Pengkalan Kubor,Kelantan 吉兰丹 彭加兰古堡

Ever since 2years ago I went to Malaysia-Thailand border-Wang Kelian, this time round I arranged another border trip, and also due to the unforeseen circumstances, I didn’t go to the more-famous border Rantau Abang, but the less-famous Pengkalan Kubor.

From Kampung Jubakar,we continued our journey from Kota Bharu to Malaysia-Thailand border.

Actually before boarding on the bus no 27, we were not sure if the bus was going to the border checkpoint, we were afraid that the bus driver would dump us in middle of nowhere and told us :”from here you take taxi , can reach the checkpoint” . Anyway our worry was extra because the bus no 27 was towards its terminal at Pengkalan Kubor.

Similar to other Malaysia-Thailand border checkpoint, Pengkalan Kubor is having a tax-free trade zone, and it’s much bigger than it was in Perlis’s Wang Kelian.

But Pengkalan Kubor was not giving us a good first impression, as the authority fenced up the area as those we watched it on the movie (Those Jewish detainment camp back in WWII), well I admit I was watching too much war movies before this…

Malaysia-Thailand border was divided via a river, its natural boundary has given the officers’ work much easier- in order to cross the border, you will need to board on boat/ferry. I saw the ferry there were much smaller compared to those in Penang, and without shelter, well.. under the hot sun/raining day, I guess you wouldn’t like to cross the river..

We never thought of cross over to Thailand, maybe read too much negative news from the paper, always felt that South Thailand wasn’t that safe

The free trade zone here wasn’t with any attraction to us, as the merchandise sold were almost the same categories eg kitchen utensil, toys, and dress. As a tourist point of view, we absolutely found no attraction at all because the shirt sold here also wasn’t souvenir shirt,all were imported from China ! (our famous Batik also imported from Yunnan, what a shame!)


With such a far far away border, with such a normal day it was, it was so extradinary that me and my brother walked in this “refugee camp”, but none of the shopkeeper came approaching us to promote his/her product, because they understand that tourist not going to buy kitchen utensils, haha


There was this small market in Pengkalan Kubor, I would say of a little bit attraction to us. We saw one kind of Asam, they called it Asam Java, the vendor gave us free sample to try, even though we declared earlier that we were not going to buy the fruit all the way back to Kota Bharu, she insisted us to try , saying it’s for us to try only. Kelantaneses were so friendly.

Free trade zone was only with 3 rows of shops, you can easily kill your time walking the whole area. We tried delay the time , walking slowly from shop to shop, just to experience the difference in this far-far away land. Thus we specially make ourselves to have our lunch in the trade zone.

Such eatery shop style can easily found in the whole KB, in which all the customers sitting surround the boss, boss preparing the food at the center. Customers just to raise up their hand, then boss will straight come to your order.

Along the river at Malaysia side, reside this Fishery Research Board also, theoretically nobody was allowed to enter its compound, but as mentioned, Kelantanese were kind-hearted—Just say hi to the guard, saying you just want to take photos, basically shouldn’t be any problem I guess.haha

Geographical location of this Fishery Research Board was very strategic, you can take photo without any obstacles to the opposite Thailand border.

And in fact, our Kelantan trip was of a lucky one, there wasn’t any rain during our outing. Even though we always fall tired easily, but much better than having umbrella to visit any site, isn’t it?

We saw the bus no 43 stopped at the same bus station we alighted just now. Its air-conditioning was function. After making sure that this bus was heading to our next destination- Pantai Seri Tujuh. We board on bus to catch our dream, while waiting the bus driver to come back from his break.

Even though after 20 min , we found we were still at the same place without moving any meter, and the passengers on board was just a pity some number- total 5 of us ! hard-earn money ya..

