Sharon’s Visit to Kuantan

Sunday evening (15 March) we left Sharon, Garry and Renae at their friend’s condo in Cheras and headed back to my mom’s house. After dinner we left for Kuantan. The next morning (on Monday 16 March) I picked them up from Kuantan airport around 10.30am. Poor Renae! Her luggage didn’t make it to Kuantan. The airport personnel told us that they would send it to my house in the evening, and they did. Since Steve had so much going on at his school, he couldn’t take leave for Sharon’s family visit. What a great excuse for me to get away from work and be a wonderful tour guide instead. Hmm… I wonder if I should change jobs and be a permanent tour guide… I had fun doing it and I hope they had fun as well. Anyway, before I took them home, we stopped at Zaman Restaurant for breakfast. I am so glad I did because they loved the “roti canai” so much.

After resting for a while, I took them to Pahang Weaving Center in Pulau Keladi in Pekan. It was a nice experience for them and for me and the kids, too. We also visited the house where Tun Razak was born and the small museum dedicated to him. At night, after Renae’s luggage arrived we went to Tanjung Lumpur to eat “ikan bakar”. Then we went home to rest before we had to go to the bus station to send Yasmin. She had to go to the School Youth Cadet camp in Klang. Sharon’s family didn’t go to the station with us. I am sure they were very tired and sleepy.The next day we had a packed schedule. First we went to the Kuantan River jetty hoping to catch the 9 am cruise. Unfortunately I didn’t make any reservation so we had to take the 11 am trip. It was a blessing in disguise because Garry forgot to bring his camera bag. So we went back to get it. While waiting, we visited Batik RM where they got some batik souvenirs to take back to Texas. Garry got to see how batik was printed while Sharon and Renae were busy shopping.

The cruise was wonderful except for seeing the unsightly floating trash that was thrown into the river by some irresponsible “entity”. I was hoping that they could see big iguanas and monkeys. Unfortunately it was not the time of the day for them to come out. Perhaps, the tide was a bit high for the iguanas but we managed to see a few eagles. The board-walk into the mangrove was wonderfull, too.

Below are pictures on the ferry ride.

Najla, Hannah, and Harris on the board walk

After the cruise ended, we went to the Turtle Sanctuary in Cherating. On the way, we stopped by the Black Rock Beach (Pantai Batu Hitam) for lunch.



My kids really had a good time at the Sanctuary. I hope Renae, Sharon and Garry did too. Sharon bought some souvenirs from the nearby shop.


From Cherating we continued our sight-seeing tour to the Telok Chempedak Beach. Renae, Harris, Hannah and Najla bathed in the sea but Garry, Sharon, and I just sat while watching and enjoying the gorgeous view and the wonderful sound of the waves.

Telok Chempedak

Later on, Steve and Danial joined us because we planned on going to eat “satay” for dinner. It was a great choice because Sharon’s family loved satay.

Wednesday morning, Garry and I played tennis at the KPTM courts. Renae came along to watch us play. The court was pretty slippery and Garry slipped a couple of times. After the game we went to get some breakfast at the Taman Guru shop. They bought more “roti canai”. After breakfast, we went to the Kuantan Craft Center in Kampung Pandan. They bought a few more souvenirs to take home.

Since Renae didn’t have a chance to see the monkeys the day before, I took them to Taman Teruntum and Telok Chempedak (again) in case the monkeys decided to come out in the middle of the day. No Luck! Sorry Renae, perhaps in the next visit. The last stop we made was to look for “batik sarong” for Renae. We went to a few shops and finally she found one she liked. By the time we got home, there was just enough time for them to refresh themselves, pack the luggage into the car, and drive to the airport.After they left Najla cried the whole way home and said she didn’t want to go to the TASKA (nursery) the next day. She said “why did you send Renae home? I want to play with her.” To cheer her up, we took the kids to see a movie called the Race to Witch Mountain. Najla slept half-way through the movie.