Pangkor island and Sitiawan trip Feb 4th -6th 2020 (Part 2 - Sitiawan, Day 3 trip)

The part 1 link of this blog post series is here. This blog post is served as an continuation from the previous blog post.

In the last day of my trip (6/2), I headed to ferry in a bid to return to Mainland (lumut) of Peninsula Malaysia after having my last breakfast on the island. That time, upon arriving to Lumut ferry, I still had a plenty of time to walk around in the nearby Sitiawan town. Therefore, I asked my friend who is living nearby that area to pick me up to have a half day tour there. Let’s begin with half day tour series of Sitiawan…

Sitiawan, Sitiawan is the main city in Manjung district of Perak state. Here is a brief history, Sitiawan, Lumut, Ayer Hitam and Pangkor was part of Dinding straits colony under the British rule since 1874. These places were relinquished back to Perak state in the early 1930s after the cost of operation of Dinding Straits Settlement was increasing tremendously year by year, yet another Straits settlement such as Penang and Singapore were more successful than in Dinding. 

Things to do in Sitiawan:

Buy some freshly baked Foochow Gong Piang

Sitiawan and Pangkor are mostly resided by Foochow variety of Chinese also known as (Hokchiu people). Foochow delicacy obviously included with Gong Piang. It is made of meat, flour and occasionally with eggs and vegetables. There are the small and big one variety of Gong Piang, in which both of them cost RM1.10 and RM2.00 per pieces respectively.

Visit Tua Pek Gong Chinese temple of Pasir Panjang nearby Sitiawan

This Chinese temple is one of the largest and well-known temples in Manjung District of Perak state. It is surrounded by the brick walls which are making it to be appear as a temple within a castle. Meanwhile, according to some local source, it said that temple itself has the reflection of wealth and having many deities’ statues as well as temple ornaments owing to the donation from fellow lottery winners whom they prayed for their lucky numbers there. For an example, the Chinese temple authority recently has built a pagoda as a commemoration of those donators who had contributed much fund to the temple, there are many names were written on the board along with the mini deities’ statuses as a symbol of their contribution. 

View of the sea from the top of Pagoda.

Besides, I found a special worship place there – Yue Lao (月老). This deity was worshiped by those singles persons in a bid of seeking another partner as their soulmate in life. Since I am single man for many years, therefore I chose to make use of that opportunity to pray for the deity hoping that I could quickly to have a girlfriend. Frankly, this is just an act of hoping the god to give me some luck and strength to find a partner, even though I think it was not easy to do so.

Yue Lao Shrine

Apart from that, there’s also has a fortune dragon platform which is looks alike like what is in Yong Peng for us to have a look. In the interior of the fortune dragon, there are as series of pictures which are depicting the live in the hell. According to Chinese Myths, the hell consists of a total 18 floors, in which the “higher floor” you go, it reflects the heavier sins that you had committed in the real world. Thus, this fortune dragon is acts as an warning for us to refrain from committing crimes or sins as these acts will be pay off in the hell, once we stepped into the afterlife.

Hell...

Mangrove forest reserve park

This part I only could talk briefly as this mangrove forest reserve park is built in a smaller scale as compared to the other ones such as in Kuala Sepetang. Basically, the park is just having a wooden-made walking track for the visitors to have a look on those mangrove trees in a nearer distance. Besides, you may have a chance to meet a group of monkeys there jumping from a tree to the another one as well as some tiny crab that crawling in the mud under the walking track.

Visit Kampung Koh

Basically, Kampung Koh is just a regular Chinese rural settlement nearby Sitiawan main town. However, there’s a local product which made the village itself to be famous among the visitors, which is Kampung Koh Garlic Chilli Sauce. This chilli sauce is selling across Sitiawan with a generic brand of product as there are too many producers who produces almost similar type of garlic chilli sauce. In fact, the original producer is NKL’s brand in Sitiawan. According to the Star newspaper article, Kampung Koh chilli sauce was first produced by the Ngo’s family, which they are the ones who invented the ingredient of recipes for the chili sauce. Nonetheless, as the time passes, there more and more almost similar product competing with this NKL’s garlic sauce in the market of Malaysia, let alone the original manufacturing place – Sitiawan. Therefore, Kampung Koh is associated to its local product of Garlic Chilli Sauce but this sauce has been becoming too generic as the real owner’s recipes could be made by the other rival chilli sauce manufacturers there.

