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Part 6: Stong State Park, Tumpat,
Kuala Lumpur
30-31.7: Munich -> Abu Dhabi -> Delhi -> Singapore
1.8: Singapore -> Desaru
2.8: Desaru
3.8: Desaru -> Singapore
14.8: Jakarta -> Kuala Lumpur
15.8: Kuala Lumpur -> Kuching -> Batang Ai
16.8: Batang Ai
17.8: Batang Ai (longhouse and waterfall trip)
18.8: Batang Ai -> Kuching -> KL -> Bangkok
20.8: Bangkok -> Kuala Lumpur
21.8: Kuala Lumpur
22.8: Kuala Lumpur
29.8: Kota Bharu -> Temenggor lake (Royal Belum state park)
30.8: Tour on Temenggor lake and Belum reserve
31.8: Belum state park -> Ulu Muda
1.9: Ulu Muda
2.9: Ulu Muda
3.9: Ulu Muda -> Dabong (near Gunung Stong state park)
4.9: Stong state park -> Gua Ikan -> Gua Musang -> Dabong
5.9: Dabong -> Tumpat -> Kota Bharu -> KL
6.9: Kuala Lumpur
7.9: Kuala Lumpur -> Abu Dhabi -> Munich
3.9: Ulu Muda
-> Dabong (near Gunung Stong state
park)
Rose house Dabong, Dabong.
70 RM for a
smallish room a comfortable bed (but very thin blankets), sofa, clothes
hanger, tea making equipment, fan, adjustable A/C, attached bath with
cold shower. Noisy room facing the main road (tried to get another
room, but the other room wasn't available). The Rose house is a
privately run small guesthouse in Dabong, a small village in Kelantan
in the middle of nowhere, but close to the Gunung Stong state park.
Weather: the whole day
sunny blue sky, with a few clouds here and there. No rain.
At 9:15am I have breakfast and meet Steve and Helen (the British
couple) who have taken the early morning wildlife spotting boat trip at
7am. Again they haven't seen any elephants (only some otters, an eagle
and some monkeys).
At 10:30am we get on the boat and leave for the main jetty of the Ulu
Muda lake. After three days in the jungle we are looking forward to
some comfortable hotel with A/C, clean water and dry air.
My dirty laundry bag has grown considerably in size, my towel smells
like mud, my camera bag and lenses are all humid. The T-shirt which I
washed the day before yesterday is still wet and won't get dry. Not a
surprise wiith 99% humidity. And it smells like mud, because the water
used to wash it came directly from the river.
Jungle stays are always interesting, but after a while you run out of
clean clothes and can't wash the dirty ones if there is no clean water
and A/C which dries the air. So we are all happy to get back to
civilisation.
Shortly before 12pm we reach the jetty and then proceed to the cars.
The British couple has a driver waiting for them, while I load my stuff
into my hyperhot car and then start driving to the Gunung Stong state
park.
It's only 277km, but it should take almost five hours according to the
car navigation system. I've keyed in Dabong (the closest village) as
destination because I could't find the Gunung Stong state park in the
Sygic app.
The first stop is Baling which I reach a bit after 1pm. There I stop in
a KFC restaurant for lunch and for downloading my emails. I've already
called Shirley whom I couldn't call for the past three days to tell
her where I am.
After the lunch and some shopping in Baling, I continue driving.
The road is not easy. Either it's a more or endless urban area and you
never how fast you are allowed to drive, or in the mountains it's a
road full of curves. And in many sections the lanes are very narrow and
there is no service lane. A couple of times the left wheel comes
slightly off the paved road, forcing me to initiate a risky 'recovery'
manouver. They could make lanes a bit wider in Malaysia.
Some Malaysian drivers are a bit weird. Red traffic light, the car in
front of me ignores it and drives through. Or I want to turn right and
queue up on one of the two turn right lanes. Car from behind me quickly
overtakes me on the left side using the other turn right lane. Had I
turned right in that instant there would have been a serious accident.
Another example, there is a speed limit of 30 km/h in front of schools,
which is routinely ignored by everybody. Then people have a habit of
overtaking even if there are double continuos lines (i.e. overtaking
strictly prohibited).
Also the road signs on Malaysian streets are a bit messy. Sometimes
there is a speed limit, but because they rarely use end of speed limit
signs, you never know where the speed limit ends. And sometimes speed
limits make little sense, like for instance 60km/h on an interstate
road outside of urban centres (you could drive faster) or 90km/h in
what looks like an urban centre (limit should be lowered, as 90 km/h is
too fast for an urban area).
After a couple of breaks I reach the Gunung Stong state park at
5:30pm. This is reachable with a small road and immediately you can see
the majestic waterfall which falls from the mountain.
