Kuala Sepetang on Day 1

The fishing village of Kuala Sepetang

The 2D1N trip last saturday went well but as we all know, 'Human plans but God decides'..This trip was organized by the Nature Club of my school and I, the teacher in-charge. We set off at 7.45 am from the school and arrived in Taiping at between 1 and 2 pm. We stopped at two R n R, Tapah and Bukit Gantang, two places which were not in the plan and I believed, it wasn't the students who wanted to eat (as they were already told to either take their breakfast at home or on the bus).

Anyway, at Bukit Gantang, one suggested we had durian feast later that night after the night safari. So I ordered and paid almost RM85 for 2 kinds of durians. However, the bus driver didn't allow them on board citing the smell would caused problem. I understood this ruling. We got the seller to come and open the fruits and we tried to finish all of them but couldn't.

Feel heated after eating the durians? Not to worry..just drink plain water in the durian skins peppered with salt.

We met our tour guide, Encik Khairul of fireflyzone, at the Matang Tin Museum or Muzium Ngah Ibrahim on our arrival at Matang. The students were very excited (as I saw it), taking pictures around the place but I doubt if they read all the information provided. Ha ha ha. By the way, if you want to know more about the museum in pictures, go to this link. It saves my time in writing about it.

The nature society members seen here walking on the bridge into the mangrove park.

Before the 30-minutes walk at the mangrove, Encik Khairul handed out a few sets of notes with questions and then gave a little lesson on mangrove trees. The park complex looked deserted as there's no hive of activities going on. This is saturday, a day when a lot of people could come for a visit. The jetty at the park also seemed to be neglected and even the students reminded me to be careful not to step on a few wood planks on the jetty. I thought a slide presentation or documentary on the history of this park would complement the walk. The senior students thought the walk was boring. 

No more following the schedule, we headed to taste mee udang mak Teh, which was located near the mangrove complex. It was drizzling and our guide was worried the rain would jeopardize our boat cruise along the Sepetang river. Fortunately, it didn't.

This bowl of big saltwater prawn mee cost about RM12, while the one containing 8 medium sized prawns was RM6.00. After eating, we headed back to the jetty for the boat trip to the Sg Sepetang estuary or rather to the floating chalet.

 

There were three types of seating design as seen in the pictures. The most comfortable one for these old legs of mine should be the one in pic 1.

As we 'cruised' along the river, we saw these fishermen's houses which are built on both side of the river, in fact, on the river.

 The small sampan on which we can see the people standing, is the mode of transportation between the two river sides.

Yahoo! We love it! Heading towards the mouth of the river. I think this was the site where we spotted the dolphins 'jumping' a little bit out of the water. The students love this part of the trip.

So great was the feeling when the boats raced along the river, birds flying above us and seeing a dolphin rearing its head on the surface

Fish farming or aquaculture. They have dogs to guard this place...

Floating chalet where the boat berthed and we did some fishing. We only managed to catch small, small fish. The initial plan was to collect crabs and cockles but it wasn't so due to miscommunication. We might have had our dinner here if not for the preordered chicken rice at the jetty.

 The boys tried their hands at fishing 

 Only able to catch small fish..or did they put small fish?

 The net used to catch crabs but we didn't do any crab catching that day. I know why but won't tell.

A few minutes to 6.30 pm, we went back to the jetty for our dinner. The students felt hot, sticky and uncomfortable and a few of them who could not stand it any longer, took a quick bath without soaps.

After dinner we set off again in three boats but this time from Kuala Sepetang jetty to see the synchronous flashing of fireflies at Kg Dew. I didn't take any pictures of the night activities since my phone battery went dead. So disappointed. Anyway, we weren't allowed to take any pictures of the fireflies for fear of disturbing them. Yeah, the beauty was, as the guide said, "For your eyes only"! The sight was simply awesome and my heart felt a wrench to think that the future generation wont be able to see this if they were destroyed. We were lucky to have Encik Khairul on the boat with us since he fed us with a lot infos regarding the fireflies. However, our heart screamed, when the boat hit the trees as it was trying to get closer. One or two fireflies landed on the hair and hand of two of us and the girls tried to keep them until they were told to let the insects go.

The berembang trees which are important habitat to the fireflies.

 We turned back towards the jetty and told the boatman to hurry to catch the night safari in Taiping but alas, he didn't understand any Cantonese since he was a Hakka or Hokkien.

Luckily, the safari was opened until midnight during the weekend. The sight of five tigers pacing together in tandem was funny and wonderful. My heart went to the lion whose movement is restricted in the not so big enclosure. How happy it will be to roam freely in the wilderness, its natural habitat. 

Although feeling very tired and uncomfortable, we still had the time to stop and grabbed something from McDonald (I promised them), before rushing to our last destination for the night, the homestays in Kamunting.

Thank you for reading and visit me again.