Gone Too Soon – Beloved Helen Ong

Helen Ong, my JiKor (1940 – 2021)

Jikor, I have a loss for words. You left us too soon. I've still got so many things to talk to you about, laugh about and get silly. I didn't even manage to say ‘Hi’ to you after your surgery, and you said you wanted to visit Dubai again when COVID gets better. We've even found a KTV here that we could go to, in this Arab place, believe it or not?

Thank you Jikor for being that kind and happening aunt we can always go to. Thank you for housing us all in your little KL apartment, my brother, sister, cousins, I, whoever. You’re like a second mother to us, always welcoming, always treated us like we’re your own, even when we were wild and in our crazy phase. No one's matched your hospitality when it comes to being at your home.

There’re just too many memories of you. You were my go-to aunt whenever I’m in KL. You’ve brought up so many little kids in your life. You were my little sis Kim’s nanny when she was born. I still remember the Loo-Loo-Loo tune you hummed to make her sleep. You were here to help us when Anu gave birth to our first-born, Justin. We picked the Chinese word that you like for his Chinese name. You’ve been Anu’s inspiration since she got to know you, she said all ladies should be like Jikor, always looking nice, despite age or lack of money, always creating a happy mood, always having family and friends… Thank you for enriching our lives and the lives of so many others.

You’ve left us for a better place now. I hope all your wishes come true. And I hope you have as much fun in heaven as how you’ve filled us with fun and excitement here on earth. Goodbye and sleep soundly now in peace, Jikor. God bless you.

I know you love photos. I don’t know whether you’ve seen these. I bet you can see any photo you like now… Love you, miss you forevermore.


Meeting us in Kuala Lumpur when we arrived, 2016






You are Anu’s fun-loving aunt and inspiration


Looking pretty with Aunty Choo, Butterworth, 2016


Christmas with Tuapek at your home, 2017


Didn’t know you’d join your brother in heaven so soon. Rest in Peace Jikor. Rest in Peace Jipek


Our last meeting, 2019 Ipoh – You came all the way from KL back to Ipoh just to spend time with us. We love you

RIP Jipek

One Chee Chai, beloved uncle, 1938 - 2021. Rest In Peace

Goodbye Jipek. You left us so suddenly, peacefully left to be with the Lord. It was a privilege to have had you in my life. You and granny had always been my guardians when my parents were at work. My childhood memories are filled with those times in Lorong Jaycee. It’s hard to imagine you not being in this world anymore.

Life hasn’t been very kind to you, crippling you when you were at your prime, taking away the hopes of you having a family of your own, giving you a lifetime of disabilities. You took all that in stride. Always kind, always good natured, never blamed your circumstances or anyone. Thank you for showing me how to live simply and how to live happily. You are now free of all that has constrained you. You’ve earned your place in heaven. Be at peace now, Jipek. Love you. Goodbye.


Our last meeting in 2019 - A nice sibling reunion (but missing the eldest and the youngest). Glad to have made it a point to see you then. God bless your soul Jipek

High Up in the Caucasus

Tusheti National Park, Georgia – View from the Keselo Fortress in Upper Omalo

Would you believe it? I’m still busy! Despite being booted out of the ITS Projects. (We’ve received the official taking over certificates for the 2 ITS2020 Projects where I was the Project Manager. That’s the reason why I’m not needed anymore, sob).

Anyway, life goes on. A school mid-term break for the kids is coming up next week… (Didn’t school just start like last month?!??) Dubai’s EXPO 2020 has opened and we’ve visited and taken some photos (which will stay in the phone for another year, or 2 before seeing the light of day. The light of this blog I mean. You’ll catch ‘em faster by checking Anu’s facebook). At home in Malaysia, some bad news has come up. Our dear ol’ aunt Helen, the happening aunt, has had a major surgery to remove her colon due to a growth of some kind that has blocked it. We hope it’s not cancerous, praying every day. Hope she’ll recover quickly.

And, it’s nearly half a month since I last posted. So, I’m gonna squeeze in another express photo post. On the same Tusheti National Park of Georgia (yeah, why not? The photos are all there, ready to post, sitting in drive, hehe). Here goes.


