A short and sweet episode in Kuala Terengganu

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HE SAID...
We woke early at 5.30am (in Kuala Tahan) to prepare for our longest travel day of this holiday – an eight hour bus trip to Kuala Terengganu. We headed to the hotel lobby at 7.30am for a hearty breakfast of coffee, juice, scrambled eggs, toast and banana pancakes, and then jumped into a minibus at 8am to begin our journey. After traversing a poorly maintained road for the first hour (often driving in loose gravel on the side of the road to avoid massive potholes in the bitumen), a decision was made to change minibuses, as two seats did not have a seatbelt. While seatbelts were the least of our worries, it was good to see a safety focus. And all the while, the endless horizon of palm plantations continued…

We travelled back to Jerantut and waited on the side of the road until our new minibus arrived. We transferred our packs to the new minibus and re–started our journey at 10.45am. We had only been on the road for 45 minutes when we pulled into a large roadside eatery at 11.30am for lunch. We wandered past the various stalls and ordered teh tarik (pulled sweet milky tea) and what we thought was a sweet roti (flat flaky Indian bread), but turned out to be toast with kaya (coconut and egg jam). It was a simple lunch but just what we needed. We picked up a few snacks for the rest of the trip and set off again at midday. It turned out to be a very bouncy ride – the road had many bumps and the minibus’ suspension was extremely springy!

I woke from a brief sleep and it was pouring with rain. As I looked out the window, clear felled land stretched to the horizon. We pulled into a service station around 2.30pm and picked up a can of cold white coffee and a packet of coconut coated peanuts. The rain had stopped and the sun was searing down (which it continued to do for the rest of the afternoon). We finally arrived in Kuala Terengganu at 3.30pm (having been on the road for seven and a half hours) and checked into Seri Malaysia, our hotel for one night.

We dropped our bags, ordered a taxi and headed straight to the Crystal Mosque, which was to be a fantastic experience. Four volunteers met us at the door, fitted us with robes and took us on a brief but informative tour of the mosque. At the end of the tour, our main guide (a Muslim woman who used to be Catholic) offered us a pamphlet titled “Invitation to Understanding Islam – One God; One Humanity; One Religion; Many Prophets”. It had an interesting genealogy of Muhammed and Jesus, traced back to Adam and Eve (Hawwa). I really appreciated the overview of Islam that our volunteer guide provided. She explained the concept of Islamic prayer as four young boys prayed in front of us. I’m convinced one of them was just going through the motions with the other three, because while they were focused, he kept looking over at us and smiling mid–prayer. He was only about seven.

The gentle and unassuming approach of the volunteers at the Crystal Mosque was so different to the direct and disconcerting approach of a group of men outside the Kapitan Keling Mosque in Penang, one of whom handed me a brochure titled “Islamic Vision – Life After Death” as I crossed the street. I couldn’t really get past that brochure’s opening sentence: “The question whether there is a life after death does not fall under the jurisdiction of science, as science is concerned only with classification and analysis of sense data.” I think I’ll remain in the realm of sense data. Besides, the brochure’s “five very convincing reasons to believe in life after death” weren’t very convincing at all.

Before going any further, I must mention our taxi driver. We ordered the taxi through our hotel’s reception staff, and they suggested a fare of RM40 was typical for a return trip to the Crystal Mosque. When the taxi arrived, I got in asked how much the return trip would cost. He smiled at me, took out a pen and wrote 45 at the bottom of his palm (with a series of arm gestures that appeared to mean travelling to the mosque) and 25 at the top of this palm (with a series of arm gestures that appeared to mean returning from the mosque). I interpreted this to mean RM70 all up for the trip (RM45 over and RM25 return). I agreed, as it was late in the afternoon and we were leaving Kuala Terengganu the following morning. He drove us to the mosque, showed us how to get in and pointed to where he would pick us up in 30 minutes (he used my watch to specify how much time we had). When we came out of the mosque he was waiting for us, but he gestured frantically that he had to go to the toilet. This gave us some time to take a few more photos. He eventually emerged, gestured apologetically, walked us to the taxi and drove us back to the hotel. When we arrived, I went to hand him RM70 and he burst out laughing. He took a RM50 note from my hand and gave me RM10 in change. He kept laughing, and we realised his quote was the time he would get us to the mosque (4:45pm) and the time we would leave (5:25pm). We shouldn’t be so surprised by honesty.

