A Day with Selangor Javanese Community at Banghuris Homestay, At The Host House

by Cleffairy // April 27, 2015 // No Comments

I have some readers emailing me, asking how the actual ‘guest houses’ are in Banghuris Homestay. Will they be the authentic kampung houses? How the facilities will be? Are there any WiFi that you can use? Any hot water shower?

Well, since you asked, here’s a little glimpse on one of the participating houses.

After the teatime picnic by the fishing pond in the previous post, my family and I were taken to our assigned host’s house for a rest. This is our host’s house. It is pretty much a modernized house located deep in the kampung area. I can’t say the same about other participating houses though. I spotted some that’s completely traditional, architecture-wise.

Our room. With two single beds, bathroom attached and fully air conditioned. There is extra mattress for you to spread on the floor. So I suppose this means one room can accommodate more than just two people and is suitable for families of four. There was no hot water shower or WiFi here for you to connect your devices to. But no, that is not a complain as this is the REAL kind of homestay where you are not actually just renting a room to stay but you are staying with your host and their family and you are expected to blend in with their lifestyle as a part of the family. That would simply mean, you have meals at the same table with your host and you participate in whatever activities your host’s family is doing, so when you stay in these kind of homestay, don’t just lock yourselves up in the room. That is simply rude and ungracious as they are not just treating you as a guest, but as part of their family.

I love the fact that I was being given the opportunity to experience it all; staying with a friendly family in the kampung and I get to be a kampung girl for the day.

We rested here is our host’s house with world class hospitality where all our needs are taken care off before getting ready for the main agenda that night, The Nasi Ambeng Festival 2015.

You may read all about Nasi Ambeng Festival 2015 in my next posting.In the meantime, here’s some info on Banghuris Homestay:

Banghuris Homestay won The Best Homestay Award in 2014 by Tourism Malaysia and is an abbreviation of three kampung names; Kampung Bukit Bangkong, Kampung Hulu Chuchoh and Kampung HuluTeris. Basically it is three villages forming a homestay with 80 participating houses providing homestay service. It is about 35km from Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) and 97km from Kuala Lumpur. The nearest tourism attraction to Banghuris Homestay is Sepang Gold Coast, which is about 15km away.

Right now Banghuris Homestay is offering RM250 (per pax) for a 3days 2 night package that is inclusive of meals and planned activities. Great for kids during school holidays and for those who wants to experience a kampung life.

Info on Banghuris Homestay, should you are interested in staying there:

Address
Banghuris Homestay
Jalan Tailong
Kg. Hulu Chuchoh
43950 SG.Pelek
Sepang Selangor

Phone: 03-31421019

Email: [email protected]

A Day With Selangor Javanese Community at Banghuris Homestay, Teatime Picnic

by Cleffairy // April 27, 2015 // No Comments

It was about 3.30 pm when we’re finally done with taking photos at the bamboo farm in Banghuris Homestay. Everyone was famished after all the excitements. Fortunately for us, our ever so gracious host brought us to have tea, picnic style by the fishpond.

The fishpond was located somewhere nearby the Banghuris Community Hall. There was a fishing competition going on that day in conjunction of the Nasi Ambeng Festival 2015, and participants can be spotted fishing from where we were sitting.

It was scorching hot, and our host served us the perfect remedy to combat the heat; coconut juice, freshly plucked from the coconut trees in the vicinity of the Banghuris Homestay.

The freshly plucked coconut was then paired with all time favourite kampung teatime delicacy: cucur udang, goreng pisang and ubi kayu rebus with a side of sweet and spicy sambal. Seriously speaking, this is one of the best teatime meal that I’ve had in a couple of months. I usually skip teatime as I’m usually still full from my heavy lunch meal; either that or it’s the usual English style cakes or sandwiches paired with mineral water at my working desk. It’s really been awhile since I enjoyed traditional goodies like this and boy, I surely miss the good old times where I sit with my grandmother at the verandah while having tea with traditional kuih like this.

I suppose my lifestyle has chanced to somewhat a fast paced lane, where everything is quite fast and modernized and looking more to the Western side of things.

I have forgotten the simple pleasure of just having traditional teatime such as this one and I sure am glad to be reminded about simplicity of life where you just sit by the fishing pond, and just enjoy your food and catching up with your companions. I enjoyed the little picnic by the fish pond and surely, I hope it will not be the last.

Next: A Day With Selangor Javanese Community, At The Host’s House.