I love to go a wandering, along the mountain track… (What’s a mountain trip without a little bit of trekking? Come on boys, mommy’s far ahead. Mommy’s the fit one in our family, ahem)


Along a mountain track connecting Lower Omalo to Upper Omalo, Tusheti, Georgia


Mommy on a lookout – There ahead, the fortress!


Zemo (Upper) Omalo with the Keselo Fortress overlooking the village


Mommy on sacred ground – Yeah, it really is marked ‘Sacred Place’ on a signboard – no camping, or driving onto the grounds allowed. And no skimpy dresses (if I understand the sign correctly). The Tushetians have their own taboos and culture. One prominent one is that Pork (which is consumed all over Georgia) is taboo in Tusheti despite the Tushetians being Christians!


Let’s make our way to the fortress! The views are breath-taking…


Hey, careful! It’s a long way down!




Keselo Fortress from the back… Tusheti, Georgia




The kids made a friend. She’s a Swiss girl, about 7 years old, I think the name’s Rachel. We saw her all alone in the fortress. We thought she was local. Her parents were far below (see first picture above, resting below the tower). That’s the Swiss way of bringing up children I suppose, letting the kids roam around the mountains as they like (as Switzerland is full of mountains). We would’ve never let the kids out of our sight, especially at this place, with steep cliffs dropping into ravines full of God knows what… We only learnt later that she’s Swiss when we met her parents. They had driven all the way from Switzerland to Georgia, through Eastern Europe and Turkey. They’d driven as far as Kazakhstan on other trips (how I wish I had the means and time to do that…). This time they parked their car somewhere, travelled to Khevsureti (another remote hill community in Georgia), hired some horses with horsemen in Khevsureti, and travelled through the forests on horseback for a few days to reach Tusheti! That’s what I call an ADVENTURE!


Horses in Omalo, after a brief downpour. That was a nice day trip. OK, time to get back to our hotel!


After a night at the hotel, it’s time to get back down to civilization, bye-bye Omalo, bye Tusheti!


5 hours of mountain road, here we come! Baa baa white sheep, get out of the way! (On this particular day, fog shrouded most of the mountain road, south of the Abano Pass, much to the relief of Anu – she’s afraid of heights).

From here, we headed back to Telavi to collect our rented car and say hi and bye to our friends in the Telavi guesthouse. That’s my last post of our 2018 Caucasus trip! Bye Georgia, hope to meet you again soon! From Georgia, we would head to Baku, Azerbaijan to complete our trip of the Caucasus.

And before I go… HAPPY DURGA PUJA! HAPPY DUSSEHRA! This weekend will be a busy weekend!

The Most Treacherous Road of All?

The road to Tusheti, Georgia

An express post coming up. Project or no project, somehow, I have my hands full (which is a good sign in times like these).

On the home front, summer’s ended and school has resumed, with FULL attendance (yeah, no kidding). I guess the UAE’s just decided to screw COVID-19. Heck, almost everyone is vaccinated now, and new cases are less than 500 per day. (Fingers-crossed, I hope this downward trend will continue). It’s nearly 2 friggin years now of this blasted pandemic! Will we ever get back to normal?!?

Anyway, here’s a little something from our holidays when times were better. A continuation of our holidays in Georgia in 2018. (I’ve kept the photos ready just for busy times like these, hehe). Here goes.

These photos are of what a blogger called, the most treacherous road of all when we were planning our Georgia trip back in 2018. Now, it isn’t even featured in any of the Google searches for most treacherous roads. Besides, how do you measure treacherousness?? (If there’s such a word). But one road that features prominently in the most treacherous roads list, is a road which I’ve travelled through before – the Zoji La Pass Road in India that connects Ladakh to the Kashmir Valley. It was in ummm 2004 if I’m not mistaken, and I was with my brother Jason and friend Wai Yen. We were travelling from Leh in Ladakh, to Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir and boarded a public bus in Kargil. The entire Zoji La portion was traversed at night, and we didn’t see a thing, just that the dratted ride was super bumpy and I didn’t sleep a darn minute, except for the time when the bus stopped with many other vehicles and waited for ages in complete darkness in God knows where. Maybe the vehicles have to take turns to cross the pass, who knows?

Anyway, back to my post, here’re the pictures of our road trip to Tusheti, high up on the Caucasus mountains in Georgia. Enjoy!


About an hour in from the start of the road to Tusheti, near a roadside waterfall – still surrounded by forests – cool!


