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This was not a good sign of things to come! We spent over an hour driving in circles, trying to find the east coast highway leading out of Butterworth, wishing we had hired a sat-nav. However once on the right road it was a great feeling to be able to travel at our own pace, stopping or diverting whenever we felt like it. The drive from Penang to Kota Bharu on the east coast was long and windy but ran over the mountains and through endless miles of high level rainforest and patches of mist. Having taken many a wrong road we eventually arrived at Homestay Pasir Belanda at dusk.
Pasir Belanda is managed by a dutch couple in the grounds of a property built by an English merchant officer in 1912, in a small kampung (village) on the outskirts of Kota Bharu. This was not a true homestay in that we slept in a chalet apart from the main house but ate breakfast with the family and were able to experience aspects of Malay life through village visits and crafts. Borrowing bicycles we rode around the kampung, with its traditional wooden stilted buildings, orchards and rice paddies. We also
learnt how to make paint batik in a local workshop.
We need to escape the heat! Moving down south to Kuala Terengganu the weather seemed to get even warmer and more humid; 34 degrees in the shade (isn't that 20 degrees warmer than Jersey at present ?) and the humidity was exhausting. So we headed uphill to stay by the shore of Lake Kenyir for a few days. This lake was created by the damning of the Kenyir river for hydro-electric power in the 1980s and measuring 260 km2 is the largest man-made lake in South-East Asia. It was hard not to think about the expanse of pristine rainforest that must have been submerged by the lake as we cruised past dead trees poking out of water. But the views across the still waters of the lake, dotted with islands of rainforest, was quite stunning. The area was developed as a destination for eco-tourism but seemingly not that successful, as we were the only foreign tourists around. But we loved it; the birding was good, and we had close encounters with all sorts of wildlife, from frogs and lizards in the bathroom, to bats and huge spiders in
caves, as Eve recounts below.
After our stay at Lake Kenyir we returned to the east coast to Balok Beach, between Cherating and Kuantan. Cherating used to be a popular tourist spot but once again we hardly saw any other foreigners; many hotels and restaurants were either closed or looking distinctly tired and the South China Sea was too rough for swimming. Nevertheless we still had great fun here, flying kites on the beach, kayaking amongst the mangroves, watching turtles ashore at night and seeing fireflies on a night river trip amongst the mangroves. Eve describes her highlights below.
Eve's Travelblog Lake Kenyir : Scary spiders!
Today we went on a small boat across the lake, the journey took 45 minutes because the lake is so huge, much bigger than Jersey. We saw the dam for hydroelectricity a long way away. We also saw the tops of trees that were submerged by the lake. The engine broke down lots of times in the middle of the lake and I thought we might have to swim ! We stopped first at a huge cave and we walked for 20 minutes in the darkness. It was very scary
and smelly, there were lots of noises from bats and insects but we could not see them. Mum shone her torch on an enormous spider called a tiger spider, it was the size of a dinner plate but it's body was quite small. I was glad to get out.
Then we visited a waterfall for a picnic and went for a swim at the foot of the waterfall. It was very refreshing and the fish were nibbling my toes.
Cherating Beach One night we took a boat up the river in the mangroves to see fireflies twinkling in the bushes, it was magical. On the same night we drove to a beach where we saw 3 turtles come ashore and lay eggs in the sand. The turtles were green turtles; it has this name because it has green fat in its body, but the shell was actually brown and it was huge. The average size of this kind of turtle is 1.2 metres- my height! We saw the turtle laying about 50 eggs, they were round and a little bit soft. The staff from the turtle sanctuary who were with us collected some of the eggs to
Green Turtle on Balok Beach
We watched this turtle lay aroung 50 eggs before sliding into the sea incubate. They do this to save turtles from extinction, because normally only a few baby turtles will survive; they may be eaten by birds or animals and also some people collect eggs for eating. Turtles only lay eggs when they are at least 20 years old, and they always come back to the same beach that they were born! After the turtles had crawled back into the sea we helped to release some baby turtles called hatchlings back into the sea. I called my hatchling Lily and I wished her lots of luck when I released her near to the sea.
The next day we took a kayak up the river through mangrove forest. It was amazing to see the roots of the trees high above the water. The forest was very quiet but we saw birds, lizards, and a big black snake with yellow stripes. we also saw a family of otters but they were very nervous and disappeared quickly.
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Emily
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Scary spiders
Hi Eve I am missing you very much.The tiger spider sounds big and scary. I would be glad to get out of the cave too. Glad you are enjoying your trip so far. It's half term here so no school for a week.