Friday 12 September 2003 9 am
Trip to Kuantan and Pekan, Pahang
It is a bright sunny morning, after a day and night away from this place. We went to Kuantan by car, using the same hotel we’ve used before, clean, simple and of course, cheap. Quite an educational trip for the children too, technology talking, seeing the power station in Paka, the oil and gas and petrochemical complex at Kerteh, and showing them the effects of erosion and landslides on the road banks. We did quite a lot of geography, and some useful vocabulary too; erosion, pylon, cable, oblivious, logger, forest reserve, collapse, ramshackle, derelict, etc. We went through the town of Cukai, nothing much new here. There were cabins for vendors or parking ticket staff in the shape of giant durian or coconuts. I thought it quite witty, and the children thought as much too.
We got into Kuantan at around 4 30pm, then to the hotel before going to the famed Hugo mega mall shopping complex. This I have heard about on many occasions from people here, how wonderful it is, how popular with Dungun people at the weekend etc. I have heard it ad infinitum. The reality did not impress me. It is, to my mind, a dreadful place, noisy, crowded, smoky, and it took ages to get to the top floor, where the cinema is, because of the position of the escalators. You go up one floor on one side, and then walk halfway around the building to get the next escalator up to the next floor. We checked the films and the price of the ticket. Then, I had to leave; I just couldn’t stand it. They went back later to see a film, RM15 for the three of them.
Back in the car, Ai Hwa wanted to show them a Vietnamese restaurant. What benefit showing someone the exterior of a restaurant is baffles me. It was closed. There was a major argument. Then we went to a small, clinical coffee shop for tea. The walls are white tiles, and lighting fluorescent, but it is very clean, and the food is good. We had chicken in a sticky sauce with what might be sesame seeds in it, cabbage, fried flat fish, and chicken with petai, a local vegetable good for cleaning the kidneys. I had a small bottle of beer, so different to the tinned stuff I get here. I waited, watching and writing, in the coffee shop for a time after they went off back to the cinema.
Quite a number of women came in for a take away dinner in a tiffin tin, for themselves rather than family I would guess, judging from the quantity they bought. From the rear, it could have been anyone in the UK buying a take away on a summer’s evening; short skirts, high heels, jeans, long dress, loose tops. One young lady, after sneezing, said ‘Excuse me’, in English, for my benefit? The people there are much smarter than the locals here are, in clothing, fashion, shoes, and hair.
Across the road, there is the football ground of the local secondary school, Air Puteh. In Malay, it means White Water. A practice game was in progress. A bunch of thick leafy trees stood at the edge of the ground along the road. Right next to this is the hotel, The Greenlast. Ai Hwa has some connection with the company. After they left for the cinema, I wandered along the street looking in the shop fronts, including the bookshop, then went back for a quick shower, then across to the supermarket to buy some beer, then back to the room for a quiet few hours before they got back around 10 30. We didn’t get a very comfortable night, because of the slight shaking from some party music in the fun pub (their name, not mine), and two single beds were not really adequate for the four of us.
On the Thursday morning, we had a late breakfast of nasi lemak, noodles, and some mee soup, plus tea for Ai Hwa and barley for the children and me. Then, we went by car to the royal town of Pekan, some 55 km to the south, past the industrial estate, maybe a farming research station, and an open-style prison. On getting to Pekan, Henry remarked that it didn’t look that royal, a sentiment I agreed with. It does have a wonderful location though, right on the banks of the sungei Pahang. But the idea was to show them something new, somewhere they hadn’t been to before.
We went further south, to Tanjong Agas, a small hamlet where the road quite literally comes to a stop; there is a small circle, that one could describe as a roundabout, and then the road goes back. In front is the South China Sea. It appears to be a good place for crab fishing. The settlements we passed were quite poor, no street lighting, and land fairly bleak looking in places. We went past an aqua farm, with ponds with spinning fans, to oxygenate the water, one assumes. An old lady with an umbrella attached to her head rode past the longhouse-looking secondary school on her bike.
Then, back through Pekan, this time through a better area, with the museum and its fighter aircraft and helicopter mounted outside. It is quite nice here, next to the sungei Pahang. Then it was back to Kuantan, and to Telok Chempedak, the beach area of expensive and ministerial housing. It was, however, fairly grubby by the water, with rubbish lying around. We waited there for a bit whilst Ai Hwa went off up the road to the place where she has an apartment, to settle some things. Getting fed up, the three of us then trekked the 0.7 km up the hill; it was now around 1 30, fairly hot, but quite pleasant with the tall trees and ferns at the edge of the winding road. We waited a few minutes until she came out, and then headed off to try to find a restaurant for lunch.
We did, after numerous attempts, to find it closed. Navigating is not her forte. Many other places were shut too. She had forgotten about the Moon Cake festival later that evening. We went off to Cherating, taking the broken and under-repair road through Kuantan port. The quarry was in action with the conveyor belt piling up the rock, there were a few ships, miles of fencing, mounds of containers, and the BP storage facility. Plenty of good technology to see, and I think useful for youngsters to learn about. To me, it brings textbooks to life. Then we got to Cherating, where we stopped for some tea in an open-air restaurant right on the beach. It has a roof, but no walls; cheese sandwiches for the children, and some noodles for Ai Hwa. Rhiannon and I went to the immediate beach, with our restaurant fronting it. We watched tiny crabs make small balls of sand around their burrows. I assume they are squeezing them for nutrients or microorganisms. Rhiannon made a castle, using her foot to create a circular wall, with the centre the keep. It was quite a spacious panorama, with the port some way away to the right, a few radio or telephone masts sticking up, and the expanse of the bay fairly shallow and calm. Cherating is a popular place for both local and foreign tourists, quite laid back, and with a fine panorama thrown in. Now having complimented the place, I’ll read it’s a drugs hangout.
Then it was back to Dungun, past the Perwaja steel mill, and the Tioxide plant producing paper whitening. I worked for the company some years ago, teaching the new trainees, but not in the factory. The children wanted to spend the night with their teacher aunt, so we left them at the house in Batu Enam. Here, the polytechnic is now open, as is the technical secondary school, plus other blocks of shop houses. Many of the latter are uniformly ugly. Garish might be a better word, horrible colouring, and style too. Aunt gave me a packet of cashew nuts that became my dinner, and then the two of us went to Kuala Dungun, quite a few change there since my last trip almost two years ago. The trees were bigger, and a new road at the back of the school means quicker to work in the morning on a school day. We went to the new supermarket, as it is called, for me to find it was a warehouse with air conditioning, run by a local young Chinese. It’s popular not only for the lower prices, but also for the temperature. I waited in the car.
Now it is12 20, Ai Hwa is out getting a take-away lunch. We often have one at the weekend, for it makes a nice change from the amah’s cooking; it is getting jaded to the palate. She knows ten or so dishes, and that’s it.