Expenses

Kampung Jubakar to Pengkalan Kubor RM1.70

吉兰丹 彭加兰古堡 Pengkalan Kubor, Kelantan Malaysia

继2年前去了马泰边界王可怜，这一次我的吉兰丹之旅同样安排了去一趟马泰边界，这次也是因为机缘关系，还是没有去到比较出名的边界，就如上一次错过Rantau Abang 去了王可怜，这一次也是错过较著名的Rantau Panjang，去了Pengkalan Kubor。

从Kampung Jubakar，我们一条龙式的从哥打峇鲁玩到马泰边界。

其实在我们搭上27号巴士之前，我们不肯定它有没有开到边界去，深怕司机又是随便放我们在半途下车，但是担心是多余的，因为27号巴士的总站就是Pengkalan Kubor。

正如其他的马泰边界，Pengkalan Kubor 也是有免税区，而且规模比王可怜的还大还整齐。


可是，Pengkalan Kubor 给我们的第一感觉不太好，有关当局把免税区用双层篱笆围起来，我觉得有点像是犹太集中营。。（可能不久前我看了二战的电影，被它影响了）。

马泰边界是由一条河给分开来，天然的条件使移民厅的工作容易多了，要到对岸，就得乘船过去。船只是渡轮，可是比槟城的简单多了，没有遮顶，得日晒雨淋。

我们没打算到泰国走一回，也许是看报道太多了吧？总觉得泰南不太安全的。

可是这里的免税区也没啥“康头”，卖来卖去都是差不多一样的东西，厨房用具，玩具，衣服。对于旅客的我们来说，实在没有吸引力，衣服也是普通衣服，没有一间旅游衣服，而且很多都是中国入口，实在没瘾。（我们著名的Batik都是中国货，实在是丢脸）



在这么一个遥远的边界，这么一个普通的周日，我们两个年轻人走在“难民营”中，显得有点特出，只是店员们都没有把我们叫住，因为他们知道游客不会去买砂锅盎铲。



里面有一个小型的市场，还略有小看头，卖有一些形如花生的亚叁果Asam Java，其中一个水果贩还给我们免费尝试呢，虽然我们跟她说我们不会买了带回家，她说就只是让你们试试味道，嗯，这里的人还蛮友善的。。


免税区内就是三排店面而已，很快就可以走完，我们尽量拖延时间，就是想慢慢体会完这里的不同，所以我们临别前，还在这里的一个树下摊吃午餐。这是一个吉兰丹常见的小吃店，就是食客都坐着围着在中间的老板，老板就在那儿准备食物给每个人，每个人也只要举手，老板就看到了。

依傍着河边的还有一个渔业研究局，照理来说，外人是不许进入的，但吉兰丹就是比较“随和”点，只要跟看守打个照面，说我们是外地来的，想拍照。基本上，应该不成问题的，呵呵。


这渔业研究局所处位置很好，可以没有阻挡地拍摄到对岸的泰国。


说起来，我们的吉兰丹之旅还蛮幸运的，老天都没有下雨，只是天气太热，容易陷入爱睡状况。

我们看到了前往Pandai Seri Tujuh的43号巴士停了在那儿，冷气还开着，等候搭客，我们爬了上巴士，来个午睡，醒来后，巴士还在原地，巴士搭客还是五指可以数到。。。看来生意真难做呢。。。




费用：
Kampung Jubakar 至Pengkalan Kubor RM1.70

Wat Prachumthat Canaram,Kelantan

There are 3 temples at Kampung Jubakar, the famous for sure is Sitting Buddha, whereas opposite from Wat Machimmaram is this Wat Prachumthat Canaram, and another Wat (temple) which was symbolized by lion (not sure its name).

If the famous Wat Machimmaram’s visitor can have only few visitors (less than the numbers of fingers of yours), these 2 less famous Wat is even miserably few people.

We saw only 1 local in total in these 2 temples- A local who was working on Wat Prachumthat Canaram renovation.


My personal thought is other than Wat Machimmaram is with a huge sitting Buddha, all the 3 temples were impressively magnificent each of them.

I have never experienced to visit temple with such few visitors, but I think this is not a bad thing either as I could take whichever angle with my photos without any blockage of passerby. The only worry I had was doggy might think we were of no good intention and come after us haha.

