Zero milestone of Lipis

I went to Kuala Lipis today which is estimated around 200km from Subang (oh, I forgot all about setting the mileage meter for today's drive). It basically took me a 2 and half hour drive from the start of East-Coast highway in Gombak where you need to pay RM5 at Gombak toll booth and another RM3 at the Bentong toll booth. It was a very peaceful drive as the whole stretch of journey were not burden with heavy traffic unlike travelling in Kuala Lumpur city centre. Personally, I don't fancy the idea of driving alone towards the town as the road is rather quiet and there are no pitt-stop in between Raub to Lipis, so am lucky to be able to have a good friend accompanying me for the trip.

Geographically, Kuala Lipis town is located at the confluence of the Lipis and Jelai rivers and used to be the administrative capital of Pahang for 57 years from 1898 to 1955 until Kuantan was picked as the new capital. The town is currently segregate between the old town and the new town to cater for the expansion of populations. The central part of the old town of Kuala Lipis is rather quaint one-street town rows of Straits Eclectic shophouses facing opposite each other in similar planning like those found in small towns all over the Peninsular Malaysia.

The most interesting part of Kuala Lipis is the legendary "0" milestone located closed-by to the Post Office in Kuala Lipis. It was said that it represent a distance marker used by the old, pre-independence British administration as well as marking the centre of Kuala Lipis. It was also said that it was the marker of Kula Lipis being the central town in Malaya back then. Current fact was, Temerloh is the central town of Malaysia.

Orang Kaya Maharaja Perba Jelai

It is fascinating that I was made to aware of such history especially related to Jelai-Lipis in Pahang. Today, it has become the first time I ever come across the name of 'Orang Kaya Maharaja Perba Jelai' of which were said as one of the four of higher position officers in the hierarchy of state of Pahang. The 'story-telling' were derived from the conversation topic of land-acquisition of which OKM Perba Jelai were said to be awarded with vast acreage of  land by the Sultan of Pahang along the Jelai River of which were still valid under the constitution shall his heir were to make their claim.

It is an interesting read from these blogs on OKM Perba Jelai:
1. http://ms-my.facebook.com/notes/i-pahang/sasterawan-yang-hilanga/356720877673810?comment_id=5334093
2. http://marisma.multiply.com/journal/item/151?&show_interstitial=1&u=%2Fjournal%2Fitem
3. http://lipis-zaini.blogspot.com/2010/08/seri-maharaja-perba.html

Photo courtesy of 'Cerita dari Lipis'
OKM Perba Jelai with his son Wan Chik and his grandson Wan Ali

Plus, it has become more interesting knowing that  Pahang River (Sungai Pahang) only begins from the joint of Jelai River (Sungai Jelai) and Tembeling River (Sungai Tembeling) without precise mention of where its actual upstream source actually begins. Given so, it may come from multiple sources?

Nooks and crany of architecture dreams

Living the architecture dreams is not always about glamorous skyscrapers, hitech towers or exclusive bungalows..nor it is about LV's bag or jimmy choo's stilettos..but sometimes it's also about making those dreaded journey deep into certain nooks and crany that 'ordinary people' would not do just because they cant understand what 'architecture dreams' is all about...

I'm doing the Subang - Kuala Lipis - Subang route today and am feeling like an express bus driver!

'killing' 3 route in a time

I managed to lump everything and make it into one journey and in just one day - the route to Raub, Benta and Lipis!! Damn exhausted!

Presenting at Lipis Municipal Board Meeting

Start my day early, as I have to make arrangement to meet up with my colleague at Skypark where he'll be arriving from Tioman for the presentation and another colleague will come and drive us all to Kuala Lipis.

Everything seems to turn out well, except that I realised that I have misplaced my broadband dogle and it is nowhere to be found. Lunch was not at the usual place but we do had our quick lunch anyway. We made it to the Municipal building on time, but instead of following the schedule of starting the meeting at 230pm, it has somehow dragged on to start only at 3pm. And despite an earlier brief that each participants were allocated 10 minutes each, all three of teams have presented more than that, leaving us as the last team to present at the very end of the day. I hate it when we were left at the mercy of others and can't do much about it-like the whole thing being dreaded way to the evening, and wasted our precious time doing practically nothing except filling-in the time with babling away. It was 530pm when we finally done and there's a 'tea break' where we had to 'show face'...ay..yay..yay..drag on..

So, when we finally leave Lipis, it was already 630pm and dark cloud has already unleash its storm!! So, we can't speed much and we finally reach Kuala Lumpur at 8pm!