I went past MARDI last Wednesday and say them preparing for this Malaysia Agriculture, Horticultre and Agrotourism Show (MAHA). From far, many Helium balloons hang high up in the air, while workers gearing up with the tents. So I thought I would come today with Chui Li to take a look what's the big deal with an exhibition on plants and animal.
Exhibition Hall seen from afar
Fortunately, it just stopped raining when we arrived. But the sky was still looking such cloudy that we had to carry umbrella along the whole trip.
The whole place is so packed, everywhere is people. Lucky the expo ground was big, separated into few sections with some distance between each other. So it was not so bad. Except you need to walk quite a lot. Think we did walked like 7km or so today. Our leg sored like hell when we go home.
But the organizer did do a very good work in planning the whole deal here. The made great pavement, planned the whole area with not much slope, and even tramp towed by truck for people refuse to walk.
Even the temporary toilet is surprisingly clean (though still wet like hell). Funny they even install air conditioning for the aircond. But they do have a big permanent toilets at the entrance to the exhibition hall site.
The whole of expo ground were divided into few sections, cater for both mainstream public visitors with children, as well as genuine farming, fishery sectors as well.
Of course there were the main halls with all the government agencies there, hard core machineries showcase, research exhibition that hardly interest us and I didn't bother with the pictures.
Then there were these interesting huts, each representing stuffs from different state of Malaysia. There were the Sarawak house, nicely decorated, selling souvenirs and food stuffs that you could only get in Sarawak of course.
There was also this Penang house, by far the most elaborate looking house, fully air conditioned. They were serving free food all around these Rumah Negeri, tasting is welcomed!
At the Ruman P. Pinang, USM sent these students to showcase their research work and how it could be converted into sellable ideas. Here these student made edible high fibre tasty flour out of bananas, jackfruit seeds and mango seeds too.
Another student nearby was making glass (seriously, glass) from paddy stalks and leaves.
Some houses decorate with vegetables plants around them. Chui Li was thinking of stealing some veg for her star tortoises at home.
Then we walk walk walk, and came to exhibition on horses, cats and misc animals. They do have some stuffs worth our time walking to here.
And of course, Chui Li always be nice to animals, including the poor looking horse.
Then walk walk walk summore, past the paddy field.
Then we reached the final site where they had exhibition on big large scale machinery, as well as a petting zoo for the kids nearby.
Not bad for something free you know. Everything seemed pretty organized here, despite this was their first time. Apparently the government will make this place a permanent exhibition ground and a yearly thing as well. Lets keep our fingers crossed and hope that the standard will not go down for the year to come, you know how Malaysian styles is, :P
More information can be found here at the MAHA Expo Website:
