Home Sweet Home – Part I
Friday, March 4th, 2011It had been a busy month packed with travel itineraries, via air, sea, and ground transportation. Visiting four countries with climate varied from +35 degrees to -20 degrees Celsius had proven to be a very challenging step to take, despite the brutal winter experience that I had in the past. Imagine moving from an oven room to a deep freeze room….that was exactly how it felt like!
On the good side, family and friends, delicious food, familiar environment, laughter etc. surely beat the busy traveling plans and extreme climate change.
During the period of silence (e.g. no new posts on the blog), I felt like I needed another vacation for my vacation, a down time after all the excitements, high-tempo daily activities, traveling etc.
One of the many exciting trips that I went on was visiting the rice paddy field in Sekinchan, a small town located in northern part of Selangor state. Sekinchan is famous for its rice farming community; it’s one of the major rice producers in the country.
It was harvesting season in December.
A close look at the paddy. Every grain of rice is preciously produced.
Rice harvester in action at the paddy field. Crop harvesting can only be done on non-rainy days.
These days, we don’t expect farmers to do planting and harvesting in the old fashion way; bending down in the muddy field under the scorching hot sun. Instead, rice harvesters are commonly used nowadays. The rice harvester was important from Holland; modified from a used wheat harvester. Why go through all those troubles? It brings down the cost of the machine by multiple folds! Hundreds of thousands (in Malaysian currency) for the modified wheat machine harvester, instead of millions for a brand new machine.
Typically, June and December are the two harvesting months. There could be up to 3 times a year for harvesting; each season (from planting till harvesting) lasts about 120 days.
Miles was trying out the rice harvester.
It’d had been a beautiful sunset, too bad that it was overcast that day. I’ve always wanted to enjoy a beautiful sunset; the ones in Kota Kinabalu (east Malaysia) were the best thus far. Clouds were in the way that day, blocking the striking rays of sunshine. Another day, another time, I’m still not giving up hope on a spectacular sunset some day.
















































































































































