Kayaking in Kuala Terengganu

My plan after Kuantan (mainly because of the weather) was to get a bus all the way to Kuala Besut to grab a boat to the Perhentian Islands. Unfortunately, I missed the bus in the morning that would allow me to do that. As an alternative, I decided to simply get a bit closer to them and travel to Kuala Terrengganu which is essentially an island itself connected by many bridges to the mainland.

Whilst at the bus station looking for the next bus to KT I met a nice lady called Sue who informed me that the bus station I was at was a long distance station, the correct one for big buses to Kuala Besut and KT, but not for the quick local buses. So she and her husband drove me in their car to the local bus station across the town where she was going to work - another example of the kindness and friendliness of Malaysian people!

I eventually got a bus to KT and then a taxi (as I didn't fancy the walk in the humidity) to Awi's yellow house hostel. This place was amazing! it's a small number of wooden huts on stilts over the mangroves connected by a wooden deck. The little houses were basic (and I mean, basic) but beautiful. Awi was also a great guy and on the first day arriving told me about the local night market and let me hire a bike for free.

I'm not sure what this was, but it was tasty

My little hut - which was an upgrade from the first night which leaked

View from hut

Bathroom

Bedroom

The following day Awi left me use the kayak at the house for free and I spent all day exploring, I basically kayaked around the island. By the end of the day my arms were burning from the effort and my face from the sun!

Starting out on the kayak - looking fresh

Towards the end of the day - looking pretty sweaty!




At one point I had to stop because of the heat, the sun was baking. This was literally the only shade I could find... one lone palm tree! But I beached myself under it to reapply my sun cream!

Mangroves were beautiful, I saw some otters playing here too but didn't get any good snaps

Two very contrasting mosques (and a hollywood sign again!)

That night I used the bike to travel over to the China town to eat, when I got there, there was a festival going on celebrating Paranakan culture (chinese-malay or Nyonya). I can't believe how lucky I had been in Malaysia with the amount of festivals or events I stumbled accross. This one was particularly good and I spent all night here!


Tasty snacks from here!


Night market


Street dancers doing martial art

Some old ladies - everyone was taking pics of them and I don't know why, but took one anyway haha


More traditional dancing

Yep that says KT annual yo-yo tournament...


The yo-yo stuff was amazing! Really! All synchronised to music too - the crowd was going wild for it!


Beautiful fabrics

On the way back to my hostel I did get heckled and called-at by some young Malaysian boys, which kind of ruined the night for me as they were very rude. But I remembered that this was an incredibly small blib in my otherwise amazing Malaysian cultural experience so far. The day in KT was great apart from this!