Exploring Selangor, Malaysia with celebrity tourists | Lifestyle.INQ

OCTOBER 27, 2022

The group settles for a picture outside the Blue Mosque, one of the biggest mosques in Malaysia. Photo courtesy of Tourism Selangor and AirAsia Zest

SELANGOR,  MALAYSIA –   Exploring  the  popular destinations  in  Selangor , one of the 13 estates in Malaysia,  will  never be  more  exciting without celebrities like  music icon Jim Paredes joining the adventure.

 

Paredes of the popular 70s music group, the Apo Hiking Society,  and former child actor  Charles “Chuckie”  Dreyfus, now a travel blogger, were among the 15 journalists, bloggers, and  lifestyle columnists invited by Selangor Tourism and AirAsia Zest to a three-day familiarization trip  in Selangor during the weekend.

 

At  7:30 a.m.  last Friday, April  25, the  group flew  in to  Malaysia  from Manila via AirAsia  Zest, a low-cost carrier based in the  Philippines.

Malaysia Airasia 1
Group photo inside AirAsia Zest plane. Photo courtesy of Charles “Chuckie” Dreyfus.

 

(AirAsia  Zest flies daily from Manila to  Kota Kinabalu; twice daily from  Manila  to Kuala Lumpur and four times  a week  from  Kalibo to Kuala Lumpur. Starting July this year, the airline will also fly from Cebu to Kuala Lumpur via Malaysia AirAsia.)

 

Saad Mahsah, product development manager of Tourism Selangor, welcomed the visitors, including this reporter, when the plane  arrived at the Kuala Lumpur LCC terminal past 11 a.m..

Wasting  no time,  the  group, on board a tourist bus, went  directly to its  first stop,  the Sultan Alam Shah Museum, to take a peek at the  history of  Selangor.

 

On the  way to the  museum from the  airport,  Raj,  the  tour guide, prepared the guests for heavy  traffic as it was the day and time when men in Malaysia trooped to mosques to pray.

 

To keep the attention of the  group away from the traffic,  Raj  started to tell stories about Selangor and its people,  pointing at  every  historic establishment that  the guests could see from   the window of the bus.

 

The popular Blue Mosque was the first sight that  greeted the group when  it reached  the museum, which was  established  in 1887.

 

“Exhibits at the Sultan Alam Shah Museum portray the historical aspects of culture, arts and the natural environment in Selangor,” said a description outside the museum.

 

“It is hoped that the museum institution would play an important role in preserving Selangor’s  rich cultural heritage  and cultivate a sense of devotion among its people,” it further said.

 

Most of the exhibits  in the  museum  used  dioramas to  depict the significant stories  of Selangor—one portrays  how a sultan, with the help of 2000 followers, staged a night attack on the Dutch in 1785 to recapture  Bukit  Malawati and another depicts a rubber estate during the  British colonial era of the 18th  Century.

 

One of the exhibits  that caught the attention of the guests was the portrayal of “Bersanding” or the “sitting-in-state” ceremony, which is described  as the “climax of the marriage ceremony.”

 

According to the short brief description of Bersanding, marriage is considered consummated only on its fourth night.

 

“At nightfall, the bride is clad in white. The bed is covered with white bed-spread, and the pillow is encased in white,” it says.

 

“On the next day, the bridegroom shows the  ‘mak andam,’ a while cloth stained red as a sign of her wife’s pre-marital virginity. After that, the ’mak andam’ shows the  handkerchief to the groom’s family. With this then, the marriage is considered  complete.”

 

After exploring the museum, the group went to the Blue Mosque. Unfortunately, the guests  could not   enter the  mosque  and had to appreciate its  beauty  from  the  outside.

 

The group settles for a picture outside the Blue Mosque, one of the biggest mosques in Malaysia. Photo courtesy of Tourism Selangor and AirAsia Zest

 

It was already about sunset when the group  checked in a hotel in  Shah Alam, the state capital of Selangor, for a nap. At around 9pm, the  group went out to have dinner  before proceeding to the  latest  attractions in town.

 

I-City is the third and last stop of the group on its first day in  Selangor.

 

The 72-acre theme park developed by I-Berhard was located along the Federal Highway. Its tourism component boasts four main themed attractions: City of Digital Lights with over 1 million LED lightscapes and outdoor theme park rides; SnoWalk, a 50,000 square-feet Arctic environment below 5 degrees Celsius; WaterWorld, featuring the first tornado ride in Southeast Asia; and FunWorld (for family-oriented activities and games).

 

The City of Digital Lights. Photo by Maila Ager

 

FunWorld’s main features are Malaysia’s first Trick Art Museum, and the Red Carpet, the country’s first interactive All-Star wax museum.

 

Because of the lateness of the hour, however, the group managed to experience only some of the  attractions like the Trick Art Museum, the Red Carpet, the SnoWalk, and the House of  Horror.

 

Still tired and  sleepy from the museum and i-City tours, the group had to wake up early morning the following day for  a more exhausting but exciting adventure – the jungle trekking and a canopy walk.

 

It was a long walk and rocky steps in the jungle before  the group  reached the  150 meters  canopy walkway. They had to walk another 15 to 20 minutes to finish the trek.

 

After eating its late lunch, the  group  immediately proceeded  to Bukit  Malawati, which is located  in a coastal town of  Kuala Selangor. A tractor train carries visitors to the top where the lighthouse is located  and  a number of monkeys are fed by the tourists with  string beans.

 

From Bukit Malawati, the group had dinner and travelled again to another  popular destination in the area, the Firefly Park.

 

To watch the fireflies, tourists have to pay 50 ringgit to ride a boat, which can accommodate up to four persons only.

 

The last stop of the  group for its  second  day in the estate was  at the  Homestay Sungai Sireh, where the group  spent a night. (Please see previous story: Malaysians’ rule of thumb: Respect very important)

 

At the age of  62,  Paredes braved  the heat of  the sun to enjoy the  jungle trekking and canopy walk,  as well as  the visits  to  a vegetable farm and a rice field as part of the homestay  program.

 

The  long walk  in the jungle and the tiring  tours of  the museum and theme park also did not dampen his energy. During lunch time or dinner,  Paredes would talk about almost everything  under the  sun—his love for music and sometimes even the latest buzz  in politics.

 

He has also never lost his humor—and  his charm that women whether  at the airport or inside the plane would approach him to have a picture with  him.

 

A journalist, for instance, noted, how a female immigration officer at the  airport  giggled when she realized that she’s in front of the music icon, processing his documents.

 

Even the female staff  of the Philippine Embassy in  Kuala Lumpur could  not help but express their admiration to  the singer/song-writer  especially when  he sang the  popular song of his  group, “Panalangin” while playing  the piano during a simple dinner  prepared at the embassy for its guests.

 

Once he held  the  mic, there was no stopping  Paredes as he sang his own  music he brought on  his  phone.

 

“It’s my life” –  his last song in a medley he performed for the group and embassy  staff – says it all about the musician.

 

“I wanna write a song, I wanna sing what I want to sing,” Paredes later told some  journalists after his impromptu  performance at the embassy, which capped the  three-day adventure  in  Selangor.

 

RELATED STORIES

Malaysians’ rule of thumb: Respect very important

Malaysia: A delightful fusion of lifestyle and culture

 

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