Kuala Terengganu

Kuala Terengganu is the State Capital of Terengganu. We visited there once together (Ling Shing went to KT several times from 2002 to 2007). We went to KT at 2004, for 4 days 3 nights trip, together with Ling Shing's family. We stayed in Grand Continental Hotel. The hotel is located at the middle of the city, facing South China Sea. The hotel was in good condition, the room and the bathroom was clean and tidy, we had no complain about the room service, and the breakfast, very nice as well.

Upon reaching KT, we took a city tour, by taxi, and most of the time, by feet. We visited China Town, Chinese Temple at the China Town, and took our dinner at the food court somewhere around the esplanade (besides the old bus station).

Great panorama from the window of our hotel's room, facing South China Sea.

Photo taken inside and outside Grand Continental Hotel.

We took a 1 day tour on the 2nd day at KT. 7 of us, in two Proton Waja provided by travelling company (under Cuti-cuti Malaysia Programme). The cars was good, driver cum tourist's guide, could speak in Malay and English languages. Both of them were polite, a little bit humorous, and proved very informative. They brought us to visit Kuala Ibai Mosque, Pulau Duyung, Batik Factory, University Malaysia Terengganu (UMT), and lastly KT Central Market. We took taxi from Central Market back to our hotel.

Kuala Ibai Mosque, a white beautiful mosque built in a lake, looks like it's floating (in Malay, we called it Masjid Terapung). Pulau Duyung, a small fisherman village with very old hand-making fishing boat industry. We stayed there for 2 hours, looking at few carpenters (or boat makers) skillfully carving the outline of a fishing boat.

Clockwise from upper left: Old KT Airport; main entrance of UMT; Ibai Mosque; Sultan Mizan Hall (UMT), during my brother's convocation at 2005.

The last day in KT, we go out with a rented car (RM135 per day). We went back to UMT, visiting my brother's faculty, his house, the central market again, steakhouse, the palace, night market, and finally, rest in exhaustion.

Night view of the sultan's palace.

KT Central Market was really big with variety of local products, from fresh sea products, dried fish, fruits, kitchen wares, batik, local food stalls and so on. You can easily spend a whole morning time there, just shop and shop, making hard decision over the choices you have there. We didn't bought a lot, just few local fish biscuits, longan (fruits), dried fish, a batik cloth (really cheap with it's quality) and some local kuih-muih (anyone can help me to translate kuih-muih?).

Now, KT is enriched with many fast food franchisers and mega malls. Streets are getting busier. So, visiting KT will be more convenient to all of us now. For more information about KT, log on to KT Official Tourism Site or Journey Malaysia website.

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Bukit Tinggi

Bukit Tinggi Resort (in Malay means high hill) is located in Bentong, Pahang State, about 2 hours drive from Kuala Lumpur, and around 30 minutes drive from Genting Highland (I think most of you are more familiar with that place). We know the resort can be accessed through special arrangement by travel agents or by taxi or charterred car. We are not sure about the availability of shutter bus service from KL to the resort.

Bukit Tinggi Resort is divided into few parts, namely the Forest Park, Japanese Garden, French Park "Colmar Tropicale", Rabbit Park and the Golf Resort. Again, we have to admit that golfing is out of our interest, so we visited all the gardens except the golf. We went to Bukit Tinggi twice, with friends in 2003 and with family in 2004 respectively. One thing that we want to mention, the resort was well landscaped and perfectly maintained (even became better in 2004).

Forest Park (lower right) and Japanese Garden. Photo taken with Ling Shing's family (2004).

Forest Park, a park filled with a lot of tropical plants, from high canopical trees, shrubs, parasitic plants, grass, to moss, with the chirping birds and buzzing insects, we like them very much. By the way, there was no mosquito in the garden (maybe caused by regular fogging). Japanese Garden, a place with good landscape of waterfalls, streams, ponds with Japanese Cod Fishes, bamboos... indisputably Japanese styled.

Photo taken at the entrance of Japanese Garden with Sarawakian friends.

French Park consists a row of French themed shops, offering French styled food and souvenirs. There was a hotel there, but we didn't stay overnight there. We found most of the stuffs in the French Park were attractive, except the workers, they were locals without knowing a single French word. The food at the French Park was very expensive (compared to KL), as well as the souvenirs. However, that park drew our attraction a lot.

The "main street" of French Park.

The entrance of French Park "Colmar Tropicale". Photo taken with Ling Shing's family.

The last park, the Rabbit Park, contained hundreds of different species of rabbits, tamed with no fear of human. It was a great park for family with kids, we saw most of the children enjoy playing, chasing, patting the rabbits.

Overall, we put a high recommendation over Bukit Tinggi- ideal for a whole day or a 2 days 1 night trip. Early departure is required for one day tour. Visit Forest Park, follow by Japanese Garden. Both of the parks will take you 2 to 3 hours of relaxing tour. Then, proceed to French Park for lunch and little bit of shopping. You can stay there until 3 pm before move to Rabbit Park. The park is situated near to the entrance. You can travel back home from there after the visit.

Rabbits at Rabbit Park.

The cool environment, fresh air, quite surrounding were what we liked the most. The least- the price for the food, of course. How about a 50% discount? Or, you can bring your own lunch box and picnic basket (outside food was allowed).

More information about Bukit Tinggi, please visit The official site and Malaysia Vacation guide website.


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A' Famosa Resort

Well, we visited A' Famosa Resort for a few times, especially Ling Shing, as he visited the resort almost every year starting 1999-2002. We visited Water World, Safari, and Wild Wild West Park, all of them a few times. We had a great time there, on the first few visits. However, the poor maintenance was a big issue there. The parks looked old and dirty for the last few times of our visit (the most recent were 2005 and 2007).

A' Famosa Resort is 30 minutes away from the City of Malacca and Seremban, by car or bus of course (not within walking distance). The shutter bus service was available from the resort to all the theme parks (within 5 minutes of ride).

Photo taken in Wild Wild West Theme Park (2007). The park had a nice-looking outside but a little bit "unmaintained" inside. Anyway, the animal parade and fireworks at the end of the show were something worth the RM35 (per person at 2007) entrance ticket for.

Safari (animal world) was a place that both of us loved a lot, as we could see (and touch) a lot of animals inside. Safari was complemented with a few stage shows, such as "wild-wild West" and the "Bird Show". Wild-wild West staged the battle between a drunken cowboy with Red Indians, while the "Bird Show", ha, self-explained show, right?

Photo taken outside the Animal World, trucks that took us moving around the safari, and the "bird Show".

Animal feeding- primates, peacock, chicks, and ferry transferring us to the animal island in the safari.

A' Farmosa Resort, although we found it was not as attractive as it used to be, you still can visit it if you haven't being there before. 3 days 2 nights is more than enough for you to cover all the parks (in fact, 2 days 1 night is what we recommended). Call the resort, book you room first before your trip, and expect a big crowd of students and visitors during public holidays.

More information, visit A' Famosa Resort official website here. For our experiece in Malacca, click here.

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