Malaysia Round Trip - Day 1
Malaysia Round Trip - Day 1
Malaysia Round Trip - Day 2
Malaysia Round Trip - Day 3
As far as I could remember since I first ventured in JB, I had always wanted to do a complete round trip of Malaysia. At that time, my geographical knowledge of Malaysia was poor, but I could tell that it was really a big place and I had hardly been to most of it. From the map, the distance indeed looked daunting and quite a challenge running across many unknown areas. With the new year 4 days long weekend coming up, I thought it no better time to fulfil this long time wish. In fact last december trip up to Cameron, I was tempted to drive up to Sg Petani. But time was limited and I had put it aside. This time round with better planning, I charted a route up via the East Coast, cut across from the right side of Malaysia to the left side, and then down via the West Coast down back to Singapore via the NSH.
From my preparations, I learnt that the East-West highway was a scenic one. It would skirt the Malaysia-Thai border, cutting across mountaineous regions, and passing by via a bridge across the Temmengor Lake; the second largest man-made lake in Malaysia, after Lake Kenyir. If you were fortunate, it might be possible to come across elephants crossing the road. But for this trip, I didn't have the luck. Since it was the year of the Ox, I encounterd plenty of cows crossing the road instead.
Tracks from my Garmin
Starting off early in my bid to beat the CNY crowd rushing into Malaysia, I set off from Singapore on Sat morning at 4am. By the time I drove to the turn into the checkpoint from woodlands road, the jam was already evident when the traffic light switch from red to green and red again without any car moving. I decided then to join the queue from the BKE way and found myself at the end of a Queue that is about 1km long. That spoilt the start of the trip, and I took more than an hour to clear the Singapore custom. By the time I set off from the Malaysia side, it was already 6am.
View of Mersing from the riverside eatery
What we had for breakfast
One smart "begging" cat
Uses it's paws to get your attention
To catch up with lost time, I hurridly drove up to Mersing via the familiar Sibu Kelong road. Mersing was about 200km away, and we reached there about 8am for a breakfast break. To my surprise, the usual Jetty food court was closed for renovation. I drove across the bridge and had breakfast at a river side eatery. While standing to buy food, I found myself standing on an ant hill was bitten by Mersing fire ants and the itch bothered me throughout the journey. Something to remember the trip by, I supposed.
The colorful shop selling floats and t-shirts
Telok Chempedak 24hrs Mac
View of the beach with the Chempedak rocks
Happy meal toy
Telok Chempedak, Kuantan T-shirt
After fueling ourselves up with food, I drove up to Kuantan expecting to reach there for lunch. From the last trip I was there, we headed for the pleasant 24hr Mac found at the Telok Chempedek beach. There, the stones by the beach looked like giant Chempedak, hence the name. We reached there about 11.30am, and had a fairly nice and cheap happy meal.
Country road to Trengganu
Passing by the occasional Tractor
Road crossing cows to the greener grass on the other side
We were in PAS territory
Even the road signs have arabic transcripts
Direction to Marang
More PAS flag
The floating mosque
Arriving at the Marang Jetty
Resorts all closed for the season
Boat to Redang
Lunching till about 12.30pm, I plotted the route next to the Marang Jetty at Trengganu. This would be the place where you had to board the boat for the famous Pulau Redang. For this trip, I was comtemplating dropping by Redang for a look see. But from the internet, the rates were exorbitantly high, and it didn't look like the season being still the monsoon season. True enough when we arrived, there was nobody in sight at the Jetty. All the stalls were like closed for business. We took some pictures to "pretend" that we had been to Redang and set off for our next stop: Kota Bahru.
Canteen across the Caltex station
Looked Yummy!
