Saturday, May 10, 2008

Muadzam Shah

To be honest, most UNITEN students don’t like this place. But the weird thing is, I just spent 5 years of my life there. Since secondary school, I always thought that when I m going to university, I finally can go out from the small town of Kangar and go to big cities like Penang or KL to get the feel of living in the city. The reason I ended up 5 years in Muadzam Shah is that the branch campus of UNITEN was set up there. The branch campus is basically the business school of UNITEN (The engineering and IT courses are in the Bangi main campus). Since I decided to further my studies in the accounting field and got a scholarship for studying in UNITEN after my SPM, I headed to Muadzam Shah without thinking much. I thought that since there is a university there, the place won’t be that ulu.

When I first reached Muadzam Shah for the UNITEN intake session, I am almost speechless. This place is nothing but a very small town with a university, it’s even smaller than Kangar. It’s so rural that it is surrounded by millions of acres forests and palm oil plantations. There is even a forest rangers’ office just opposite of the old UNITEN campus.
There’s no turning back, I’ve paid my fees, signed the scholarship contract, and checked into my apartment.

To be exact, Muadzam Shah is a town under the district of Rompin, Southeast of Pahang. Muadzam Shah is 100km away from Kuantan and 80km away from Segamat. Muadzam Shah is so ulu that not many people know about this place. So every time people ask me about where I study during my university times, I have to explain where the place is.

Relative: “Ah Yang ar… u study in UNITEN right? Bangi good or not?”

Leong: “Actually I study in UNITEN Muadzam Shah, it’s a branch campus.”

Relative: “Huh? What Zam what Ah?”

Leong: “Muadzam Shah.”

Relative: “Muzam Ah? Got place like that meh?”

Leong: “It’s MUADZAM SHAH.”

Relative: “Huh? Come again?”

Leong: “Actually I study at Kuantan.”

Relative: “Ooo… Kuantan hor… I know that place.”

Leong: “… …”

I m sorry I lied, but that’s good for my brain you know. At least it won’t explode.

In Muadzam Shah, you can find everything that a simple town needs, Petrol stations, grocery shops, hawker centers, restaurants, cyber cafes, stationery shops, clinics, banks and erm… a big pond.

Slurpee is a hit in Muadzam Shah


It is so simple that when 7-11 opened an outlet in the town, the whole Muadzam Shah went crazy, everyone flooded the 7-11 just to drink the colorful Slurpee drinks. Something new in town always gets the attention from the locals and UNITEN students.


Driving at night around Muadzam Shah is very dangerous, because some part of the roads are surrounded by forest and are very dark. You have to look out for idiot motorists who rather to invest in sport rims than to replace spoilt tail lights. Besides, you also have to look out for wild boars crossing the road. I am not kidding here, some wild boars cross the road in order to get to the other part of jungle for food. I’ve been stopped in the middle of the road by wild boars 2 times in Muadzam Shah.

Whenever there are wild boars crossing roads, the last thing you want to do is to honk at them, because wild boars usually travel across forests in groups, together with some “cute” little wild boars. If you honk at the wild boars, they might get mad and run towards your car. A grown up wild boar is weight more than 100kgs, a group of wild boars equals to thousands of kgs. Thousands of kgs of brutal force on your car… think before you honk.


Bad things aside, there are some good things that I like Muadzam Shah. First of all, no traffic jams! The population of Muadzam Shah is so low that sometimes you can lie down on the road during “rush hour”. No need to plan your trip, no need to listen to traffic reports on radio, I love it.

The standard of living is also very low. Food is cheap in Muadzam Shah, here you can get 4 pieces of fully stuffed curry puff for RM1. Parking in town is free, you can park anywhere you want as the town council officers in Muadzam Shah are very kind hearted, no summons will be issued as long as you do not block the entire traffic.

Morning at Muadzam Shah

The level of pollution is very low in Muadzam Shah because it is surrounded by forest. The air is fresh and every cold morning there will be fog, just like Genting Highlands.

No matter what, Muadzam Shah is still the place where I spent 5 years of my life, it is the place where I study for my degree and learn new things in life. With UNITEN and other several education institutions like MRSM and Politeknik, Muadzam Shah is developing slowly. More and more shop lots are built around town, 7-11 is just a start, and maybe sooner or later there will be a shopping mall and a GSC.Erm... Sorry, I think the shopping mall and GSC is impossible for another 100 years.

22 comments:

Anonymous said...

OMG... r u missing MS already cos ur alwes caught in the traffic jam in KL?? U made MS sound like its a nice place to stay.. ha ha.. bt.. its still a little tiny BORING FOREST town :P

Anonymous said...

Yalor... it sound lik you miss it so much... How come?

Fakhrul Zakry said...

omg. are u serius?

im gonna study found buss. there and for sure will cont degree at there too.


...

can i change my course to it?

Aircom said...

you forgot to mention about the
mysterious lucky valley..and its
one of tourist attraction..high energy zone..taichi master and other go there to receive full chi.
can you let me know how to get there...is it better to travel from kl - karak highway - muadzam shah or kl - senawang - kuala pilah- muadzam shah..i need shorter route..let me know

anak said...

