Malaysia Vacation – Cherating and Rompin Beach Resort Day 6

Malaysia beach resort

As we needed to head back to Singapore today, this officially ends our Malaysia vacation. We had a great week holidaying in Malaysia and enjoying the Malaysia beach resort, especially the one in Cherating, The Legend Resort.

Starting with an early breakfast at 0730 hrs, we had a not-too-heavy breakfast from the buffet counter at Summerset Resort Rompin. Comprising breakfast food of basically Malaysian variety, you could get nasi lemak (coconut rice, also known as the national dish of Malaysia), ayam rendang (chicken in coconut milk), plain porridge with condiments as well as baked beans and sausages.

Enjoying breakfast

Breakfast food of a great variety

Plain porridge and condiments

The fried noodles was good

Artwork in The Dining Room

Chinese New Year decorations

Fruits

Upon meeting up with Masitah from the Food & Beverage department, she mentioned that the Royal of Pahang’s entourage of 20 had their breakfast specially prepared at 0500 hrs.

With Masitah, left

After breakfast, we returned to our room to make an international call to the facilitator of The Opening, an awakening enlightenment program that would be happening next month, as we needed to discuss certain issues before we met up with the resort staff to obtain the contract.

Waiting for the international call

And the resort staff

By the time we left this beach resort accommodation, it was almost 1030 hrs, an hour and a half later than we had planned. Fortunately for us, the drive back to Singapore along Highway 3 was a smooth journey except for certain slow moving vehicles.

Mersing...

Stopping by Mersing, we managed to locate the keropok (crackers) factory at 37 Jalan Abdullah 87800, Mersing. We had been here once before by following some friends and was hoping to be able to find the place again.

The keropok factory

Various kinds of keropok on sale

And dried salted fish as well

Making the purchases

We managed to purchase some Malaysian snacks and various kids of keropok. Next door, you could see the process of making the keropok.

Where the keropok is processed

Getting the dough ready and weighing it

Rolling the dough

HJ. Puteh shop

After shopping and purchasing the keropok, we followed directions from our Garmin global positioning system to Restoran Hai Sing for lunch. The outlet looked more like a coffee shop than a restaurant.

We ordered the fishball kway teow (rice noodles) soup and the kong bak (braised pork) noodles. Accompanied with pork lard, the fish balls were smooth, bouncy and great tasting as were all the other dishes. Total cost for lunch came up to RM35 (USD10.65) inclusive of 5 glasses of herbal tea.

Hai Soon Restaurant

Deciding what to order for lunch

Fish ball kway teow soup

Kong bak noodles

Kong bak kway teow

Hungry souls...

Continuing on our journey back to Singapore, we stopped at a petrol station along the way to top up before reaching the Woodlands checkpoint at 1450 hrs. it was a breeze getting through the Malaysian custom and immigration as the counters were clear and there was no queue. However on the Singapore end, we took approximately 20 minutes to clear both customs and immigration.

Six days have passed since we started on our Chinese New Year Malaysia vacation. This was our first visit to Cherating beach resort and we enjoyed the various Malaysian food that we managed to try which were indigenous to the East Coast of Malaysia. At the same time, we also managed to settle some logistical issues for The Opening, an awakening enlightenment program we are helping out with next month. Overall it had been a beautiful and wonderful week lazing around at the laid-back Malaysia beach resort.




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Saltwater Sand Crabs At Malaysia Beach Resort

At The Legend Cherating, a popular Malaysia beach resort, we are just next to the South China Sea. Here we saw thousands of mini saltwater crabs burrowing and creating what we call crab artwork of various sand designs...

Great camouflage

Spot the mini crab?

Look carefully...

Scuttling into its burrow


We also did some research and learned that the sand crabs that we saw bolt into their burrows at the slightest sign of danger as we observed. When you want to observe these mini sand crabs, just stand in position, limit any movements which would cause the sand crabs to scurry into their burrows and avoid casting a shadow over them.

Crab artwork

You will soon see moving balls of sand... Acording to Wiki, these sand bubbler crabs are responsible for the delicate patterns of tiny balls on the sandy shores at low tide. They emerge as soon as the tide recedes. You can almost tell how long the tide has been out by the patterns of their sand balls. The more intricate the pattern of sand balls, the longer the tide has been out.

Sand crabs getting used to us standing around and starting to show themselves

The burrow of the mini sand crabs

Sand Crab waiting to scuttle into its burrow for safety

Sand bubbler crabs have stiff hairs on their legs which they use to absorb water from the wet sand. Sand bubbler crabs have eyes are on stalks that poke out of their round bodies. Their long pincers point downwards to scoop up sand into their mouths. The males may have larger pincers.

Sand crab eating

Sand bubbler crabs eat the thin coating of detritus on sand grains. They scrape up sand grains with their downward pointing pincers and bring these to their mouthparts that then sift out any tiny food particles. The shifted sand is then discarded in a little ball. As they eat, a little path is scraped out on the sand from the burrow entrance. Little balls of sifted sand is piled up on either side of this path. As a result, there is often a 'path' among the piles of sand grains leading from the burrow entrance.

Notice the sand in the shape of a ball being discarded after tiny food particles have been sifted out


See how the sand crab makes the sand balls and the crab artwork created by the balls of sand it discards

Pile of sand balls

More sand balls




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Malaysia Vacation – Cherating and Rompin Beach Resort Day 4

The fourth day of our Malaysia vacation, we woke up bright and early to view the sunrise and capture some wonderful sunrise images. Although we have been staying at one of the more renown Malaysia beach resort, we have not had the opportunity to enjoy the beach nor the pool yet. We shall be sure to change that today. We were also delighted by the sight of the mini saltwater crabs and their crab artwork.