I drive into the compound and notice that it's deserted, i.e. nobody is
there, except for a three people who seem to be a family of visitors. I
look for the reception, but it's closed.
I was planning to stay in the Gunung Stong state park resort, which
should exist according to the guidebooks, and in fact the chalets
exist, but here everything is closed and the whole thing looks like a
ghost town.
Thinking that perhaps the resort is somewhere else I use Google maps to
locate it, and in fact Google maps shows a different location inside
the Dabong village. So I switch on Google maps navigation and drive
there.
Surprise, surprise there is no resort in the place Google maps has
guided me to. I'm in the middle of a small village and villagers are
all wondering what this weird western tourist is doing in a Malaysian
car there.
To stop being at the centre of attention, I drive out of this village
to a quiet place and check with the Sygic navigation system and Google
maps what other hotels there are in the area.
Not much actually, unless I want to drive for one hour. There is a
Jelawang homestay according to Google maps, but when I drive there with
Google maps navigation, I end up in some other spot of this small
village (Dabong). Sometimes Google maps sucks.
So I ask some locals for advice. They direct me to what seems to be the
only
accomodation in this place, the Rose house Dabong.
Some discussion with the owner about the price which seems to be a bit
high. 70 RM for the first night, 50 RM for the second night. Upon
second
sight later I realise that this place isn't that bad. It's just that I
got the room facing the main road with all the traffic.
Then the guesthouse owner introduces me to Bob, a local guide who
happens to be listed in the Lonely Planet guidebook. Bob arrives and
offers a four hours tour to Gunung Stong tomorrow (caves, waterfall)
initially for RM 212. This seems a bit expensive. Some discussion and
he lowers the price to RM 180 if we use my car.
In the evening I have a dinner in the eatery near the train station.
Dabong does have a train station, with probably connections to Kota
Bharu and KL.
Later I meet two Italian girls who are travelling on their own in
Malaysia. They tell me that they went to Endau Rompin NP and to
the orang asli village of Kampung Peta.
When they were driving back in the evening they saw a small tiger
crossing
the street and disappearing in the bushes and later an elephant.
4.9: Stong state park
-> Gua Ikan
-> Gua Musang
->
Dabong
Rose house Dabong, Dabong.
This morning there is no water, so I have to wash myself with a bucket.
Weather: in the morning
a mix of
sunny and clouds, quite hot. After 5pm it starts raining heavily in Gua
Musang, it rains more or less heavily on the road back to Dabong, and
it is still raining in Dabong at midnight.
At 9:30pm I meet the guide who Bob arranged for me. It's a guy from the
area, in outdoor gear, who speaks some English but is not too fluent.
We drive initially to the Gunung Stong park for some far away photos of
the waterfall, then drive to the Gua Ikan cave complex near Dabong.
The Gua Ikan complex consists of three caves: Gua Gelap, Gua Pagar and
Gua Keris. From this I conclude that 'gua' in Malay probably means
'cave'.
Near the caves there is a parking with a restaurant / shop and kids
playground (entrance is free). We park the car there and walk to the
caves. The caves are over the street, immediately opposite this parking.
We walk through the bush and luckily there are no leeches. Then my
guide (forgot his name) finds a narrow passage in the rock and we slide
in.
This passage is very narrow and at one point you must literally crawl
on the ground under a rock. The maximum vertical height is around
20-30 cm. If you have too much belly or are too round, you either get
stuck or can't get through.
After this narrow passage the back of my shorts and of my T-shirt are
in mud colour (I slided in on the back). This passage probably becomes
impassable when it rains.
We then get out again into the open air and walk up a steep path to the
Gua
Keris cave. This has a large entrance and a large interior
chamber. From one hole at the top, at 11am there is a sun ray (called
'god light') which illuminates a spot. Quite cool light effect.
We continue to the Gua Pagar cave. Both caves have interesting
stalagmite and stalagtite formations. Not as impressive as the caves in
the Mulu NP, but very, very nice. One of the caves has a slope with
small pools on terraces. Haven't seen such a rock formation in any
other cave so far.
In any case these caves are not easily accessible for anybody. Due to
all the climbing and the narrow passages, some minimum level of fitness
is required. Kids probably must have a minimum age, but it should
be easier for them to slip through the narrow passages.
Probably because I take too much time shooting photos we don't visit
the third cave, Gua Gelap. We are back at the parking at 12:15pm. There
we have a short break, then drive to the Gunung Stong state park,
arriving there at 12:30pm.
This time there are some people in the cafeteria of the park. Again,
also here there is no entry fee. We walk to a staircase which leads to
a path to the waterfall. The path proceeds across lush jungle.
Shortly before 1pm we reach the place where one can swim in the
waterfall. Further up we see a group of Malays who are walking up the
waterfall. Probably they want to reach this viewpoint at 540m altitude,
and perhaps even spend the night up there.
