Better late then never, Happy to New Year to you! This year too I will keep on informing you about things happening in and around Pangkor and further in Malaysia. The Malaysian government has officially opened the Visit Malaysia 2007 year. I will during this year keep an eye on the activities and inform you when what will will take place where.

At Pangkor the peace and quietness is back after the busy Christmas and New Year period. Hotels and restaurants are preparing themselves now for the next public holiday: Chinese New Year.

Peter van der Lans
Sitiawan Malaysia
15 January 2006

• Mangrove Forest Park Lumut
• Did you enjoy Pangkor? Let me know!
• Malaysia Flora Fest 2007
• Tour de Langkawi
• Why Sitesell for your internet business?
• Chinese New Year
• Cycling to Pangkor
• Plantation temples
• 123 Greetings.com

You can read latest updates in my Blog:
http://www.pulau-pangkor.com/Pulau-Pangkor-blog-1.html

Or, socialize it with:

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Mangrove Forest Park Lumut: Taman Paya Bakau

Just outside Lumut on the way to Taiping a new mangrove forest park is opened. It gives an excellent idea what a mangrove forest is and why it is important to the Malaysian coastal ecosystem. Until recently it was quite difficult to visit the Mangrove swamps on your own. With this park, it's now available to each and everyone.

The park is to be found just outside Lumut and it's name is: Taman Paya Bakau.

Mangrove swamps offer the same protection as the dunes do in other parts of the world: they protect the backlands. Last year I wrote a page about the mangrove forest. This page is now updated and contains recent photos of the mangrove park near Lumut. It's worth a short visit. Here's more about the mangrove park Taman Paya Bakau near Lumut.

http://www.pulau-pangkor.com/mangrove-forest.html

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Did you enjoy Pangkor? Let me know!

What's Pangkor like? I know, I live here. That's why I build the www.pulau-pangkor.com website. How about you? If you have been to Pangkor, you may want to share your thoughts with the other readers.

Marleen was last week in Pangkor at the Nipah Bay Villa. She was very enthusiastic about Pangkor. Marleen works in Kuala Lumpur but is originally Dutch. Her website contains a story about Pangkor. http://malleen.waarbenjij.nu/ is the address and it is written in Dutch! Do not forget to click on the photos to have an idea how Marleen saw Pulau Pangkor.

Irina Mihalcut lives in Korea and was with Christmas and New Year's Eve in Pangkor. She just send me an email:

Dear Peter,

I just came back from Malaysia....it was a great vacation...and quite an experience!

Pulau Pangkor ...a beautiful island...in just one word: excellent!

I'll write about my trip, the next days, and I'll send the doc to you, maybe you can post some info on your web site!

Thank you for your advices...!

Happy New Year!

Irina Mihalcut 

Well Irina, I am happy you enjoyed Pangkor and look forward for your story which, obviously will be mentioned too in the Pangkor Newsletter!

Have you a story to tell about Pangkor? Let me know!

http://www.pulau-pangkor.com/pangkor-stories.html

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Malaysia Flora Fest 2007

Malaysia celebrates its 50th birthday. One of the first big events is the Malaysia Flora Fest. The fest will take place from 20 January until 4 February 2007 in Putrajaya and Kuala Lumpur.

More about the Flora here:

http://www.tourism.gov.my/

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Tour de Langkawi 2007

Bad news for the cycling friends, the Tour de Langkawi will start on 2nd of February but will not come to Sitiawan and Lumut like last year. The 10 day tour will have an interesting 10 day schedule. Find more about the Tour de Langkawi at:

http://www.tdl.com.my/

and see how last year the Tour de Langkawi finished in Sitiawan with a start the next day in Lumut

http://www.pulau-pangkor.com/tour-de-langkawi.html

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Why Sitesell for your internet business?

Tired of reading how good Sitesell is? I don't want to use any other system for creating websites. But why? I am lazy, I admit it. I don't want to be busy with all kinds of technical things like writing html, difficult coding etc. I want to focus on what I like most: the subjects of my websites. Sitesell makes it easy for me. So why wouldn't it be easy for you? And Sitesell has now a complete video for you to understand the process of building a profitable website about a subject YOU like. Look and listen to the video:

http://videotour.sitesell.com/webselling64290.html

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Chinese New Year 2007

Chinese New Year will be celebrated according to the moon calendar on 18th and Monday 19th February 2007. It's some weeks to go. However, you may want to have a look what Chinese New Year is and how it's celebrated here in Malaysia by the Chinese population. Two years ago I wrote an article for the Pulau Pangkor Newsletter, which gives you all the info you need to know to understand what Chinese New Year is and what it means to the Chinese people, not only in Malaysia, but all over the world.

http://www.pulau-pangkor.com/Pulaupangkor_newsletter-special-edition-CNY.html

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Cycling to Pangkor

Due to the Taiwan earthquake late December I had hardly any internet connections. So I thought it was a good idea to do a bit of cycling. After all, sitting at home and doing nothing doesn't help much anyway. And as I love cycling, why not? So I took my bicycle, Jim (if you have not heard of Jim, check his story here) and went to Penang. There I took the train to Hat Yai. I don't know but over the years I came regularly in Hat Yai and I like it there. It's nothing special but I like the feel of the city. Besides, it's a good place to start a bike route to Malaysia but avoid the main roads.

Most people who come to Hat Yai go straight to the border. However, there are two alternative ways to enter Malaysia in this area. One is the ferry from Satun to Langkawi, but I took this time the road to Yala and then Betong. You can read more about this road here:

http://www.pulau-pangkor.com/cycling-to-Pangkor-from-the-north.html

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Plantation temples around Pangkor

While I was cycling from Hat Yai to Pangkor I came back in Malaysia when I crossed the Thai-Malaysian border. Again it struck me (again!) that were I passed plantations, I saw small religion shrines and temples. Sometimes I passed a small Chinese temple. But as traditionally Indians work on the plantations (actually nowadays it seems to be more Bangladeshi and Indonesians) there are also small Indian temples build. Usually these temples are small and simple. If you are in the area of Pangkor, there are some of these kind of temples to be visited. One is very near to Lumut, in fact just outside Lumut town. Few people ever visit this temple but it's worth a visit.

http://www.pulau-pangkor.com/Kaliaman-temple.html

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