In front of Wat Prachumthat Canaram, there is this seven-headed dragon, seems like very fierce, bit scary sculpture


But Wat Prachumthat Canaram was not opened its main hall, think maybe this temple was not a temple for tourist but worship place for the locals

Beside the main temple, written Chinese 殿藏地, means store of the Buddhism books, but its board was in Chinese, but not in Thai, feeling a bit strange…

There’re few residential unit which I believe belonged to the Siamese, but there seems no people was at home during our visit, wondering if they went to school or workplace?

After we syok (find happy) our ownselves, we continued our journey to another temple nearby.

On the midway walking to this temple, we double check with the Siamese stall operator that the no 27 bus route is to Malaysia-Thailand border. But she seemed couldn’t understand none in my Bahasa Melayu, leaving me in stars/doubts if due to my too-formal BM or Siamese here do not use BM in their daily life…

The next temple was even more “peaceful” totally no human being around, neither did a dog or cat, except the statue lion at the entrance.

The temple seemed to be very astonishing, but don’t know why I had a strong feeling of abandoned. My brother was too observant to see a lot of spider webs on top of the temple. Some even of big spiders which web area can be as wide as 2 to 3 meters from temple roof to the trees beside! And I have no idea why the webs weren’t destroyed during heavy rain pour.


Seeing such large magnitude of spider web, we started to carefully exploring this temple, afraid of accidentally “invade” into their territory and they come after us.

Really wondering if reason existence of these spider webs- because of abandoned temple or become of Buddhism “non-killing” ideology?

Nevertheless, something worth seeing in this temple compound- the residential houses behind were of different style of architecture-non repetitive. There was Malay style’s rumah kampong” and Thai’s temple style.

After taking some commercial for Jetstar- X posture. We took the bus no 27 and continued our journey to Malaysia-Thailand border—Pengkalan Kubor!

吉兰丹 Wat Prachumthat Canaram, Kelantan Malaysia

在Kampung Jubakar就有三座佛庙，最有名的当然是坐佛，而马路对面就有Wat Prachumthat Canaram 还有一间以狮子做象征物的佛庙（不知道它的名字）

既然著名的坐佛都可以少人到十只手指可以数到（2小时内），这两座比较无名的佛庙参观人数就更加可怜了，我们在这两座庙，就只是看到1个当地人，正在修建Wat Prachumthat Canaram。

其实个人觉得，除了Wat Machimmaram 有一个很大的坐佛，三座佛庙都是一样富丽堂皇，可观性都蛮大的。我本身是之前没有去过这么少人的膜拜场所，所以觉得没人也好，至少拍照不用多番迁就，就只是怕狗儿以为我们来者不善，向我们追来。

Wat Prachumthat Canaram 门口有着一对七头神龙守护，感觉有点猛。

这一间Wat Prachumthat Canaram应该是没有开放的，大门深锁着。。

旁边就有一座殿藏地，牌坊就只是中文，而没有泰文，感到有点奇怪。。

里面有一些民居，相信是泰裔，可是没看到任何人在家的迹象，上班或上学了？

我们在没人理会自爽后，才步行到附近的另一座佛庙。
在路途中，为了再三确认我们要乘搭巴士的路线，我们去了一间泰裔经营的小食店打听打听，可是对方好象听不明白我的马来文，不知道是不是我的马来文太教材式（不是吉兰丹马来话）？又或者这里的泰裔在日常生活用不上马来语？

接下来去的佛庙更加“与世无争”，除了我们，没有其他人的踪迹，也没有半只狗儿猫儿。。。它只有守门狮坐镇：


佛庙看起来也是很美，可是就是不知道为什么有点被遗弃的感觉，
眼尖的弟弟，看到佛庙上方，堆满了蜘蛛，而且都是大蜘蛛，其中一些蜘蛛网的区域竟然是从佛庙到距离佛庙两三公尺旁的大树，不知道为什么蜘蛛网不会被大雨摧毁？

看到了这么壮观的蜘蛛网后，我们开始小心翼翼的探索这一座佛庙，深怕不小心被“网罗”，引来大蜘蛛追随。

真的好奇这一座庙那么多大蜘蛛网是因为被荒废了，还是佛家的不杀生理念？

不过，这一座佛庙也有值得看看的地方，里面的民居各式各样，没有一间是同样风格的，有马来高脚屋，也有好象佛庙式（应该是泰式）。

拍了一些Jetstar式的X形照，我们就在这一座蜘蛛网佛庙外再度乘搭27号巴士前往马泰边界-Pengkalan Kubor。

Kelantan- Wat Machimmaram 吉兰丹 坐佛庙

After paying a visit to Sleeping Buddha Wat Polithivan, we continue our journey to the next destination –Wat Machimmaram-the Sitting Buddha.

