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As the road trip will be long today, all of us got up early to get ready for the day. Morning in Gerik is still cooling with nice fresh air, its good to just get up early and enjoy the weather. Reminds me how KL used to be when I was young, when the morning are foggy and cold.

Without much delay, Edwin whom just had a crash course on Gerik from his local friend took us to a local food court in town where we had breakfast. Its the usual Chinese fare but they are slightly different from those we used to have in KL. We got ourselves some dim sum, wantan mee, prawn noodles, curry noodles, chee cheong fun and nasi lemak! Since its going to be a long drive, we want to make sure everyone had a good heavy breakfast. The curry noodles are worth mentioning here, order the thick gravy one, its nice and rich. Before leaving town, we stock up on mineral water and some kueh at the wet market.

It didn’t took too long to travel from Gerik to Temenggor Lake which is our next stop, on On the way we saw interesting signs of wild elephant crossing warning. Can’t help but keep wondering if we will bump into one and I am sure the gang will go crazy with their cameras! Soon we arrived at Temenggor Lake, first sight of it when we are crossing the bridge was beautiful, immediately all the cars slowed down to enjoy the view. Once we crossed into Banding Island, then I realised Banding Island Resort is under renovation, no wonder no one is picking when I called them to try to do booking. After the resort, there’s a Petronas there which is packed with cars resting and taking a break, unfortunately there are no nice view there. We moved further up the island and found a scenic spot for some photo shoot, this is partly a photography trip after all?

Before departing from Banding Island, we checked out the boat jetty and found out that its actually flooded! Water level raised to just below the marine police base there, 1/3 of shops and jetty are covered with water from the lake, not sure if this is a norm. Again, the shutterbugs snapped their cameras away here.

We then hurried everyone to move on, leaving Banding Island going further on the East West highway to Kelantan. The drive is really scenic with nice view of hills and mountains and of course again, the shutterbugs are screaming to stop for pictures. Daniel then advised us that there is a stop with nice view, this way we can park safely and snap away. So we arrived at a rest stop known as Titi Wangsa, as the name suggest, it over looks the whole Banjaran Titi Wangsa which is basically a long stretch of hills and mountains that protects the west coast of Peninsula Malaysia from the monsoon.

Everyone is getting hungry at this point, with the little kueh we have, we continued and rushed heading to Gua Musang through Jeli. First sight of Jeli is a relief as there are no floods here and the road are good but as we got halfway through, about 50km more to Gua Musang, we got stucked! A signboard saying that the road to Gua Musang is closed!!! OMG! We asked around and found out that landslide have covered up the road. At this point, we have to decide to go all the way back to Gerik or take the risk and see if we can pass since so many vehicles turned into the road anyway.

At this tension point, we send scout Daniel and Jason to ask further while the rest look for the loo at the Jeli bus station. The bus station is technically closed, with only 1 bus in sight and non of the counter or shops are opened. As the girls tried to be polite and covered up while seeking for the loo, I managed to flagged down a 4WD which told me that its safe to go as there is an old small road to detour. To be sure of this, Jason and Daniel managed to flagged down a motorbike… ya a motorbike! I saw a car and a motorbike, but they choose to ask the motorbike (hehe… what if the road is only passable by the bike?). Anyway, Jason is convinced that the road is passable and so our little adventure begins :D.

With slightly below half tank of fuel, we took the risk and headed on. There is seriously, no fuel station on the way down this road! Mainly small villages along the way, very little shops and mainly motorbikes. The only fuel station I saw are those cheap fuel they sell for motorcycles to use, which is basically a hut with a small little pump.

Soon, we came to the part of the road where a small signboard points us to a detour, in the beginning, the roads are still ok, looks like old and not maintained trunk road, then soon we came to small village road meant for 1 way traffic with lalang along both sides. At one point, we hit muddy dirt road below a railway bridge but lucky we managed to get passed. Then we hit smaller road and Jason had to be our ambassador to go down and ask the locals if we are on the right direction. After some assurance, we moved on deeper and came to small junction. We took the left turn with some kampung houses next to it and the moment Paullie asked, “the road so small, what if another vehicle comes the other direction?”, a Pajero shows up the other direction! This really reminds me of the drive the wildgeeks have to Lata Kijang, hehe…

Anyhow, the driver of the Pajero told us that we took the wrong turn, Gua Musang is through the right side of the junction. At this point we had to u-turn in the narrow kampungs and lucky the locals are friendly and gladly let us use their driveway to u-turn. At the right turning, we go pass the railway bridge (just inches above my truck) and move on. Soon, we came to a downhill and saw a long queue of cars, guess what, another landslide! A policeman on motorbike directed us to queue on one side. The queue is about 1km plus and we had to wait like 45mins here for the tractor to clear the road for us to cross. With hot weather, 1/4 fuel left, you can imagine how tense we are then! Finally, we got to cross, but through muddy roads again through the side, the 2 other cars are definitely complaining at this point.

