Kota Bharu

28/12/12 to 30/12/12 - After a boat and minibus back to Trang and a couple more minibuses from Trang, we ended up at the Malay-Thai border at Sungai Kolok.  On the Thai side between Yala and Sungai Kolok, we passed lots of small checkpoints handled by the military and we could feel there was tension in the area.  Luckily, at this time it was fine.

We arrived at Sungai Kolok and we crossed the border (a bridge) by foot.  It was actually the easiest and weirdest border crossing we went to.  Just one lady sitting there, stamping our passports.  No finger prints, no paper work to do, no questions.  Then we walked through a metallic detector door with nobody around to check whatever… so we crossed it.  It obviously beeped twice (once for me and then again for Dave) and we stood there for a few seconds expecting a security guard to stop us.  There was still nobody around so we walked out and added an extra hour to our clocks.

Straight away, we took a cab to take us to Kota Bharu and were dropped in front of our first choice guesthouse. The rooms were more expensive than we thought but by luck we met a Canadian guy who told us that one of his friends had a guesthouse nearby.  The Canadian guy seemed surprised to see us in Kota Bharu and asked us why we were there.  We told him that our plan was to go to the island next door at Pulau Perhentian.  He smiled and told us that it wasn’t the season and the island is closed in winter due to the monsoon, but if we waited until February, we might be lucky. At this point we were a bit gutted but arrived at this guesthouse which was cheap, clean and with a quite relaxing atmosphere.  Two guys in their mid-20’s reminded me of the time when I used to have housemates.  They were playing guitar, surfing the net, chilling on the sofa and watching blockbuster movies.

The next morning we went to the local market and had our first Malaysian breakfast/lunch. We were happy as it was very diverse, nice and cheap. On top of that we were given some spoons and forks to eat our meal as all the others (locals) ate with their fingers (right hand only).  Then we went to the tourism office to know a bit more about the Perhentian islands and the rest of Peninsular Malaysia. The man from the tourist office confirmed what the Canadian said and proposed us a series of activities in Kota Bharu (cooking class, kite making and shadow puppet making).  It was quite expensive and we didn’t really fancy these sort of things.  We finished and signed the book and noticed that the last tourist who visited the tourism office came 3 days ago.

We decided to pay a visit to the cultural centre, the place to go to learn about Malaysian culture. When we turned up there, there was a Muslim wedding reception taking place and we were invited to eat some local food with them.  We didn’t eat a lot as we had our lunch just 2 hours before, but we tried a bit of everything (especially the desserts).  People were friendly and came to talk to us.

In the evening, we went to the only pub in town for another Spurs game which finished like the one Dave watched in Lao, but this time the aerial had a problem due to the bad weather.  In few seconds the rain was striking hard on Kota Bharu.  The next day we were off to KL (as the ‘in’ people say for Kuala Lumpur).