New Camera

Meet my new camera: 

It's a Samsung WB250F.

How I came to posses this camera is an interesting story.

About a year ago, I helped to purchase a ticket for LvH to attend a salsa pool party. Because I have a good luck hand (ahem), I selected a ticket that won him this camera during the lucky draw.

After the party, I told him cheekily a few times that I should have a share in the camera since I was the one who picked the ticket :-)

Now after more than a year, and hardly used at all, LvH finally decided to give me the camera as he's planning to purchase a Canon Powershot G7 X instead.

I've been using my old Canon IXUS 110 IS for the past 5 years or so. And a few months ago the flash started giving off smoke whenever I used it. So this Samsung camera has certainly came in handy at the right time :-)

Review: The Neem, Bandar Hilir, Malacca

To celebrate my mum's 60th birthday, my family made a trip to good old Malacca where my late father came from.

My sister selected The Neem for our 2-night vacation. I had a rough idea of what to expect from The Neem after looking at its website. However the real thing looked totally different - in a good way, eventually.

Directions to The Neem on the website was clear and we found the place without getting lost.

This is the road that leads into The Neem. It's located at the back of 2 bungalows fronting Jalan Parameswara.

It's located at the back of 2 bungalows that are fronting Jalan Parameswara.

This is the entrance into The Neem: 

 The beige coloured house on the right is the reception and where the caretakers live.

There are 4 types of accommodation, i.e. chalets of different sizes to suit the number of pax.

Since we were a family of 4, we took Ketapang which is the biggest chalet.

 That's Mum sitting in front of Ketapang.

I like the rustic Welcome sign in front of Ketapang:

The interiors of Ketapang is huge and 4 of us could fit in nicely with lots of room to watch television, read, snooze, etc.

The bathroom is also spacious:

 Only now the Westerners have come up with the Ice Bucket Challenge. We Asians have been doing it since days of yonder. The only problem is we couldn't lift the tempayan, hahaha.

This is the shower and toilet area:

 The rain shower is awesome after a tiring day strolling Jonker Walk and climbing St Paul's Hill.

 Breakfast is included in the package:

 I chose Western breakfast for my first morning which the caretakers prepared in the kitchen. I chose Asian breakfast for my second morning and the caretakers just bought nasi lemak from the shops :-)

The grounds of The Neem is green and even has a small swimming pool as you can see on the bottom left side of this pic:

It's difficult to get a shot of the entire grounds in one pic. This is the best I could do.

There's greenery everywhere:

I like the daun pegaga which are so cute. 

There are water lilies outside each chalet:

I like the cool breeze that ruffles the leaves as I enjoy my breakfast under the tree in front of Ketapang.

There's a trampoline on the grounds too:

I was trying to do somersaults but had to stop in case I fell off the trampoline as there were no safety nets around it.

Eventhough my first impression of The Neem was rather poor because the place didn't look one bit at all like in its website, the place somehow grew on me and I began to like the place. 

The interiors of Ketapang where we stayed was clean and service was good. The caretakers are also friendly and they work hard to ensure their guests are comfortable.

My mum had already said that she will want to stay at The Neem when we come to Malacca again. So what can I say ...

Homestay Experience at Keureni

During our recent trip to Nepal, Angie and I wanted to do something different instead of just trekking our arses off. So we contacted our Nepali friend Raj and he arranged for us to visit the village of Keureni and to spend a night there.

To get to Keureni, we took the public bus from Pokhara to Gorkha Bazaar which was a 6-hour journey. We were seated at the last row in the bus and a fat guy with only one arm was squasing Angie and I to the side. His pants kept dropping whenever he got down at the rest spots and he had a hard time pulling up his pants because he had only one arm, hahaha.

Upon arrival at Gorkha Bazaar, our guides Kapil and his cousin Raj took us by bike on dirt roads to the village of Keureni. The ride was one of the most thrilling for me. We looked like participants in the Dakar Rally and I was hanging on to Kapil for dear life, hahaha.

