White Water Rafting in Padas River, Sabah

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Are you an advance paddler? Aged from 12 to 55 years old and are physically fit? Fantastic! This is the right river for you to test your skills! Uhmmm… beginners? Attempting Padas River? Yeah, sure why not? Just ‘paddle’ o­n and follow the safety instructions please!

White Water Rafting in Padas River

Padas River is situated in the interior of southern part of Kota Kinabalu that is o­nly accessible by train (used since the late 19th century in Borneo). Basically, this trip will give you two experiences advantages – 1) Excursion of Class III-IV river, 2) A ride in an antique train in this new millennium.

The adrenaline rush excursion covers a distance of 9km of this rather muddy 200 km river that holds 7 exciting and tough rapids!

These rapids carries amusing names such as Merry-Go-Round Rapid, Break Point Rapid, Scooby Doo Rapid, Cobra Rapid, Curve Rapid, Lambada Rapid and Head Hunter Rapid. Each rapid will give you the feel of the motion as what the name means.

The journey will first take 1-½ hours overland through the countryside to Beaufort town. From there upon, adventure begins with 1-½ hours train rides tracks along the Padas River that gives glimpses of the thrills and excitement to come. Upon arriving at the starting point, participant will be given safety briefing before going down the river.

The ultimate challenge will speak for itself as o­ne shoots through and experiences the nerve tingling excitement which crescendos rapid after rapid while getting a closer look at the Borneo’s amazing flora and fauna.

After rafting, enjoy a sumptuous barbecue lunch by the river. Wind down with a sunset view of the return journey to Kota Kinabalu, along with presentation of certification of achievement.

KKIA Terminal 2 to also cater for international flights

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AirAsiaKOTA KINABALU: The KKIA Terminal Two building is not only to cater for domestic flights, but would also serve international carriers.

The Prime Minister said although low cost carriers Air Asia and FAX are the main players for now, they would also serve the international sector.

“It is not merely a domestic terminal,” he said.

Speaking at the launching yesterday, he said that although the terminal is meant to cater for budget airlines, it doesn’t mean that the services rendered at the terminal are sub-standard in nature.

Read more from New Sabah Times

How can a Malaysian open a US bank account?

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I received an email from E*TRADE Hong Kong this morning, informing me about their Chinese New Year Customer Service Hours. Ironically, I have not get any formal reply from E*TRADE US about my application, which I sent 9 months ago. So, basically, I am in their database as one of their customer, but I did not get my account number and user ID.

E*TRADE FinancialWell, as it is still morning here in this part of the world, I decided to call E*TRADE Hong Kong to ask about my application. The customer service center answer my phone call, (which I use iTalk from TM) very professionally and prompt. I only manage to give him my full name and last 4 digit of my account (it was stated in the email), as he required that info to check whether I am one of their customer or not. It only took him less than 2 minutes to process my queries, and after answering few security questions (mostly my personal info), he gave me the account number, my user ID and password. Now I have a US bank account!

You may asked me why I need a US bank account? Well, to tell you the truth, US authority have a very strict rule on foreigners opening a bank account in US after the September 11 tragedy. It includes Malaysia, which is an unfortunate. Opening a US bank account is important for those who deals with internet marketing, i.e. handling international money around the internet. By having an account in US, it will be easy for us Malaysian to handle the money, as most giant companies in the net requires the internet marketer to have an account (like Paypal) to withdraw your ‘frozen money’.

If you are Malaysian, and search the net for US bank account to be open, you can found none. E*TRADE is the only financial institution in US that enable you to have one account, whereby you can use it to do a telegraphic transfer (TT) to your local banks. It is not a bank. We just use one of their finacial service to get the money keep before it is transfer it to our account.

I don’t know about you. I use E*TRADE as one of the tools for me to receive money from international travelers who would like to ask me to help them book a package or accommodation for their Mount Kinabalu adventure travel.

Are they reliable? Well, we have to see that. I guess…

Birthday Ticker for your child

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Oh, I found a really cute website that gives you a free birthday ticker for your child. I just think that it would be nice for parents (like me) to have one in their website or blogs. Apart from it being nice, it will also remind you how old your little angle is!

The one below is for my daughter. You can change the design of the ticker from a lot of templates that they offer.

Lilypie 1st Birthday Ticker

Syahzanani Izzati

Pulau Tiga (Tiga Island – Survivor Island)

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Do you know that Pulau Tiga (The Survivor Island) is in Sabah?

