My kids

All in football jersy of the club of their choice ..................

As the year draws to an end ....I would like to wish all a happy and prosperous new year..2009 !.

Spoiled weekend made good....

I have planned my weekend and was going to spend my "Bonus", then I got a call to go to Tawau. Another ship in distress , some mechanical failure on one of its machinery... and there goes my weekend.

I can not turn down the job as there was no one to attend to it ........My branch Sr. guys was on leave and I only have a Supervisor left and he is the best I have. Although, I made it to Tawau the following day but I missed the boat ride to anchorage somewhere at Batu Payung (never been)........My men went off instead with a full written instructions which I have made the night before, knowing that I am going to missed the ride.

It has been a couple of years since my last visit to Tawau and I have also not been to the new office.

View of mosque from my Tawau office :-


The boat ride to the anchorage location was said to take at least five hours, if I would have taken a motor launch. My men tag along the local agent's hired 200HP speedboat and took 45 minutes to reach the vessel. I checked the nav. chart location and found that it was about 45 km from Tawau port. If I have taken the motor launch I don think I will be able to make it back to Tawau on the same night.

Vessel at anchorage :-
While waiting, I managed to do held a quick trainning for my new surveyors.......at least the time was not wasted there while I waited for my men to return from anchorage....

My men returned on the same night and handed over me all the documents collected on board and uploaded photos taken into my Laptop. Wow!!! that was a huge bulk carrier DW 87K tonner he boarded. The bulk carrier cound not approach Tawau anchorage because of the draft limitations at port and she was drawing about 16m draught when she arrived.

We have nice chats and "teh tarik" night out.............

The next morning they arrived early and we have breakfast before they sent me to the airport....

Tawau airport at best:-

Took these self-potraits while in my hotel room waiting for my men to turn up.....

Raya Qurban

It was on the morning of 8 December 2008 (Mon), I have fully charged my batteries and armed myself with a camera to go to town and try to catch whatever is left, if any, of the massive display of "Ketupat" and "Lemang" on sale at the central market.


I usually have a camera with me on Sunday where ever I go but was thinking that I have other matters to attend to so I just left it at home......what a scene at the market and I missed it all..... so in order to salvage whatever was left, I decided to return the next day....but as I was going out and passing by my housing estate mosque ...wow ! it was crowded and I end up there instead of going to the central market..........

This year, I saw 6 cows, 1 buffalo and a goat were donated and by far the most in their record, I was told .

The buffalo was the most difficult to subdue as it was the most fiercest of all and chased after the spectators when it breaks off from its securing rope.

Cowboys of the East........It rained the night before so the area becomes muddy and messy....


After the events, I still went to the town central market, but all the stalls have closed for the holidays......

OBLIGATIONS/WEDDING/HOLIDAY TO TENOM

All-in-one, that’s what I was hoping to archive...... haven’t been on holiday for almost a long time (can’t remember when). I went to one of my cousin’s wedding dinner receptions in Tenom, she was married to a Singaporean where she works and resides now. They returned to base for their obligatory and filial duty. Her mom (my aunt) came to my wedding some 20 over years ago and I took this opportunity to do the same because I missed one of her daughter’s wedding 12 years ago. Time really flies ......and I have never been to Tenom (famous for its homemade coffee from their locally grown coffee beans and is still producing/now a factory). Even the welcome sign on the road is a coffee bean.

The closest town I have been over the Sabah West coast was at Beaufort town, where I attended an opening ceremony of a palm oil mill also years ago.

I wanted to travel by bus form Sandakan, Cos’ I was hoping to take some photographs along the journey but my old man wanted to tag along.....so in order to cut short my travelling time and not to missed my connecting bus to Tenom, we flew from Sandakan to Kota Kinabalu. Arrived at Kota Kinabalu bus station in the nick of time and secured the last two available bus tickets. I found that my cousins (the married couple with their parents) also arrived from Singapore on the sameday and were boarding the same bus to Tenom too.......It was a pleasant bus ride and took relatively a shorter time (3 hours) to arrive than anticipated as the road is now in much better condition.

There is a train service to Tenom but part of the Kota Kinabalu railways were under reconstruction to replace its wooden slippers with concrete type, as such the train service was temporary suspended. Cruising along the steep and winding Crocker Range road was a beautiful sight and experience – foggy cool atmosphere, massive concrete hill side retaining walls, overlooking cloudy hills & valleys and dangerously oncoming speedy passing traffics.

Over taking was one common attributes of the bus driver.....



I was told by my old man that he came for the first daughter’s wedding and remembered that my aunt’s house was built with bamboo and thatch roof with the least of modern amenity like a pit latrine located some distance from the house .... Iwas hoping to see all this and so recorded in with my camera but to my disappointment, the scenario has changed completely. A single floor concrete house, tiled floor connected with piped water, flush toilet and electricity....Astro too!!!!!....with some remnants of wooden store/shed within the compound. However, I managed to take some photographs of the surrounding plants and raised animals.

