An evening stroll at Mengkuang Dam

You will never walk alone

Visitors thronging the park

Reflection

Fishing is prohibited

Some young visitors feeding fish with bread at the bank

A big round bark on one of the rubber trees

An unusual branch from the same tree

Picnic at the hill slope under the rubber trees

A scenic view from the bank to the main entrance

Hot spot for picture

Sky over Mengkuang Dam

Slope up to the rest area

R & R

A wall of Mengkuang Dam

Not to miss out the beautiful landscape and wonderful spot to relax, Bigfoothill took a quick stroll at the Mengkuang Dam near Bukit Mertajam, Penang.  It will be closed to the public from August 1, 2011 till July 31, 2016 for the dam expansion to cater to the demand for water in the State of Penang in the coming years due to the rising populations and consumption.

There are many visitors on the weekends and it was receiving exceptionally higher number of visitors today.  Many came with their family and friends.  Most of them brought their best digital cameras and equipments to capture the moments as the place are sentimental to many visitors.  It could be the place where many met and fell in love with their spouses, the place where they shoot their outdoor wedding pictures, the place for exercise and jogging with their whole family, young and old. 

The closure of the Mengkuang Dam and recreational park to public is unavoidable.  It is for the benefit of all Penangites to have the expansion to meet the water demand in the future.  In view of the construction activities and the movement of heavy vehicles within the dam and park, it is for the safety of the public that the place is restricted for this period.  Let us bear with the inconveniences for the next five years.  For our safety and also to protect our health from contamination of our drinking water store at the dam, let us hope the government and people can work together to monitor the dam and park throughout the construction period to ensure that we have a better place to continue to enjoy at the end of the project. 

There are many other recreational parks in Seberang Perai and Penang Island that the visitors can do their regular exercises and activities. We need a little effort to go to a new recreational park and adapt to it. Any kind of mass development projects are bound to have some kind of objections from the general public especially those that have been used to the place or the ease of doing their economic and social activities in the surrounding areas. 

For those coffee shops, nearby food stalls and fruits vendors, their livelihoods will definitely be affected most as some of their clients are mostly visitors to the Mengkuang Dam recreational parks beside the locals. Let us hope that they will find new clients from the workers involved in the construction project during this period.

There were many dissenting voices including the politicians when the previous government proposed the construction of the dam back in the 1980's.  Today, the present state government who were once the dissenting voices in the oppositions have to switch roles and work together with the Federal Government to implement the expansion program for the benefit of all Malaysians and visitors to our country.  We cannot promote Penang as World Heritage Sites if the tourists do not have clean and healthy water for drinking and washing.

In fact, this project have been overdue.  You can read the The Star article on this project two years ago.  Bukit Mertajam will definitely reap the benefits from this project as the Dam is situated in its vicinity. There was the centralized sewage project at Bukit Minyak that was going on for the past two years. The ongoing railway double tracking is causing its people a lot of inconvenience due to the many road detours and heavy traffic jams daily within town and residential estates as the people commute between their house, offices and schools.  As soon as these projects are completed, we will enjoy a smoother ride home with less congestion.  Meantime, the town have been dusty.

A number of Penangites from the island side have had the impressions that the mainland side of Penang are dusty and dirty since many years ago when bigfoothill got to mingle with them.  I hope this perception will change someday in the future. Dirty?  Any part of our country are dirty if we are all throwing and dumping rubbish everywhere we set foot on.  It is everyone's duty to keep our environment clean and make it a habit not to litter at our convenience. Look at our other recreational parks that have so much waste plastic bottles and other wastes that got stranded on our drains and rivers. I am sure we have seen people who throw rubbish out from their cars while driving on Malaysian roads.  Can't we keep it in our vehicle till we park next to the rubbish bin and dispose the rubbish?

It is also hope that the government and contractors will replace and replant the trees uprooted in the course of the implementation of the the mega projects, upon completion as rapidly as they chopped it down and bulldozed it when they started the projects. Many times, we lack the will power and enforcement to get the contractors to deliver what is promised under the plan including the compliance with the Environmental Impact Assessment(EIA) reports to green the place after the project is completed. Measures should be put in place to hold back the retention fund until full satisfaction of a job well done.  May the local councils monitor this compliance and may the Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) be more active in this area for the community instead of being political. Let us love Mengkuang Dam, Bukit Mertajam and our Mother Earth.