Without thinking much, we move on, along the way, there are numerous mini landslides, part of road collapsed and muddy roads after flood. I think this whole part of Kelantan is really been hit bad by the flood. As we arrived in Gua Musang, everyone is screaming of hunger, so fueled up and look for the chinese place to eat fish head Micol mentioned. It was really an adventure getting to Gua Musang! I can just imagine how bad it can be if we are really stucked in flooded area, more reasons for Ed to consider a 4WD now? Muhahaha :P.

GPS - Gerik Food Court - N5 25.799 E101 07.822

Makan first, think later

The next morning, we got up real early to start the day, by 8am, we are already at Chia Bee Bak Kut Teh (who owns the motel) to try their famous fried fish with bak kut teh. We also got some fried lala and kang kung belacan :). The bak kut teh here are more herbal and sweet type, fried fish is pretty good and the lala are the small type that you just take and suck one by one. After a good and heavy breakfast, we move on and let the shutterbugs loose at Alor Setar Tower.

Before leaving Alor Setar, we head to Star Parade and visited Wah Tua Guan which is a popular place among the local. The serve local food and desserts here. We shared some laksa here, the lemak one and the assam one too. Both reminds me of those I had at Kim Laksa in Penang earlier the month. They are really good I must say. We also had some other stuff like the meat roll, toast with meat in it, etc. but the best are still the noodles ;).

The gang then checked out and headed to the Kedah Paddy Museum, we been told that this is a must attraction to visit when you are in Kedah. On the way, you will notice the seas of paddy fields with a picturese background of hills, blue sky and clouds. Its was crazy hot that day after all the rain we had to endured in Taiping, but we soon reached the paddy musuem. The museum is quite nicely done, learning a lot more about paddy and there’s this revoving painting of paddy fields in Kedah that is a must to check out! Just as we leave the musuem, the shuttlebugs seems to be biting Daniel and Jason, so we had to find 2 different spots for them to take photos at the paddy fields surrounding the musuem. I don’t know how to describe these, but I can tell you one thing, the hot burning sun really did not stop them, pix after pix after pix, especially Daniel and Jason, they are mad!

All of us then took a trip up to Kangar in Perlis, this is the first time for me to Perlis and I think for most of the rest too. Along the way, we noticed its mainly being dominated by paddy fields and nice limestone hills too. Daniel also managed to help us grab some goreng pisang on the way there. Kangar is quite a busy town, a little jam here and there and we found this Hailam coffeeshop just opposite KFC Kangar, Restoran Ging Dou. The coffee here is the best I have sampled so far in the whole trip! We got some roti bakar but its quite normal stuff, but the fried keoy teow here is quite nice, different from the normal style, the others commented that the fried rice is good too. The shop is runned by Chinese, but food is prepared and served by Malays. Sadly, we do not have much time to explore Perlis and can only make a quick stop at the coffeeshop. One thing unique about here are their parking system which are ticketless, quite high tech ;).

As we do not have much time, we had to rush to Gerik in Perak for the night, so we zoomed our down south, going in from Gurun while enjoying the view of sunset at the paddy field on the way down. From Gurun, we took the small road to Baling then to Gerik. Its was quite a tiring drive for a while as the small roads are winding, in progress and it was getting dark. After much torture, we finally made it to Gerik about 9.30pm. We stopped at Restoran 113 in Gerik for dinner before calling it a night. The food at 113 are slow to come but its was quite ok, they have carpet wild boar, guiness chicken, pork belly with salted fish, etc. According to Jason, our key entertainer, the best dish are none! I tell you, these bunch of makan kaki-s are really demanding! However, Micol added that the wild boar here are interesting because the texture are soft and tender. As we are all already tired, we call it a night at the Rest House Gerik.

GPS - Alor Setar Chia Bee BKT - N6 07.417 E100 21.731
GPS - Alor Setar Wah Tua Guan (inside Star Parade) - N6 07.372 E100 22.357
GPS - Gerik Restoran 113 - N5 26.199 E101 07.764

Makan first, think later

We checked out from Taiping and decided to do a last stop at Kakak where we whacked some kai si hor fun and discovered kakak ping, which is nescafe mixed with barley! We are there like after 12.30pm and most of the stuff already gone, left noodles only, but I must say, the Kakak ping is quite unique ;).

We then depart from Taiping and head to Butterworth, since we took quite a long time in Taiping, we had to skip famous Loh Mee at Lucky Restaurant my friend told me about because they close at about 1.15pm. So we detour around town and finally found the other restaurant recommended by my friend, Ambassaderess. The char keow teoy here is nice and the prawn noodles is a blast. I managed to grab the last few pieces of the ferry chai kueh with koo chai inside, the nice thing about it is that they also include dried shrimp in it. Since we are technically in Penang, how can we not take a nice cup of ambrah sour plum again :). The noodles are about RM2.50 and drinks are RM1.50, a little more than Taiping but not bad.

