Day 1 | My First On #FireFly and In Pekan Baru, Indonesia

This was a last minute trip (back in June 2011) as I was pujuked (persuaded) by Mummy (my aunt) to accompany her to Pekan Baru - "Tracing Malay Heritage" trip, reason being she is not that healthy and fit (with high blood pressure and heart problem etc, alaaa sakit orang tua). But I also suspected the fact that I like to travel and I am a simple person aside from being superbly chatty lar (ada perasan & riak di sini! Hahhaha...). This mission was under Puteri Islam (Yup! Kid you not, however I did not join this association though; don't ask why).

Mummy picked me up at wee wee hour of the morning and we sped to Subang Airport Terminal. Here's the thing, this was my first experience boarding Fire Fly, I seriously and honestly did not know what to expect (maybe this was for the better). All I know is that Subang Airport is sooooo OLD. I went there when I was young.... that was like ages ago.

What a shock when I reached Subang Airport Terminal....

It was clean, new and clean. Did I say CLEAN? Well... CLEAN! Hhahahha... and not over...err.... populated. It was more like a walk in a mall, a SMALL mall.

When it was our time to board... I was feeling kinda excited. Gosh! Then I remembered, am gonna go on board a Fokker plane... which was my initial thought but I twitted Adam Eben and he said it's an ATR 72-500. Seriously, I don't know much about airplane, BUT I do know that BECAUSE THE KIPAS (FAN/PROPELLER) IS ON THE OUTSIDE HENCE INSIDE FELT EXTREMELY HOT!!!! Hhahahah... lawak bodoh! Ignore the stupid joke. Anyway, the last I flew in FAN-OUTSIDE AIR PLANE was during my primary school days shuttling between KL & Singapore on shopping trip with parents. Apa lagi.... took my camera out and kelam kabut snap some pics. Dulu tak da camera maah...

The minute I came on board, I laughed non-stop cause the interior was sooo comei and kecik (cute and small) . The handcarry compartment kecik giler ok! My hip knocked over the aisle seats... aiyoo yooo... need to diet.

Hooray! I got a sit next to the propeller (normally I prefers aisle seat but this was different (sebab jakun kan), giler bising but it's ok as I get to take cool pics, I figure I can live with this noise *wink wink*. Can you see the Pekan Baru river's kelok. Hemmm...wonder whether is there any river cruise or something of that sort.

The journey took us approximately 45mins, the airport was fairly small and it's those type you need to walk to the terminal. Saunafied!

The first thing that caught my eyes were a couple of private jets laying around, ambooiii... kaya gak orang Pekan Baru nih. I thought they were small town people... TET! WRONG! Underestimated them. Ya AMPUNNNN!

One thing I also noticed is that their mosque roof top... colourful and cheerful! This was captured on the way to the hotel.

The Soeman HS Library, read HERE to check out the interior, kinda cool (I've hyperlinked from a local blog, hope she don't mind).

Menara Lancang Kuning - Government Office. Apparently night view is even nicer. 

 

View from across our hotel, I thought it looked like old skool Tanak Melayu back in the 60s.

We reached The Premiere Hotel - it was very decent, clean and accessible.

Don't expect any room pics, somehow I don't have a habit of doing.... What I wanted to share here was that despite it's Pekan Baru, a small town on Sumatera Island; the lifts here were very advance ie you need not slot in your card as per normal 5 star hotels, instead you just need to tab it. Terer dak?!?

We quickly freshen up and headed down to wait for our transport. Just then, near the ballroom foyer, I caught the sight of local wedding, seek permission to peep and take pics of the wedding dais (pelamin).

This is the dayang (lady-in-waiting) bringing in the hantaran (a form of gift/dowri).

Very elaborated wedding dais.

Fancy huh! Sure kaya giler nih!

This are the well-wishes cards... gigantic riiiight!

As mentioned earlier, this trip was to trace Malay Heritage in terms of written culture. Here, we have the opportunity to meet up with Pak Tenas Effendy renown Father of Malay Culture in Indonesia (mind my translation as I can't find a good English coverage of him) at his house to learn more of the Malay Heritage.

You can read more about him from HERE, it's in Malay language though.

Snapshot from MalayuOnline (website takes a while to download) :

Tengku Nasaruddin Said Effendy or more popular as Tenas Effendy was born on November 9th, 1936 in Tanjung Malim sub village, Kuala Panduk village, Pelalawan.

He spent his time doing studies in almost part of Riau and Riau Islands, entering one sub village to other sub village met many origins society inhabitants and exterminated historical places. Tenas arranged pantun, idioms, proverbs, parable, gurindam, maxim, metaphor, long song up to traditional architectural buildings.

The research results were about spoken literature recorded in collection approximately 1.500 of records. Due to his long journey in the cultural study and writing activity, Tenas succeeded collecting more and less20.000 idioms, 10.000 pantun and other writings about Malay culture. His writing competence and depth knowledge on culture attracted many institutions to share his thoughts in seminars, simposiums, and workshops started from Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei until Dutch.

Malay carving, slight different from Indonesian, I believe it's the flowers and alun.

This was the books he shared with Puteri Islam... My aunt bought all four, I plan to loan it from her when I have the time (to read it...). After flipping a few pages, you will be surprised how much we in Malaysia have cross-cultured our customs with Hindu's as some of you might have already known.

He then took us to where he lives which is right next door to meet up with beautiful wife), inside; I was fascinated with this Arabic tile just like those in Spain. I think I am so gonna adopt this.

The Malay architecture preserved and restored.

He also have a madrasah (school) for the kids and orphanage in the neighbourhood. I felt so small standing next to him... a man with big heart & mammoth of wisdom.

My aunt and Puteri Islam went in and meet up with the kids.

Dinner was treated by our relatives (Yup! I am half Indonesian, hence many relatives back here) at Bumbu Desa. They have outlets in Malaysia as well, but slight different in taste though.

Kot ada yang bodoh bawak masuk kan kan kan....

The dishes.... Foreign giler... Am only familiar with the basic of what my mom cooks at home.

Ops..... Lapar lak... Jom Makan!

Hyperlink credit : doena-days, MelayuOnline