Gong Piang

Red bean soup sold at Kampung Koh

Kampung Koh chilli sauce

Last but not least, Marina Island.

It is a man-made island in Lumut, Perak. The island was opened to public by 2015 and it is apparently nearer to Pangkor Island as compared to from Lumut ferry. The time of travelling from there to Pangkor is merely 15 minutes as compared to from Lumut.

View of Pangkor island from Marina island.

            After visiting all these places in Sitiawan and Lumut areas, my trip has called an end. From this trip, I got to know that Pangkor island is a mini version of Langkawi Island as the island has also been classified as duty-free zone and there has a completely tarred ring road on the island which makes all the vehicles being able to be use on the road. The only different thing is that Pangkor has lesser in the number of cars as the roads there are quite narrow and challenging to drive and duty to be imposed on any cars that bring from the mainland of Peninsula Malaysia. Unfortunately, I didn’t make it my way to outlying islands of Pangkor as island hopping cost was way to expensive than travelling within the main island. The next time I might travel to the outlying islands of Pangkor as well if I manage to travel here again in the future.

            Alright, the end. Thanks for reading this series of blog posts, be sure to subscribe to me on my blog website too. Peace.

Pangkor island and Sitiawan trip Feb 4th -6th 2020 (Part 1 - Day 1 and Day 2 trip)

This is the part 1 (Day 1 and 2 trip) of my Pangkor and Sitiawan trip, part 2 click here...

Time flies, suddenly there are only few days more to the next semester of university to begin. Therefore, I would like to make use of this chance to have a trip to the few last places that I haven’t yet visited in Peninsula Malaysia of my life. For you all information, I will go for a trip in every year of Chinese New Year since the year of 2018. In this year, I chose to visit to Pangkor island and Sitiawan, both of these places are located in Manjung district of Perak State. Initially, I planned to visit to the southern part of Johor state and Batam of Indonesia, however, the recent Novel Coronavirus outbreak that landed on the neighbouring country - Singapore as well as Johor state in Malaysia made me to shift to slightly underrated and sparsely jostled tourism spot of Malaysia. Voila, here we go to Pangkor island and Sitiawan.

Here goes the Pangkor and Sitiawan itinerary of mine…

            On the first day of trip I booked an express bus which departed from KL’s TBS integrate bus station at 9am to Lumut, a ferry point to Pangkor island. The bus came to the TBS late for 40 minutes and the bus had stopped at too many places such as Gopeng and Batu Gajah of Perak state. This totally made me to be arrive late to Lumut ferry as I arrived to there already at nearly 3pm. Honestly, I haven’t had my lunch yet on that trip to Lumut. Fortunately, I managed to buy a ferry ticket to Pangkor which departed to there by 3.15pm. The ferry trip to Pangkor island would take about a solid 30 minutes. Then, we arrived to Pangkor’s main entrance – Pangkor town…

Lumut is Malaysian navy base, just as this replicate anchor depicts.

2 ways trip ticket to Pangkor ferry for RM14.00

Pangkor Van Taxis.

Pangkor town is almost similar with the other small towns in Malaysia. It has the basic eateries stalls and even has convenient store, lottery shops and banks there. However, the eateries stalls there were mostly operating in the morning till evening only. If anyone there wish to have their dinner, then he or she shall get to Pasir Bogak to have dinner about 4km away from the town. Therefore, I simply had my dinner and lunch mix there by consuming the breads I bought at 7-eleven in the town… In fact, the first day of my trip in Pangkor, I visited nowhere, and I merely strolled around the main town on the island and that’s it, it was called a day of trip. This was because of I didn’t own any transportation on the island first day trip yet (The below paragraphs, I will talk more about my journey on the main island by having a rental vehicle there).

Pangkor town view

Even Bank also operating on the island

The accommodation I lived there is considered as a budget hotel. A single budget room cost about RM57 per night and another RM100 is charged as a safety deposit just in case the tenant accidentally or intentionally damages the belongings of the hotel. Here are the photos of the hotel and one of its rooms.

Rent a car in Pangkor

It was a mini adventurous trip on my second day trip in Pangkor. This is because I had rented a car to drive throughout the main island. Frankly, the car rental daily rate was slightly costly at RM80.00, however, after considering the price of van taxis there I kept on my mind to go for rental car. In fact, if I had a motorcycle license than I will go for motorcycle instead as motorcycle is the popular and most welcomed transportation mode on the island. The problem with that was I don’t ever have motorcycle license and I solely owning a car license instead. Having a rental vehicle had made my travel on the island in ease. I had travelled 4 round trips on the Pangkor main island. The total distance of the ring road of that small main island is at roughly 20km. I had pumped for RM20.00 petrol for my road travel and it turns out it still had a plenty of petrol left more to go another round trip. Here are a few places I had visited on Pangkor main island.