I don't have a towel with me and no replacement underwear so I just
walk a bit into the fresh water to cool down a bit. At 1:20pm we slowly
start walking back to the car. Then we drive back to Dabong where
I
part from the guide. I have lunch again in the same place where I had
dinner yesterday.
A bit before 3pm I'm back in the car and this time I drive to Gua
Musang. Can't remember why I put Gua Musang on my list of places to
visit, because (as I realise later) it's not that interesting. I must
have read
about it in some online forum. Only the Rough Guide lists the cave in
Gua
Musang as something worth visiting.
Almost frontal collision with an idiot who is overtaking another car,
suddenly popping up from behind a curve and realising that there is not
enough space for overtaking. Similar situation later when a car from
the opposite direction overtakes a motorbike right when I'm passing by.
To avoid a collision, I have to brake completely, the wheels are
screetching on the asphalt.
In any case, it's 73km from Dabong to Gua Musang and I arrive there at
4:10pm. Then I lose some time locating the cave. I do a Google maps
search for 'gua musang cave' but find nothing. So I get back to the
Rough Guide and read again the article.
Apparently the cave is behind the old railway station. I drive there,
park the car in front of the railway station and walk across the rail
track. I try to follow the instructions in the Rough Guide, but it
seems impossible to get 20 metres up the rock face and find the narrrow
passage the Rough Guide is talking about. I might add that the place
seems to be pretty abandoned, as if nobody has set foot here for a
while.
I get back to the car (it's 4:45pm and it's about to start raining),
pull out the smartphone and look for web reports of this Gua Musang
cave. Somewhere I read that it takes one hour to walk up and find the
narrow passage, and the path is quite challenging as well.
In the meantime it has started raining heavily, so I give up on the
idea to get into the cave (and I guess I'd need a guide and it's too
late in any case).
I check what else there is to see in Gua Musang. Not much actually. The
old colonial centre and a Chinese temple.
Compared to Dabong which is a small village with a railway station, Gua
Musang feels almost like a big city. There are supermarkets, countless
shops, banks with ATMs, petrol stations and hotels. This city has an
old historic core and a modern section a couple of km from it.
It's interesting that there are hotels. Who would visit this place?
Perhaps not tourists, because there is little to see. Perhaps business
people. Or perhaps Gua Musang is a traffic node at the intersection of
a number of routes and that's why it's relatively developed.
I wait a bit in the car with the A/C switched on, hoping that the rain
will end soon. After a while I drive to a petrol station and refill the
tank, then to a supermarket for some groceries. Finally at 6pm I drive
to a KFC restaurant for some dinner.
At 6:45pm I start driving back to Dabong. The drive gets from bad to
worse, because it's already dark when I leave Gua Musang due to all the
clouds and after 7:30pm the night starts.
It's a pretty horrible drive, because for large sections the road is
barely visible (no reflectors, almost invisible street lines). Because
of the heavy rain every now and then the car gets into a big water
pool. I'm finally back in the hotel at 8:15pm.
5.9:
Dabong -> Tumpat -> Kota Bharu
-> KL
Home of Sara, sister of
Shirley
Weather: sunny the whole
day with
some clouds. In the afternoon the sky gradually becomes overcast, but
not dark. No rain the whole day.
After checking out at 10:30am from the Rose house in Dabong, I drive to
the Thai Buddhist temples near Tumpat. Tumpat is a small town about
10km to the northwest of Kota Bharu, where there are a number of Thai
Buddhist temples, probably built by the Thai Buddhist and
Chinese Buddhist minorities. For a thoroughly Islamic state as Kelantan
(as well
Malaysia as a whole) such an oddity is interesting and is deserves a
visit.
This morning the road is quite empty until I reach Jeli at the main
junction. From here onwards the road becomes quite busy on this Friday
morning. Lots of traffic. A large group of people in motorbike are
driving on the opposite direction.
I reach Wat Phothivihan, the first of today's temples, at 1pm. Wat
Phothivihan consists of a compound with a restaurant and a car parking
and several buildings. Its highlight is a 40m long reclining Buddha
statue.
FYI, all five temples visited today consist of a walled compound into
which cars may drive in and park.
After spending about 20 minutes visiting the temple I have a brief
lunch in the restaurant. Then I drive to the second temple of today,
Wat Kok Seraya, arriving there after a couple of stops along the way,
shortly after 2pm.
Wat Kok Seraya lies only a few km to the north of Wat Phothivihan. It's
a short and easy drive if you have a car with a navigation system, but
if you don't have a car, getting there can be quite complicated. You'd
need to find a tour or charter a taxi for the day.
