Kampung Laut, Kelantan 吉兰丹 海洋村

Kelantan- the state ruled by Islamic Party PAS, always like to label itself as the country’s leadership in Islamic teachings. For sure by any chance won’t be missing from promoting the oldest mosque –Masjid Kampung Laut ,in Peninsula Malaysia.

The description on the tourism brochure stated that originally Kampung Laut Mosque located in Tumpat. But It was being attacked by a severe flood many years ago.In order to maintain its structure, the authority had moved the mosque to the current location near to the Kota Bharu.

Maybe the name is a bit misleading, or perhaps the name was simply too common. I purposely made a call from Singapore to the Kota Bharu Tourism Office to confirm the location of the historical mosque, somehow was still misled.

Perhaps the officer was too aggressive to promote his own hometown, and I was misled to a very common Malay village Kampung Laut which located the opposite shore from Kota Bharu.

When we were walking in the village, I guess the villagers must be wondering from which earth these 2 guys coming from and to visit their village. They must be puzzled to see 2 “loyal followers” from far far away just to visit their village mosque.

The real Masjid Kampung Laut, situated in Nilam Puri. Asking the villagers the direction and way of going the real Masjid Kampung Laut. Their strong accent of Kelantanese’s Malay made me fall into big question marks….

We these 2 weird guy appeared in the odd hour (3pm), took the boat beside the Tambatan Diraja, and so strangely exist in Kampung Laut. When I recall, I still find it funny for such situation.


And through the mistake we made this time, we got the chance to experience the Kelantanese life in unconventional way. A different view on Kota Bharu in different angle along the Kelantan River.

The sky was with bright blue, and Kelantan River was just merely brown, between the sky and river divided by greenery land. Combination of colours- blue green brown is not that matching, but it made me meditate- how Kelantanese survived in year end raining season where flood could happen anywhere easily? Or the way newspaper report is not that objective, well, I believe from now on, I will take note more on Kelantan’s news after coming here.

Little Kampung Laut, but its jetty was so gorgeous, but our boat never stopped at this beautifully looking jetty but a plastic floating jetty beside. I was wondering why… it’s just such a waste not to use the already-completed jetty .


3 motorbike was welcoming us at the jetty , but they were not coming to fetch us, but the 3 Malay ladies same boat with us. It’s their family member. None of them bothered us, not even a taxi driver, but only the cats, chicken, and goats happily ran here and there welcoming us.

That is in this small village, I saw something rarely seen in Malaysia- The grocery shop boss was sleeping in the shop with the main door opened widely- not even woke up when we tried to wake him up for direction! Good ! at least it shows Kelantan was far safer than in other places.

When we return to the jetty, we found nothing to be done, and the boat was already stopped at the jetty waiting for people get on board. But there was not even 1, except us 2 tourist at the supposed-to-be busy peak office off hour. And this made the boat owner to stop at the jetty for 30min to wait more people to come.

The journey to Kampung Laut was really out of our plan, time could be said waster to have gone to a super-duper common Malay village. But from my point of view, this is where backpacking trip is fun in, because not everything ran smoothly as what was planned. Treat it as a journey and explore the other part of earth. Maybe could gain some other thing which was not beautified and more nature.

As for this case, we able to see the floating houses along the Kelantan river, their houses were built on numerous floating plastic tank, I think this is a smart way to overcome the notorious floods happen frequently in Kelantan, because their house will float higher when the water level rise up. The intelligence of daily life was not written in the tourism brochure ya.


How to get there?

From small jetty beside Tambatan Diraja, boat departing to Kampung Laut every 40min

Fare:

RM 1.00 per trip

吉兰丹 海洋村 Kampung Laut, Kelantan Malaysia

吉兰丹贵为回教党执政的州属，当然老爱标榜自己身为回教的领导者，更何况马来半岛历史最悠久的回教堂Masjid Kampung Laut在吉兰丹，回教党焉有不宣传的道理。

旅游册子上是说这一座Masjid Kampung Laut海洋村清真寺本来矗立于道北的Kampung Laut，后来大水灾，结果为了避免它进一步遭摧毁，所以整座回教堂搬到了哥打巴鲁去。

由于名字实在是有点误导性，名字似乎太普通了。我特地从新加坡拨了一通电话到吉兰丹旅游局确认该回教堂的位置与前往方式，结果我还是中骗了。

也或许该名员工来自哥打巴鲁对岸的Kampung Laut，想宣传他家乡。。。结果我来到了一个普通的海边马来村庄，到处问人回教堂的方向，我想他们也都会觉得奇怪这么两个身穿短裤的“虔诚教徒”远道而来。

真正的Masjid Kampung Laut位于Nilam Puri，问村民如何前往，可是他们浓厚的吉兰丹腔马来语，实在不甚明了。

我们两个就是那么奇怪的时间（下午3点），搭上了在Tambatan Diraja旁边的小码头的汽船，那么奇怪地出现在海洋村，现在想起来都有点好笑。

不过就是那么的机缘下，我们可以以另外一个角度去看哥打巴鲁在吉兰丹河畔的一番风味。

天空一片蔚蓝，而吉兰丹河水却是一片泥朦褐色，天水间则分明隔绝了一片绿，蓝绿褐不太相配，却煞是勾起了我的冥想，想着年尾雨季的吉兰丹人如何在这“大马黄河”边讨生活，或是报道偏颇了？也许需多加注意吉兰丹的新闻。

小小的海洋村，却有着美轮美奂的新码头，可是我们停船的地方却是一个以塑胶桶筑建的漂浮码头，有点奇怪。

迎接我们汽船的是三辆摩多，因为与我们同船的是三个马来妇女，她们的家人在码头等待他们。我们没人来迎接，连一个搭讪的司机都没有。。。 可怜兮兮。。。只有猫儿羊儿鸡儿兴奋得跑来跑去。

在这个村里，我看到在大马难见的景象-杂货店老板开了门，自己却在里面睡觉，钱财就那么坦荡荡的放置一旁；我们试着问路，老板睡得还真熟呢！

回到码头，无所事事，汽船已在码头等候；纵然已经是下班时间，可是等候它下一趟赴哥打巴鲁却是漫长的，相信海洋村的村民人口不是很多造成的。

其实旅行有时有些出槌，也是有点那么的乐趣，虽然未能看到想看的景物，可是旅程中的风景就是一种乐趣了。既来之，则安之吧。况且因为这一次的失误，看到了哥打巴鲁真正的一面，不是经过有关单位粉饰的。

我们看到了吉兰丹河上的水上人间，他们的木屋就建立于塑胶桶上，漂浮在河上，相信吉兰丹河泛滥也不会影响到他们，因为屋子会跟着“水涨屋高”。




如何抵达？

从Tambatan Diraja旁的小码头，出发至Kampung Laut RM1(单程)
船次每40分钟一趟

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