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...