East Coast Roadtrip

After a gruelling 1300 km's and nearly 20 hours spent in the car, I'm finally back from 3 states in the East Coast.

Day 1 - Started an early 8 hour drive to Kota Baru, Kelantan via the 'jungles' of Kuala Lipis and Gua Musang.

Spent 2 days in Kota Baru visiting Alvin's relatives and some of my friends there.

As you might have already know, Fridays & Saturdays are the weekends for the community in Kelantan & Terengganu. But from my observation, they close a street for muslim prayers on a Friday, people park haphazardly anywhere along the streets, they sleep the day through on saturdays and only a small group of shops (mainly Chinese owned ones) open on Sundays. In short, the people there literally "rest" for 3 days!

Day 2 - Attended City Revival Church located in town and met some really nice people that made our stay a memorable one. To my suprise, the indian guest pastor for the weekend spoke Mandarin really fluently.

The very hospitable Ong family with some other church members and youths.

While we were there, Raymond was very kind to ferry us, the guest pastor and some youths around town and to the seaside - Pantai Cahaya Bulan (PCB) to savour some keropok lekor, huge coconuts and sweetcorn.

L-R: Me, Sharon, Carmen & Alvin

Seen a TESCO outlet in Jawi characters? Now you have.

Pix with Ancy, Carmen, Chris, and Xien during a BBQ hangout at the Ong's residence.

Day 3 - We left early next morning for Kuala Terengganu which took us about 3 hours.

Fishermen boats parked at Shahbandar Jetty

Hainan Association in town and the town's main mosque at the back.

It's Visit Kelantan & Terengganu year.

Dataran Shahbandar; A stretch of seafront spot for everyone to hang out. Ferries and boats pass by this stretch of the waters to make their entry into the jetty.

Evening sun retreating into the horizon

Chinatown; Only in this street that you can find everything Chinese. A few eateries here which serves mediocre Chinese dishes somehow lacks the 'oomph' in taste.

Dinner at a riverside restaurant overlooking the bridge that connects the traffic to town.

Entrance of Dataran Shahbandar

Istana Maziah; Built in the 1800's; Located in the middle of town. Out of curiosity I've double checked for "extra" shadows in every window of this image and found nothing.

Day 4 - We took a 90 mins ferry ride from Shahbandar Jetty to Pulau Redang at 9 a.m the next day for a day tour around the island coz all the resorts in there were fully booked for the weekend.

Beautiful white sandy beaches await just as I expected...

Marine Park; Pulau Redang is the island at the back



Now the fun part; Snorkelling!

Snorkelling does not seem hard as some people might think `coz anyone from 7 to 70 yrs of age can do it.

For me it took `bout 10 mins to get used to the mask and breathing technique plus not forgetting the several mouthful of sea water that i 'drank' before I finally got the hang of it.

The beautiful corals and school of fishes that swam among us makes me feel I'm in the front seat of one of those National Geographic series. Live corals and colorful fishes in your face!

Snorkelled for an hour before we head over to Redang beach for a buffet luncheon and camwhored after that.

As usual, Alvin was up to his chick-spying tactics.. *lol.

Returned to K.T at about evening before going over to Chinatown again for dinner.

Day 5 - Next stop, Kuantan and back home.

The early sunrise awaken me with its strong beam through the large window panel of our hotel room which looks something like this:

Picked up some souvenirs before we hit the road again for another 3 hour drive down to Kuantan to meet up with Darren and have lunch at my favorite seafront McD at Teluk Cempedak.

Darren and I at Teluk Cempedak seaside.

Took us another 5 hour drive back to Seremban through the backroads due to the weekend jam.

Another roadtrip for me?..No thank you. =)