teh tarik satu: Up the Eastern Shores

Here’s a write up about the short weekend trip to Kuantan last week.

We, that is Wee Loong, Ge Hau & Wife, plus myself, headed up to Kuantan last Saturday in two cars. Our journey started from Singapore before noon. The skies were overcast and sporadic rain accompanied us throughout our way up.

Our first pit stop was in JB; Taman Sentosa to be more specific. The rain was pouring by then, and we decided to have an early lunch at the popular ‘Bak Kut Teh’ shop. We were soon on our way towards Mersing, which was on the eastern end of Johor. The road there was not too particularly busy, as it passes through numerous oil palm plantations. The slightly winding and hilly double-lane roads make easy driving, save for the occasional need to overtake slow lorries, tank trucks and cars cruising at incredibly slow speeds.

Arriving at Mersing, we made our way towards the jetty, the gateway to Tioman Island. Somehow we guys decided that we were a little hungry and settled for some local fare. Once recharged, we were headed off again, determined to reach our hotel before evening. This time, I was at the wheel of Wee Loong’s white Mazda 3.

This part of our journey took us through the Rompin district, which is where the Taman Negara (National Park) is located. We then hit a lovely stretch of road after passing Nenasi in Pahang. Lovely because the scenery here had tall pine trees lining up the road instead of more oil palms, with the shoreline visible on our right and almost no other vehicles in sight.

We soon reached the old royal town of Pekan which was only about 40km from Kuantan. Here we passed a row of old Chinese shophouses, a white mosque, and the river with the large words ‘PEKAN BANDAR DIRAJA – INDAH DAN MAKMUR’ on the opposite bank. Not having much time to spare, we drove on towards Kuantan.

The traffic was busier on the road to the capital of Pahang. We managed to read the right road signs that got us through the city and towards Swiss Garden hotel, located about 10km north of the city. We almost missed the hotel signage but fortunately Ge Hau spotted it in time or else we would have been lost further down Beserah Road.

The hotel had a nice beach front that faced the South China Sea. We quickly settled in and found time to visit the beach before nightfall. We found the softest sand which was so comfortable to the feet. Almost powdery like. I believe it would be nice just lying on the soft sand, but unfortunately I did not have time to test it out.

Ok, enough words. I'm a bad narrator, so the rest of this post will be accompanied by pictures.

The rest of the road trip gang

From top left (CW) : Mersing stop, Passing Pekan, Dinner at Pak Su, Shophouses in Pekan

We had a late dinner on Saturday night. The original plan was to go over to Kuantan for a bite followed by a visit to the Night Market. However we didn't expect the rain to throw a spanner into our plan. After experiencing the bad traffic in the wet town centre, we decided to head back and have dinner at the Pak Su seafood restaurant which seemed to be quite popular with tourists. The curry fish that we had did not quite match up to expectation though.

The next morning, I thought of waking up early for a bit of morning sunrise photography. But I probably slept through my alarm as I woke up after 7am.

From top left (CW) : Sunrise, more Sunrise, Swiss Garden in the morning glow, Crab creature hiding under a shell

Our plan on Sunday was basically to visit the beaches along the coastline especially the renowned Cherating beach. The beach was located not too far away from where we were staying. However what we found was an almost empty stretch of beach with many run-down kampung styled huts (they call themselves resorts) lining up the beach. Where are the tourists? After a quick nasi campur lunch we headed towards Pantai Chendor, further north. There we found that Club Med was out of bounds to the public and an empty Turtle Sanctuary.

Heading back south we paid a short visit to Tanjung Lumpur Fishing Village and Pantai Batu Hitam (Black Stone Beach) before heading back to the hotel.

From top left (CW) : Food Stall on Cherating beach, An empty stretch on Cherating beach, Pantai Batu Hitam (Black Stone Beach), Tanjung Lumpur fishing village.