Infrastructure at Janda Baik is not keeping up with development

With the increasing tempo of development in this mountain valley, the pressure on existing infrastructue facilities is beginning to show signs of stress. In this instance, I refer specifically to electricity supply. Every evening we appear to suffer from voltage fluctuation when the lights are unusually dim and brighten up continuously almost like third would countries. Are we having brown outs like some of our neighbours? If I remember correctly our country is having more than the usual excess capacity resserves.

Can the Tenaga Nasional Berhad look into this?


MSAbdullah.

Continuing Tremors in Janda Baik, Bentong area

This sereen and secluded valley of Janda Baik is now frequently experiencing earth tremors or vibrations and all the villagers are wondering what will all this lead too.Since I last reported on this Blog in November no less than 10 tremors have occured and various local News Media had also reported about it.

What I am now wondering is whether this phenomenon is to be considered as a sign of possible future disaster taking place in this area and therefor to be best avoided as far as possible or is it just some occurance that the villagers and visitors to Janda Baik can best ignore and go about their usual ways. Surely some Government Experts can give an advice on this.Mind you there are easily more than 1,000 homes and 5,000 human lives living in this area. If a disaster is imminent, would it not be wise to ask the small population there to evacuate? If some informed or learned authorities can give assurance that the true situation is in fact some freak incidents of nature,the public will be greatly relieved.

MSAbdullah.

Earth Tremor in Janda Baik Area

Last Friday,November 30th when I arrived at my retreat in Janda Baik at about 11 am, our house maid and farm helpers were all still very egitated and in fear because they have just heard two loud explosions and experienced ground vibrations resembling earth quakes which they have experienced in their villages in Indonesia. Our local helper who never had such experince before thought that it was some ghostly interference. Since Malaysia is not in the zone of fire, we thought that it was caused by some over charged dynamite explosions in some quarries in the surrounding area.

At about 8pm that night, while we were having dinner with our Spanish guests who had come all the way from Barcelona, we heard another loud boom and the whole house vibrated. I rang two neighbours who live several kilometers away from us, and they too confirmed feeling the tremors. Until today I have not read any clear explanation as to what had caused the tremors. My fear is that the tremors could have been caused by major land slides happening somewhere on the mountain slopes in the interior due to denudation and leaching caused by uncontrolled illegal clearings of the virgin forests [please see my earlier postings] which is still going on rampantly. Inspite of my appeals for some action from the Authorities,
no apparent action has been taken.

MSAbdullah.

Panoramio - Photos by msaufi

Panoramio - Photos by msaufi

Please see my photos taken around Saufiville, in the village of Janda Baik, Bentong, Pahang, Malaysia.

Matching demand and supply for land

Since the last few months I have met a number of people visiting Janda Baik to look for land to build their own retreat and also to do hobby farming. They range from corporate leaders, celebreties, retired civil servants, academecians and people from various other professions who have some cash to spare. On the other hand I have also come to know many land owners here who have decided to dispose off their holdings for various reasons; loss of interest due to age and non of their off-springs have developed interest in farming and rural living, cashing out now because their capital gain is already monumental and for others they just need the extra cash because the going rate is just too attractive but until today have not been able to find suitable buyers.



Inspite of the apparent need for the establishment of a market mechanism to match the sellers and the buyers, so far I have not seen any concrete effort to set up a small centre or office in this village to facilitate such transections. In developed countries, I noticed that even in small country townships, there are realty agents which provide this kind of services and shop windows show beautiful pictures of properties available for sale. In Malaysia this kind of services is not even available in District capitals making it very difficult for property owners to dispose or purchase properties. Would it not be possible to train sufficient number of our unemployed graduates and help them set up such businesses?



MSAbdullah.

Where are all the people who care for the environment.

I have tried every possible avenues to raise my concern with the environmental degredation that is taking place around this village of Janda Baik, which in the district of Bentong in the state of Pahang in Malaysia. So far the rampant felling of virgin forest and subsequent open burning and cultivation of crops such as ginger and other vegetables have continued unabated with impunity.

Apparently ginger is a very lucrative crop and since it prefers freshly cleared and burnt grounds, the search for fresh areas has led to higher and steeper slopes of the virgin forest being encroached. As the ginger crops also require ample supply of water, catchments are much prefered by the illegal growers. Muddy flows after heavy showers in the mountains were seldom seen here before. Now it has become a common sight and the numerous HDPE pipes used by the villagers to supply crystal clear cool mountain water to their homes and gardens are often clogged and carried away by the heavy debries that are now washed down by the flash floods.

I wonder whether Janda Baik residentds can find enough sympathisers to put an end to their plight.

MSAbdullah.

First Idilfitri in Janda Baik

After having set up my small retreat in this village some five years ago, I decided to spend our Hari Raya Idilfitri with the local community here so that we can guage whether we have been accepted as part of the kampong community. After all we have got to know quite a number of the locals. We have frequented the popular coffee shop "Pak Andak's Place", the biggest provision shop "Pasarmini Ramadan" and the only village mosque. We have even made house visits to a few of our neighbours both original villagers and recent residents who have made Janda Baik their homes.

During the two days prior to Hari Raya, whenever we met local residents that we have become aqainted with we invited them to visit us on hari raya day as is normal done in other parts of Malaysia. We were very surprised to experience no house calls at all for the whole of the two days of Hari Raya we were day. The extend and intermitten heavy rains did not help either. Except for a Canadian friend who is married to a Malaysian and his daughter who lives on their beautiful farm not very far from us and two friends and their families who have come all the way from Kuala Lumpur who turned up on the 2nd day, our food preparation for the festive season would have been totally wasted. Fortunately our farm workers were not at all bashful at helping themselves.

So by late evening on the 2nd day we decided to return home to Shah Alam.