Story of Bottled Water 瓶裝水的故事

After BIGFOOTHILL visited Sungai Juru  recreation park,  I became more aware of the No Plastics Campaign around the world and in particular, my home state Penang in Malaysia. I am distressed by what I saw especially the floating empty plastic bottles flowed and trapped at the Sungai Juru river entrapment. I came across the story of bottled water from the website E-dump which have it by the side of its page.  I am interested to have this Story of Bottled Water 瓶裝水的故事 (created by Annie Leonard  who created the Story of Stuff Project) added to my blog to create the awareness and help to make Bukit Mertajam or Big Foot Hill a..k.a "Tua Shua Kha"(in Chinese Hokkien) a town in Penang to be part of the campaign to make Penang  the first green state in Malaysia.


I did not realize that I have been contributing to the pollution by being an ignorant consumer as I used to grab a bottle of bottled water at the local coffee shop for my drink as I go there to watch English Premier League(EPL) Football matches on the live television broadcast thinking that I it is safe for my health instead of drinking other drinks and that the shop will recycle the empty bottle. I use to order mineral water and the shop assistant being hired from another country could not understand 'mineral' water always ended up giving me the drinking bottled water.  Cannot blame him either as there are so many brands and type of bottled water (Reverse osmosis(RO), Minerals, Drinking and Carbonated) in the market to choose from.

The best way is to stop consuming bottled water totally from now onwards to ensure I play my part.  Let us be responsible for our action.  I urge you to share this message with our friends as we can have greater and faster impact to heal our hurting environment from this very day.

We can see many bottled water in plastic bottles with house brand being provided at hotels and restaurants for guests staying at the hotels and at the conferences and seminars at their venues. We need to get the hotels to play their parts too by offering drinking waters in stainless steel pots or tanks where we can pour or fill our own cups and glasses. There are so many other events such as wedding, birthday and house warming parties, lunch and dinners and even at funerals where the bottled water in plastic bottles or cups are being distributed.

To begin with, the Penang State government will have to ensure they take the lead and the NGOs give their full supports and actively campaign with the local community. So the government functions will also have to ensure that they stop providing drinking bottled water from January 2011 to take one step further.

We need the supermarkets, hypermarkets,convenience stores, the fast foods chains, restaurants and coffee shops to not only stop providing plastics bags from January 2011. We need them to STOP selling bottled water.  If we are made to pay twenty sen for the plastic bag on no plastic bag days, it will be fair to consumer and coffee shop to just provide a glass of drinking water at twenty sen. Easily a bottled water would cost RM1.00(Ringgit Malaysia one only) which is 400 times profit.  Would anyone of us want to buy a loaf of bread or a packet of famous Malaysia food called "Nasi Lemak" which is a Malaysian favorite breakfast food made of steamed rice in coconut milk top-up with curry anchovy and hard-boiled and garnished with cucumber slices costing 400 times more than it is worth its value?

After all, our Penang State through its state-owned company Perbadanan Bekalan Air (PBA) is known to have produced the cleanest water in Malaysia and also the cheapest tariff.   There are eatery outlets that charge RM0.50( Fifty sen) for a cup of plain drinking water as they do not provide free drinking water. The funny thing is many of us would think that the fifty sen for a cup of drinking water is expensive compared to the bottled water which is merely the packaging and advertisement that dubbed us into thinking that it is worth paying for.  The worst thing that happens is that we are being made the culprit that contributes towards the pollution of our environment by our demand for such bottled water.

Mind you, if any of us are to be careful to check on the label of the bottled water, most will realize that the drinking water source is tap water like one particular brand that came from the state of Selangor.  I did thought of making money from bottling water from tap water supplied by PBA by just getting some filters and do the reverse osmosis and shared that idea with a friend of mine as I came across a local coffee shop also had its own brand of drinking water which is sold at RM1.00. Anyway, there is the need to get the licensing and the relevant health authorities to approve it.  So it seems in Malaysia, the government has the power to enforce the law of banning such practice of bottling drinking water.

We become more aware of the environment as see these images of bottled water doing damages to our Mother Earth.

You can watch the videos on BigFootHill Video Bar on the side bar or click here for link to The Story of Bottled Water http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Se12y9hSOM0&feature=channel

You can get more on how to help realize a green environment with Annie Leonard on the link below:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GorqroigqM&feature=channel

BIGFOOTHILL: Sungai Juru Recreation Park, Bukit Mertajam, Seberang Perai Tengah, Pulau Pinang

BIGFOOTHILL: Sungai Juru Recreation Park, Bukit Mertajam, Seberang Perai Tengah, Pulau Pinang, Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng urged NGOs to support for state's No Plastic Bag ruling

Pollutions at Sungai Juru

Pollutants trapped at Sungai Juru

Pollutants floating and flowing into Sungai Juru

Is there fish at Sungai Juru now?