The village of Keureni is located in a valley:

Before leaving for Nepal, Raj had informed that we could bring stationery for the school in Keureni. Being typical Malaysians, we purchased the items from Mydin because that's the place Malaysians go to buy things in bulk :-)

This is the school that we visited in Keureni:

This is one of the classrooms in the school:

The younger children in the school were just so adorable. Initially they were curious to see us but soon they grew bolder and sang some beautiful songs for us:

It was scorching hot when we were walking around the village that we made a couple of stops to rest under a tree or shade to escape from the heat. Everywhere was dusty and my throat was parched. At the point, I could have downed 2 bottles of mineral water at one go.

There were three girls in particular who were following us around. I guess they were curious at what we were doing. 

After following us around, these three girls mustered up enough courage to ask our names. Christy is the one in the middle. She's the bravest of the lot which makes her my favourite kid in the village :-) 

Currently the main project in Keureni is the building of a community centre so that the villagers can use it for their activities like sewing classes and maybe even computer lessons. 

The idea is to teach the villagers living skills like sewing, craftwork, etc. so that they can earn a living. As what the saying goes ... give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; show him how to catch a fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.

The community centre was under construction when we visited the place in May this year.

The community centre is located on a hill, as you can see from this pic.

The building of the community centre and other projects in Keureni are spearheaded by Dorte Just (from Denmark) and assisted by Dipesh Khadgi who is a local.

They are not affliated with any organisation or NGO and are helping the villagers out of the goodness of their hearts.

Double D: Dorte and Dipesh.

Dorte and Dipesh have got some marvellous plans for Keureni.

They aim to raise 40,000 Kronors this year for the following projects:

1. To finish the construction of the community centre;
2. To furnish the community centre with beds, kitchen appliances and other furnishings for 4 volunteers who will be joining in October this year;
3. To purchase whiteboards and other schooling materials for the school that you saw in the pic above; and
4. To hire a trainer to conduct sewing classes so that the villagers may learn sewing skills and make a living out of selling their handiwork. A kind soul from Denmark had already donated a few sewing machines to set the ball rolling.

The team will also be starting a goat project with the women's group where each family is given a goat to rear for milk and meat.

If you wish to help the village of Keureni, you may contact Dorte:

Ms Dorte Just
Mobile: +977 984 178 7728 (Nepal), +45 6077 6852 (Denmark)
Email: dortenepal@gmail.com.
Blog: http://dortejust.wordpress.com/


This is the house in Keureni where we spent the night:

The owner of this house used to work in Malaysia. In fact wherever we went in Nepal, for sure we'll meet someone, or at least someone who has a relative who worked in Malaysia. Some Nepalese were even wearing Kuala Lumpur t-shirts.

We shared rooms with Dorte:

Our room - it was hot in the daytime and cool during the night.

Eventhough the village has power supply, the condition is poor - you'll never know when the supply may go off. As such, the folks there hardly have electrical appliances. Only a few homes have television sets and VCD player.

When we were there, everything was in pitch darkness when the sun went down and I had to use a torchlight to move around.

I reckon it's a challenge for the villagers to complete their work and students their homework before the sun sets. In fact, I think this is one of the reason villagers in Keureni sleep early and rise early too.

The bathroom and toilet are located outside the house:

The bathroom and toilet have no lights and water had to be collected to fill up the tong. So we had to ensure that we bathe during the day. I have this habit of bathing just before I sleep which is usually at night (obviously). Thank heavens I had a powerful torchlight with me. 

There's a resident spider in the bathroom too. It is so big that it's size will scare the living daylights out of anyone who is arachnophobia.

This are the 3 brothers who are sons of the owner of the house:

L to R: Mohan, Ranjit and Ishwor

These guys can cook, clean and are well disciplined boys. If you have sons, you'd wish for them to be like Mohan, Ranjit and Ishwor.

These boys love their pets:

The goat's name is Mikhael.

Keureni has many farms with chickens, cows, goats and pigs. Coming from the city, I was fascinated with simple things like watching piglets suckling their mother:

I love the way the goats look at me. It's as if though they are smiling:

So the next time anyone comes to my studio apartment and comments on its size, I'll invite them to make a trip to to the village of Keureni for a homestay experience :-)