countryside scenary

I am not sure about you guys, but I sometimes need to get away from busy urban life ..away from the traffic congestion and there is always a need to just chill ...i prefer to go to the beaches, but sometimes going to rural areas (or countryside as it is often called in the west) can also be very calming ...something like a switch from busy day-to-day life and routine to a more relax, with nothing-urgent-to-do kind of thing, if you get my drift ...

when I was in the UK, I sometimes visited Cam's place - which is outside of Newcastle ..and he and his wife often took me for a walk ...sometimes along the river, or we'll go visiting one of these historic gardens, castles and what not ...I find these walks relaxing and all the scenary are very much different from what we have here in Malaysia ...and recently, during one of his visit to Malaysia, Cam was saying something about how he love to explore the villages here and just admire the views coz is is very different from what he called "concrete jungles" of the west ...and that sort of get me thinking that we often appreciate other places more than our own places ...

Alnick Garden - one of our favourite spot for walking

 Alnick Castle - looks familiar? Scenes from Harry Potter movies were shot here :-)

That is very true in my case. I left home after Form 5 and most of my 20s and 30s were spent in Shah Alam (studying and working), Newcastle, and Shrewsbury ...and during that period, i spent most of my holidays in Europe - Amsterdam, Rome, Brussels, Luxemburg, Brugge, Ostend, Paris, Dublin - to name a few ...I glad I did that, by the way, coz now, if I were to go to these places for holiday, I'll be hugely in debt ...too expensive! anyway, upon my return in 2005, I started to get involved in fieldworks to the interior of Saarwak ..and boy, that was an eye opener for me ....I visited placed that I have not heard of, and places that I would never have visited had it not been on my fieldwork lists ...i am not saying that I fall in love with those places, but they opened my eyes to the fact that there are places out there, in my own country that I never knew existed...how sad is that!

and from the various field trip that I had been to, I actually found places which are very beautiful indeed ...and much of these are out of bound for the tourists ...and these are the places that I do fall in love with ....they are unspoilt and the views are awesome! The people are always very friendly ....

beach @ Telok Melano

view of kampung air @ Pulau Gaya, Sabah

early morning @Lundu

having said that, I am not a hypocrite ...I know I cannot survive living in these places, beautiful they maybe, for a long time ...I miss my modern comfort too much! But I vow that, one day, I will visit other places - known and unknown places - in my own country: top priority will be Mulu & Niah Cave