We left for the town of Raub via Bentong, it was then just ten thirty in the morning and the weather was great for the journey.....To my surprise I found the road to Raub was exceptional good, it is a totally a new road straight and quite broad for the usual country road.... the road the I had know all along was narrow and winding all over those hilly areas and we had to drive along side the hills and at time the Connors are rather sharp and dangerous... It is a tedious journey all way to Kuala Lipis..... but now the road is not only straight but is flat as well, making driving a pleasure.... There were development all the way, all along both side of the roads we could see large Oil Palm and Rubber estates.... with a few orchard among the houses.... We saw very few traditional houses.... it look like the traditional kampong with it traditional house are quickly disappearing and in its place new modern brick and mortar house has taken its places... It is really sad to see this vanishing scene of beautiful traditional Malay house, each one with its own character... Now most of the modern building all look the same..... That is progress I supposed.... What can we say.... the people that live in timber houses now want to live in brick and mortar houses.... People like me that live in the city would love to live in those traditional houses but with modern amenities....... I love those traditional Malay house, but then we just could not built it in the city.... one way is to do the interior of our city dwelling to look like those tradition Malay home of the bygones era..... I did just that with my house in the city and now together with all the modern amenities is indeed a great home to live.... I love my home.... I refer it as My Hut...... The drive from Bentong to Raub just took us thirty minutes. Raub is a mining town during the colonial period, for here lies the one and only gold mine in this country... but it has since closed...... I am not that sure why it closed down... Anyway I am told there are still plenty of gold there.... May be with new technology the mining for gold would be revived in the future and it would surely be good for the economy of this rural town..... We just pass through this town and head for Kuala Lipis and we found that a new road is being built and wherever it is ready, it is open to the public and allowed to drive and this actually cut our traveling time from Raub to Kuala Lipis into half..... in those days it would take almost two hours to drive from Raub to Kuala lipis....Once this stretch of road is completed, it would be just a forty minute drive.... What a change.... It really surprise me in, I never thought that such development took place in this part of the country..... As we drive along we soon found that there is a great holiday spot, near a river, with rapids and great for white water activities..... There are signboard for such activities and I could see some youth swimming and fishing nearby..... I took a number of snaps with my new digital camera and managed to get a friendly youth to snap a picture of Us together, with the recreation site as a back ground..... When one travel some helping hand from a stranger like this became real handy and indeed a great help in getting both of us in a snap shot, otherwise only one of us wound be in a picture, normally I would just ask my wife to stand in as part a picture that I took.... To remind us of our presence at a spot on a holiday.... In this case with the help of this kind youth, we now have a picture of both of us at this resort........ It really surprise me that such picturesque spot exit on this part of the roads..... A great place to camp and do some fishing and perhaps do a Bar B Q when night fall.... There are a few chalets nearby, may be the next time we might stay a night or so at this spot and enjoy those great ride on this part of the river.... A white water ride on a canoe or go on an excursion of a sort, boating down or up river for a change ....... It would be wonderful... All along this river we cold see lush virgin jungle of the tropical forest... Perhaps untouch for million of years..... One should note that most of the forest in this country had been like this all through, for this part of the world was never affected by the ice age...... the floral and fauna are still as it has been since time immemorial... It is now a forest reserved and some area have been turn into National Park and thus save as a national heritage for the future generation......... We arrived in Kuala Lipis just after noon and went to have lunch at a small restaurant run by a Malay lady.... and then took a tour of this town call Kuala Lipis.......