Wake up and check out

It was a blast the night before with the heavy Satey dinner and a short walk at the east coast mall. It was a pleasant surprise to have such a nice mall at Kuantan town. Once again, it's nothing much to take note of the hotel, it basically a very normal budget stay with breakfast.

Breakfast pretty much the same, except this time I learn to choose and pick which are the less dense food so we don't over indulge. Still, I took too much of the margarine and Kaya paste 😅 afterwhich, immediately we grab our bags and checked out the room, getting ready to visit a few more places and head home.

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Balok beach

Is situated at the north east of Kuantan town. We were staying at that stretch of coast line couple of years ago when we have a family outing with home minister's boss. That time, we stuck in the hotel and enjoyed the facilities, since we stayed in one of the high end hotel. This time around, we took the opportunity to do beach hopping.

The moment we arrived there, immediately present upon our eyes are these concrete tube living quarters a.k.a chalet. By the look of it, open the door and immediately jump into the bed kind of setup is very suitable for singles. I'm about 5'6, even I find it hard to live in that thing.

I think we arrived there rather early, there's absolutely no crowd. The only human you can see in the below pictures will be me and home minister alone. Again, I imagine how cool was it to stay in one of those concrete tube, waking up with this beautiful beach.

But then it also brought me thinking of what's gonna happen should someone decided to rob me 😂

After spent like 15 minutes walking around and found absolutely nothing to do there, we decided it's about time to hit to the next beach that has more to offer. We took out Google maps and found our next destination.

Took a wefie before we left the Balok beach. It's clean and sand is fine. And I really think the concrete tube is good for day use. If I decided to come for a swim, I'd love to have my belongings checked into those chalets.

Balok Beach Parking

Call: Grab
Address: 7929, Lorong Balok Sejahtera 18, Kampung Balok Baru, 26080 Kuantan, Pahang
Maps: https://maps.app.goo.gl/N1MfuaP5Ci8BVRN69

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Pantai Batu Hitam

After beat goodbye to Balok, we travel not long, probably couple of kilometers away and stopped at this side road. It isn't really that fancy and the parking space are quite dirty. Garbage and waste everywhere, and funny enough people are actually standing next to the overspills garbage can and eat.

I don't wanna dive too deep into the crap that much, I will let the picture paint the value for you to see how people can commit to destroy the environment.

This is it, Pantai Batu Hitam. Pantai is beach, Batu is stone, Hitam is black. This place is literally translate as black stone beach. If you researched on black sand beach, then this is the black stone beach. The idea is the same, these black rock are the formation and particle of different minerals, and also due to volcanic activities from the South China sea.

I also took the opportunity to explore the black stones with my semi bald Adidas, it's actually quite slippery. I had to move very carefully so I don't break myself. Imagine if anyone fall on top of these rocks.

It's getting crowded at the black stone stack. Despite the social distancing uplifted, but I guess I'm just too used to it, and decided I don't feel comfortable be surrounded by people. So I proceed to walk further down to find another spot to hangout.

For some reasons, these beaches always has a few big rubbish. Initially I was thinking this BlackRock shaped very round , so I'm actually quite excited until I walked near and it's a piece of junk.

I managed to find another stack of less dark stone, and I like this better than the fully blacked sand. This has a dual tone and the shape are so much more exotic than the previous. After some researched, to find out these dual tone formation is due to sea corotion.

Whilst I was enjoying myself on the dual tone stones, I decided to pick up some seashells for the kids so they can see it before the precious shells gone vanished.

And this one particular shell is so white and the shape is so unique. By the time I walked near to snap these photos, to found out it was just another piece of rubbish.

Oh well, that's about it. There's way more beaches around this stretch of the coast line, but our time is running out. We decided to go back to Palm beach one last try to see if we can catch the curry noodle that we missed.

Pantai Batu Hitam Kuantan

Call: Taxi
Address: South China Sea, 26100 Kuantan, Pahang
Maps: https://maps.app.goo.gl/KGBwr1GFUxByPeAw9

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海燕茶室咖哩麵食 Restoran Hoi Yin

And we did came on time! We just missed the lunch crowd and score a table! However, we're not exactly in taking any advantage of that, as the shop owner is busy dealing with take out orders.

I kid you not, the volume of takeout orders is insane. I saw several factory worker standing by the roadside waited for their turn to pickup their prepack noodles, each of them taking away 30 bags or so.

It's very traditional style noodle House, and therefore the boss is still standing behind the kitchen and cooking each bowl individually. We ordered some barley drink and patiently waited for our turn.

And it was insane 20 minutes waiting time, finally arrive our noodle. It's not that big of a bowl of curry noodle, however the amount of fish ball and fish paste does the justification. The soup is very fragrant with different kind of spice and mint, I thought it's nice to have this kind of light version of spicy noodle once in awhile, to really enjoy the taste rather than sweating from the beginning towards the end.

Shop is really old, and super happening, considering all 3 different races of Chinese, Malay and Indian all stuffed into the small shop. I didn't find the halal sign, but I've consulted my Kuantan local friends, the owner is indeed Chinese Muslim. It's not only pork free but also Halal.

Restoran Hoi Yin

Call: +6012 921 3732
Address: 31, Jalan Telok Cempedak, 25050 Kuantan, Pahang
Maps: https://maps.app.goo.gl/GSfpcZekGW8T935V8

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Cendol Air Putih

So, this is the famous dessert shop we missed. It was on the way from the beach, we saw the queue outside of the shop and decided we don't wanna go back without trying it out!

Seriously, the queue is stupid long! The parking space surrounding that area are majority visiting the dessert shop. Despite drizzling out there, we still make up our mind and crash into the shop. It's fully self service, and I agree to wait for my own food and serve my own table, rather than sitting there waited for half an hour to found out the operator forgot to cook for me 🤣

Clearly, the shop setup is post pandemic as you can see the table are far apart, leaving enough space for patron to stupid distancing. Good thing is, less crowded but at the same time more people standing outside and wait for table. We'd expected this kind of situation, and we never pretend to localise ourselves. I openly speak Kuala Lumpur accent, and blend in together with the rest of the parking tourists 🤣

And our Cendol is ready! This thing is, seriously good. If I had to compare to Mustafa Cendol, I think this one is way more sweeter! More coconut sugar! But ofcourse, they charged doubled the price. And this one with 3 seeds of durian, the price tag just gone wild. Despite frozen durian(not in season), it tasted marvelous.

On top of the crazy durian dessert, we also tried the coconut puff for the first time. I thought it was nothing really special though. Not regretting it, but next time the Cendol dessert alone will do.

Cendol Air Putih

Call: +6016 933 3111
Address: Jalan Air Putih, Taman Berserah, 25300 Kuantan, Pahang
Maps: https://maps.app.goo.gl/AU816Ekx5V9pWSFy6

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After several days of heavy food indulgence and crazy amount of beach sand eating party, we say good bye to Kuantan. For the good food at affordable price, I think we will come back again. But next time, we will be exploring the river instead.