Cherating on the South China Sea

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Well we did have a long and hot bus ride from Melaka to Cherating on April 30th. The air conditioning did not work and the bus was full, lots of families with children - children all quite wonderful in taking the trip in stride and did not need much entertaining from their attentive moms and dads. It was about a 7 hour bus ride to Kuantan where we intended to catch the bus to Cherating - but after stopping at several ticket wickets upstairs in the bus depot we learned that we had to go to the local bus depot 20 minutes away and there were no guarantees there would be a seat today. When we stepped outside there was a taxi, air conditioned and of course willing to take us to Cherating (about 1 hour away) for 50 ringgits -about $17 -we debated 2 seconds and took it!

The Lonely Planet describes Cherating as having a “lost in time and place ambience”. It did indeed feel that way - very laid back and relaxed…and at once we felt at home, chatting to locals, restaurant owners, shop keepers. People were very friendly and welcoming and many spoke English. The travel agent with whom we booked our next trip was a local man who had lived in Vancouver for 6 years just a few blocks from our house…it is indeed a small world! We met several other travellers too -who always have interesting stories to share and good pieces of info for helping plan our next travels.

Dao in Melaka recommended we stay at his friend Dao’s “Tan Jong Inn” in Cherating which we did. It worked out really well. We had our own little cabin - just a short walk to the main street of town and a short walk across the property to the beach and the very warm South China Sea -almost felt like we were swimming in bath water! Amazing!

There were a few Malaysian monsoon rainfalls while we were here, lasting a few hours with lots of crashing thunder and close lightning. One day we watched the rain from the safety of our porch and saw 2 huge monitor lizards mating in the rain for hours. Life in the fast lane! 😊

We walked all over town, saw some of the very beautiful batiks this area is famous for and bought one special piece, saw a big family of monkeys dancing about the trees (Elwyn, you would have loved watching them play!), woke to the music of birds each day, swam lots and took a wonderful boat ride just the 2 of us with an excellent guide, down the river one morning. Our favourite restaurant was the Payung Café. The family who own it have just owned it for 5 months and are so wonderful and welcoming. It felt like we were hanging out in our own living room; the food was delicious -especially the curry mee -and they had free WiFi too!

We ended up staying here 4 nights, to Sunday May 4th, as Workers Day was May 1st and this meant a long weekend for many and places on the Perhentian Islands, our next stop, were all booked, as were the buses. It was a treat to have this time here and we definitely recommend a visit to Cherating!

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Photos

another fat black and yellow mangrove snake asleep in the sun
the boat guide said he had to be careful to position the boat so it was not right under the snake who might then fall on our heads!