A Big Adventure

(this happened on)     Monday 20th December 2010 At Kuantan, Malaysia

I woke up in the night as the movement of the boat was slightly a rockin’, I looked out of the window and it did not look too rough, but there you go, guess we have to get our sea legs.

I woke up again at 8:15 just before breakfast was delivered. It was distinctly (in the phrasing of the day) meh.

The shower in the room is a bit tight but I guess that’s fine we are on a boat after all, it had nice warm water but it did smell a bit mouldy.

At 10:00am we had an emergency test and all had to go up to our muster station (the casino).

After listening to how to put our life jackets on in what seemed like 100 languages finally the siren sounded and we could all go free and head back to our cabin.

Sofia is suffering slightly from sea sickness and needed a lie down so I went for a walkabout and to take some pictures.

I ended up in the bar and ordered a beer and two arrived apparently it was happy hour, well it made me happy.

The bar staff are very friendly and provide very good service.

While sitting there I noticed we were close to land and went up on deck to watch the approach to Kuantan Port, it doe’s not promise much as it’s very much a working port, it’s not set up for the cruising set, it’s all tankers and freighters and we pull up amongst them all, no glamour at all.

The Welcoming Port at Kuantan

On the way back to the cabin I got Sofia some tablets for the sea sickness from the information desk and then returned to the cabin to wake her up.

A while later we were waiting to disembark, there seemed to be some delay as the queue got bigger and bigger but nobody was leaving, eventually we watched as Malaysian immigration officials boarded the boat in dribs and drabs.

It was good timing as the sky had opened in the Malaysian way and was pouring down, that brought out the usual nutjobs, in this case a load of adults put on those stupid plastic ponchos in a bright colour, like the one’s you get at Disneyland before going on the type of rides that soak you. Stupid people, they just left Europe and the cold and obviously don’t know what a tropical country is like, ten minutes in one of those when the sun comes out and they will be shrink wrapped.

By the time we were all allowed to disembark the rain had all but stopped.

I like the process here, our passport is held by the boat and all we need is to carry our Costa Card and show it at the bottom of the gang plank.

Some people in traditional(ish) dress were dancing at the foot of the ships gang plank and behind them some market styles stalls had been set up to sell tat, knick knacks, what ever you want to call them.

We walked past this to another stall around which were crowded lots of people.

The coaches were all lined up and ready to take people off on the organized excursions, we were not going on them, preferring to set our own agenda.

We approached the busy stall to see that it was the taxi stand and behind it the red and yellow taxis were all lined up. We tried to sort out a taxi but the cost was Rm120, now we live in Malaysia and knew this was taking advantage, Rm140 back in Johor would get us to Mersing, some two hours away! We could see taxi’s about 400 metres away on the main road so decided to walk that way.

On the way we were approached by a man who quoted us Rm70, of course he was not an official taxi, but he never claimed to be. We sat back as he headed to the center of Kuantan some 30-45minutes away.

He dropped us at the East Coast Mall, it was plain to see that Kuantan was a nondescript place with nothing much to see or do for people who only have a few short hours to kill.

A Recycled from Drinks Can Dragon in Kuantan - Very Cool

So we decided on a relaxing afternoon wandering around the air conditioned mall before tackling some of the surrounding streets in the amazing heat.

The mall is full of all the usual suspects that we see in malls in Malaysia, we had only around 4 hours so could not get up to much.

In fact the Mall seems to be a real bright spot in a fairly dull town.

There are some beach resorts on the road to town and they may well have been worth a look, we did not have time so cannot comment.

The simple fact is the sea is warm here and the sun burns you to a crisp in minutes so if the beach is clean and the food is hot and the drinks cold, maybe you could have a good time, but really there are many better places all over the east coast of Malaysia.

We did not wish to see the resorts as we can lay out in super hot Malaysian sun any day we chose at home by our apartment pool.

Of course all the passengers recently arrived from Europe are all probably thinking they brought too many clothes as they melt in the heat. So, they probably would have loved to chill on the beach.

Our driver arranged for his younger brother to pick us up and take us back to the port at 5:00pm. He could not do it himself as he had to work, he refused to take our money until we were safely delivered back at the boat.

So we strolled around the mall and later hit the streets briefly and had a look around some of the other roads, still not much to see.

While in the mall we did stop for a bite to eat at Sushi King, We like Sushi King a lot it’s a cheap but clean Sushi place where we can have our fill for very little money compared to Europe.

Also while in the mall, Sofia tried to buy a pillow at Carrefore as the one on the boat as uncomfortable, I say tried, what happened was sadly a common scene in Malaysian shops. We were in a queue and the queue was slow moving and only one till was manned, well not actually manned more occupied by a slow motion teenager, no other tills were opened and the queue just kept getting longer.

Finally after around ten minutes we were next in the queue, now the queue when we joined it was only three customers long, with just one served and one about to be served it was already three times longer. The people being served had a multipack of baby food and the slow motion teen needed a price check, he tried to do it on the intercom with no luck and then tried to get another member of staff to go and check, nothing was happening and after a further five minutes Sofia dumped the pillow and walked out.

She later tried again in the Parksons department store and again gave up as a similar scene was played out with the same result.

As we were leaving the mall much later I noticed that Sofia’s pillow was still sitting where she had left it and there was no queue, much to the obvious surprise of the security man Sofia walked straight through till, picked up the pillow and in thirty seconds it was paid for, she finally had her pillow.

We had a coffee at Starbucks and then our driver turned up, we were soon standing back on the dock and thanking the driver.

On the ship we had time to freshen up and head up for dinner in the Tivoli Restaurant.

The staff were very friendly and efficient and the food was very good.

After dinner it was time to hit the bar for drinks and some cards, Sofia once again destroyed me at Kaluki, it was not even close.

We then went to the Casino where I lost my money in double quick time before heading to bed.