RWMF2017 (^^)

Bismillah...

I just came back from a short trip to Kuching and the reason why I was there is none other but to attend the Rainforest World Music Festival for the 3rd time. It was one of my bff's wishlist back then, if it was not for her I wouldn't even know the existence of it. My first time was in 2014 and I immediately fell in love and vowed to try my best to go to this event annually. I didn't get to attend last year's because I was in India at that time.

The most common reaction that I will get from most people when I told them I'm going to a music fest, they would have this image of a wild party where people wear scanty clothes, dancing around and drunk. I won't deny there were drunk visitors every time, but they were not causing any trouble and I was always in a safe zone.

Maybe people missed the word 'World Music' which essentially means the music are of various genres and not always those that you can dance to. This event actually gathers musicians and bands from all over the world and this gives them the opportunity to introduce their music along with promoting their country and culture.

The event is for 3 days; during the day there will be workshops and interactive sessions while the concert will be held at night. There are many things going on at one time in different venues so you have to really scrutinize the schedule and decide what type of music you would want to experience up close or what type of dances you would want to learn and do show up early at the venue to get the best view.

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For this year, I was so relieved when JF agreed to come with me without any hesitation and we were lucky to get cheap return flight ticket ~RM 160. As for the ticket, they only have this 3-day pass and 1-day pass so if you are going for 2 days then you have to buy two 1-day passes. We met our junior in school who bought her pass even before the early bird ticket was released and she got it for RM 84. Ours was RM 134 per pass and the early bird ticket was slightly cheaper than this. You can still buy at the ticket counter during the event but of course it will cost you more.


As for transport, some people drove to the event but their cars were parked far away. Some were parked at walk-able distance and some were parked too far away but there were shuttle buses prepared by the organizer but I'm not sure of the fare. As for us, we took the shuttle bus from Kuching city. I'm not sure if there has always been the free shuttle for ticket holder because before this I bought the ticket at the counter but ya this year we redeemed the free shuttle with our tickets. It was written 'Limited Free Shuttle' at the shuttle bus counter so I guess we were lucky to have got it for both days. There were 3 stops; Hills Shopping Mall, Harbour View Hotel and Plaza Merdeka

This lady is the leader of the Tahitian dancers

We just passed through the entrance when we saw men and women dressed in Hawaiian-like costume. We guessed they were the Tahitian dancers and we were right! We were puzzled because the group was about to conduct a dance workshop in about 30 minutes so what were they doing there? They went down from the wooden walkway to the grassy area and started to play music and dance! It was my first time to ever seen that live so I got really really excited and just stayed there until the performance ended although I was standing at a non-shaded area.


We manage to catch the string instrument workshop which was in the same venue with the Tahitian dance and later we went to the South African dance workshop. The South African workshop was a full house. Later we learnt that they were among the favourite performers for the first night concert so that explains why it was full house that evening. I enjoyed their music and did follow some of the steps but the area was too crowded that I decided to stop and just watch and listen. For a moment it felt like I was in Zumba class although normally we dance Zumba to Spanish music, and that time it was African music.

My 3rd time; I already know that a mat is crucial for maximum comfort during concert

That night, it rained heavily after the second performance which was the Tahitian. JF and I donned our poncho and sat there in the rain and continued to enjoy the concert to the end. My favourite would be the At Adau, a local band from Sarawak and Hanggai a Mongolian rock band.


The rain was even worse on the second night but we enjoyed the show anyway especially Calan from Wales. They made amazing music with the bagpipes! I also love the last performance by Bitori from Cape verde. The music is called Funana, which is accordion-based and according to the emcee it was once banned by the Portuguese in Cape Verde as it is said to be subversive

Overall, this event never disappoints me. It always make me want to come to the next one. Next year it will be held on 13th July to 15th July. I might go if the dates does not clash with our trips (^^) I didn't get to take a lot of pictures or videos during the concert due to heavy rain

Our breakfast on the last day of RWMF2017

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Norway: Svalbard Part 1

Bismillah..

Honestly, I really miss those days when Malaysian travelers used to blog about their traveling experience. There are still some around but not as much as in the past. Since traveling have become something trendy and affordable for Malaysians for the past few years, people tend to love sharing itineraries, pictures and budget rather than stories. But.. Yeah.. We travel for different reasons and mine is always to satiate my curiosity. If the place is common for others and I haven't been there, it's not because it's cliche, but because there is nothing I'm looking for there.

So I was in Norway for the polar bear because I still can't afford to join the 2 weeks Arctic Expedition. I really really want to experience the roof of the world so I searched from where does the north pole expedition usually starts because I thought that must be among the northernmost point that I can go to other than the actual north pole. There are 2 starting points; one is Svalbard, Norway and the other is Murmansk in Russia. I decided on Svalbard for the ease of travel since no visa is needed.


I tried making our route for this trip with the lowest cost possible and all of us were monitoring for ticket prices for many months. So it was,

Oslo - Tromso - Svalbard - Tromso - Bodo - Oslo

Tromso to Bodo was by bus while the others were by air with SAS and Norwegian air. I missed the cheap ticket for Oslo to Svalbard so my ticket was somewhere near 200 euros while MR's was about 100 Euros. The ticket never dropped to lesser than 100 Euros to Longyearbyen.