Pasir Bogak

Pasir Bogak beach, it is the nearest sandy beach to the Pangkor town as it is just 4km away from the town. Owing to it is nearby to the town, thus many people flock there to feel the sea breeze. Indeed, there are also have many accommodations available there ranging from budget ones to chalet ones. Apart from that, at night there have a few of seafood restaurants for us to choose to patronize there. The atmosphere there at night is livelier as compared to the town. Besides, it is also one of the stops for the tourists for island hopping as there are available many speed boats for us to access to outlying islands of Pangkor, namely Pangkor Laut. I had been stopping there 3 times. The first time I was stopping there just to take photo and then the second time is just have a small nap there and the last time there was to have my dinner there.

Sunset at Pasir Bogak and Pangkor Laut island is over there

Random resort at Pasir Bogak

Random Chinese Seafood Restaurant

My dinner on 5th of Febuary

Pasir Bogak street night view

Pangkor Laut Island (the nearest outlying island)

Pangkor Laut is a small island about few hundred metres away from the west side of main island and it is also a private island bought by YTL group for the purpose of building 5 stars luxurious hotel there. Anyhow, there are some people went there for snookering and diving lah…

Teluk Nipah

            Teluk nipah beach is almost similar to what in pasir bogak, however, the only different thing is teluk nipah far more in tranquil as compared to in Pasir Bogak due to further distance to the town at 7km. To get to Teluk Nipah, you will need to pass through a hilly coastal road, therefore it is quite time and energy consuming if you wanna travel there by foot or by cycling. It is a stop for the tourists to have island hopping to Pulau Giam.

Teluk Dalam

            As compared to the other part of beaches on the Pangkor main island, this place is indeed a rural Malay village with a laid-back lifestyle. You definitely can just have a nap there on the provided villagers’ hammock just like what I did in the photo. Upon taking nap there, I was fortunate enough to get to find a Hornbill bird species there. Hornbill is a rare species of bird in Malaysia, it is rather hard to find it anywhere in Malaysia unless you stop by the mangrove or forest area. 

Hammock

Hornbill

Apart from that, there is an airstrip - smaller in scale of airport which is not yet been functioning nearby the village. Although the Perak state has decided to open the airstrip of Pangkor by 19^th of October 2019, however it was being postponed due to some reasons.

Sungai Pinang Kecil and Fu Ling Gong Temple

            Sungai Pinang Kecil is the second largest town in Pangkor island on the east side of the island. As usual it is full of all the amenities that supposed to have in a town such as small scale of hospital and petrol station. The only different thing is that the roads in the town are narrower than the Pangkor town. This make my ride journey to be a bit slow as the people and vehicles have to slow down and be careful when passing through there.

            There is a Chinese temple, namely Fu Ling Gong Temple is situated right in the town. It has more than a hundred years of history and being the largest temple on the island. Besides, this temple has not only conventional temple for the devotees to pray, but instead it has also a series of gardens such as a garden with decoration of Great Wall of China and a zen garden alike built against the hill for us to climb and view the breath taking seaside view. There are more information of this place on this website https://www.malaysiasite.nl/pangkorfulinkongeng.htm .

Dutch Fort and Floating Mosque

These two tourist attractions are located at the south of Pangkor town. In order to get there, we must pass through a few malay kampungs. The obvious one is the Dutch Fort located right inside a kampung. Dutch Fort on Pangkor island was built by roughly 1670 year and it served as a site for the Dutch to store their tin ore that the garnered and exploited from Perak State a very long time ago, even longer history than the British on Malay Peninsula. However, this building now is served for nothing except it is being as a tourist spot, nothing much to visit there.

Remnant of Dutch Fort

Meanwhile, there is also an iconic floating mosque situated there. The design of the floating mosque a bit similar to what have in Malacca and Perlis floating mosque. The name of the mosque is called as Masjid Al-Badr Seribu Selawat and it is being the largest mosque on the island. According to Emily2u travel website, Masjid Al-Badr Seribu Selawat, located in Kampung Teluk Gedong, was in fact named in reference to the 1,000 prayers that have been carved on the walls and pillars of the mosque, inside and out. It was the dream project of Y.B. Dato’ Seri Diraja Dr. Zambry Abdul Kadir, the 11th Menteri Besar of Perak, who is a Pangkor boy. Besides, it is also full of unique Perakian architecture with aspects of Turkish and Middle Eastern influences. The mosque is usually open to public at non-prayer time and just like the other mosques or religious sites, we must abide their code of attire as a sign of respect. Last but not least, the jubahs are available there to be rent out.