MSAbdullah.

More forest are cleared and burnt but nobody cares

The forest around the village of Janda Baik, some parts of it are in forest reserve, are being cleared and burnt systematically by vegetable growers who mainly come from outside the village. The actual acts may not be done by them because they use the cheap labour provided by illegal immigrants. The perpetrators are infact the "middlemen" who finance and market the illegal activities in these fertile foothills.

This unsightly and potentially disasterous activity has been highlighted many times by the media, including TV3, but somehow the Authorities do not seem to care. How perplexing?

MSAbdullah.

Renewed Interest in Janda Baik land

Just last Sunday I received a visit from the Group CEO of a giant GLC at my retreat in Janda Baik. He has heard so much about the relatively cooler clime of this upland Malay Reserved undulating plateau that made him decide to see the area for himself. I am sure he was impressed by what he saw and experienced.

That very same week, I am told that a well known Malay singer was also going around the area asking for available parcels for sale. Without an established agency in this locality, I am sure such interested parties would have to make several scouting trips before they can stumble on one of their choice.

As a weekend resident, I have often been approached by several local residents to help them sell their lots to my friends. I have oblighed in the past purely to help but when there are complications in the deal such as delays in settling payment by the purchaser, my good deed became a burden.

In most developed countries that I have been to, I noticed that even in small towns there existed realty establishments that cater for transactional needs of their society. Real estate agency business are not well developed in this country. Even in big cities we seldom find establishments which display what real estates are available. Small newspaper advertisements are the order of the day now. Even then pictures of the properties are seldom displayed.

To facilitate the transaction of real estate assets in this country, especially in rural areas, I think it is highly desirable that government or the real estate agents fraternity put on their thinking caps to put into place the necessary infrastructure. Consider training the thousands of unemployed graduates to fill this urgent need.

MSAbdullah.

Welcome to new "settlers" to Janda Baik

Last Saturday we were pleasently surprised to receive a few visitors at our retreat in Janda Baik. A couple was in fact our neighbour who had bought over a beautiful chengal house from their friend.Like us, they fell in love with the charm of Janda Baik's cool all year round weather and fresh air. The other lady with them whose husband is a professor currently on assignment overseas, is building a holiday home on a nearbye piece of property to the chengal house. She has engaged a Cambridge trained young architect to design her dream home. I am sure this will add another fine structure to the many beautifully designed and landscaped villas of Janda Baik. However they are mostly hidden away behind wooded compounds.

Soon to be completed is also a multimillion dollar training centre for UMNO located close to confluence of the river Luro and Benus. It is also understood that the International Islamic University [UIA] has also started work on a MR400 million Pre-University campus at Sum Sum. However what the State and Federal Planners appear to forget is the roads leading to all these are still very much the same except for some minor attempts to improve the roadside drainage and replacements of badly worn out wooden bridges with equally narrow concrete bridges.

MSAbdullah.

PRESERVATION OF NATIONAL ASSETS

I am very concer that so many of our National Assets have been given away to cronies and opportunists in the past, willy nilly by the Powers that be, that I feel the time has come for a general realisation for some form of Constitutional Amendment to be put in place so that no such abuse will ever happen again. I do not think I need to give examples of these abuses, lest such examples will open raw wounds in our memory.

However the recent attempt to exchange the campus of the University of Malaya in Pantai Valley with some tracts of land in Sepang is another example of what some greedy corporate entity can contrive to deprive our nation of our National Assets. If this was not vehemently objected to by all sections of society, this campus would have been sacrificed in the name of economic progress. Can we not learn from the developed nations how their historical sites and institutions of higher learning are preserved for posterity?

I would like to strongly suggest that the release of National Assets for uses other than what they were originally set up for should be made only after a referendum where every adult citizen should be allowed to vote on the issue. Only on getting majority vote can the release be approved.

MSAbdullah.

Continuation...

With the new Kuala Lumpur-Kuantan Highway, Janda Baik is less than a hour's drive from the City of Kuala Lumpur. Although after leaving the highway at the access to the Bukit Tinggi village, landmarked by the Temple with mini Great Wall of China, the road is narrow and winding, the drive from that point up, would take less than 30 minutes.

Driving through the village, one should be very careful. Besides domestic animals that tend to stray onto the roads; village boys and girls too ride their motor cycles quite fast, more often than not, without any protective helmets. Coffee shops and restaurants of various sizes can be found along the road all the way from the copper wire factory to as far as the new Training Centre for UMNO a stretch of about 15 kilometers.

For day trippers, there are many picnic spots along rocky waterfalls and rapids and a dip in the cold mountain water can be very refreshing. For those intedning to spend a night or two, the villagers have also organised themslves to provide homestay facilities. More professionally run chalets have also sprung up in a few locations. Camp sites and suitable spots to pitch tents along brooks and treams for those who are more adventerous can also be easily located. In other words you don't have to have too much money to escape to these places with your family and friends occasionally.

Escape to cooler climes

For us living in the tropics, the days are always warm and humid and for those who can afford air conditioners and high elctricity tariff, life is made more bearable by keeping themselves in air-conditioned areas. Of course the super rich can choose to have second or even third homes in countries with better climatic conditions.

What is then the choice for the majority of our citizens to get some occasional relief from this depressing heat and humidity. Malaysia fortunately has many highlands which are suitable for development into recreational and residential areas. Our British colonial masters did well for themselves by deveping Cameron Highlands, Frazer's Hill,Penang Hill and Taiping Hill Station.The only similar attempt by indigenous people, I can think of, is the Kampong Janda Baik in Pahang which may have been setlled by people who may have come from similarly mountainous regions.In this regards I will be grateful if someone can fill me in on the history of the founding of Janda Baik.