sekeping serendah

Warning: long blog ahead.

Saturday, 10th September
11:00 a.m.
Took off to Serendah yesterday morning for a quick weekend getaway – TK, Nik, Kelvin, Albert, Christine, Julie and myself. It was a little hush-hush operation we’d planned for a few weeks, and now we’re finally on our way.

11:45 a.m.
Reached Rawang for an early lunch. Christine led us to this place called “Lan Je” – famous for steamed fish, so it was said. It was a norm to order one “small” fish per person, so we had 6 (minus a non-fish eater) plus vegetable and tofu dishes. Imagine our surprise when the fish came in decently large sizes, much too large to have one each, really! One could easily be shared between 2 people. Anyhow, we decided “heck, ordered already… eat lah!” so we tucked in heartily. Before we knew it, we actually polished off all the fish there was… were we hungry or were we hungry?


2:00 p.m.
Reached Sekeping Serendah, and we were very taken by the whole serenity and beauty of it – lush greenery, bubbly sounds from the brook, the stillness of its surroundings. Our glass shed was the closest to the pool, quite hidden from the main path’s view behind a curtain of trees and shrubs. A small winding trail led the way to our home for the weekend.


The glass shed stood tall and welcoming with its French windows and open doors, and the only solid wall stands between the hall and the bathroom for a little privacy.


The bathroom itself was a joyous change from the 4-walled norm, with the sky for a ceiling and polished river stones as the floor (at the shower stall). But be careful where you stand in the shower or even in the general toilet area – there are places in the glass shed where you could stand and have full view of the entire bath save for those few 80-percent-privacy-covered spots!

On with the tour…


Upstairs loft area is again all windows, no solid walls. Very airy, very spacious, very un-private. So… no hanky panky behind closed doors (what doors??).

Ok ok, enough of descriptions of the place. Time to tell you what we did… that’s the more interesting story!

2:30 p.m.
We didn’t hang around too long marvelling at the glass shed, the pool outside was too inviting. We got changed and jumped into the pool for a cool refreshment. There were these chairs and sofas made of coarse wire mesh all around the pool (and even as furniture in the shed), very interesting indeed.


Hung around the pool for a bit, chatted a bit, gossiped a bit. The usual. By 3:30 p.m. we had to get our dinner ready. Some of the meat were already pre-seasoned at home, some we had to do it there and then.


5:30 p.m.
Still plenty of daylight left when we started the fire and had our scrumptious tandoori chicken, bacon and banana skewered rolls, baked fish, cockles, spuds… and oh yes, lots of mixers.


Everyone took turns making a batch with whatever alcohol we brought along – bacardi limon, dry gin, even henessy v.s.o.p.! Some made it sweet, others made it salty. The salty mixers are the ones that make you drink without tasting much of the alcohol, but more of the calamansi juice and salt as if you’re drinking “kum-kat” (a sort of preserved salted plum drink).


Oh… and the best part… someone brought 2 sticks of cannabis, or mary jane if you please. In between the barbeque and drinks, a few puffs here and there made things a little more interesting. Not everyone had a go though, which was okay. No point forcing it down when it’s not something they wanna do.


8:30 p.m.
Everyone was pretty much either stoned or high on alcohol / other. Some interesting quotes that came out in the next couple of hours that followed:

• “Don’t burn your bulu! Don’t burn your bulu!” (bulu = hair)
• “Sometimes I don’t mind oysters, other times I don’t mind fatt choy.” (fatt choy = a sort of seaweed that resembles human hair)
• “It’s called suck and blow, not kiss and blow!” (Referring to the card game, by the way)

Hmmm… I think I’d better stop there.


9:30 p.m.
TK was out like a light. He was sleeping on the platform bench, and we contemplated tying him down on one side so he wouldn’t roll to the right and fall over the edge. In the end the guys carried helped him settle down on a mattress in the hall.

The rest of us finished the last of the drinks and talked nonsense (or lots of sense in some ways) till one by one, the chatter started slowing down. Signs of the alcohol and mj wearing out…

Sunday, 11th September
12:00 midnight
I had a bad migrane from all the stuff I took in, and decided to call it a night. I could still hear the others up until they came up to snooze by 1:00 a.m. The night was cold; we didn’t need the fan though it was left on at the lowest speed to keep the air moving. The guys started snoring almost immediately after they’d hit the sack. It started off with them sounding a bit like cows grazing in the field, then it got louder which took on a more toad-like mating call instead. And, according to Julie, there was a sleep-talker with pretty interesting things said (but not to be repeated here for the sake of privacy, haha!).


7:00 a.m.
The alarm clock in my head buzzed me awake. Also, the dog was barking outside which pretty much woke everyone else as well. A few of us started dragging our arses out of bed and showered.

Breakfast for the lazy was twisties, mamee noodle snack and orange juice. Nik had the sense to cut the watermelon and oranges for a more refreshing alternative.

9:00 a.m.
Everyone’s up by now. TK’s the most hung-over, the rest of us were pretty much sane except for that faint zombie look that crossed our faces once in awhile. We made busy with cleaning up the place and cooking the last of the leftover meat from our barbeque.

12:00 p.m.
Time to leave Serendah. All packed and cleaned up, we made our payment and left for lunch in Rawang again, this time stopping at “Restoran 328” for some Chinese hawker-style food. We took off shortly after lunch, made our way home…

And thus was the end of our weekend getaway with lots of memories and moments (with photos as evidence!).


Hey guys… when’s our next trip?