Alright, that's it for today part 1 of Pangkor and Sitiawan trip, I will update for this series of part 2 soon, so stay tuned. Be sure to subscribe to my blog too...

Things to do in Kelantan (Kota Bharu, Rantau Panjang, Bachok and Sungai Kolok…)

Hello everybody, many of us may opined that Kelantan is a rural state in Peninsula Malaysia with least developed and mature amenities and townships as compared to the other states in Peninsula Malaysia… However, due to these underdevelopment factors, this makes Kelantan to be deemed as an underrated state of Malaysia in terms of tourism. Therefore, today I am here going to share some places for us to visit in northern part of Kelantan (southern part mostly were covered with thick forest and lush greeneries, next time if I have chance, I may cover the Kelantan southern part too). The focus of this blog post is on Kota Bharu, Rantau Panjang and Bachok in Kelantan and Sungai Kolok, Thailand as well as the Kelantanese foods.

Pantai Senok beach in Bachok district of Kelantan.

Referring to the previous posts, there are about few times I had explained about Kelantan states in the previous year, so if you want to know more about the previous posts you may click here to read one of it. As I had mentioned in previous post, Kota Bharu, Kelantan is my hometown, thus every year my family and I will visit there during an occasion of Chinese New Year celebration. So, this post will only touch briefly regarding Kota Bharu. 

Kota Bharu

Kota Bharu is a capital city for Kelantan state in Malaysia, besides it is also being the largest city in the whole Kelantan state. This is because of the rest of the towns in Kelantan aren’t that developed on par with the rest of the main towns or cities in Peninsula Malaysia. However, since it’s the capital and main city in Kelantan state, therefore, there are numerous shopping malls in Kota Bharu even though there still hasn’t have any cinema yet. For an example, there are shopping malls such as KB Mall, Tesco, Billion, Parksons and recently opened Aeon, all of these are to cater the people’s daily life needs such as groceries and leisure or pastime activities. Furthermore, there are also having a few of franchises opened in Kota Bharu. The popular ones are KFC, McDonalds, Tealive, Xing Fu Tang as well as Starbucks. Both Xing Fu Tang and Starbucks which were just opened here already drawn many local people flocked there to patronize their product. In short, Kelantan isn’t that poor as what people deemed it stereotypically, instead the state’s capital city – Kota Bharu, is basically just like a city status in the other more developed states in Malaysia.

Kota Bharu city centre clock tower

Prestigious kopitiam in Kota Bharu

Xing Fu Tang boba tea franchise in Kota Bharu, Kelantan

Rantau Panjang

Rantau Panjang is one of the border towns of Kelantan state of Malaysia with Narathiwat province of Thailand. There has a duty-free zone for us to purchase things free from tax. The border town is roughly 40km away from the city centre of Kota Bharu, Kelantan. Besides, it is also being separate from Golok town in Thailand by the Golok River as an international border. Historically, the southern provinces of Thailand such as Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala were once merged as one as Pattani Sultanate. Pattani sultanate in the past was a state that identically and culturally as same as neighbouring Kelantan state. However, the Pattani sultanate were separated from Kelantan and drawn into Siam force after British and Siam signed Bangkok treaty in 1909. Meanwhile, British obtained the northern states of Kelantan, Terengganu, Perlis and Kedah in Malaya after the treaty signed in 1909 and formed an unfederated Malay states together with Johor shortly after that. Then, Golok river will be used as an international border to separate Kelantan state from Narathiwat province of Pattani, Thailand at that time. The border drawn in 1909 was still abide by both Malaysia and Thailand till this date. Thus, when we cross border from Rantau Panjang to Sungai Kolok will find that there were many Malay-Muslim in Thailand, it was all the history.