Survivor BorneoPulau Tiga is the largest of the three islands that make up Pulau Tiga Park, with Pulau Kalampunian Besar and Pulau Kalampunian Damit. Its beautiful landscape and pristine natural environment has attracted CBS TV Network of the USA to use this island as the main location of the popular ‘Survivor’ Programme, dubbing it the ‘Survivor Island’.

This island was formed through the eruption of several mud volcanoes. The last explosion happened in 1941 and since then the volcanoes have remained relatively passive although several small mud volcanoes spewing cool, mineral rich mud can still be found near the summit of the island. The notion that this mineral rich mud is good for your skin makes mud bathing a must-do activity in this island.

The islandÂ’s lush green forest serves as a soothing backdrop while the fine sand of its white beaches and the clear unpolluted water is a wonder for nature lovers. The coral reefs encircling the island invite many species of fish and other marine life to make it their home. Among the activities that can be done here include diving, non-motorised water sports, trekking, bird watching and mud bathing.

Pulau Tiga Travel Adventure Package

The Park Headquarters is situated on the southern side of the island, not far from Pulau Tiga Resort, the only resort facility available on the island.

Touring the GIMP from TUX – free downloadable PDF

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This article by Michael J. Hammel originally appeared in Issue 1 of TUX Magazine

The GNU Image Manipulation Program (the GIMP) has been called “Photoshop for Linux”. While the GIMP is not just for Linux and is not an Adobe Photoshop clone, it is a very powerful image manipulation program. It is clearly on the other end of the spectrum from TuxPaint as far as capabilities.

In this first article, Micheal offers a tour of the cabilities. If you are like me, the GIMP seemed intimidating because it has so many capabilities. This article will help you get more comfortable with all the possible things you can do without getting buried in details. In subsequent articles we will explore some specific capabilities.

You can download the attached PDF from TUX website. Yes, it’s free.

MyeMoney – Change your Paypal money to Malaysian Ringgit (MYR)

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It’s known that if you have money in Paypal account, and you are Malaysian, its difficult (almost impossible) for you to cash your money out. I have been using Paypal for the past 1 year, and I have to buy something in the net so that I get some benefit from the so called ‘frozen money’. It was not until I found a website owner which kind of ‘trade’ our Paypal money. His name is James, and he run the website http://www.myemoney.biz/

I just would like to share with you my good experience while trading with James. His reply was prompt and professional. I got my Paypal money cash out in less than an hour!

I will show you the evidence of his reliability:

This is the receipt that I received after I fill in the form in his website, requesting for exchange my Paypal money to Ringgit Malaysia (RM or internationally known as MYR).

MyeMoney

After few minutes, I received an email, requesting me to transfer my Paypal money to his account.

Request for money (Paypal email)

After few automated email from Paypal stating that I send and he received the money, I received an email from James saying that he transferred the amount of money I requested in my Maybank2u.com account. All of the above process took me less than an hour.

Maybank receipt

So, if you have some ‘loose’ money inside Paypal, and do not know how to go about it, why not ask James for a favour. Although it’s not free, I don’t mind paying him 5% paying charges for the service that he give.

Verdict: I will give 5/5!

Moneygram and Moneybookers services for m-k-b.com

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We received a lot of quotation request since the beginning of 2007 (maybe due to the promotion of Visit Malaysia Year). Currently we are handling more that 20 emails from all over the world, requesting me and Aiden for various tailor-made travel package to Mount Kinabalu and Sabah.

As we are not an established tour company, by right, it is illegal for us to accept full money for a tour package. It is kind of an obstacles to us, as Sutera Sanctuary Lodges need travelers to pay their booking fees to secure a place in Laban Rata.

MoneygramAfter so much discussion and consideration, we decided that we still need to be able to accept small amount of payment to deal with ONLY the accommodations on Laban Rata area. Otherwise, you will not be able to get any place confirmation in Laban Rata for climbing Mount Kinabalu.

MoneybookersTemporarily at the moment, we will use these services from Moneygram and Moneybookers to transfer money to our account, so that you can make sure that you get a place to sleep on the way to the summit of Kinabalu. They are the only feasible methods of transferring money among hundreds of other payment methods in the net.

Having said that, I still need to remind you that WE ARE NOT A TOUR COMPANY. What we do is just to simplify the process for you to climb Mount Kinabalu. The methods above will be use temporarily, until we have enough funds to set up a company that can deal with your bookings without any difficulties.