malaysiaeast

EAST COAST

Kota bahru is a great town with a real cultural feel. Its a place where they like to show off the malaysian culture with tradionally made crafts all oer the place, plenty of heritige museums and a great cultural centre where they do demonstrations of traditional music and games.

Kuantan

I stayed in 2 hotels while in Kota Bahru. The first Safar Inn was disgusting, just dont go here. The rooms are filthy (blood and other unmentionable stains on the sheets!), a pathetic excuse for a breakfast and its a total rip off at 100rm per night. Needless to say we were only here one night, after that we moved to the Temmengoh Hotel which was clean and simple with a central location and at only 70 per night it was a much better deal than the other one.

I spent christmas and new year in Cherating, at Cherating Holiday Villa. Its a nice resort by the sea but expensive at 230rm per night, for that you get a lovely chalet and breakfast. Its a great place to relax as its often deserted- it can be hard to even find staff- but also a bit isolated, its best to have a car. The food here is ok, but this isnt a problem as there are a few good resturants just down the main road and the facilities are good with batik making, sports facilities and pool.
During the 3 weeks I was here I made use of all the facilities but spent most of the time in the pool as the beach wasnt too great at that time of year. The batik making was fun and my piece looks great, I also did a bit with the sports -ping pong, basket ball and tennis- but to be honest Im pretty crap at sports. A good thing about this was it was very relaxing, and they put on nice meals for Christmas and New Year which were quite tasty. I also saw some fantastic storms here, one where a lightning bolt hit a tree really close to us and there was some super loud thunder. Another exciting thing was when two fighter jets flew over and hit supersonic speed just out from the coast so I heard two sonic booms and the chalet shook like it was going to fall down!

We stayed as the Seri Malaysia Hotel in Kuala Terengganu. Its expensive at 110rm per night but pleasent enough to stay in as the rooms were large and comfortable, the breakfast was good and it was in a nice place right by the river- great for watching the sunset..

I stayed at Flora Bay Resort, the best place on this bay. The food was delicious, the staff were fantastic people and the chalets were clean, simple and very pleasant. And it was a bargain at 60rm for beach veiw fan chalet (this can be bargained down too, by the 3rd week we were at 30rm per night!) This is probably my favorite place to stay simply because it was amazing value and a fabulous place.

Cherating

The guy we did batik making with

Kota Bahru

The cultural museum was the highlight of stay here as I got to see traditional music, Silat and try my hand at some tradional games- gasing- top spining and top fighting, Takraw- a game with a wicker ball and congkak- the board game with marbles. This is all I saw but they also show wayang kulit- shadow play, and many other traditional arts and games.

I also saw the royal museum in KB which was interesting and showed off many of the ceromonies royals went throught from birth to death and many beautiful artifacts, including a great weapons gallery displaying spears and many beautifully crafted kris.

A silat demonstration

The band of traditional musicians and intruments

Pulau Perhentian

Kuala Terengganu

Kuala Terengganu is boring- theres no getting around it. Theres really just not much to do, except shop in the big market which is good especially for textiles, apparently there was a special ship building place on an island in the middle of Sungai Terengganu which we tried to go and see but it wasnt there- all we found was a kampung and everyone was straing and wondering what we were doing there. Mind you, I was wondering the same thing. Having said that though, I did see some beautiful sunsets over the river from the hotel and it was a pleasant, relaxing end to my travels.

One of the sunsets over Sungai Terengganu

The beach. Unfortunatly taken on a day that wasnt so nice- we had 2 weeks wonderful weather then the last week it rained buckets.

A shot from the mangrove tour we went on for chrstmas. Very good trip and I saw some otters, kingfishers and monitor lizards.

Seeing the big night market was good too as it was great fun buying all the food (satay, murtabak, kari ayam etc..) from different vendors and then finding a table to eat it. I even found my favourite malay sweet -Serimuka.

I only spent a day in Kuantan, though I did go back a few times while in Cherating for shopping. Its a nice town, theres a pretty mosque to see and lots of shopping centres to shop in. Its got a few tasty places to eat too, especially some of the open fronted restoran's on the street corners.

I stayed at the -- hotel.

Off the plane at Kuantan. I loved getting off the plane using these stairs- I felt like royalty and add the fact I flew business class it was the bomb!

Waiting in the Golden Lounge at KLIA

I loved Pulau Perhentian, I spent 3 weeks in Teluk Dalam. It was the perfect beach place. The sun shone the whole time (except for one, fantastic rain storm- I stood out in it and got soaked) the sand was golden, the sea was as clear as glass and abundant in coral and fish of all kinds. Here, I did diving, snorkling, fishing and above all relaxing.

Snorkling in P.Perhentian was great. The fish werent as densely packed as they were in Kota Kinabalu but I saw things that were even better than fish- tutles and sharks! The turtles were the best, they were so graceful and huge, I swam next to one and even got the chance to touch it- I shouldnt really have done that but I couldnt resist it. The sharks were cool too as it took a while for us to find them and then suddenly there was one in front of me so I chased it- it swam away, they were quite shy really. Then James led me to a place where there was loads and I was just surrounded by them. Amazing stuff.

Diving was a new experience for me and one Id like to continue with as I really enjoyed it. I did the introductary diving course at Flora Bay Resort, 200rm, and was taught about all the kit and taken on an introductary dive down to 10m. It was so cool being under the water and breath! I was totally thrilled by it.

Fishing in P.Perhentian was great too, mainly because I caught a 6kg Trevally!! That is one big fish and took 30 minutes to pull up!. I caught a few other fish too though but that one will stay in my mind as I was very proud of myself.