After thanking our taxi driver and waving goodbye, we walked to a local camera shop to check on my camera. It was completely useless, as the internal circuitry had shorted. It was no surprise, but it was annoying nonetheless. We decided to explore Kuala Terengganu’s bustling Chinatown for the rest of the afternoon, including the food court, hawker market and Terapung Puteri, a Malaysian restaurant on the seafront (about 20 minutes’ walk from our hotel). We asked the owner if he had kerepok (a small sausage of deep–fried fish paste and sago) on the menu. He didn’t, but he walked us to a nearby market and showed us where to buy it. We picked up three sausages with a small plastic bag of homemade chilli sauce for RM1 (30 cents). It was delicious (although it didn’t look terribly appetising). We walked back to hotel, freshened up and headed out to the Town City Food Court for dinner. We sat at a small plastic table on the noisy street and ordered chicken rice, roti with sardines, beer, lime juice and teh tarik. The meal was fantastic, and we suddenly realised we loved this city.

The people in Kuala Terengganu (and in Malaysia generally) were incredibly friendly. We felt very welcome here and wished we had more time to explore the intricacies of this city. I know it’s meant as a stop–over, but we would have liked to have stopped over a little longer. We walked back to the hotel and relaxed in the lobby with its limited wifi connection. We retired to our room around 10pm and went through a few blog photos until we crashed at midnight.



SHE SAID...
We left the crickets, cicadas, mosquitoes, leeches and other creepy crawlies of Taman Negara National Park and travelled towards the eastern coastline to Kuala Terengganu. I had a lovely banana pancake breakfast at the hotel before facing a long day of travel.

We were packed into a minibus at 8am for the eight hour drive. We were supposed to catch a public bus, but for some reason Intrepid Travel decided on hiring a minibus for us. We were a bit annoyed as we prefer to catch public transport when we travel, especially in a country like Malaysia where the public transport and roads are so good.

We were only a few minutes into the trip when it was discovered that two seats didn’t have seat belts, so a replacement minibus had to be wrangled. We stopped at a small town called Kuala Krau while phone calls were made to sort it out. We had stopped outside a small market and thought it would be a good time to use the toilet...but the women’s toilet was locked so we had to use the very very manky men’s toilet. Even though it looked really bad, the smell was manageable so it wouldn’t be classified anywhere near the top of my ‘worst public toilets’ list. After more phone calls to get a new bus, we stopped for a short time near a toll booth just outside Jerantut and swapped minibuses with another group who had less people. Then finally, we could get on our way.

We stopped for lunch at a roadside rest stop that was a small collection of eateries in a covered food court. We had two teh tariks, and what we thought would be a kaya roti, but they had used the word roti in its general sense, and we ended up with a kaya (coconut and egg jam) toasted sandwich! It was still quite good and on bus trip days we try to stay away from big meals anyway. We stocked up on snacks – Twisties ‘Duh! Tomato’, fried salted broad beans, Tiger chocolate biscuits, and sweet and sour fruit jellies. 😊

The bus trip was actually quite lovely; I managed to get a lot of writing done and just about catch up to Andrew. The rest of the trip involved napping, but only when the very bouncy suspension at the back of the minibus allowed it. Our driver drove at formula one speed in the rain, but at least he seemed to have some formula one skill...

Kuala Terengganu is the capital of Terengganu State and sits at the mouth of the Terengganu River on the east coast. Kuala Terengganu means ‘confluence of Terengganu’, as the wide expanse of the Terengganu River estuary empties into the sea here. We were only passing through, so our impressions were limited to our drive into the town, the immediate vicinity of our hotel, a short trip to the Crystal Mosque and Chinatown.

We arrived at the Seri Malaysia Hotel at 3:30pm. The reception and restaurant were pretty enough, especially as the restaurant overhung the Terengganu River. However, our room stank of cigarette smoke and I was too scared to look too closely at the carpet. We were only here for one night, so we were able to suck it up. We only used the room for essentials like washing and sleeping, and all of our spare time was spent using the wifi at reception.

As soon as we dropped off our bags, Anne–Louise, Andrew and I caught a taxi to the Crystal Mosque, and we were truly stunned at how lovely it was. It is part of the Islamic Heritage Park on the island of Wan Man that has theme–park–esque model mosques, so our expectations weren’t very high.