We found the time to visit Tenom's famous Sabah Agricultural Park located about 15 km form Tenom township on the following day. The beautiful recreational and nature park with an area about 1,500 acres was opened on 25 March 2001, is one of the best manmade park available there (didn’t know it existed until I was brought there by my cousin). Spent 2 ½ hours there with 1 hour tiring walk and also taken the motor driven mock "train ride" to Orchid, Evolution and Model gardens which were located furthest from the park’s reception building. We did not cover all the places as we were not particularly prepared to stay there that long.

Most unfortunately, I also didn’t bring along my camera and decided to snap the below low quality pictures with my camera phone........turns our fine after some photo enhancement and editing....

The park has a web site at : http://www.sabah.net.my/agripark/home.htm


The wedding dinner reception was a simple buffet dinner and they invited all their relatives and folks staying around the area. Mostly, the old folks came (the younger generations were either not home or working out of town). Me and my old man were the only relative from my aunt’s side being present. Her two other remaining brothers (uncles) only managed to send their “angpows” through my old man.


We left Tenom town early on the next day as I need arrived in time to catch the next bus to Sandakan. I also found out recently that the bus station has shifted to Inanam township. I managed to get my company’s driver to fetch us at the Kota Kinabalu bus station to send us to the Inanam station.

I didn’t book a flight back as it will gives me the flexibility to change my schedule....I first panned to return later as I would like to spend another day at Lokawi zoo in Kota Kinabalu to photographs the animals there. I was informed by my colleague that the zoo is worth visiting.....On my last trip to Kota Kinabalu, I managed to arrived at the zoo’s gate but I have only 15 minutes left to check in my flight back to Sandakan.

Unfortunately, I cannot just drop my old man alone in a bus home.

We arrived at the Inanam station at 1130 hours as the bus was about to leave and managed to catch the ride back in time happily.

The bus stopped at a nice spot where we have a magnificent view of Mt. Kinabalu between Tamparuli to Ranau. Initially, I thought it was stopped to allow us to relief ourselves and perhaps have a good view of the mountain. To our horror when the bus driver told us that the bus rear drive shaft’s universal joint suffered a mechanical failure and cannot continue until it was fixed. Otherwise, if the joint breaks we may end up in the gully ......

Fortunately, the bus driver and his crew were good mechanics and they managed to replace the universal joint within half hour upon receipt of the parts delivered by a passing bus sent from Kota Kinabalu. The trip home was delayed by 3 hours and we only arrived at Sandakan at 2100 hours. Dead thirsty and hungry although, we did stopped by Ranau to have a snack. The canteen there was so dirty and I think the food would be similar.....This condition should improve as we have many tourist participating there too.

Between waiting and repair time, I took the opportunity to look around and took some photos of the flora and fauna around the area.




There were lots of changes especially at the road side along the way to Kinabalu National park and Ranau. Lots of motels sprung up at the road sides and private chalets. It actually spoilt the natural beauty in the name of tourism industry.......effects to enviroments and landslides were part and package of the developments.

This trip is not what I expected, I did not have peace of mind as the office has been calling repeatedly but at least we returned home safely and to find out from the internet news that Taj Mahal hotel in Mumbai, India, was being attacked by terrorist..... ...

FAST LANE

TWO DEATHS AND ONE SEVERELY INJURED

I sent one of my guy on an out station assignment and he came back with these horrible (accident horror ) photographs.

The 4 wheeler was said to be over taking and had head on collision with an on coming lorry tanker. This happened near "Check Point" mile 32 of Sandakan trunk road. The lorry tanker was also said to have over turned on the opposite side of the to drain.

The fire department was called in and have to cut open the mangled metal sheets to extract the bodies. The hood was said to be crushed all the way to the back seat with engine exposed and door missing.

On a trip to Lahad Datu once I came across four accidents......but not as horrific to this extend....it gives me the chill to see this kind of accident.

Update on 22/11/2008, another similar incident happened on the next day following this accident.

Piracy

Just saw the news today and another vessel (Saudi-Owned supertanker) was hijacked off coast of Somalia yesterday. This is getting more rampant.

I attended the below vessel and found her crews being traumatised while passing the Somalian waters at the gulf on 19 August 2008.

A Malaysian tanker was hijacked hours earlier before they were also targeted.

Fortunately, the vessel's Master with his evasive manoeuvors managed to escape the modern pirates armed with machine guns. Their vessel was sprayed with bullets marks but luckly all her crew was not injured. Some of her crews signed off upon arrival.

It was also quoted that the brigand are getting bolder and out of control in the lawless water.

My first blog

I have been using the Internet for almost a decade but had never ventured further than checking and sending e-mails, a brief surfing and data searching. Worrying of how and where to get it started has actually stopped me from going any further. Cos! I hate reading the instructions.......

Recently with the help of my daughter, she has registered this account for me and briefly told me how to get about and that is all........well, I have to start some where.

I knew she had her own blog spot account but has refused to disclosed it to me...for reason known to herself. (I did a brief search and found it in less than 2 hours dropped a note on her blog spot ha ha ha ....)

My first picture......Comparing my son with my puppy. Both with the same temperament.

I am a "Flickr" freak too and my pictures can be viewed at, if you have the time......

http://www.flickr.com/photos/abu_shia/