A Day with Selangor Javanese Community, A Visit To The Bamboo Farm

by Cleffairy // April 27, 2015 // No Comments

One of the beautiful attraction in Banghuris Homestay is their bamboo farm. Located a few hundreds meter away from the Banghuris Homestay Community Hall, the place have been a favourite location among not only tourists and guests, but among photographers for pre-weddings and wedding shooting as well.

Here’s sharing some photos we took from the Banghuris Homestay’s Bamboo Farm.

A group photo of us Rakan Media Tourism Malaysia.

The pictureque bamboo farm is not only great for pre-weddings and weddings photoshoot but it’s also great for pregnancy photoshoot. Provided you are not superstitious, that is. There are plenty of taboo where pregnant mothers are not allowed to go to places like bamboo farms. It is believed that there are evil spirits in places like this and it will harm the unborn baby.

A candid photo taken when my friends are busy trying to get a selfie.

The place is lovely, isn’t it? The truth is that Malaysia have alot of pisteresque places where you can make it as a background setting for your photography shooting. You don’t have to go far for just to take beautiful photos. Malaysia has it all. Banghuris Homestay is one of it.

Info on Banghuris Homestay, should you interested in staying there:

Address
Banghuris Homestay
Jalan Tailong
Kg. Hulu Chuchoh
43950 SG.Pelek
Sepang Selangor

Phone: 03-31421019

Email: [email protected]

A Day With Selangor Javanese Community, Lunch Kampung Style

by Cleffairy // April 24, 2015 // No Comments

After the friendly traditional game match with the kampung boys at the badminton court earlier, we’re finally off for lunch.

Our host’s house. The host has taken the trouble to not only prepare lunch for us but also attends to our needs for refreshment and prayer break for the Muslims.

Generous lunch spread prepared by our host.

They have certainly gone all out for us. Just take a look at all these dishes. They are all authentic kampung dish delicacies.

A humble plate of plain steamed rice with traditional dishes. Clockwise from bottom left; nangka masak lemak cili padi, sambal tempe, kangkung goreng belacan and a side of jantung pisang, ulam daun tenggek burung and sambal belacan. These are not strange dishes to me. In fact my husband and I buy these from the Malay economy rice stalls pretty often…and would gleefully eat them by using our fingers if we buy takeouts and dine at home, but these are strangely addictive. Believe it or not, my husband had two huge plates of these, and took plenty of ulam to go with the rice, especially the ‘tenggek burung’ leaves (literally translated as the perching birds leaves).Being almost a carnivore, I was reluctant to try the leaves at first. I don’t always fancy greens, but when I did, I ended up like him; keep adding up a handful of the leaves to go with the rice. The leaves goes well with rice and sambal belacan, and tasted pretty much like sourish mango, slightly on a bitter note.

Lunch was a pretty interesting gastronomic affair, I must say. Something that we definitely wouldn’t mind doing over and over again in Banghuris Homestay, but such pleasure must come to end. Fortunately for us though, the day is still young and more adventures and surprises awaits us.

Next up: A visit to the bamboo farm.

A Day with Selangor Javanese Community at Banghuris Homestay, Traditional Games

by Cleffairy // April 23, 2015 // No Comments

It was scorching hot and our media entourage was on on the way to lunch in one of the host’s house when we were stopped half way by some kampung boys whom issued us a challenge to a friendly match to traditional game when we passed by the badminton court. 😛 They were so persuasive that we thought, oh hey…why not? The people are so enthusiastic and it is just so wrong to say no to their invitation.

Here’s city boys turned kampung boys, wearing their batik sarong in a rather fashionable way, just before the friendly match 😉 Spot a hijabista wannabe in the photo? Well, everyone had a good laugh over this one.

The boys gets to play this game: Kicking The Feathers or locally known as ‘Sepak Bulu Ayam’ (Tating Lawi). I’m not quite sure of the rules on playing the game but as far as I’m concerned, it is a traditional game where a group of people form a circle and try kicking the ball that is made from chicken feathers as much as they can without dropping it to the floor. Those with most kick wins the game.

Us ladies were given a chance to play the traditional tag, chase and catch game, Galah Panjang too and boy, despite the fact that we did not really know how to play the game, and chaos ensues with excited scream and screech when we chased each other, we really had fun!

Here’s us, taking a break after the game before really heading to lunch. 😛 As I was resting and rehydrating, I keep thinking that Banghuris Homestay is definitely an interesting place to visit, and how simple kampung life is. We are often caught in rat race and the city kids are mostly glued to the gadgets rather than play games like this that provides real fun that enables you to interact with the people around you. Modern life is indeed sad and even more so for children who are usually locked away in tuition centre most of the time after they started schooling. Even their weekends are stolen from them in the name of academic achievements.

