Kota Bharu
I’m not going to lie. It was a long drive from Tasik Temenggor to Kota Bharu. The trip was further delayed by the rain, slippery roads, extremely heavy vehicles going uphill and the ever-winding bends of the mountainous roads. On a couple of occasions, we literally drove right into the rain clouds. The drive really put us on edge. We even saw a few accidents on the road, and the vehicles were banged up real bad, that it would be better to just scrap it.
Driving into the rain clouds!
We drove for about 4 to 5 hours, only stopping once to refuel and to get some snacks. We tried not to take too many stops as the sky was dark and the street lights were not that bright either. Once we reached the outskirt of Kota Bharu, we quickly stopped and settled our dinner at McDonald’s. It was a late, late dinner, but we were glad that we need not wait till we arrive at our destination to have our dinner.
After our meal, we made use of the free wifi provided by McDonald’s to find the available hotels and also to plot our path via GPS. Once all preparations are done, we left the place and continued on our journey.
It probably took about 30 minutes before we arrived at the Royal Guest House in Kota Bharu. On the outside, the hotel looks like it has been built for some time. When we entered our rooms, we noticed that the hotel is really old. The room has a kind of damp, musky smell, the water heater is those old-fashioned ones and the TV reception is awful. Might I also add that their wifi is really bad? Anyway, we were only there for a night.
Exterior view of Royal Guest House.
The next morning, we woke up, went down and had our complimentary breakfast. I gotta say, even though the hotel is kind of run down, the food tastes great. What they lack in aesthetics, they made it up with the food. Their fried noodles is very flavourful and its fried chicken is very crispy. After our awesome breakfast, we went back, packed our stuff, checked out and drove of to Kuala Terengganu for lunch.
It probably took us about 2 hours before we reached Kuala Terengganu’s Chinatown. Parking was kind of a problem, but we were lucky to find one without driving around aimlessly. They still use parking meters to track your parking over there. It was kind of cool, as we dropped some coins and there was a countdown meter.
Kuala Terengganu’s Chinatown. Notice the green parking meter on the left?
We walked around to find a place to eat and found a coffee shop with a few stalls inside. I ordered the wanton noodles, but they were not very impressive. They are not very cheap either, considering that they cost as much as the noodles in Singapore.
After doing some sight-seeing, we drove to Kuala Lumpur, where we stayed at Philea Mines Beach Resort. It was quite a cool place.
Resting on the beach was really relaxing.
We did some night shopping and dinner before going back to our room to sleep.
Water view from the lobby.
We woke up and went to do a short exploration of the resort, check out, then went for lunch at the mall before moving to our next stop at Yong Peng for dinner. After that, it was back to Singapore, where we concluded our road trip around West Malaysia!