Our taxi didn’t have a meter so we tried to communicate with the driver by sign language. He wrote 45 on his hand, and when we asked if we could be driven back too, he wrote 25 on his hand. Thinking he meant RM45 and RM25, we agreed and off we went. He dropped us off in front of a restaurant, gesturing which way the mosque was. Not wanting to walk through a restaurant, we asked for directions and realised there was a boardwalk along the river that the taxi driver had deemed would be a prettier entrance to the mosque than the main entrance via a car park. The mosque was quite stunningly set on the water and was covered in eye catching coppery–green crystal domes. Our driver had made a good call for us to approach it along the waterfront.

On approaching the Crystal Mosque we were met by a group of volunteers who dressed Anne–Louise and myself in robes and head scarves, and even though Andrew didn’t need it, the leader of the volunteers (I really wish I could remember her name) suggested that he wear a brown monk–like robe so the photos looked better! We then got a short tour of the stunning mosque and a brief overview of how people pray – by pointing out the actions of four young boys who were praying in front of us. One of the boys seemed to know what was going on and looked over at us with a sly smile. It was a lovely experience and it’s always nice to know and feel that you are welcome when you visit someone else’s house of worship, especially when it was very much a working mosque and lots of people were praying. We were given pamphlets on the Quran and the history of Islam, especially in reference to Christianity and the biblical family tree. The head volunteer also made sure that the other three volunteers had our cameras and they kept clicking away. One of them even walked out with us and took a group photo at the mosque entrance. We were so glad we made the trip out to see the mosque.

Our taxi driver was waiting for us outside the mosque, and when we got back to the hotel Andrew offered him RM70. He snorted out a laugh, took the RM50 note from Andrew and gave him RM10 change. He’d been writing down the times of the drive and how long he would wait for us rather than the price! How many taxi drivers in the world would be that honest with clueless tourists?

We then walked to the local camera shop to see if we could get a new battery for Andrew’s camera, but the girl at the shop thought that it was the circuitry of the camera rather than the battery that was damaged. So poor Andrew will be camera–less for the rest of the trip.

Kuala Terengganu is definitely not on the usual tourist trail, and the difference was palpable. It’s a beautiful and relaxed city with amazingly friendly people. Apparently it used to be a sleepy fishing village until they struck oil, and a city was created almost overnight. However, there are still pockets of old kampung–style houses, and the old–school Chinatown has remained untouched. As gorgeous as Chinatown was, I wouldn’t agree with the marketing that it was the best preserved in Malaysia. I think the Chinatowns in Melaka and Penang were much livelier and better preserved.

Relative to the rest of Malaysia, they’ve had little immigration in this part of the country, so the food has apparently remained steadfastly Muslim Malay. However, our view of Kuala Terengganu has been very skewed as a result of staying near Chinatown. This was the first hotel we’ve stayed in that provided a Muslim prayer mat in every room. We have also finally figured out what the green ‘kiblat’ arrow on every hotel room ceiling means – it’s pointing to the direction of Mecca. I can’t believe it has taken three weeks for us to figure that out.

Kerepok (an unappetising looking mix of deep fried fish paste and sago) is a traditional snack and considered one of the specialties of this region. We walked into a restaurant and asked if they had any. They didn’t, but the restaurant owner very kindly offered to walk us back to the market to a stall that had some. We had the lekor version, which is deep–fried long and chewy sausages. Luckily it tasted better than it looked. It was even better with the tangy chilli sauce the old vendor gave us. The Central Market is known for traditional kain songket (fabric with gold or silver thread) and batiks. However, we more drawn to the produce section.

We had dinner at a small food court near our hotel called Medan Makan Town City Food Court in Chinatown. It was bustling and we were lucky to get a seat. I opted for taugen chicken rice (Hainanese chicken rice) that most people seemed to be ordering. It came with a fresh and punchy sambal belacan (chilli sauce made with shrimp paste) and kecap manis (thick sweet soy). Andrew couldn’t go past the roti stall and had an egg and sardine roti. Both our meals were fantastic, but what we enjoyed most was watching the comings and goings around us. As we sat there with teh tariks and thought about the travel day we had the next day...we both mentioned how much we would have loved an extra day here; but alas, this was just a stopover point to break up a long journey.

Next, we do more travelling in the state of Terengganu and explore the Perhentian Islands!

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