And indeed, it was
Quaint place for a tea break
We got lost and chanced upon a group of young boys racing on their motorbikes
Along the drive up the coastal road after 4pm, we got hungry and wanted to stop somewhere for "tea" break. D had to visit the loo for the umpteen times and I stopped by a petrol kiosk. From there, something smelled nice in the air and our nose led us to the little beach park eatery across the road. Seeing that the place was quite clean, I drove across the road to take a food break. The food turned out very nice indeed, with fried sotong and bbq fish. We tucked into and had a pleasant and memorable meal. After freshening up, it was back to the route up to Kota Bahru.
Overhere, boats seem to be an icon
Most of the roads along the east coast were well tarred
Another upmarket looking place
It drizzled a little
A library of sorts
View of a civilised architecture for us city people
Shopping time
We grabbed dinner here
Kota Bahru was still another 100 odd km away and by the time we arrived, it was already evening with the sun going down. I saw a biggish and new mall, KB mall and we drove there for dinner and did some snack shopping. Dinner was an expensive meal at the Kyros Kebab, but it was ok. The mall itself looked very much like the Batu Pahat Mall (BP Mall) that we had gone too. I supposed this was like a chain of Malls across Malaysia. Even the anchor tenant was Pacific Hypermart.
Temenggong Hotel
Found at Temenggong St. (where else :))
Entrance to the "hotel" carpark
We finally found a room!
Mushy room, but we didn't have a choice
We searched high and low for the water heater switch, and found it OUTSIDE the room
My trip meter at the end of the drive up to the east coast
After dinner, the next important thing was to find accomodation. To my great surprise and horror, all the hotels that we turned up to enquire was fully booked. Yikes, this was a replay of the time at Cameron. So it was some frantic driving round and round KB checking out hotels one after the other and moving down my list of the nearest hotel on GPS. Some were downright expensive looking (marbled floor and chandelier) that we didn't bother to ask. We finally came across a hotel with a spare room (due to some cancellations) and we took it. However the hotel looked very "motel" and the facilities were not well maintained and clean. Eg. We turned the water tap and tap came off..but at RM100, it was ok for just a night rest. Luckily the sheets were fairly clean and I managed to have a good night sleep after a long day of driving.
Malaysia Round Trip - Day 2
Malaysia Round Trip - Day 2
Malaysia Round Trip - Day 3
As far as I could remember since I first ventured in JB, I had always wanted to do a complete round trip of Malaysia. At that time, my geographical knowledge of Malaysia was poor, but I could tell that it was really a big place and I had hardly been to most of it. From the map, the distance indeed looked daunting and quite a challenge running across many unknown areas. With the new year 4 days long weekend coming up, I thought it no better time to fulfil this long time wish. In fact last december trip up to Cameron, I was tempted to drive up to Sg Petani. But time was limited and I had put it aside. This time round with better planning, I charted a route up via the East Coast, cut across from the right side of Malaysia to the left side, and then down via the West Coast down back to Singapore via the NSH.
From my preparations, I learnt that the East-West highway was a scenic one. It would skirt the Malaysia-Thai border, cutting across mountaineous regions, and passing by via a bridge across the Temmengor Lake; the second largest man-made lake in Malaysia, after Lake Kenyir. If you were fortunate, it might be possible to come across elephants crossing the road. But for this trip, I didn't have the luck. Since it was the year of the Ox, I encounterd plenty of cows crossing the road instead.
Tracks from my Garmin
Starting off early in my bid to beat the CNY crowd rushing into Malaysia, I set off from Singapore on Sat morning at 4am. By the time I drove to the turn into the checkpoint from woodlands road, the jam was already evident when the traffic light switch from red to green and red again without any car moving. I decided then to join the queue from the BKE way and found myself at the end of a Queue that is about 1km long. That spoilt the start of the trip, and I took more than an hour to clear the Singapore custom. By the time I set off from the Malaysia side, it was already 6am.
View of Mersing from the riverside eatery
What we had for breakfast
One smart "begging" cat
Uses it's paws to get your attention
To catch up with lost time, I hurridly drove up to Mersing via the familiar Sibu Kelong road. Mersing was about 200km away, and we reached there about 8am for a breakfast break. To my surprise, the usual Jetty food court was closed for renovation. I drove across the bridge and had breakfast at a river side eatery. While standing to buy food, I found myself standing on an ant hill was bitten by Mersing fire ants and the itch bothered me throughout the journey. Something to remember the trip by, I supposed.
