MuoZhenWai was the name of that place. Every household had NDP style fireworks. No shit. When 12am struck it felt as if you're in the middle of all the firing... The view of fireworks far away and NDP size fireworks firing straight up about 3 m away from u is a crazy difference.
I arrived there in the evening after a 14 hour car journey and walked into the shed. The Shed was a wooden hut housing a whole array of tools and miscellaneous materials for a variety of purposes: We slaughter stuff there, build pipe cannons, clean rifles, repair motorcycles, assemble home made fireworks, store chemical dispersion equipment for agriculture purposes, as well as engines of all kinds. Firewood, sheet iron, welding and machining tools and hunting attires all go into the little shed.
The moment I entered I saw my cousin cleaning out the guns. He looked up, gave a smile and gestured to a cupboard where ammo was stored. Chickens meant ammo No. 5, every shot spits 100 or so small steel bearings in a conical fashion. Evening's when the chickens come out to feed before roosting.
That evening we couldn't find a single chicken. We brought one rifle in and a net.
We drove deep enough to end up in some kind of swamplike area, then we netted a huge turtle. It's huge... Later on we would go back to the shed and slaughter it. Fellas the following pics will be pretty disturbing. I must stress again that in this place, people are not morbid or anything. In fact, they only kill enough to feed the family. The people there behave like the Bakkhai in a sense- the atmosphere is one of truth and joy, savage killing and eating but not unnecessary violence against animals or men. Unlike city dwellers, they don't purposefully stamp on cockroaches when they see one. Please skip the next 2 pics if you find them distasteful. 
The shell was removed from the body first with a small incision. The trick to letting the turtle not feel any pain is to make the cut this way without puncturing any organs.
Then it was separated into the main muscular section, the pile of intestines, liver, lungs and heart, and the shell.
Later on the organs will be gently removed as a complete pile away from the edible flesh. Whatever the turtle is feeling can be seen in its heart- If its in pain it dies immediately and the heart ruptures.
Here, we witnessed the heart pumping gently, slowly fading off, over the next thirty minutes or so. Then it stops, and we put the remains in the shell, drive into the jungle and bury it. The shell is not sold to be made into jewellery. People there believe that the shell is like its dignity- it is to be respected.
Get a better picture now of the guys living there?
Every day there were 2 banquets for everyone to come- indians, indonesian plantation workers, the chinese, the Malays, or any hungry highway traveller. The one at night was held in a makeshift multi purpose hall which was also an old fashioned fire station.
That night was the eve of the new year. Some people build a hot air balloon, and anyone could sign or write love messages on it. The hot air balloon would be driven very quickly by the wind out of sight, and every kampung would let off the balloons, one after another.
I deftly left a signature with my other cousin Kenny before liftoff.
We waited, waited, waited. 12 am, all homes around erupted with gunfire and fireworks, as far into the distance as I can see. this will last for hours, over the next 15 days or so, but most intensively in these 3 days. Everyone had a ring in their ears.
Then we saw a signal in the distance; a speck of yellow light floating away. A kampong a few kilometres away had released theirs... And we released ours.
The building in the background is the makeshift fire station.
Before going to sleep cousin gave me news that our stock of grenade charges for our little mortar pipe can't reach here from KL. He contacted a few guys from the black market for bullets and mortar blanks.
The next morning I took my darling out for a ride.
ACX 8953 was my lover for a while. All kinds of terrain. It went hunting, riding, speeding, bumping, ridin with me everywhere I went.
I even bought her a new headlight!
On occasions she had a browning 12 gauge strapped to the side and a parang on the other.
I love her.
One day I shall write a book! It'll be about my bike. Every new year I go back I clean it up. When I get a Ninja zx9R ill even blow her candles!
I took her really deep into the forest for hours and hours, past plantations of all sorts. Then I reached my little garden of Eden- A long stretch or road going north into the horizon, trees on both sides, nothing but green, all alone. There was an occasional truck hauling fuel or tonnes of oil palm but that was it- I'm pretty much on my own. I stayed there with my bike for hours, with Jay's yi lu xiang bei playing over and over and over.
One day I'll bring my darling there... I'll teach her how to ride and we'll both listen to yi lu xiang bei! Haha. Or I can turn gay, and I'll bring HIM to the place!
Hunting we shall go again. Cousin and me used the usual 4-round 12 gauge semiautomatic browning rifles.
I couldnt bring the camera there. On the rocks I could scarcely keep myself on the bike, much less carry a camera along. I have a newfound respect for frontline war photographers...
I did contemplate strapping the camera underneath the gun barrel as well.
30 minutes into the jungle and we've spotted a whole group of chickens, at close to impossible range. My cousin tried a slow approach but then they started running so he drove and passed me the rifle while i fired once from the bike. The recoil left an instant bruise on my shoulder and left me stunned for a moment. The recoil pushes your whole face out and up, so I didn't see what I hit, but cousin said that I hit one. I went down to grab the chicken from the thick undergrowth... right into a gigantic spider web. Familiar with those 1-line spiderwebs which catch your face? This is a full size web and i swear it was difficult walking through it, you can feel a sticky force pushing you back and stretching. Damn gross. It stuc everywhere, particularly my hair. Freakin ruined. But nonetheless, I got my chicken.
We rode some more and then he sighted a rooster- Roosters are the hardest to hit because they are faster, more alert, more aware of their surroundings. He aimed, and in that split second he pulled the trigger the cock flew a few metres away. A flash here, a flash there and my cousin emptied 2 or 3 blind rounds, one after another. Moments later the cock entered a huge hedge in the distance and we lost it.