Heading towards the beach and the South China Sea, it proved to be a very windy morning. It was beautiful watching the sunrise and making its appearance in this part of the world. Such a lovely experience though it was slightly cloudy and the sun appeared ‘covered’ in many of the pictures and images that we managed to snap.

Sunrise images

Sun peeping through the clouds

We also saw hundreds and thousands of mini crabs. These saltwater sand crabs were everywhere on the beach. You can see some of the crab artwork as well.

Lots of mini saltwater crabs running all over as well...

Can you spot one of the mini crabs?

Crab artwork... :)

Balls of sand making up the crab artwork

Close up look of the saltwater crab making the balls of sand

The Legend Resort, Cherating - view of the Malaysia beach resort where we stayed. The patch of green in the foreground is the lovely pink beach flower plant as you can see below...

Here is a beautiful pink beach flower. Lovely...

Beach flower

Beach flower plant

Breakfast was a simple meal of more Chinese New Year home baked goodies that we had brought along on this Chinese New Year holiday vacation. On the menu for breakfast today were prawn rolls and almond crisps.

Home baked Chinese New Year goodies

Spending a lazy day by the beach and the pool, we made full use of the beach chairs, the pool and the beach. The waves from the South China Sea were very strong and many people were happily enjoying and playing with the waves even though there was a warning sign there which we did not see initially.

Danger sign...

Volleyball by the beach

Fun in the pool

Playing in the waves

Playground by the pool

Having a swim

Batik painting

Lunch was light and simple. We had the canned sambal ikan bilis (chilli anhovies) that we had bought when we went shopping on our first day here in Cherating Kuantan. It was niche and spicy, great value for RM2.20 (USD0.65)

Chilli Anchovy

Afternoon saw us moving out of our resort and into Kemaman town. Along the way, we turned into the road towards Pantai Teluk Mak Nik (D'Monica Bay) and stopped by Warung Otak Otak Che Wan, the first shop on the left.

D'Monica Bay

Over here, we tried more local Malaysian food including the local East Coast specialities such as satar (fish wrapped in coconut leaves), otak otak (traditional fish cake wrapped in banana leaf), pulut panggang (grilled glutinous rice in banana leaf) and kerupuk lekor (fish crackers). Somehow they all tasted good though the kerupuk lekur was a little oily. Total cost including an ice kacang (dessert of ice shavings) and an orange juice cost Rm15 (USD4.55).

Grilling the satar

Satar - ready to eat

Yum yum... Satar

Otak otak

Otak otak - traditional spicy fish cake

Pulut panggang being grilled

Pulut panggang - glutinous rice

Kerupuk lekur

Ice kachang or ABC (air batu campur - mixed ice shavings)

Traditional Malaysian foodstuff

We then headed to The Store with the aid of our Garmin global positioning system for some shopping in Cherating before leaving for Rompin beach resort tomorrow. The Store is another Malaysian supermarket cum department store chain. However, this shopping complex is very run down and looks pretty old.

The Store - shopping

After The Store which is in Kemaman Chukai area, we headed to the Kemaman night market which is open only on Mondays and Thursdays. Over here, we took the opportunity to check out the Malaysian food and packed some food back to our resort accommodation for dinner.

Kemaman night market

Kerupuk lekur

Assorted kuih kuih

Our dinner for the day included Apam Balik (Malaysian peanut pancake) and Akok (mini wrinkled cake with duck egg, coconut milk and sugar) both of which cost 3 for RM1 (USD0.30), Putu Piring (steamed rice flour cake with brown sugar filling and served with grated coconut and brown sugar) where 3 pieces cost RM2 (USD0.60), Nasi Kerabu (Assorted Vegetable Rice) and Nasi Dagang (Malaysian dish consisting of rice steamed in coconut milk) @ RM1.50 (USD0.45).

Apam balik

Making of Akok

Akok - very delicious... yummy yummy

Putu piring

Stall selling nasi kerabu and nasi dagang - long queue Operating from the back of a van

Most of there are indigenous to the Malaysian East Coast area and this is the first time we came across some of them. We were to discover that the Nasi Kerabu was made of white or blue (coloured) rice served with beansprouts, cabbage, long beans, coconut and chilli. As for the Nasi Dagang, it was served with tuna fish and gulai (watery curry).

Nasi dagang

Nasi kerabu

Excitedly we made our way back to The Legend Resort, Cherating. Along the way, we ate the akok and found it to be delicious. It was soft and spongy, not too sweet. It was such a pity that we did not try it earlier or we would have gone back and bought much more.

The apam balik had some sugar and sweet corn in the centre and was no longer crispy. The putu was not too bad with its gula melaka (palm sugar) filling. Both the nasi kerabu and nasi dagang were nice and spicy and made a nice and simple, yet great tasting, meal.

Putu piring

Akok

Apam balik

Holiday Travel Tips:-

If you are heading to Cherating, a popular beach tourist attraction, there are 3 main beaches – Chempedak, Chendor and Balok. 40 km away from Kuantan, the state capital of Pahang, this is good place to enjoy the sun, sand and sea in a laid back environment away from city life. The beautiful white sandy beaches, with sand so fine, allows you to enjoy the kampung style atmosphere as well as take part in water sports such as surfing, jets, water ski, catamaran sailing and many others.

We had a great and wonderful time today trying out the various Malaysian food especially those indigenous with the Cherating Kuantan area. Coupled with our Malaysia shopping at Cherating as well as Kuantan, this has made a memorable Malaysia vacation for us. Even the resort accommodation we stayed at, The Legend Resort, was a good place to relax although the beach along this stretch is not safe for swimming.

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