Pangkor Trip 2007

I got back from Pangkor yesterday and boy, it was fun! Considering I've never been to an island before(Singapore doesn't count), I was surprised at all the different things one could do on an island in the span of only a couple of days. Much thanks to Woon Cherk(again), I'll be posting some of the more interesting pictures from the trip here. Do visit his blog. It's pretty and he did all the coding and designing himself.

Anyway, unto the pics!

The first place that we visited was the Dutch Fortress. It's more than 200+ years old and by the looks of it, it must've gone many battles and somehow the structure still stood the test of time. Amazing.


If you look on the left side of the picture, you can see Cheng Yee and I standing over a ledge. Apparently, it's just an empty square 'room' filled with trash and covered by a metal grating. I would assume that it was used to hold things, like prisoners or ammunitions during battles.


The view from the fort facing the sea. So, this is what it would look like if you were a Dutch soldier defending the fort. Well, sans battleships and angry people on boats.


Afterwards, we went to a temple called 'Foo Ling Kong', if I'm not mistaken and by this temple there's a HUGE piece of rock on the hill that says 'yuan' or fate.


Just to give you an idea of how big the rock is, here's Soon Siong and Kae Deng posing in front of the rock.


Next, we visited this little factory filled with goodies and delicious snacks. We were allowed to go in and take pictures of the people working on the food and packing them. Apparently, everyone have their own things to do, ie. packing, salting the fish, sealing, etc..., in the process of producing things like fish satay sticks, etc...


So, it's the dye that gives these dried fish snacks the taste and colour. Looks like blood, to be honest.


Then we came to this Kuan Yin Miao/Temple by one of the beaches in Pangkor. I found it weird to see cartoon characters like Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse chilling out at the temple. Actually, it was hilarious. I got a kick out of it. Here, you can see Jackie chilling out with a half-naked mermaid. The eyes are scary.


Yup, needless to say I was a very happy man for the 60 secs it took for Woon Cherk to take this picture. That's Hui Beng on the left and Lee Ping on the right.


This picture pretty captures my first impression of the island. I thought the waters are blue but turns out they are green, which isn't so bad considering all the beaches I've ever been to have brownish water. I thought it was beautiful.


You can pretty much see how clear the water is. Of course the water is salty but seeing clear water like this by the beach is a new thing to me.


"We should've stayed out of trouble."


True to the words of Woon Cherk, we are the Mat Rempit and Mat Pedlits of the day. I didn't know how to ride a bicycle and yet I was silly enough to rent a bike and almost got myself shoved off the rode a couple of times. It was fun though, trying to get to places on a bike. NOTE TO SELF: If you hear sounds of cars/vehicles approaching from the back when you're riding a bike, move INWARDS and NOT outwards towards the vehicle lest you want your brains blown to pieces. Point taken.


Water is fun. Playing games in water is fun. Almost have your so-called swimming trunks ripped off by homo-loving, embarrassment-inducing friends is not fun. "DAAANNIIEEELLL!!!!!" *shakes fist*


Pity Kim Wei. Fancy being turned into a mermaid.


Daniel's first foray into beach football.


First promotional poster. Don't forget to book your tickets today to see Daniel in action for the coming Beach Football World Cup.


Woon Cherk and Boon Kiat were so fired up to go canoing but too bad it rained right before they go out to the sea. You can also say that they were fortunate because they didn't get caught in storm while canoing.


It's nice to see pretty birds that you don't see everyday. One of the guys there threw pieces of bread/biscuits upwards and these birds will swoop down from trees and catch it mid-air. It was pretty awesome.


The obligatory group photo of everyone who came for the trip.


Woon Cherk and I at the back of a boat when we went island hopping. The boat 'driver' was a funny man and he was incredibly friendly to us.


Welcome to Turtle Beach, if I'm not mistaken. The boat dude told us that sea turtles would come up here to lay eggs in the middle of the night during the Jan-Mar season.


You see those things that look like poop on the sea floor? Those are sea cucumbers but they aren't edible though. Daniel threw one of those things at someone and I'm pretty sure it must've hurt.


I don't know what's this. I'm guessing it's some sort of coral or shell that's stuck to a piece of rock. Daniel found it and we both thought it's dead until we stuck it back into water.


It would open up it's shell and you can see these hairy things come out.


There are also hermit crabs and here's one in case you've not seen one before.


Now we know why our moms tell us not to drink water that are not boiled.


Snorkeling is awesome, eventhough I didn't know how and couldn't swim. Kae Deng taught me how to swim a little and it was fun to be able to look into the water and breathe at the same time.


Check out all of these fishes. They are pretty fierce and would eat almost anything that you throw into the water.




Banana boat looks fun but too bad I didn't get a ride because I don't feel really good about playing something like that. Well, maybe some other time, I guess.


Here's me with Tangga our boat driver. Awesome guy.


What's an island trip without barbeque by the beach? Food was little but the fun was plenty.


And like all good things in life, it has to come to an end. Good bye, Pangkor!


And most of all, good bye my friends! I will miss all of you. As we all lead our own lives after this, I wish all of you success in all your endeavours.

(Too bad I can't put all the pictures up here. There are roughly 400+ of them.)

My thoughts? I thought it was a fun trip. Although the journey took us more than 8 hours, but it wasn't dull because we're all friends and we have TONS of things to talk about and play with. The food that we had at this particular seafood restaurant was relatively cheap and very filling. Having the boss that looks a bit like my own father is a huge plus too. Pangkor people are generally very nice but they are some pretty nasty tourist trap, so watch out!