While on transit in tromso

For SAS flight, it stopped for about an hour in Tromso. We got off the plane and there was security and immigration check before we board the flight again. We were greeted by a tremendous view when we arrived because the weather was very good that day that there was not a single cloud in the sky.

Everything is so organized in Norway, as expected of Scandinavia. When we arrived at the airport, we don't have to worry about the transport to our guesthouse. There were three tourist buses waiting outside with each of them had their bag compartments opened and there were papers with the names of the guesthouses that they are stopping at hanging at the door of the compartments. So we just placed our luggage in the compartment with our guesthouse name and board the bus. You can either pay by cash or debit card and you will get discount if you buy the return ticket.

The view from inside our bus

The view on the way to town was splendid that I didn't regret spending so much money flying to that part of the world. Our guesthouse is located at the end of town since it is one of the very few cheap options (which is not cheap at all). It cost us  ~ RM 400+ per night for a small room but it was very comfortable and I don't have anything to complain about for as long as the heater is working well. What I like about our rooms in Norway, even though most of them were with shared bathroom but all of them have a sink and a mirror inside so it was really convenient for ablution and the water is drinkable so we don't have to go to the kitchen to get water.

On the day of our arrival we were supposed to do ice caving but there was a miscommunication between the receptionist and our guide, so our guide went off without us because he thought we were not there (^^") So we took the opportunity to walk around town that evening.

It took us more than 30 minutes walking to the center although we were told it should be around 20 minutes walk. I think it was because we were not used to walking on icy roads and we just walked slowly to avoid from falling. I did fell on my butt once because it was so slippery. We took pictures around town but sadly, besides our GoPro, all of our devices shut down because the battery can't withstand the low temperature.

I told MR, I think they are no Muslims in Svalbard. But then, as we were walking towards a convenient store, two teenagers greeted us with Salam. They were smiling broadly at us. I think it must be quite rare to see people with hijab in Svalbard or they are just happy to see another Muslim.

We went to search for some souvenirs at the store and I got myself a puzzle because I already have too many fridge magnets and mugs and I don't want to have anything that will collect dust. Surprisingly, things are cheaper on that island due to the tax free status. I was surprised to see the Coke was 3x cheaper than in Oslo. I refrained myself  from drinking Coke in Oslo because it was 25 kr (~RM 12 ++) per can there! It was 7 kr (~RM 3.60) in Svalbard. When I first saw that I literally said to MR,

"Dorang pakai currency lain ke kat sini???" And leaned closer to the price tag to look at the currency

As we walk back to our guesthouse that evening, MR and I saw 3 huge animals with white fur from afar walking towards our direction. We can't really tell what they were at first and thought they were some wandering wild huskies but then we thought, "Ade ke wild huskies? Takkan lah tuan die lepaskan macam ni?" But then as the three got closer and closer (because MR and I stopped walking because we were afraid if they are some dangerous creature), they were actually 3 reindeer! And.. both of us got excited.

I have problem transferring the pics from my GoPro so it's going to be a while for the next post, I guess...

To be continued...

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99 Cahaya di Langit Eropah

Bismillah..

I haven't been writing about the books that I read for nearly 5 years! I used to love doing book reviews in the past and occasionally I did get email of appreciation from the authors too! Nowadays, I only updated my Good Reads bookshelf once in a while but I never leave reviews. Just to keep track whether I have reach my number of books read per year target or not. My target is very low, just 12 books per year; that's one book per month.


This one is my latest favourite, written by an Indonesian lady. It's not that hard to understand since there are not many Indonesian words that are unfamiliar to me. It's basically a travelogue while her husband and her lived in Austria for a few years. It was about how they had to adapt from living in an Islamic country to being a minority in Europe. And how they discovered the history of Islam all over Europe and come to love Islam more and more thereafter.


The first part of this book tells about how the expansion of the Ottoman empire was halted in Austria. Then they went to Paris and was accompanied by a historian who brought them into the Lourve where she showed them the exhibits that proves how Islamic culture was highly regarded for centuries in the past. Then they went to Spain to learn more about the Al-Andalus.


I'm quite familiar with the Islamic history and I remember them quite well from watching many documentaries but this book tells me a lot of things that I've never  heard of like how Croissant is related to the defeat of the Ottoman. I also love how the couple responded when their devotion were questioned by those who didn't believe in God and how the other characters that they met worked hard to portray that Islam is a religion of peace.


I love how she can incorporate the Quranic verses and Hadith in the paragraphs. This reminds me of "Ayat-ayat Cinta" the first book that made me fall in love with Indonesian books; they are just full of reminders that make me stop and ponder for a while or if it's something unheard of, I will search for itand get to learn something new.

What made it so exciting while I was reading this, I was in Europe! And I was in Spain when I finally get the time to read it since there were a lot of moving about while we were in Norway. The film is good, I was told but I decided to read the book first before watching it. I highly recommend this for leisure read (^^)

This book really made me think of how Islam reached its peak in the past. It was how the people of that time really understand and follow what was taught in the Al Quran and Hadith; they put knowledge on top of everything and observed good akhlaq. As oppose to people nowadays, there are even group of 'intellects' who are trying to challenge the interpretation of the Al Quran and Hadith to suit their lifestyle. Unbelievable~  

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