Moving on to our next stop, we travelled to Alor Setar and we stay CB Motel, its a budget hotel at Jalan Putra, new, clean and decent. That night, we headed to K Nasi Lemak on the same road as per Ah Loh’s recommendation. Its basically nasi briyani with various dishes you can choose from. The queue at K Nasi Lemak is long, really, and we had to queue for our turn. We order 5 different plates with dishes ranging from squids, fish, chicken etc. The rice is not as rich as normal briyani rice but good enough if you ask me and teh dishes are pretty good too.

Being makan kaki-s as we are, we then headed opposite the road where we found a row of hawkers at Jalan Pintu Sepuluh. There are all sorts of food to be found here and a few coffeeshops as well, lok-lok, kueh kak, chee cheong fun, desserts, etc. We try a few of different stuff here, don’t really want to elaborate but with this good bunch of people around, besides good food, the company is also great!

GPS - Taiping Kakak - N4 51.145 E100 44.427
GPS - Butterworth Ambassaderess - N5 24.542 E100 22.279
GPS - Alor Setar K Nasi Lemak - N6 07.302 E100 21.937

Makan first, think later

I was suprised that the next morning everyone managed to get up much earlier than I expected. We headed to Pokok Assam for some breakfast at the wet market, I always think, the best food in each town can probably be found at the wet market! Here, the lai fun soup are really nice, not to mentioned the coffee too. The lai fun stalls cannot be missed as it was only like 8am plus then and you can see a big crowd surrounding the stall.

The lai fun comes in soup but the spoon are filled with their special chili paste. Most of the gang prefer it as cheng tong but I prefer to mix the chili into the lai fun itself. The lai fun comes with simple side dish which are just slices of fish cakes. Besides that, the wantan mee is also good here as we ordered 2 plates to share which have wantan, kai si as well as char siew! I also went next door to buy some roast pork (siew yok) from the uncle in the middle stall whom just keep chopping as the customers come and go. We saw some interesting small packets of nasi lemak that comes in assam, prawn or anchovies. I took the assam and prawn to try, assam is really weird, its juice tamarind with a little sauce topped on the coconut milky rice. The other one are prawns chilies topped on the rice. The good thing about the trip is that we have 11 ppl, and we only order a few plates of each so that everyone get to try everything! Oh ya, not forgetting, some of the kueh some of us bought from the market is really good too, especially the mini pandan flavour loh mai chee (peanuts and sugar wrapped with rice dough)!

We took a nice walk around the wet market that morning just to see and feel how the local market are, as all nice food do comes from the market after all. We keeping seeing stalls selling tang yuen and we reminded ourselves that the next day is Koh Tung which is one of the significant chinese festive day which marks the begining of winter and family gathers for dinner and everyone will share tang yuen as a mark that you have grown a year older ;). so I guess this year, all of us manage to stay 1 year younger?

To move on, we went biscuits hunting in Aulong searching for this house which bakes excellent chinese biscuits such as xiang bin. The have a such varieties here and a lot of cookies and biscuits that we used to eat as a kid can be found here too!

Before checking out from the hotel, we did a last stop at Lake Garden in Taiping next to our hotel where the gang turned from makan trip kaki-s to photography kaki-s as the shuttlebugs and models just can’t resist snapping all sorts of funny pose in the park, even a tree next to the playground could attract them for 10 mins r so :s. BUt to the credit of the park, its really a beautiful place, having maxwell hill as the background with lots of greens and water everywhere.

GPS - Taiping Pokok Assam Wet Market (food court) - N4 49.878 E100 44.324
GPS - Taiping Aulong, Home Made Biscuits - N4 51.132 E100 42.604

Makan first, think later

After a short rest, we continue our journey again, heading to Matang just out of Taiping for seafood. In Kg Matang, we dined at Restoran Ghee Seng, one of the many seafood restaurant along this main road in the kampung.

Seafood here are fresh and you need to order from the kitchen where they are cooking. They have all the seafood and vegetables available laid out for customers to choose. We order a stingray curry, the pokey snail (chee loh), fried la-la, kung poh sotong, fried fish and 2 fried vegetables.

I must say the food is fresh but the taste in all the dishes is lacks salt, maybe the style here is different, people like the food more “ching” but that’s healthy. Just need to add a little soya sauce of your own and it taste good, especially the stingray curry. The fried fish here, is similar to the “sar chui” but it has eggs in them and are deep fried! Overall, dinner for 11 persons cost us less than RM100.

Raining cats and dogs forced us to cancel our visit to the night safari and since we have a sick Daniel with us, we decided to go the local night market for fruits, some herbal tea and some tofu fah. Lastly, we ended the night with the all popular Kong Meng bbq pork bun, each cost 80 cents and the bbq pork are shredded finely. How good is it? See how our friend eat it below and you will know what I mean! Off to bed now, another day of makan trip tomorrow!

GPS - Taiping Matang, Ghee Seng Seafood - N4 49.176 E100 40.296
GPS - Taiping Kong Meng Pau - N4 51.057 E100 44.507

Makan first, think later