Rantau Panjang small border town to Thailand

Golok bridge crossing to Thailand

Golok bridge

Jubli Perak Sultan Ismail Petra Chinese-styled mosque

Sungai Kolok, Thailand

As mentioned above, Golok river was used as an international border of Malaysia and Thailand. So, there is a small town developed on the other side of Golok river in Thailand side known as Sungai Kolok (Thai pronounce: Su-Ngai-Ko-Lok). Sungai Kolok is a favourite place for the Kelantanese to visit as their cultures there were almost the same as in Kelantan, being nearby to Kelantan state and some goods there were cheaper in Malaysia. Indeed, that part of Southern Thailand was the least integrated to Thai culture as compared to Hatyai, Songkhla and Satun. Many people used to visit there to seek for happiness as those “happiness” couldn’t anywhere in Kelantan state. However, since the last few year bombing and insurgency in Southern Thai’s Muslim majority provinces and economic recession, many people opted not go enter Thailand via Sungai Kolok, instead all of them diverted to the alternative border town such as Padang Besar and Dannok. Therefore, the streets and roads are in tranquil without many vehicles on the road.

Popular drinks available in Thailand

Sungai Kolok Thailand checkpoint

Bachok

Bachok is one of the districts that is close to Kota Bharu city centre along with Pasir Mas and Tumpat districts. It is also considered as the district that has the longest coastline as compared to the other districts in Kelantan. Therefore, this blog post I am going to talk about one of the splendid beaches in Bachok district of Kelantan. Pantai Senok is one of the beautiful yet unpolluted beaches in the East coast of Peninsula Malaysia. It has a lush green of tropical beach pine trees there and unbroken sandy and crystal blue coastline. Thus, many of people go there to take a photo and upload on social media because of the beautiful scenery there. The beach is in Tawang, a rural town in Bachok district of Kelantan and being only 20 minutes driving distance from Kota Bharu city centre. Therefore, it is also an option for us to visit from Kota Bharu apart from going to Pantai Cahaya Bulan beach in Kota Bharu district. 

Kelantanese foods

Kelantanese foods are quite distinct from the rest of the states in west coast of Peninsula Malaysia. Among the Kelantanese dishes, this post will focus on Khao Jam and Lakso Kelate. 

Khao Jam

Video of Budu in processing

Khao Jam

Khao Jam is thai version of Nasi Kerabu in Kelantan, unlike Nasi Kerabu Kelantan, it is made of green rice instead of blue rice as well as the fish in the dish isn’t fried as compared to nasi kerabu. The rest of the ingredients of Khao Jam are basically the same as Nasi Kerabu. The obvious similarity among these two are both garnished with Budu sauce. For you all information, Budu sauce is the prestigious product made in Kelantan state. Budu sauce is made of fermented anchovies and minced with chillies. It has the taste of a bit savoury and spicy, and not everyone can accept the taste of this product. Therefore, perhaps there are still some people and even those from the other states from Malaysia are not really into the Kelantan dishes when those dishes had been garnished with Budu sauce.

Lakso Kelate

Lakso Kelate

Laksa is a popular dish across all over the Malaysia. However, it has too many varieties according to the different states in Malaysia. Amongst the varieties, Laksa Penang and Laksa Sarawak are the popular ones, then followed by Laksa Johor aka the southern laksa in Malaysia which its texture and taste quite differ from the north and east coast of Peninsula Malaysia as well as from Sarawak. In fact, Kelantan has also its own of laksa variety, it is called as Lakso Kelate. The noodle itself is basically the same as the other types of Laksa, however, the garnishment is obviously different from the rest of the varieties of Laksa. Instead of putting on the curry alike or prawn sauce, it is garnished with white Santan sauce in which Santan sauce is made of coconut milk. Besides, occasionally, you add some more Ulam which is also known as raw vegetables such as corianders and bean sprouts in your Kelantanese laksa in order to consume it. Therefore, the Kelantanese laksa isn’t that spicy to consume, however, if you want a bit spicier then you can add chilli additionally.

In the end of this blog, I would like to reiterate that there are still many places to be explore in Kelantan. Perhaps, in the future I may do some more posts regarding of different places for tourism in Kelantan. In my opinion, there is still an improvement space for the Kelantan to boost the state’s tourism sector. The state could increase or enhance the public transport system across the state, especially in Kota Bharu city centre so that the tourists whom they don’t own a vehicle being able to travel around the city of Kota Bharu at least followed by travelling to other districts within Kelantan state. The public transport system in Kota Bharu city centre maybe could emulate like what are being did in Klang Valley or Greater Penang area. These both metropolitan areas are having a complete public transport system in which you can travel within the area without any problem. Those were just my 2 cents thoughts in improving tourism sector as the main concern for the tourists are usually about the transportation problem.