Hai there,
Sorry for You.
I live here about 28yrs, where got boring........ Here no traffic jem like K.L. So many thing u can here,How come I not boring?

Leong Yi Yang said...

Fakhrul: Yup Muadzam Shah is really like that, but think of it the good way, at least u can concentrate on your studies there. I survived 5 years there anyway. :-)

Aircom: Yup I've mentioned the Lucky Valley as requested by u. I think it is better to travel via the kl-senawang-kuala pilah-muadzam shah road coz it's nearer and the most importantly is no speed cameras there. Hooray!

Anak: Yup u r correct, no traffic jams at Muadzam Shah. After working in KL i think i miss MS a lot coz u can always wake up the last minute to go to class or work since there's no jam. :-)

Aircom said...

i went to the lucky valley..and reach there only within 4hours..from
kajang..and no traffic jam except for kuala pilah town area..at that time they were doing some road repair..did not go into muadzam but
just past by uniten on my right when going into lucky valley...a lot of lorries on the way...but managed to overtake them one by one..the food at lucky garden was good..vegetarian..received alot of energy at the high ozone piramid place..

Anonymous said...

What is the best bus route to get to Muadzam Shah?

Leong Yi Yang said...

from KL u need to go to the bus station near PWTC, i forgot the name of the bus station d, u can take a MARA bus straight reach Muadzam Shah, no need to change bus.

Aircom: I juz realized about lucky valley during my last year of studies... =.=" so i didn't have the chance to really stay at lucky valley there.

aqzack said...

ur scare me..from kl to dis place that ur talk about..thxx alot

ikhwan said...

haii...sory for bothering in your blog..i was born in muadzam shah..i was there for 21 years..from the standard one until the secondary school..now im stdyng in degree of pharmacy at uitm puncak alam..i know that my lovely place is fully surrounded by forest..and maybe sometime u can see 'org asli there'..it is not the place for u to get the best facility which was you imagine as u at secondary school..but one thing u have to know about this ulu place is it was creating many brilliant student in the our country..im trying to show u the facts..we are never be proud with uniten there bcoz most of us got better than that..thanks for spending 5 years at my ulu place..which troubelling u and the others as long u were there...bye..

Anonymous said...

ikhwan, you seem do not like uniten in muadzam shah. do u know that if uniten not exist in muadzam, surely muadzam die already. muadzam people like u are really2 stupid. u said many brilliant so called muadzam shah people was born. can u mention their name? dont be proud on uitm la bro. most of the unemployed graduates comes from uitm.

Anonymous said...

nice entry n quite funny one but there is a very rude comment from someone up here..
to mr.impolite ++stupid anon;
i lived at muadzam since 1996..i admit that it is a small but peaceful town and u know what, since the coming of u guys, they increase the price of the food, from a peace, quite place, we have no parking sometimes..even caught in traffic..and increasig the rate of accidents.just to build the building many labor has to be brought here. and we feels like i pakistan, india, bangladesh, even indonesia sometimes bcos of the number of them. they also do sexual harrasment to some unlicy girl..
not to mention the clothes u wear..its influences the teenagers. u also seduce the girls..making the parents worry. from a quite, peace place; u changed it all wit some impolite manner.. not to mention all..bcos my brother weds its student. gorgous one..
datuk seri jamaludin jarjis, the one behind the sending of DR sheikh muzhaffar shukor up there stays here since long ago and at least one a year he will return back to give donation n stuff..now he is the malaysia's ambassador in US..and datuk maznah mazlan; dept minister of human resource.. was coming from here. my late father officemate. her son is our schoolmates. during her promotion there are too few of woman minister appointed. we r proud of them both. our people here also taking engineering, aeroneutic, piloting. worldwidely. we r not stupid. think b4 say a word. or we ms people unite and boycott all of u!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for this entry.. Searching for any info regarding muadzam in google n found this. At least it gives me some idea bout this place n what to expect..as i'll be transfered to work there in 2weeks time! Huhu

Farahin Ayu said...

tomorrow i will leave uniten muadzam. yup. when we talk about uniten muadzam, the things that come to our mind - rural area/org asli/no kfc/no mcD/only 7 e and etc. somehow, studying there since 2009-2013 make me realize that muadzam shah really a UNIC place. it is SPECIAL! i will be missing muadzam really much. -muadzam hollywood/pasar sabtu/7e/new traffic light/fog like genting highland.... love uniten muadzam!

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? said...

this year 2014, muadzam shah has no Mall, but has Pizza Hut and KFC at Bandar Satelit.

and still no traffic jam..
even i get stopped twice by JPJ roadblock in one night, they can talk to me few minutes in middle of road..

BangJiman said...

To anyone reading this to get info about Muadzam Shah, no worries! Now it has already got KFC, Pizza Hut, (DOmino's is coming) 3 supermarkets, Watson's, Nasi Ayam Gemas(!), Nanyang Kopitiam, and other shops. We are not so 'hulu' now. But dont keep your hopes about the GSC tho

Unknown said...

i bump into ur blog again.....u know what i read ur blog before i enter uniten in 2008....the place seems so alien to me....but ur blog did help and luckily its still available till today for me to bring back the old good memories

wan said...

my child hood place

wan said...

my child hood place

hongchia said...
This comment has been removed by the author.