That's the car that took us up to Tusheti, a Mitsubishi Delica, the 4WD car of choice in Georgia – We hired a car from the guesthouse we booked in Tusheti to take us up there as our rented car’s insurance did not cover the road up to Tusheti. Besides, the blogs that I read while planning for the trip scared me so much (with fantastic stories about how treacherous the road is), that I decided not to take that risk with the family. Now thinking back, I could’ve driven up. It’s mainly rocks and boulders. The Gergeti Trinity Church Road (earlier post) felt tougher with wet slippery soil and steep inclines, and I overcame that with our Great Wall 4WD! We left our rented car in the friendly guesthouse at Telavi where we were staying before visiting Tusheti.


That’s the driver of our hired car. Nah, don’t remember his name, just remember that the children at the hotel called him Mama (meaning Dad in Georgian – yup, it’s the opposite. Mum is Deda). He happens to be the very owner of the hotel / guesthouse up in Tusheti!




The road to Tusheti (now with no more tree cover)




Looking back at the road we came from – nice, but it was a dizzying friggin ride. Anu didn’t wanna look down at all! (She has a fear of heights). And we were almost all down with motion sickness (told ya I should've driven)


We reached the pass (Abano Pass). It’s downhill from here onwards!


Crossing a melting glacier


No trees, but the slopes are covered with mountain flowers


Whew! Finally, our hotel – Guesthouse Javakhe, Lower Omalo, Tusheti – What’s that Chinese flag doing in a remote place like this?


Jayden at Guesthouse Javakhe, Lower Omalo, Tusheti, Georgia


Tusheti Protected Area (Tusheti National Park), Georgia - And here's a photo of little Jayden at Tusheti


There’re horses all over the place – the biggest building in this photo (middle slight right) is the Guesthouse Javakhe where we stayed

That’s it for the day folks!

At the Corner of the World

Here’s a cable car ride a continent away from Langkawi - Queenstown, New Zealand. I think we Malaysians just conveniently copied the idea from New Zealand, hehe. See for yourself.


Queenstown, South Island, New Zealand, Dec 2018

Here’re some photos of our trip to the South Island of New Zealand in December 2018. Before visiting NZ and Kim’s family, I’ve always felt that NZ is too far away, tucked at the bottom right corner of the world map. What could there be, that other parts of the world could not have? But we made it to NZ finally, and it was wonderful! …But expensive. Especially as it was friggin PEAK SEASON during our visit!


This was our Airbnb home in Queenstown. A nice cosy little cottage in a new residential area at Shotover Country, a suburb of Queenstown beside the Shotover River


The family settling in. Hey guys, let’s get out and have some fun. It’s a beautiful day!


Anu with a backdrop of Lake Wakatipu, where Queenstown is located – from the Lake Wakatipu Viewpoint


Lake Wakatipu from the Lake Wakatipu Viewpoint, Queenstown, South Island, New Zealand


A romp in Queenstown – these 2 huge trees near the Queenstown District Court’s building are Giant Sequioas (aka Giant Redwood) which are native to California, the USA. They were planted here ummph… nearly 150 years ago! (In 1876, so says NZ’s tree register. Yup, they have a Tree Register! Don’t believe me? Check it out: https://register.notabletrees.org.nz/tree/view/1166). They were planted as ‘Trees of Justice’ to provide shade for those attending court!


In the middle of Queenstown – That’s the Queenstown i-Site Visitor Information Centre


Kiwi bird centre! Nope, didn’t visit. We visited the Auckland Zoo which was supposed to also have kiwis, but they just wouldn’t friggin show themselves! What the heck, we’ll see them the next time we visit NZ!


Skyline Gondola, Queenstown’s version of the cable car. Up, up and away!


At Bob’s Peak, Queenstown – Queenstown’s Ultimate Viewpoint


That slidey thing is the Luge. No, we didn’t have a go, despite the kids’ pleas. Justin has been bugging me ever since then. Sigh…


A chair lift at Bob’s Peak. No, I dunno where it goes to. Probably just to the luge…


It’s getting dark boys, let’s go home!


Queenstown at dusk, from the Skyline Viewing Gallery


A last stop at Queenstown Mall on the shores of Lake Wakatipu, before calling it a night

Good night!