But for what it’s worth,I’m never the conventional parent who believes in just academic achievements and I never bother putting my son into any extra classes and whatnot, and throughout it all, I’m glad to be able to let my son see and experience all these in Banghuris Homestay first hand, and I sure hope other parents who are looking for a holiday with a difference consider a visit here. 🙂

A Day with Selangor Javanese Community at Banguris Homestay, The Air of Festival

by Cleffairy // April 22, 2015 // 3 Comments

After such a scrumptious breakfast earlier, it’s time for us to walk around a little bit. Ms. Mai, our assigned tour guide then brought the media entourage to the Banghuris Homestay Community Hall where there are loads of activities going on in conjunction of the Nasi Ambeng Festival 2015 that is jointly organized by JKKN and Tourism Malaysia Selangor for MyFest2015.

First we visited the makeshift camp where villagers are working together to make Nasi Ambeng that will be served that night. The media entourage were given brief information on what is Nasi Ambeng and how to make it, but unfortunately for us, the entire recipe remains a mystery. There is no disclosure of exact measurement of the ingredients and whatnot for Nasi Ambeng.

After the visit to the makeshift camp, we spotted a traditional musical performance by ‘Chempuling’; musical group performing all sort of traditional Javanese music by using both traditional and semi modern musical instruments.

Batik painting and batik colouring competition.

Flower arrangement competition

Here is a closer look at the flower arrangement by one of the participants. Lovely, isn’t it?

Apart from that, there is also a moderate scale bazaar where the villagers sells clothes, food and local produce.

Although I don’t need any new outfit with all the piling clothes that I got from H&M during my previous shopping trip, I still couldn’t resist but got myself a pair of traditional Baju Kurung from one of the stall at the bazaar. The seller was a friendly villager who told me that it was hand sewn and insists that it will look beautiful on me. And I can’t help myself but have a grab at it in an instant. Oh hey, don’t blame me! It was sold at RM15 and definitely a steal. You can never get such a great bargain for a pair of Baju Kurung in the city for that price, period!

After lurking around for quite some time, we were then ushered to lunch and our next agenda of the day. The break was indeed welcoming as it was scorching hot and us members of the media are in desperate need of refreshment.

Next: A Day With Selangor Javanese Community at Banghuris Homestay: Kampung Style Lunch

A Day With Selangor Javanese Community at Banghuris Homestay: Kampung Style Breakfast

by Cleffairy // April 22, 2015 // 11 Comments

I visited Banghuris Homestay with Sahabat Media/Santai Travel in 2013 for the launching of Voluntourism Program in Bagan Lalang, Sepang. It was a very memorable experience where we were treated to first class kampung hospitality. You can read all about my adventure in Banghuris Homestay HERE.

And so, when I was invited again for a revisit by Tourism Malaysia Selangor this year to Banghuris Homestay for their ‘A Day With Selangor Javanese Community at Banghuris Homestay in Conjunction of Nasi Ambeng Festival‘organized by JKKN, I couldn’t resist. I knew I had to say yes. Deep inside, I knew without a doubt that it will once again be a fantastic experience although the program is completely different from my previous visit.

Our journey began as early as 7.30am from Shah Alam and here’s part of the the media entourage. 😉 Us ladies posing with the kain batik provided by our host. How’s that for a kampung girl image? 😉 Can you spot me in there?;

Upon arrival, we were taken to a kampung house for breakfast by our host.

Tuan Haji Wasir Wagiman, Manager of Banghuris Homestay, fondly known as ‘Wak’, giving his welcoming speech and introducing us abit about Javanese culture and their food.

The breakfast served is catered to give you a complete kampung experience where the breakfast spread was carefully laid on the floor and you are required to sit and enjoy your meal communal dining style. 🙂

Here’s the traditional dishes served as our breakfast.

The common Nasi Lemak and Sambal Tumis. Being a fan of all things savoury, I enjoyed this dish very much and had three plates of it. The coconut rice was rich and flavourful while the sambal was surprisingly more on the sweet note. I would go for the fourth plate, but I was feeling rather shy to add anymore onto my plate. 😛

Lemet Singkong Gula Merah is a traditional Javanese dessert made from steamed rice flour, brown sugar and ripened cassavas as the filling. Wrapped up in banana leaves, the texture is very chewy and tasted very sweet. I’ll be honest, I’m not really a big fan of sweet stuff so I find this dessert a bit overwhelming on the palate. However, I’m happy to report that everyone else seems to enjoy it a lot.

