Kuala Sepetang

Kuala Sepetang is a coastal town located about half-an-hour's drive from Taiping, Perak. Formerly known as Port Weld after a former Governor, Frederick Weld. Port Weld used to be one of the busiest ports in the country, servicing the nearby tin mining industry. The Port Weld railway station was located at the centre of town. The whole railway line from here to Taiping, which was the first railway line in the Peninsular, is now dismantled, and now only the ticketing booth and the Port Weld railway signboard in four languages remain. The ticketing booth is now a Chinese coffee shop, and the shop owner has been maintaining the railway signboard.

Kuala Sepetang is also well known for its mangrove swamp reserve park which is open to the public daily. This is my second time here; my first was a couple of years ago with my family. But for Michelle, it was her first time seeing mangrove swamp and I can say she looked rather excited, especially at the breathing roots which grow out from the grey muddy soil.

The boardwalk.

Bakau minyak.

This reserve park has a boardwalk built over the swamp for tourists, and chalets in which tourists can rent to stay the night on the riverfront. One good thing about walking through the forest on the boardwalk is that there are no worries for mosquito bite when we are there. We spotted a few locals who went there to have their routine evening jogs.

See if you could spot a baby crab here.

Footprints of a crocodile.

Both of us of course, took some time off to camwhore there.

Hanging by the supporting rope.

Self-timer shot.

Self-syiok inside the mangrove forest.

The next stop was a fishing village located less than five-minute drive from that forest reserve. It is a thriving fishing village, and the main jumping-off point to the river mouth community of Kuala Sanggar, which is a Chinese fishing community at the river mouth which specializes in fish breeding in cages. Kuala Sepetang has excellent seafood and it has a famous restaurant situated on the upper floor of a shop lot overlooking the river.

The village is very popular with its curry mee, which is only sold in the afternoon. Too bad that we went there on the wrong day, because the stall is closed on Monday and Tuesday. So was the stall which sells some crispy prawn fritters next to the curry mee stall.

Random shot # 1.

Random shot # 2.

Not wanting to feel too disappointed, we decided to pay a visit to another section of the town by taking a motorboat. I bet it would be hard for anyone who can tell me any other place which offers a ferry ride which cost only twenty-cents.

I can't even buy a piece of karipap nowadays with that amount, you know.

The jetty where we took our 'ferry'.

The ferry man used a dalmatian soft toy as the mascot for his boat.

The wooden houses there are build on stilts and for the richer families, they replaced their wooden house with concrete ones. The scene at the village was so similar with those Hong Kong dramas, where you can see people gathering around a table to gamble, shirtless guys cycling through the narrow road, guys smoking and walking in ah beng style, kids running around freely everywhere and the elderly sitting together sharing their grandmother stories lol.

Random shot # 1.

Random shot # 2.

The only basketball court in the village.

They set-up some wooden poles to make sure the basketball will not hit onto the house behind.

Our presence there evoked weird stares from everyone there, even the kids there were not spared. It was as if we were some movie superstars there; just that the only missing part was the fact that they didn't ask us for autographs. Now we know how it feels to be famous and being the centre point of attention from the public.

People were looking at us when we camwhored at the village, some was even smiling away because they obviously know that we are not from that area. There was a time one guy asked me where I'm from. I should have told him I'm from India and see whether he would believe me.

Camwhore shot # 1.

Camwhore shot # 2.

A platform in between two wooden houses.

Evening sunset at the village.

We stopped at one of the grocery shop and grabbed one stick of red bean flavour ice cream each. Once we had finished our ice creams, we stopped at another shop to buy another two sticks of ice cream; this time it was cendol flavour, plus four pieces of coconut cookies for just forty cents.

Licking on our cendol ice cream.

Damn cheap, can.