On 15 August 2009, we left for Raub at about 8:45 pm after attending the blessing service conducted by Rev. Vijita at the Shrine Hall.
We reached Raub Buddhist Association (RBA) centre at about 11:30 am. We were then given a welcoming vegetarian lunch at the Silver City Vegetarian Restaurant.
We headed for Sungai Ruan at about 1:30PM. Our first itinerary was at the Sungai Ruan Old Folks Home. This home has no caretaker, the old folks have to take care of themselves. Those physically abled-old folks have to take up a job to supplement their income. When all of us occupied the front porch of the home to accompany and talk with them, they were excited of this pleasant change in their daily mundane activities, but most importantly, they needed the company. We distributed gift of cash and kind to the old folks followed by a blessing service.
Our next itinerary was visiting a lung cancer patient with 3 children.
For the rest of the afternoon, we visited another six needy families and individuals, unfortunately all the photographs I have taken have damaged and could not be downloaded :
(a) A speech and hearing impaired couple with 4 children
(b) A man with a Vietnamese wife who is paralysed from the waist down. We have visited him in our previous Raub Charity Trips. His mother who took care of him have already passed away. His relatives had arranged to marry him with a Vietnamese wife to take care of him.
(c) A single mother with 3 children.
(d) Three kidney patients and a man who is paralysed from his neck down.
We have our dinner at the Kum Leng Restaurant at about 6:30PM.
At 8:30pm, Dato' Ang Choo Hong (the immediate past BMSM president) delivered a talk about "Fire" at the Shrine Hall of the RBA centre.
Basically, the talk was about Buddha's fire sermon (Adittapariyaya Sutta), which teaches us how to achieve liberation from suffering through detachment from the five senses and mind.
On the following day (16/8/2009), due to a very tight schedule, most of us woke up quite early, some of us as early as 5:00am. The ladies had a group massage session to stretch and relax their tight musscle in the morning.
We had our breakfast at a food court opposite the Raub wet market. After the breakfast, most of us have a buying spree at the Pasar Tani.
Here were some of the unknown vegetables/fruits that I've never bother to find out eventhough I have visited the market since 1998.
The Malay auntie told me that this is "pelat". (probably spelt wrongly)
I was told these are tamboi (probably spelt wrongly). Can anyone help me?
I have also learnt that yam shoot is edible. A Malay gentleman told me that if the shoot is not probably cooked, it can cause itchiness in your mouth.
Our next charity itinerary was bringing joy to the old folks at the Sungai Lui Old Folk Home.
We then visited a single mother with 2 children and a bachelor with brain tumour. One of his eye has blinded by the tumour.
Many of us found the trip to Raub without buying the Sempalit groundnuts incomplete. Hence, we stopped over at the factory before proceeding to Gua Kechil.
Our visit to Gua Kecil was exciting. The bus has to stop at about 1 km away from the cave as the remaining journey is not accessible to buses as there is no space for the bus to u-turn. I later found out that it takes obout 15 minutes' walk to reach the destination. Thanks to Dato' Ang , Bro Li (RBA) and Bro. Teh for fecthing us to the cave.
The guide told us there are spirits in the cave. There are drawings by ancient men at some part of the cave (the drawings are similar to those found in caves in Sarawak), which is an evidence that it had been inhabited by ancient men thousand years ago.
I was surprised to find
orbs appeared in some of the photographs I have taken in the cave.
Orbs are unexpected, typically circular artifacts in photograph. Those who believe in paranormal phenomeon interpret orbs as presence of invisible spirits, auras, angels, ghosts, energy fields, psychoenergetic artifacts, energy balls, etc.
Scientifically, the orb is the result from reflection of light off solid particles (e.g., dust, pollen), liquid particles (water droplets - especially rain) or other foreign material within the camera lens.
It was a pity that my camera ran out of battery and I was unable to take any photographs in the cave, particularly the naturally formed Guanyin statue.
After visiting Sempalit Old Folks Home, we had our lunch at Happiness Corner Restaurant.
Visiting three old folks home in Raub made me recalled a report in the Star which reported that 33% of the residents in government-run old folk homes were Chinese, although Chinese only make up 25% of the population. Why some people are so inconsiderate to dump their love ones to old folk home? How lonely, painful and heart-broken they must feel when after bringing up their children, they were ignored and treated like a hindrance and ultimately abandoned to live the rest of their old age alone.
Nevertheless, most of the old folk home residents in Raub are bachelors.
Bro. Li of RBA fetched me to a Supermarket (located next to the Restaurant) to buy batteries for my camera after lunch.
We visited three needy single mothers after lunch. One of them suffers from SLE and kidney failure, and another suffers from breast cancer.
We returned to RBA centre a about 3:30PM and met a mother of a young man who suffers from hepatitis C.
We had a group photograph with the RBA committee before bidding farewell to them.
We wish to express our sincere gratitude to RBA committee for their valuable assistance and hospitality that had made this trip fruitful, meaningful and enjoyable.
We also wish to thank Dato' Ang for delivering a dhamma talk at RBA and his help for providing shuttle service to Gua Kecil. Big sadhu to Mr. & Mrs. Teh too for making arrangement for us to visit Gua Kecil as well as providing shuttle service to the cave.
The Sanghikadana ceremony