The colorful shop selling floats and t-shirts
Telok Chempedak 24hrs Mac
View of the beach with the Chempedak rocks
Happy meal toy
Telok Chempedak, Kuantan T-shirt
After fueling ourselves up with food, I drove up to Kuantan expecting to reach there for lunch. From the last trip I was there, we headed for the pleasant 24hr Mac found at the Telok Chempedek beach. There, the stones by the beach looked like giant Chempedak, hence the name. We reached there about 11.30am, and had a fairly nice and cheap happy meal.
Country road to Trengganu
Passing by the occasional Tractor
Road crossing cows to the greener grass on the other side
We were in PAS territory
Even the road signs have arabic transcripts
Direction to Marang
More PAS flag
The floating mosque
Arriving at the Marang Jetty
Resorts all closed for the season
Boat to Redang
Lunching till about 12.30pm, I plotted the route next to the Marang Jetty at Trengganu. This would be the place where you had to board the boat for the famous Pulau Redang. For this trip, I was comtemplating dropping by Redang for a look see. But from the internet, the rates were exorbitantly high, and it didn't look like the season being still the monsoon season. True enough when we arrived, there was nobody in sight at the Jetty. All the stalls were like closed for business. We took some pictures to "pretend" that we had been to Redang and set off for our next stop: Kota Bahru.
Canteen across the Caltex station
Looked Yummy!
And indeed, it was
Quaint place for a tea break
We got lost and chanced upon a group of young boys racing on their motorbikes
Along the drive up the coastal road after 4pm, we got hungry and wanted to stop somewhere for "tea" break. D had to visit the loo for the umpteen times and I stopped by a petrol kiosk. From there, something smelled nice in the air and our nose led us to the little beach park eatery across the road. Seeing that the place was quite clean, I drove across the road to take a food break. The food turned out very nice indeed, with fried sotong and bbq fish. We tucked into and had a pleasant and memorable meal. After freshening up, it was back to the route up to Kota Bahru.
Overhere, boats seem to be an icon
Most of the roads along the east coast were well tarred
Another upmarket looking place
It drizzled a little
A library of sorts
View of a civilised architecture for us city people
Shopping time
We grabbed dinner here
Kota Bahru was still another 100 odd km away and by the time we arrived, it was already evening with the sun going down. I saw a biggish and new mall, KB mall and we drove there for dinner and did some snack shopping. Dinner was an expensive meal at the Kyros Kebab, but it was ok. The mall itself looked very much like the Batu Pahat Mall (BP Mall) that we had gone too. I supposed this was like a chain of Malls across Malaysia. Even the anchor tenant was Pacific Hypermart.
Temenggong Hotel
Found at Temenggong St. (where else :))
Entrance to the "hotel" carpark
We finally found a room!
Mushy room, but we didn't have a choice
We searched high and low for the water heater switch, and found it OUTSIDE the room
My trip meter at the end of the drive up to the east coast
After dinner, the next important thing was to find accomodation. To my great surprise and horror, all the hotels that we turned up to enquire was fully booked. Yikes, this was a replay of the time at Cameron. So it was some frantic driving round and round KB checking out hotels one after the other and moving down my list of the nearest hotel on GPS. Some were downright expensive looking (marbled floor and chandelier) that we didn't bother to ask. We finally came across a hotel with a spare room (due to some cancellations) and we took it. However the hotel looked very "motel" and the facilities were not well maintained and clean. Eg. We turned the water tap and tap came off..but at RM100, it was ok for just a night rest. Luckily the sheets were fairly clean and I managed to have a good night sleep after a long day of driving.
Malaysia Round Trip - Day 2
Comments
Patrick
idsi2004.
Waiting for part 2..