15 minutes or so and we spotted a hen. The thing about hunting chickens or boar is that the prey is much better suited to run and hide than we can catch up. From tree to tree, brush to brush, they're damn clever. I'm not exaggerating when I say that certain skill is needed to get the prey where you want at the right time.
Cousin gave me a signal to leave the bike. No speech, chickens recognise it as danger, just like the motorcycle engine. He drove off, and I was in a half kneeling position, aiming at 4 possible spots the chicken might appear. I could see movement behind a tree.
Moments later there was a loud revving from my right, a firework went off and the chicken flew left into the middle of a small clearing.
In the jungle, there's no such thing as trapped in a corner. Trapped in a little clearing, yes.
The gun jumped and knocked my glasses off but not before I saw the chicken change inertial direction in mid flight.
He picked up the chicken this time and I drove him to a huge prawn farm he owns in the plantation.
We saw an eagle in the sky. Then at the farm we saw a few swamp birds which fed on prawns.
I didn't see him raise his rifle but moments later a bird took flight and got a tailfeather shot off in mid flight from some distance out.
Later we would fish in a little natural pool and catch two niluohongs.
There's a difference buying food home and hunting food home.
When you hunt, there's a sense that this is t feed everyone.
I took immense pride in holding the loot home, but it would be wierd if I held two fish with a hunting rifle stuck on my back wouldnt it=)
In the evening I went for another solo journey with my bike. I went onto the old highway up north for about 2 hours or so at top speed(~120kmh?)
I saw a marvellous sight- A huge roadside open air movie screen playing some indian stuff and a whole load of indians were watching it out in the cool night air. There was a snack seller as well selling goreng pisang if im not wrong. There were close to 30, 40 indians with motorcycles, presumably highway travellers who wanted to take a rest and some entertainment here.
I lost the photo of that one, but it was in the night and was so pitch dark that only the screen illuminated everything.
How ironic! In the city, we build theatres to keep it dark and air con to keep it cold. There, it's pitch dark naturally with cold forest air.
I drove up into the crowd of Indians with their bikes to watch for a moment. Nobody frowned. It was fantastic. All the highway people were huddling together and nobody minded a young Chinese boy in the middle of loads of Indian adult men.
Then I rode home and halfway back the motorcycle started losing power. We were running on fumes. Then I ran out. To conserve the battery power I switched off my bike's headlights and tried to wave down vehicles, someone with hopefully a bit of petrol to spare.
Someone did, but still not enough. I was able to barely make it to a petrol kiosk before the engine died. Here I left the cam on timer mode and wanted to take a pose holding the pump at a station with 2 pathetic pumps- But realised that the pumps were both locked. The owner's asleep.
In the end I was able to buy 3 ringgit of petrol from a guy living opposite the station. "Next time at night come here, I sell you."
He sold petrol in beer bottles. Like, molotovs?!
3 ringgit of petrol there could fill up half my tank. I rode comfortably back home.
The next morning I took the deepest ride ever into unexplored territory. I started out before the sun was out and ended riding close to 11am. Then I saw, in the middle of nowhere, a horrific structure-
What the hell! The structure had a huge 15cm thick steel blast door painted in black. Curiosity pushed me to investigate. The door had a smaller door in it, presumably for the person inside to look out. It was unlocked, I opened the peephole cautiously.
A tiny room. It was dark and there was machinery whirring inside the structure. Then the oddest of things- An armoured window which let a little natural light in, a table made of concrete, a gaping hole in a wall partition separating the room from the main building with cables spilling out.
And guess what, yet another blast door inside leading to a passage, similar to the one I was taking pictures from. It was open. I couldn't see what was inside, the next picture was taken with flash. 
It was astonishing. There was no other way in except for those double blast doors. In the middle of nowhere- Like a patch of forest was suddenly bulldozed to build this monstrosity.
Could it be the REAL Atomik Jaya?! lol yish if you're reading this yes, I was then thinking about your group piece!
My best guess is that it's an armoury of sorts, maybe a post for stocking weapons and ammo. Or its a blank target for the malaysian air force.
I went back with pictures and stuff but when I drove my dad in I couldnt remember the right track to turn to already.
Next I got my bro and me into a rubber plantation to set off some homemade charges he's been fiddling at. It was impossible to take a picture of the moment when the explosion throws clumps of dirt into the air but here:
yet another act seh picture(after various failed attempts at capturing the explosion flares.
Night came, we took out a homemade mortar pipe and placed charges in it after obtaining them frm the guy my cousin called. It cost 70 dollars for 20 rounds of blanks. Later on we would set up a cardboard target and fire broomsticks(which fit perfectly into the pipe) at the targets. 10m away, you never saw the broomstick flying, all you see is a thunderous explosion, a huge muzzle cone, then tonnes of smoke and the person carrying the cannon reeling from the recoil, the broomstick has gone right through the cardboard. The cannon was probably 8kgs. Again I took short clips of the explosions themselves but i cant put them here. Here's a pic of an aftermath tho:
(SHIT! I've reached some sort of picture limit? I don't know.)
Later on I would have fired a broomstick into a tree, never to be found again. We switched to glass ball munitions and shot off a medium sized branch of a tree and left a perfect hole when we shot one through a huge pile of garbage. It was hilarious.
Then a 14 hour journey, I'm back here and Whoalla. Huge culture shock.