A man looking for fish and casting his net at Sungai Juru

Will Sungai Juru be a  Claass 2 river by 2015?

There are pollutions on our rivers due to  our neglect for the environment.  With rubbish going into our drains and choking our rivers, it is bound to be man made disasters happening such as flooding of residential, industrial and commercial areas that never happen before but it will happen due to accumulation over time.  Do we want to prevent flood before it happens?  I have seen the plastics and non-bio degradable objects flowing to Sungai Juru just yesterday at the recreation park.  I can see the children playground is well maintained and clean.  Is it because parents are afraid to bring the children there since Juru river was reported to be the most polluted river in Penang State.  Can we allow the contamination on the playground of our children by the riverside which are hazardous to our healths?  The Drainage and Irrigation Department (Jabatan Pengairan and Saliran or JPS) administration have targeted to covert Sungai Juru and Sungai Pinang from Class 5 to Class 2 rivers where it is clean enough for people to swim by 2015.

I saw someone was casting the net on the river Sungai Juru near the recreation park yesterday morning.  According to the JPS classification, this is a class 3 status.  The target is not impossible to achieve if only all consumers and manufacturers of packaging materials resort to the green and environmental friendly alternative of using bio-degradable materials and changing the habits of using plastic bags and foams for holding the shopping items and food stuff.  Bring your own green bags, trolleys and baskets to do sundry and stainless steel containers and tiffins for foods will help save the environment from the habit of use and discard to bring, clean and reuse.

Water bills may increase but negligible.  The thought of inconvenience of bringing your own tiffins or containers to office if office workers have been used to getting the foods in plastic bags from the nearby stalls could be the main habit that is difficult to adapt to initially.  I can remember those good old days in the 1960s and 1970s where our mothers used to prepare breakfast and lunchboxes when we go to schools or work.  We used the metal enameled plates at the school canteens for our favorite noodle soups, and fried noodles while the banana leaves for some of the Malaysian foods and desserts like curry steamed rice with anchovy and hard-boiled egg garnished with cucumber slices known as "Nasi lemak" and steamed glutinous rice with grated coconut mixed with brown sugar or known as "pulut inti" and  glutinous rice baked with pounced dried shrimps and chillies together with grated coconut or better known as "pulut udang" Rice in Malay is "Nasi" while glutinous rice in Malay is called "pulut"

We went visiting our relatives and friends at the hospital with home cooked foods on stainless steel containers, pots and tiffins.  We brought the bottles ourselves for the pharmacists at the government clinics and hospitals to contain the liquid medicines.  Today we pay and pay more bills and hospital charges for health-care. We have better medical facilities today  for treatment of illnesses and long term care but consumers are poorer as everything comes in packages and packaging.   The supply you plastic mug with toiletries nowadays if you are admitted to hospital on consultation.  Those days, we get admitted too but we or our relatives or friend will bring our own vacuum flask for warm water and own porcelain plate, bowl and cups with spoon and fork for our meals and medication.

Looking back those days meant life were much simpler with not much expectation of service from the hospital staff and consultants other than necessary help and assistance for treatments and a little comfort  for visitation by loved ones out of visiting hours who had to travel by bus or taxi or cycled from home to hospitals, and with only the objective and expectation of getting healed and out of the hospital in speed time which are in contrast to today's consumers demand for King service because we paid for it and we deserved it.  As a consumer, we are at the receiving end as the cost of medical bills increases and the cost of annual hospitalization and surgical insurance kept increasing.

Life will be much healthier and medical bills will be less expensive if we kick our unhealthy and unfriendly desire for plastics in our daily consumption and activities  which could be the sources for pollutions and toxic to our body, plastic surgeries to augment our unnatural beauty or even plastic money from the credit cards which are making us debtors.


In the nutshell, we are all in the chains of the food cycle which can be affected by the pollutants which we are reluctant to do away with because of the conveniences we enjoyed in the short-term.  Must we only be persuaded or forcibly asked to change our habits and cut on our profits because not by the authorities but by our own convictions when someone dear or loved ones are infected by diseases such as cancer and other dread diseases due to exposure to these pollutants which we happen to manufacture or make-it-happen as we use them daily for easy to carry or package our foods? Facts and statistics on cancer and other dread diseases causing pollutants are scientifically proven but we chose our own destiny to ignore it.