Wat Kok Seraya is more cute than Wat Phothivihan. There is a big golden
stupa right after the entrance gate. A new temple hall is currently
being built.The highlight of this temple is the statue of a female
Buddha (usually Buddhas are male).
At
2:25pm I start driving to the next temple, Wat Pikulthong. This is
located in Kampung Terbak (or Terbok). Inside the compound are a number
of buildings and temple halls. The highlight is a 36m tall golden
mosaic Buddha statue which stands on a platform overlooking the
compound.
After 25 minutes in this temple I drive to Wat Machimmaram, the fourth
temple of today. The highlight here is the statue of a seated
Buddha, covered with pink-brown mosaic tiles. Also this temple is
beautifully choreographed with plenty of decorations.
It's now 4pm when I leave this temple and drive to the next and last
Thai Buddhist temple of today, Wat Mai Suwankiri.
Wat Mai Suwankiri is another richly decorated temple consisting of a
number of buildings. Its characteristic is a temple in the shape of a
dragon boat, surrounded by a moat with goldfish, meant to give the
illusion that the temple is floating in the water. Plenty of dogs in
this temple.
At 5pm, while I'm there, a monk rings a bell. Several monks of this
temple then assemble in a central hall, perhaps for some prayer or
meditation.
I drive to the next place, the Pantai Seri Tujuh
beach.
Pantai Seri Tujuh is a stretch of beach about 20km northwest of Kota
Bharu, not far from the Thai border. The beach is 1-2 km long and quite
wide (perhaps 100m).
Where I park the car there are public toilets, restaurants, shops etc.
Seems to be a place which locals use to visit often.
When I arrive at 5:25pm there are youngsters riding horses without a
saddle on the beach. People are starting to arrive and an open-air
market is being set up.
I have a closer look at the beach. Could be ok (is reasonably clean),
but there is absolutely no shadow (no trees or palm trees under which
to stay when the sun is strong). The sea water looks dirty, actually
it's a brownish soup. Not a very inviting place where to swim.
Back to the car (it's by now almost 6pm) I notice an uptick in
activity. Even more people, lots of youngsters on motorbikes, market
sellers have finished setting up their stands and wares are on display
for sale.
Since I don't exactly want to have dinner here, with the smartphone I
look for a shopping
mall in Kota Bharu. After some searching I choose
the KB mall and key it in into the navigation system.
Getting there by car takes around half and hour due to the heavy
traffic. Once there I refuel the car tank in a petrol station, then
park the car on a parking adjacent to the mall.
At 7pm I have a dinner in the mall. Then I drive to the airport and at
8pm return the car to the car rental (Hawk). Then I check-in and
proceed to the gate.
The 21:55 Airasia flight to KL is delayed by 10 minutes, due to the
late
arrival of the previous flight. Therefore we land in KLIA at
11:05pm.
I manage to retrieve the luggage by 11:25pm and catch the 11:35pm KLIA
Express to KL. At the counter I enquire about family tickets for the
train. There are none (they used to have a RM 75 offer) and kids pay RM
15, i.e. a family of four pays RM 100 (2*35 + 2*15).
6.9: Kuala Lumpur
Night spent in the plane
and the airports
Weather: slightly
overcast, but bright day. Some rain in the evening around 8pm.
Day spent with the family not doing much except for some shopping in
the Mid Valley mall.
7.9: Kuala Lumpur -> Abu Dhabi -> Munich
Home, sweet home
Weather: steamy hot in
Abu Dhabi, 24°C and dry in Munich.
Return flight with Etihad to Munich via Abu Dhabi.
Mess at the cehck-in counter in KLIA where an African woman wants to
check-in four huge carton boxes, full of drink bottles. It's as if this
woman wants to start a drinks business somewhere. From the endless
discussions with the counter staff it appears that this woman is
exceeding
considerably her baggage weight/size limits.
In any case she blocks one
of the check-in counters for about half an hour before being
transferred to somewhere else.
Scheduled departure time in KL is 3:25am, in practice the plane takes
off at 4am. Airbus 340 jet of Etihad with sufficient spacing in the
seats (2-4-2 rows), AC power and USB recharge sockets in every seat.
WLAN available in the plane (not free) as well as a GSM mobile network,
allowing you to make phone calls.
The only negative of this flight is that Etihad seats us in different
rows, not adjacent to each other. The served food in the economy class
is not as good as the one of Emirates.
The Abu Dhabi airport is old and messy. With some effort we locate the
transfer counter where we want to change the seats. But when we queue
up, first a lady spends 15 minutes chatting about something with the
counter staff, then some idiots who just arrived jump the queue. Even
when told to queue up, they still refuse to do so.
We arrive in Munich shortly after 1pm, then proceed through the
passport control, retrieve the luggage and get back home.
Copyright
2014
Alfred Molon
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