Kuala Terengganu
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| KT street art |
The day we left Langkawi was glorious sunshine (of course it
was) but we had booked to fly across to the east coast of mainland Malaysia, to
a place called Kuala
Terengganu (KT). A lovely seaside town in itself, it’s also the gateway to the island
of Redang.
We had planned to go to either Tioman
island or the Perhentian
islands but after checking the
weather reports we decided against them and to go to sunnier Redang.
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| KT street art |
After
settling in to our hotel we wandered down to nearby Chinatown
for some food. It was probably the quietest Chinatown we’ve ever been to – most
shops and restaurants were closed.
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| Chinatown, KT |
After coming across some great street art of
which Chinatown was full, much of it hidden away down side roads and alleyways,
we found a busy restaurant and had some food. After that, we went in search of Turtle
Alley which is an alley way dedicated to turtles and the promotion of their
conservation.
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| Turtle Alley |
We walked down to the local beach, Batu
Burok which is about 3km from the centre. When we got there, we realised
that it wasn’t the place for sunbathing in bikinis and shorts, Malaysia being
predominantly a Muslim country. After a little while we headed back. The sandy
beach is about a kilometre long and there are small food stalls along the
coastal road. The beach seemed to be very much for locals to enjoy and have a
picnic without semi-naked westerners grilling themselves.
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| Batu Burok |
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| Crystal Mosque, KT |
The main attraction in KT is the Crystal
Mosque, or Masjid Kristal so we headed over there and had a tour of the
mosque with a guide who told us a great deal about the religion of Islam which
was interesting to us non-believers, but we were more interested in the
building. It was opened in 2008 and was constructed from glass, crystal and
steel. It is a beautiful building with 4 minarets.
The rest of our time in KT was mainly spent wandering around
looking for food or shops that were open. Trust us to go to this very
conservative Muslim state at the beginning of Ramadan. They practise Sharia law
and it is illegal for Muslims to open their restaurants before 3pm. One day we
ended up in Chinatown having custard tarts for breakfast. That was goooood.
We ended up staying in KT for 3 nights, mainly because the
islands off the east coast of Malaysia are so expensive. The city itself was
really nice, but, for tourists wanting a good meal and a few drinks with a
couple of days sunning on the beach, it is never going to be anything more than
a stopover because of the strict Islamic culture.
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| KT street art |
Redang
We got the first available ferry to Redang on our last day
in KT. The ferry was huge and there were a couple of hundred passengers
onboard. The trip took around 2 hours and we were met by a taxi-truck from the
hotel. We jumped in the back and away we went. The ferry wasn’t cheap – it
worked out to be something like £20 each return. The taxi in Redang was another
£2 each.
Our hotel was by far the cheapest on the island and we paid £33 a
night, room only. It was also a good 15 minute walk from the public beach and
our bungalow was the highest one, so plenty of steps to climb. The place was
basic and it seemed as though the staff knew they were working in the cheap
place so didn’t seem to care too much about customer service. We had breakfast
there one morning and they didn’t even give us separate plates for our
pancakes, they just dumped them onto one plate which we only noticed halfway
through eating them. But hey, it was cheap (for Redang) so can’t complain too
much.
On the first day we decided to go to the public beach and it
was a nice enough walk on a road through the jungle. The beach was gorgeous and
at first was completely deserted. There were a couple of small tour boats about
200m off the coast and we swam out to them and joined the tourists there who were
swimming with turtles, although we didn’t have snorkelling gear and couldn’t
see them properly.
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| Gorgeous beach in Redang |
We found a couple of small local restaurants nearby to have
lunch and then later, dinner. The food was simple but cheap and tasty. No beer
though! We found out that the only place to buy alcohol was in the nearby 5*
resort, so we went down there, limiting ourselves to ONE beer only. At £6 for a
small can we ended up having NO beers only.
We had booked a trip for the next to go snorkelling from a
speedboat and swim with small sharks and turtles. The trip was supposed to be
from 9.30am to 1.30pm and we were to go to 4 different sites. We were with
another couple, from Japan and we had an amazing time zipping around on the
boat and snorkelling. We saw hundreds of different types of fish, every colour
you can think of, beautiful coral reefs, and we spotted some small shy sharks.
The best part of the trip was the turtles though. There were 5 or 6 of them
swimming around us and they came right up to us so we could feed them bits of
squid. Such an awesome experience.
The boat dropped us off at 12pm and I only realised we were
an hour and a half short once we’d got a few minutes’ walk away from the pier.
We immediately went to the booking place to complain and were asked to come
back later to see the manager. He had spoken to our boat crew who had told him
that they needed to rest as it was Ramadan and they were fasting. Umm, sorry, I
respect your religion and understand it’s probably difficult to work during
Ramadan but that’s not really our problem. The manager agreed with us and
refunded us some of the money. We paid around £30 for the two of us and we got
back £12.
That afternoon we couldn’t be bothered walking to the public
beach so we waltzed down to the 5* resort and used their beach and loungers
instead.
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| Redang beach |
It was a pity Redang was so expensive (and that we couldn’t
get a beer) because the boat trip, snorkelling and the beaches were fantastic.
The beaches were probably the best I’ve ever seen and we would have stayed longer
if we could have afforded it.
Kuala Lumpur
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| KL Tower |
We’ve been to KL before 2 or 3 years’ back so we weren’t too
bothered about missing it out on this trip, even though we really liked it.
But, I had to go to Hong Kong for work and this was the cheapest and easiest
way. I also managed to arrange a couple of meetings so it was time well-spent.
We stayed in the Bukit Bintang district, handily round the corner from a strip
of bars and restaurants.
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| Bukit Bintang sesh |
The three days we spent there were spent working,
eating and drinking, meeting some new friends and catching up with some ‘old’
friends we’d met travelling. The weather wasn’t great so we were stuck in bars
a lot of the time! In fact, in one bar where we’d met a friend for a late
lunch, we watched in mild disbelief as two waiters from the same bar had a big
punch up with each other. That was a bit weird. Apparently it was over cricket.
India were playing Bangladesh. There were both Bangladeshi…
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| Kuala Lumpur |
Bukit Bintang is a lively spot, within walking distance (max
2km) of big shopping malls, the KL Tower and the Petronas Twin Towers. We made
it to the shops this time, but we’ve done the other main parts of KL and
sometimes you need a break from sight-seeing, just to chill out, especially
before a heavy 5 days in Hong Kong!
#malaysia #kualaterengganu #kualalumpur #bukitbintang #redang #crystalmosque
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