Tumtuman. Similar to the Lemet Singkong Gula Merah this coned shaped dessert is also made from steamed rice flour, but instead of cassavas, it was made with sweet, ripe bananas. Wrapped in banana leaves, this moderately sweet kuih is irresistible and provides instant comfort to a growling tummy.

Lempeng Tepung is actually the humble flour pancake. It’s bland to be eaten on it’s own but to die for when taken with savoury or sweet dips.

Taucu Ikan Bilis. I foolishly thought this was supposed to be paired with Nasi Lemak so I had these as my Nasi Lemak gravy along with the sweet sambal, only to be told that it was actually meant to be the accompanying dip for the Lempeng Tepung. Silly me. But the taste was good, even when I paired it wrongly. 😛

I enjoyed the kampung style breakfast very much, and after chit chatting with our friendly host who insists on giving us all the food that we couldn’t finish, it’s time for a little trip around Banghuris Homestay. Since the Nasi Ambeng Festival 2015 is going on, there are plenty of things for us to see and to experience, and so, off we go to our next stop.

Info on Banghuris Homestay, should you interested in staying there:

Address
Banghuris Homestay
Jalan Tailong
Kg. Hulu Chuchoh
43950 SG.Pelek
Sepang Selangor

Phone: 03-31421019

Email: [email protected]

Next up: A Day with Javanese Community in Banghuris Homestay, The Air of Festival.

So what did we do next? There are plenty of interesting things we did, so for now, stay tune for the next post.

Traveling in Style with XES Shoes

by Cleffairy // April 21, 2015 // No Comments

It’s no secret that I haven’t been staying home much these days. As a family friendly tourism activist and a social media influencer, I’m always on the go and joining media trips with my family to broaden my horizon. I absolutely love traveling and getting lost in my own country every now and then. It’s not only fun, but it also lead to self discovery.

Problems? I’m all woman and absolutely vain. I can never sacrifice style even though I’m traveling. I like to look good and make good impression. I always believe in dressing well as there is no second time in making first impression. You’ll never know who you will meet while traveling…so yea…I always want to look my best, even when I’m backpacking. Apart from my identifications, my travel essentials usually includes; smartphone, DSLR camera along with power banks. I also have contact lenses, basic makeups stuff, and shawl to accesorize myself with so that I could look different even when I wear the same outfit for two consecutive days. (You can’t help it if you are backpacking, you know).

Yes, I’m vain. I like to look good, but at the same time I like being comfortable too. Style without comfort is just plain foolish, and so when it comes to footwear while on the go, I opt for shoes from XES.

XES has more than 90 outlets branched out across shopping and retail complexes including Jusco, Giant, Tesco, Carrefour and various celebrated malls. The core business operations revolve around retail chain store management as well as local and export original equipment manufacturer (OEM) and are led by a seasoned top management, marketing, merchandising, accounts, logistics, operation, IT, HR and Research and Development department of more than 500 personnel in total. With the efforts and strength of a good team work, employees work together to place the XES brand in a competitive level within the shoe-manufacturing industry.

The XES brand prides itself for developing perfect and affordable footwear for family everyday use. It continues to generate collections after collections of ladies’, men’s and children’s shoes that widely appeals to the masses for its style, comfort and value for money factor. There are 2 different shoe concepts developed by XES. XES Studio caters to the lower-medium income group whereas XES Premium provides for the medium-high income demographic. Different shoe concept caters to varying circumstances which include but not limited to casual, semi-casual, formal and sports under the house brands of XES. XES also carries selected distinguished shoe brands such as Scholl, Lee Cooper, Bum Equipment, Scorpion and Neckermann.

My husband and I have recently acquired a few pairs of shoes, courtesy of XES Premium. And we decided to wear it during our weekend media trip with Tourism Selangor Malaysia to Banghuris Homestay in conjunction of Nasi Ambeng Festival 2015, a combined effort with JKKN. (I’ll be blogging about that soon, 😉 so stay tune for more). Studying our A Day with Javanese Community at Banghuris Homestay program itinerary, it was rather packed and required a lot of walking, but at the same time, there is formal activities like press conference going on at night and you are required to dress up in a semi-formal outfit. So…we opt for footwear that looks nice and at the same time, comfy to wear for long hours.

My husband’s casual brown shoe by XES and my Black Foldable Ballerina Flat by XES. I can’t comment much on my husband’s brown shoe as I’m not the one who wears it. I can only say it is both comfortable and smart and suits all occasion, but I have a lot to say about my Black Foldable Ballerina Flats.

