Raub Trip - The cat goes to a dusun

Of late, i have been finding it hard to blog. For some reason, which i rather not say in my blog, i have been thinking a bit deeply on a lot of things hence, making writing like stumbling over stones or slipping on a banana peel...  ( which i did literally that day resulting in a bruise the size of a lemon on my knee! 


Glad that i had the trip to Raub that day to get out of the city and discover malaysia. Actually i am quite glad i came because, i discovered another side of malaysia i have never seen before. Being from Ipoh, i thought ipoh was quiet - but Raub proved to be more quiet than ipoh. And i have to say it, i do like the small town feel these places have ( provided there is GOOD BROADBAND SERVICES ). The purpose of going to raub is not to migrate there... but to actually eat durian from a dusun - which city folks like me have never really tried it before.  Now, those who are geographically challenged, Raub is after Bentong, both situated in Pahang. It's about 1 and 1/2 hour's drive from KL.


We left KL - way too early -  my travelling mates of FF, CG and Lil Bro really do not live up to the title "bright eyed and bushy tailed" - it was more like panda eyes and flattened tail for all of us.  Our driver RL - is the only BEBT person in the group - so cheerful in the morning.  Well, the early trip was because we were supposed to meet up another family to eat Ngau Lam Fun in Bentong which was supposed to be really good. For some reason - this food blogger has been having poor appetite these days. -_- how to blog about food like that.


When we hit bentong, we had to park in this rather scary road - kinda like the one in Jalan Tun Sambathan, where we had to run across the road to the restaurant Low Yu Kee.  This one stall shop serves up Ngau Lam fun, Pork Ball and Pork tendon ball noodles, chicken noodles  if you like. You can order a variety of different noodles from rice noodles to kway teow.

Since i don't like beef offals of sorts - i went for the pork ball noodles  which in my opinion is pretty tasteless. Or is it because i had no appetite? Way too early. I am still not over pale pork ball noodles.

Lil Bro went for the dry version, he said the dry noodles was really good though but everyone thought Pork balls looked like the one in Loh Wong in Ipoh! Not pale white!

CG is the only one who had Ngau Lam because he liked "texture" and his verdict was the soup is a bit peppery ( ah CG i hope i remember this comment - correct right?? )

We shared a bowl of yong tau foo which was supposed to be special, it was alright. I thought the foo chuk is pretty nice, pity we didnt know earlier otherwise it is all "foo chuk" please. However, i hear there are better places to eat in Bentong, next time must go and investigate.

After that, we finally headed to Raub.What impressed me about Raub is that ... temperature wise, this place is cooling - for some reason. Or maybe my colleague's house is closer to the hills. And the air - ah......... so fresh!  My lungs were impressed! I even saw a lot of mist around the hills early in the morning - wah... this is so rare to see it for me ( unfortunately there is no pictures as - there were no places to stop to take it ! ).

We met up with the rest of the convoy who came from KL ( about 8 cars ) and headed to my boss's Dusun in Sg Klau - about 30 minutes away from Raub. Ok things to note. Dusun has very small bumpy roads.... If you are not driving a CRV or a 4WD... er drive very very slowly. Finally when we reach the dusun... it was another feasting we anticipated. Yes. We fed mosquitoes. Alot of them actually - despite bringing repellant, I felt the mozzies were having a field day. :(  We were rewarded with however super excellent durians from my boss's dusun. His in-laws actually own the dusun and specializes in Musang King, D24 and one new one i heard of called "Chuk Kiok" - It's not catch leg but the chinese character resembles Bamboo and land.   I must find it amazing though. My big boss's in laws were not really young people -around 70+ but they looked 60 and were able to climb up and down in the hot fields to pick up durians  ( not to mention feed mosquitoes daily ). They truly look happy doing what they are doing and when they see us enjoy the durians, i thought i saw a hint of pride in the old man's eyes.  [ My impression anyway ]

Despite the mozzies, it was a good experience for me. I rather enjoyed going around the dusun looking at things i don't see often in the city. We saw a real mangosteen tree - anyone seen how it grows before?  A dukung tree  and some even saw ciku trees. Oh, so jakun here. And it is true people thought we were jakun? Why? We were hanging around this village in Sg Klau area taking pictures of the below ... ahahahaha... if you were them, you'd probably thought the same. This one lady was following us .... wondering why CG, Lil Bro and myself were obessed with taking pictures of the car below. It's a holden by the way - and a rather antique looking one as well. 

On the way back, we popped by bentong again for their famous Kaw Po ice kacang- which was really good after that extremely hot day - no pictures though - didn't turn out that great ( the pics ) and had nasi lemak despite having durian. Pretty awesome nasi lemak it was and only 2.50 per plate!  I am quite fascinated by Raub now, i think i want to buy a summer home there now! Nice big land there and good cool air.  Anyway, those who may not have a dusun, there are lots of people selling durian along the way here, so you can make a day trip here to relax and walk around. Probably buy a piece of land and retire here. *grin*