Teluk Batik

Roughly twelve years ago, I wrote an essay to be published in my annual school magazine.

The title was "A Picnic"

I am not sure how I come to know about the name of Teluk Batik; perhaps it appeared somewhere in my textbook back then. I wrote that essay without knowing where is it located, yet alone having the chance to pay a visit to the place itself. It was just a fictional narration, not my real experience. Reading my essay again after such a long time gave myself a slight smile.

Somewhere in the middle of my last summer holiday, I got the chance to visit the place for real as my friend took me there.

The road that leads to the beach in Teluk Batik.

The beach is located in between Sitiawan and Lumut, and it took us about thirty-minute drive from Sitiawan to reach there. Along the way, there were plenty of coconut trees with their leaves gently swaying in the breeze from the sea. The road is winding at times, but not too narrow as the road along Batu Feringgi in Penang.

At one point, we passed by Marina Waterpark, a small water theme park which faces the sea.

Those dolphins on the left were welcoming the visitors.

We didn't visit those dolphins though. Not long after that, we arrived at the beach.

Welcome to Teluk Batik.

It was a Saturday afternoon and it was still during the middle of the fasting month. So we didn't get to see many people there, but just a group of children on a school trip, two families and few more other people.

Some kids having fun with the water.

Unlike other more well-known beaches in the country, the coastline of Teluk Batik is not that long. The water may not as crystal clear as what you get in Redang or Sipadan, nevertheless, it is still very much better than most places in the country. The beach is not bad either, with clear and golden sandy beaches surrounded by hills and forest reserves; it is a perfect getaway for holidays, family day outing, or just for people who are looking for a place to relax themselves.

Coconut tree by the coastline.

White sandy beach.

The army base is at the far background.

However, there is one thing that visitors ought to pay attention when they visit this place. There are monkeys there which are brave enough to go near the visitors and steal things from them. One daring monkey went to search inside someone's bag and it took away a plastic bag when the owner was sitting right in front of the bag, when she was looking away from her stuff. After it got that plastic bag, the monkey climbed up a coconut tree immediately with the plastic bag intact. We saw that in front of our eyes.

That poor lady shouted at the monkey, but the monkey just smiled at her while making that annoying "ngek ngek ngek" sound. We overheard her and got to know that that plastic bag contained some body syampoo. Poor monkey must have thought it had managed to steal some food, only to find out that it was just some liquid to wash its body. Only if the monkey knows how to wash itself, that is.

We spent some time there sitting under the shades of the coconut trees and had some short chats. It might not be the best time to do it because it was noon when we were there. Despite so, the cooling sea breeze was something that gave us that relaxing feeling.

And we camwhored.

Not a bad angle, considering how hard it was to find a flat surface there.

One Indian guy saw us using the self-timer mode when we were taking our pictures, and he offered to take picture for us.

For once, Looi is as tall as me.

It was time for us to leave the beach to head to Lumut after spending about half an hour there. However, there is something which I feel it is not right here. Only if the local council do a better job in promoting the place, I am sure that Teluk Batik can turn into one of the main tourist spot in the country. However, this is one thing that I feel our country is lacking. We have all the natural resources, but not the right brains to fully utilise them. Our beach, mountains, highlands, sea, lakes, national parks are among the best in the world, just too bad that they are often overlooked because of poor managements and promotion efforts are still not sufficient.

Teluk Batik is an example. There are totally no public transportation for visitors who come without there own vehicle. Hence, it is almost impossible to gain access to the place unless you own a car or something like that. When you look at Japan, it is almost a total opposite thing. Most of the tourist spots in Japan are easily accessible by trains and buses. Take my summer trips last year as an example. Of all the places I visited, I relied solely on the train, ferry, bus, or bicycle. Yes, they can be quite costly, but the efficiency makes every yen you spend on them worth it. Hence, the authorities in our country should put those money into a better use, instead of using the budget for constructing something unnecessarily like this.

There are more poles like this in the car park area, and I wonder what is the purpose of it.

This is a beach, not an istana.

Sitiawan's Gong Pian

Sitiawan town.

"You can only get this biscuit in Sitiawan."

That is according to my friend, Looi when he took me for a short trip around the town by car. Well, we were actually on our way to Lumut, and we passed by the town to grab this famous biscuit. Gong Pian a.k.a Gong Pia a.k.a Kwang Ping, depending on what dialect you are using, it refers to the same thing. It is Foo Chow in origin, and you can get this biscuit in Foochow in China, or either in Sitiawan in Perak or Sibu in Sarawak, where a relatively huge number of Foo Chow people in these places.

Sitiawan Cheong Cia Gong Pian.

This corner-lot shop is located in a small lane among the shop houses in the middle of the town, along Jalan Tok Perdana, just behind Wisma Ganda. The popularity of this biscuit is not in doubt, as there were already people lining up to grab the hot and crispy biscuit fresh from the heated oven or tandoor when we walked towards the shop.

It is an age-old family business, run by two brothers who took over from their granduncle more than ten years ago.

Those are not gong pians, but some other kind of biscuits sold in the shop.

They also sell red-wine used in cooking the red-wine mee sua, and also the all-time favourite Kampung Kok chilly sauce.

When I took out my camera to snap a few pictures of the shop, one of the guy called me over to have a closer look at the process of making the gong pians. My friend told me that they were not really comfortable with people taking pictures of their shop in the past, but it is a totally different thing nowadays. Today, they are more than happy for people to promote their biscuits in the form of food review in blogs.

That is like a free advertisement, and who will reject that kind of advance.

I was standing outside the shop, until he asked me to go inside.

The biscuits are made from wheat flour, yeast, salt and lard. The dough is kneaded carefully by hand before it is put into a machine to be rolled. It is later flattened and rolled into smaller pieces, stuffed with the fillings and deftly rolled again with a rolling pin into a parcel. There are two types of fillings, either chopped onions or char siew (pork lard). Once done, they are pasted into the inner walls of the heated oven (tandoor) where they are baked for a few minutes until they are hard and crispy.

The baker has to lay the flat dough in neat rows in the sweltering heat of the oven, then sprinkle some water over the biscuits to make sure they don't get burnt, and heat them up evenly before flipping them over to hear up the other side. It is indeed not an easy process.

This is how neat they arrange the biscuits inside the oven.

Interestingly, the gong pians will cling on the walls and not fall off the oven, just like naan. Each oven can only accommodate 50 pieces of gong pian and there are only two ovens in operation at any one time. On average, they made about 1,000 biscuits in a day, and the first batch is ready for sale by ten in the morning. Three batches are made and every single biscuit is snapped up even before the shop closes for the day in the evening.

The baked gong pians are later removed and placed on the table top to be cooled by a table fan.

Gong pians, gong pians in the oven, where are you?

Okay, here you are.

The timing was just perfect when we were there, because the first batch was almost done and after waiting for a while, we got to eat freshly baked gong pians. It is best to eat it while it is still hot and crispy, as the biscuit will get tough and chewy. I bought back some for my family at home, although they would not taste the same anymore.

The onion-filled biscuits cost 60 sen each while the char siew ones cost 90 sen each.

Hot and crispy Gong pians.

They may not look like something that taste great to the naked eye. However, taking a bite into one piece of gong pian immediately after it is taken out out the clay oven and you taste bud will convince you otherwise. It is extremely addictive as well, because we continued eating one piece after another of the biscuit on our way to the beach after that, that I had to stop myself from finishing the remaining ones meant for my family. Just one reminder though; the biscuit is heaty and it is better to take more water after eating the biscuits, especially if it is a hot day.

I didn't care much, because I ate three pieces of gong pians in one shot on that day.