Departing from Chabang Empat, we took the bus no 27 which was initially departed from Kota Bharu. We found that the coming bus was numbered 27, but with another company’s name and logo, but yet we stopped it to ask if it going to the Wat Machimmaram

The public buses route in Kota Bharu can be operated by different companies with the same route, do take note of this.


Data gathered from the net was saying Wat Machimmaram is located at Kampung Jubakar.

In Kota Bharu , when you were to take bus to visit these tourist spots, remember to note down the Buddha posture, eg whether is a Sleeping Buddha temple or Sitting Buddha temple. It’s because the bus drivers normally don’t remember the “long-winded” name of these Siamese temples,but only the posture of the buddhas.


As mentioned previously , the driver always failed from our expectation. Luckily this time we observed closely the brown-coloured signboard all the way after boarding.


The impression that Sitting Buddha gave me was even greater, I think the sunny sky had played a big part in this. The Buddha was simply too impressive when we were there.


And same function with Sleeping Buddha temple, it stores those urn. But not long ago before I came, there was a stolen case happened in Wat Machimmaram. The thief had stolen ashes of an eminent monk! It was reported to the police, but nobody was found guilty. This is insane ! totally of no morality!

The containment action against it was the top floor was locked up from visitor  , no outsider than relative could be allowed to enter the top floor compound. Sigh…nowadays temple also gotta guard against others…

Although the temple is in Siamese naming system, but the interior is pretty “Chinese”


Opposite of Wat Machimmaram, there are 2 more magnificent Wat, which totally had no visitor/tourist existence. It’s of very local feel and totally non-commercial , well I will talk about it in the next article.

Fare:
Bus no 27 from Chabang Empat to Kampung Jubakar RM 1.30

吉兰丹 坐佛庙 Wat Machimmaram,Kelantan Malaysia

我们参观了睡佛后，就前往下一座佛庙-坐佛Wat Machimmaram。

从Chabang Empat,我们等候从哥打峇鲁上来的27号巴士，这里哥打峇鲁的巴士，是根据巴士路线而分号码，所以同样路线可以由不同的巴士公司经营。

网上的战略说，我们要前往的坐佛就在Kampung Jubakar。从哥打峇鲁搭巴士要去参观这些庙宇，其实重要的是记得佛尊的形态，如睡佛,站佛，或者坐佛，然后告诉巴士司机Sleeping Buddha,Standing Buddha 或者Sitting Buddha，因为你告诉他们什么什么Wat Machimmaram，Wat Pothivihan，他们也是不大清楚的，他们只是记得佛座的形态。

真如前文所言，巴士司机常常都“不负期待”，忘了提醒我们到站，幸好一路上都有留意棕色路牌。

Wat Machimmaram这个名字对我而言，很难记得，我是记得它的Machi罢了。。真麻吉。。

坐佛给我的感觉更震撼，可能参观的那天烈日当空，坐佛在太阳的照耀下，佛光四射！


其实坐佛的功能就好象睡佛，里面是放骨灰的，可是前不久，竟然发生了骨灰被盗的案件！有贼偷去高僧的骨灰，说是发挥出来的法力吓人，真是不道德，迟早得到报应！

现在坐佛的最高那一层锁起来了，不给非亲戚上去。所以你说是不是世风日下？连佛堂都不得不防备他人。

虽然佛堂名字蛮泰国的，可是佛堂里面蛮华人的，注满许多华文写明各个罗汉。

在Wat Machimmaram对面还有两座壮观的佛庙，根本没有游客的足迹，感觉非常地道，没有丝毫的商业味,下回再谈。


费用：
巴士27号从Chabang Empat 至Kampung Jubakar RM1.30