After being “quarantine” for another week in PULAPOL and subsequent to the Mess Night, the posting list for inspector batch 2009 was finally released. Beyond expectation, he was posted to the capital of Pahang- Kuantan and this was quite a bad news to us since both of us have never been familiar to the East Coast.
Once again I travel to K.L. on the 18th of July 09 and met up with Yunn in Damansara where I get to enjoy the “5 stars hotel” in her condo. We took our dinner at one of the most expensive mamak stall in Kelana Jaya which cost us RM7 for the Garlic Roti Naan, RM14 for the Spaghetti, RM7 for the Longan drink and RM25 for the Soft-shell crab fried rice. Nevertheless, we were satisfied with the meal since they do place a lot of ingredients to make the foods tasteful and it was indeed a large portion served.
On Monday morning, I made a move to the cyber café in Setapak and spent a few hours there waiting for his announcement to end. We proceeded to Midvalley for a movie to deplete our time while waiting for the trip to Redang at 10.30pm. We have once again selected Redang instead of Perhentian and Lang Tengah since most of the comments on the other two islands were not as good as Redang itself. Providentially, the coach we took was a good one and we managed to arrive at the bus terminal early the next morning at 5.30am. We stroll around the station and waited for the van to fetch us to Merang at 8.30am. We have once considered taking a flight but due to the wide spreads of AH1N1 and since they have to report themselves on-time the next Monday, we thus decided to reduce the risk of being quarantine by taking a coach.
Laguna Redang was providing a good service at RM428 per pax where the hotel was great and comfortable with 6 buffet meals provided at the Sri Serai Restaurant. The food was indeed scrumptious with variety of choices including beef, mutton, chicken and fish in almost every meals and extra selections of Satay, Keropok Lekor, Mee Soup, Soup and etc.
After checking-in the hotel and took our lunch, we proceed to our first snorkeling trip at the CK Bay about 35 minutes away. We enjoyed our first night at the Tupai Bar with the live band performing on stage. The next snorkeling trip on the 2nd morning was at the Marine Park 30 minutes away with tons of fishes swimming around and the last snorkeling trip was on that selfsame evening. We enjoyed our final night at the Island Bar while it was drizzling. The weather was kinda cloudy this time and it does rain at nights.
We departed from Redang on the 23rd of July 09 and the returning coach took us long hours before reaching K.L. at 9.00pm. We took our dinner in one of the Chinese restaurant in Brickfield and continued our journey back to J.B. straightaway after dinner. We arrived J.B. at 1.30am and spent approximately 2 days for various gatherings and packing-up before we head on to Kuantan.
It took about 4 and a half hour’s drive to reach Kuantan and since this was our first visit, we stayed a night at one of the first hotel we saw- the Grand Continental Hotel which costs us RM140 per night. The second night was spent at the Luxury Hotel which has a great outlook but sucks in within which costs us RM58. The remaining 5 nights were spent in one of the home-stay double storey at RM30 a night with the kind help of the house’s caretaker. (Really getting broke staying more than a week outside…)
We finally rented a new constructed double storey terrace but the house was without furnish and yet to fix the grille. We went around the shops and shopping malls in Kuantan on the first few days after moving into the new house looking for suitable furniture and various home accessories. We needed to explore the shops and food stalls around slowly to settle our daily and future needs. Now, my pity little Kancil has almost finished travelling around the Peninsular as I will continue to explore the East Coast very soon.