I’ve been wearing the XES Black Foldable Ballerina Flats for quite some time now, and I’ll be completely honest with you. The first few weeks wearing it is absolutely terrible and horrifying. The shoe kinda ‘bites’ and rubbed onto my skin like crazy as most new shoes would have done, but once it’s broken in, it is the most comfortable thing I’ve ever worn.

I can never wear heels to save my life, so flat shoes suits me very well. I wear this pair very often and my most recent experience with it have been nothing short of incredible. It’s not only stylish, but wearing it to walk for about 8 hours straight with mere breaks in between brings nothing but soothing comfort for my feet. The synthetic leather texture is soft to the skin, enabling me to walk with comfort and catching up with the rest of the media entourage with ease. Even chasing media friends who were playing the traditional Galah Panjang game( a chase and tag game) is easy when I’m wearing my flats from XES. The quality is seriously amazing.

Comfortable enough for long hour walks. And the design is fancy enough to be fashionably stylish. The best part? This Foldable Ballerina Flats by XES is travel friendly. Under ordinary circumstances where my day is busy enough but I need a few pairs of shoes to go by but can’t allocate enough time to go home to change my outfit and footwear, I’ll just fold it up and keep it in my bag to change into it later.

So yes. If you want both comfort and style, I would recommend XES they have quite a collection. I believe there is something for everyone from XES. They will be revealing their new shoes collection soon somewhere in May which hopefully will have more comfortable flats. Here’s hoping I will be able to share with you more about XES soon. In the meantime, stay tune for my traveling posts.

For more information on XES products and collections, LIKE their Facebook page here: https://facebook.com/xesshoes

An Evening With Travel Writer’s Association of Malaysia at Hawdramawt Palace KL

by Cleffairy // April 20, 2015 // No Comments

I’m a family friendly tourism activist, blogger, social media influencer and a travel writer. One of my raising concern is that it is difficult to convince Malaysians in general to actually engage in domestic travel. More often than not, Malaysians are much more interested to go on holidays oversea rather than explore the interesting places in Malaysia itself. It’s such a waste. Malaysia have a lot to offer in terms of tourism.

There are a lot of beautiful places in Malaysia that you can visit with your family, even if you are on a tight budget. Malaysia is also undeniably rich with cultural diversity and foreign tourist can be seen at touristy spots, learning about Malaysia, but Malaysians themselves lacks interests, and so when my family and I were invited to A Night with Travel Writer’s Association of Malaysia, TRAM at Hadramawt Palace in Jalan Bukit Bintang, we said yes to it. It’s a chance to discuss our concerns regarding the tourism industry in Malaysia.

Hawdramawt Palace, Kuala Lumpur. Picture courtesy of Mr. Badrulzaman Hanif.

Speech by Editor of Santai Travel Mr. Azli Halim

Travel writers spotted chilling out with each other

Discussing concerns for tourism industry in Malaysia and making plans on how to attract more domestic travel.

Time for some food

Yemeni food served that night.

Belly dancing performance that night that got us all excited.

Mr. Badrulzaman Hanif posing with the belly dancer.

It was pretty much a laid back and casual event, but it is nice to be able to catch up with fellow travel writers and tourism activists out there who have their own mission when it comes to improving the tourism industry in Malaysia. Thank you Hawdramawt Palace Kuala Lumpur for sponsoring the venue and the delicious food along with highly entertaining performances that night. It was indeed a wonderful opportunity for us travel writers to discuss our mutual concerns.

MyFest 2015 Selangor: Nasi Ambeng Festival

by Cleffairy // April 17, 2015 // 2 Comments

Love rice? I certainly do, and here’s sharing a rice festival coming up in conjunction of MyFest 2015 and Visit Malaysia Year 2015; Nasi Ambeng Festival.

Nasi ambeng or nasi ambang is a fragrant rice dish consisting of white rice served with chicken curry or chicken cooked in soy sauce, vegetables, fried noodles, some salted fish, fried coconut flesh, and so on. It is cooked during important celebrations and served in a tray to be shared by four to five people.

I’ve been dying to try some and I’m going to bring my boys to experience Nasi Ambeng and the communal dining style with me.

Care to join us? Come and experience the unique, communal dining style and delicious food of the Javanese-Malay people at the Nasi Ambeng Festival

Info to the Nasi Ambeng Festival 2015 is as below:

Venue
Homestay Banghuris, Sg. Pelek, Sepang Selangor

Organiser
National Department for Culture and Arts

Phone
+603-5510 2664

« Older posts

Newer posts »