Monday, August 3, 2009

Weekend Getaway From The City

We did a weekend getaway to the rainforest resort in Gopeng with the force of four girls and delusional GPS.
Riina was our designated driver while Guat Hong (as the only local from the group) was our co-driver and translator. Bettina was the medicine cabinet and also in charge of our entertainment: a round of Uno or Rummy is the perfect way of spending the last hours of the day. In this division of labor I think I was mostly the mascot... Here are all four of us sipping fresh coconut juice in the town of Gopeng.
Gopeng is quite small but very picturesque town two hours from KL. There is lot of beautiful old wooden buildings. And pigeons, cats, dogs, chickens etc.
While I was taking the photo below an old man stepped out from the gate. I was spooked (under the influence of the endless amount of ghost stories my Malaysian friends keep telling me)!
We stop by the local food market to get some delicious fresh fruits for snacks. 
Like miniature bananas. Aren't they cute?!
After the lunch break in town we continued our journey to Gopeng Rainforest Resort. Janice (lady in a red shirt) welcomed us by showing a slideshow movie of the french school class trip to the resort with Queen songs as the soundtrack.
Still further away, deeper to the forest, with a private transportation in a minibus, we reach our final destination. Little village in heart of the rainforest. Here we pose with our local guides who showed us the forest's treasures and picked out the leeches from our legs.
The trekking began!



Our guru told that the butterflies like especially this plant and it's not surprising with its butterfly-wing-shaped leaves.
After another adventurous trek in a pouring rain we reached this little piece of paradise. It was lovely for a little swim (I'll save the bikini photos later).
This tree looks like a rope.

The bud in this photo is of the famous parasitic flower Rafflesia which was the original reason for our trip. For our disappointment none of them were yet blooming. We should have waited approximately for another week but even the guides can't know for sure. Even the buds were impressive but I can just imagine the effect of the actual flower. It is supposed to stink a lot as well.
Sticks.

No! Look again. If you really look carefully the photos above you can find the little white eyes in the sticks. Introducing to you the brown and green Stick Insect. Quite a good disguise, don't you think!?
Looking for baby butterflies. 
We saw thousands of these beauties and it was an impressive sight. One butterfly landed on my nose and I've heard it means good luck :)

The giggling children of the village were super cute. When our trip reached it's end and we were leaving many tiny hands waved for us goodbye!
Weekend well spent! 
<3 

3 comments:

  1. Hi Elli!
    Enjoyed the pictures and good to know that you are fine there. Some of our workers have seen the blog and will send the link to everyone just to make sure they will get it. Of course most of the workers are still on holiday and our dept. email system has not worked yet, it still on holiday :-).
    Keep up the good work and will keep in touch.

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  2. Woow kaikkee mahtavaa!! Ja vielä ötököitäkin, jihuu. Hey Elli, please tell us a Malaysian ghost story.

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  3. Sam: Thanks for the greetings! I'm happy that my blog has followers :) I hope returning to work after summer holidays has been smooth!

    Lik: I used magic of post-production in photoshop! Also my camera is quite good even though it is only automatic pocket cam ...but it usually becomes shy when there is more professional looking cameras around.

    sss: I hope you noticed the ghost story post :) I've I'll hear more juicy ones I'll promise to share them later!

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