching and for nature lovers. The road to Colca Canyon is rocky with steep ravine.

 My next destination was Puno city south-eastern of Peru, located on the shore of Lake Titicaca, the world's highest commercially navigable lake, at 3,860 m (12,421 ft) above sea level, on the Peruvian Altiplano. Lake Titicaca in Puno has 41 floating islands and these islands are made of reeds grown on the lake. To this day, the Uros people maintain and live on these man-made islands, depending on the lake for their survival. This is a large tourist destination. Dragon Boat racing, an old tradition in Puno, is a very popular activity amongst tourists. Fish is the local delicacy here.

I was lucky enough to have a friend from US here and she came after work and we walked around Puno City. The night lights were fantastic especially the lights in the Church. I also tasted the barbeque beef with potato by the roadside which is their local delicacy as well. There were music festival and concert at the time. After that we went to a Pizza restaurant that also served hot alcohol. I tasted “PICSO” which is their local speciality hot alcoholic drink. The hotel closed early and need to press the doorbell at 11pm.

The trip by the touristic bus from Puno to Cuzco was fantastic with Wifi in the bus. We passed by the Juliaca where the nearest airport was located. It is also a town with manufacturing. Nevertheless, the town was covered by mud with lots of potholes here and there. There were lots of three wheel bikes around during rainy season. The town is similar to lesser developed country like Myanmar or Cambodia. Along the way, we stopped at Pukara where the museum showed the history from Stone Age as well as alien discovery. We passed through La Raya the peak at 4335 above sea level with beautiful scenery and mountain animals. After lunch, we passed and stopped at Andahuaylillas famous for its baroque church dedicated to Saint Peter the Apostle and the magnificent frescos that adorn its walls. We also visited the archaeological site of Raqchi where the majority of the constructions are from the Wiracocha period and found many potteries and other artefacts related to the cultures of this location. Many archaeologists dated this place from 200 B.D. approximately, almost 2000 years of occupation. It took a day trip from Puno to Cuzco and the journey was interesting. 

Cuzco was cold but an amazing historical city. My hotel room was right in front of the fountain and within walking distance to Cathedral and touristic surrounding. The Cathedral has beautiful painting. I was there when there was parade around the same vicinity. Since it was December 8, a national holiday in Peru set aside in celebration of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, there were lots of festivals and I was lucky enough to find a stall selling “guinea pig” and tasted it. That is their local delicacy. There are many museums around this area and it is worth visiting. Cuzco is beautiful at night too even though it’s cold to walk around. I managed to capture the night view of the surrounding of cathedral. There are many beautiful places surrounding Cuzco and I enjoyed the greenery. 

 

On the way to Machu Piccu, we visited Ollantaytambo. Ollantaytambo is a town and an Inca archaeological site in southern Peru some 60 kilometers northwest of the city of Cusco. It is located at an altitude of 2,792 meters (9,160 feet) above sea level. Nowadays it is an important tourist attraction on account of its Inca buildings and as one of the most common starting points for the three-days, four-nights hike known as the Inca Trail. Places of interest at Ollantaytambo include the Terraces of Pumatallis, Araqhama and the plaza of Manyaraki, Wall of the Six Monoliths and "The bath of the princess"- the fountain at the base of the ruins.

There were many individual travellers from other countries. We made friends and enjoyed the places together. The Korean guy and the Swiss lady invited me to climb the Pinkuylluna and I joined them. We climbed for an hour through the narrow steep way up to the Inca Storage Place known as Pinkuylluna while waiting for the train ride at 7pm to Machu Piccu. The traditional Chicha drink in Perú is made from the manioc root, yucca root or maize. It can be found here and it is good to try. We also visited the Chocolate Meseo before walking to the train station. Besides getting a chance to taste the Peruan Chocolate, another tourist from Switzerland brought Swiss chocolate and shared with us too.

Finally, the most popular Peru destination and voted one of the new Seven Wonders of the World in 2007 is “Machu Picchu”. Machu Picchu is a 15th-century Inca site located 2,430 metres (7,970 ft) above sea level. Machu Picchu was built in the classical Inca style, with polished dry-stone walls. Its three primary structures are the Inti Watana, the Temple of the Sun, and the Room of the Three Windows. These are located in what is known by archaeologists as the Sacred District of Machu Picchu.

The view was stunning from here and as I passed through the doorway, the height of Inca people is like Asian. There are a few sites which require us to sign the book before walking to the site like the “Inca Bridge” as the walk-way was narrow and dangerous but the view from the top is stunning and it’s amazing to see how Inca built the walkway by the mountain. We had to chop our passport with Machu Picchu chop on our walk out. By the way, if you’ve the International Student Card (ISIC), you’ll be able to get the ticket at a discounted rate but must bring along both the ISIC and passport to purchase the ticket at the ticket counter as early as 6.30am.

My Peru Adventure ended in Lima, Peru with my host celebrating my birthday before I flew off the next morning. 

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