~Kota Bharu, Kelantan~
Wednesday, 30th of May
Traffic was heavy on the way from Terengganu to Kelantan, and there was no highway, only trunk roads! We had to stop for a few times for animals like cows and goats to cross the road :) little boys and girls were riding motorbikes at a very young age... typical kampung kids!
The buildings in the towns looked different from those in the West Coast, they're more of Islamic style. As we're near the coastline, the weather was very hot and sunny!
Arrived at Kota Bharu by noon. Had lunch at KB Mall, supposed to be the largest shopping mall in Kota Bharu, if not the only one :)
Food here was slightly different from what we've in the West Coast and Down South. Curry and laksa are sweet instead of spicy! There're nasi kerabu, nasi dagang, and other types of special nasi here.
After lunch, we visitted the famous Sitting Buddha Temple and Reclining Buddha Temple. The Reclining Buddha Temple is the second largest of its kind in the world!
After praying, we headed to Mrs Tan's relative's house. They're rich businessmen in Kota Bharu. We took pictures with their Volkswagen sport car :)
The son of the old lady of that house married a Japanese lady, they've 2 children, both schooling in Malaysia. Yusei is a Form 1 boy who loves to draw. He can draw any model of any car, especially Formula One racing cars, as long as you can name it :)
Karin is a Standard 4 girl who's very shy, soft-spoken and gentle... typical Japanese girl :) She reads Harry Potter... in Japanese!
The children speaks Japanese to each other and their parents. We managed to learn a few words from them :)
Before dinner, we went to Mrs Tan's another relative's house. They're richer and own a house of 1 acre, with a spacious garden planted with fruit trees! They even hired professors from universities to monitor their illed plants! Wow... And we took pictures with their Morris Minor car! A true car fan will be so thrilled to see this car :)
We had dinner at a famous Thai Restaurant. We had tomyam, Thai salad, kerabu, fish steamed with unripe mangoes, pig leg, Thai style veggy... all the food was spicy and sour, but delicious! I ate a lot :P Took an antacid pill before going to bed to prevent getting gastric pain, 'cause i'm prone to getting it :)
Thursday, 31st of May
Had a sumptuous breakfast, thanks to the old lady, Mrs Yeo. She brought one of her 3 maids to town to buy food for us early in the morning. She bought many local foods like nasi kerabu (this was nicer than the one we had yesterday), nasi lemak(the sambal was slightly different from the one we normally had, it's sweet and delicious!), pulut pisang (it's very sweet!), and lakse (it's a bit like mee soto).
before leaving, Mrs Yeo told us stories of her own family. if we didn't stop her, she could have continued forever :P She wished me all the best in my studies when we were about to leave. We'll never forget her warm hospitality to us. The whole family was so friendly to us. In fact, we spent less than a day's time there!
Mr Lim's family and my family left Kelantan for Kedah. We took the Grik way. It was like going up Cameron Highlands as we had to travel over the Titiwangsa Highlands. We saw a boar crossing the road on the way :) i've seen a boar before in New Zealand in year 1998. Malaysian boars looked different, their fur colour was lighter.
We saw signboards warning us to beware of elephants and deers! Mrs Yeo's brother told us that one should never travel on this road at night as elephants will come out of the forest and sit on the road when they see cars coming. They will not move! And the cars should never sound their horns as the elephants will walk towards the cars and might smash them! You can only turn off your headlights and wait for the animals to move away from the road, and that might take you hours! The only solution is to wait for big trucks and tankers to come by as elephants are scared of the loud sound from the horns of the big vehicles :)
We stopped by the riverside of Perak River to take a look at the Floating Jetty of Grik. The scenery there was beautiful!
We had lunch at Grik town before continuing our journey to Kedah.
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