Perak : Parit Buntar Fishing Villages Day 2 Pt.2

Monday, September 15, 2014

Perak : Parit Buntar Fishing Villages Day 2 Pt.2

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AhPek Biker - Riding Adventures

Perak : Parit Buntar Fishing Villages Day 2 Pt.2

Parit Buntar, Perak : 6th September 2014

Medium Group Ride : Parit Buntar>Bagan Tiang>Tanjung Piandang>Kuala Kurau>Kuala Gula>Kuala Sangga>Kuala Sepetang

Distance: 90.44 km. (Cycling distance= 59.64 km. & Boat Ride distance=30.84 km.)
Time : 5:45 am - 5:25 pm
Time Taken : 11 hrs. 40 mins. (including boat rides, stops for breakfast, 2 lunches, visits to cottage industries, rest, regrouping and photo opps.)

This is page 3 of a 6-page blog, on our journey from Kuala Kurau to Kuala Sangga.. Click Here To Go To Title Page.

< Go to D2-1 Kuala Kurau | Go to Other Days | Go to 2-3 Kuala Sepetang >

Route Recommendations :
1. Being at the coastal area, the route is relatively flat.
2. We were riding during the rainy weather and the rain clouds afforded us shade. But I can imagine that the padi field section would be hot during the dry season.
3. The river mouths with fishing boats is scenic, stop to take photos!
4. Eventhough it was drizzling when we rode through the padi fields, they still look nice in the rain.
5. At these smaller towns, the locals are warm and friendly. Food is also relatively cheap, and surprisingly some are better than those found in the big cities..
6. Do stop to view the bridge spanning over the Sungai Kurau river at Kuala Kurau.
7. An interesting place to visit is the Joo Chan Salted Duck Egg Factory.
8. Don't miss the most delicious prawn fritters at Kuala Kurau, it comes with a bonus of good iced frothy white coffee.
9. Taking up our bicycles onto boats speeding across the open sea is an experience not to be missed.

PRELUDE

We had eagerly started off in the wee hours of the morning from Parit Buntar; an early thunderstorm and a wet ride on part of our route did not dampen our spirit.

After a good dim sum breakfast at Tanjung Piandang, we encountered a muddy bund road that was impossible to ride on. Although some chickened out riding on this bund road (including yours truly); most of us bravely pushed on through the soft muddy road till we reached the main roads.

Now we have arrived at Kuala Kurau but can't seem to locate a renown foodie place.

THE RIDE

View Perak Parit Buntar Fishing Villages Ride (90.44 km) in a larger map
Ride Route : Parit Buntar>Bagan Tiang>Tanjung Piandang>Kuala Kurau>Kuala Gula>Kuala Sangga>Kuala Sepetang
This REALLY is a multi-mode expedition. From Kuala Lumpur we took a night train up to Parit Buntar to start cycling. From Kuala Gula to Kuala Sangga and then onwards to Kuala Sepetang we were in boats. The following day, after cycling from Kuala Sepetang to Taiping we took a bus over to Ipoh for some riding there too. We then took the ETS train back to Tanjung Malim and then a taxi back to Kuala Lumpur.
Why not take the ETS all the way to Kuala Lumpur? Well, that's part of the story which you will find out about later.

KT went over to a house (opposite where we were waiting) to enquire about our lunch place, a renown prawn fritter outlet. The ladies there were preparing lor bak (Chinese meat rolls) for a wedding in the evening. The wedding will be the traditional small village "terng tok" (long table) style. Guests coming for the dinner will be seated at long tables (i.e. at the red tents where the rest of us were waiting) to eat. There is no fixed time to come for the dinner other than a start time and end time, guest can come anytime in between as food is continuously served.
Unfortunately, these local ladies themselves were not very certain about where our lunch destination was, mentioning that it was somewhere over the other side of the river.

12:00 noon : Seeing that we were hungry (the morning's dim sum had been zapped away by our cold ride), we headed for a nearby food-court to eat. The food was just okay only, but the balcony of the food court gave a beautiful view of the Kurau River mouth.
Our stopping there was a blessing in disguise as out of the blues our knights in shining armour (actually two guys on a motor-cycle) arrived and approached KT. They were local cyclists from the Kuala Kurau Cycling Club and their cycling camaraderie was aroused on seeing so many of us out-of-town cyclists. The good thing is that they know where the prawn fritter stall was!

On their motorcycle, Kung & his buddy led us to the Joo Hong Chan salted duck egg factory, where the owners were happy to show us around and gave us a brief on how the salted eggs were made. It's interesting that our cycling adventures lead us to places like this where we learn a little bit more of our country and a little bit more of our culture.
(... click here read more of the salted duck egg factory).

Our knights then led us across a pedestrian bridge that will lead us over to the other side of the Sungai Kurau river. This bridge is still new and it is not shown on the maps. No wonder the GPS went cranky.

Across the bridge, we were cycling on narrow village roads, roads that gave us peeps into the beauty that lies behind the houses.

Finally and with great anticipation we reached the shop. It's somewhere near a temple with a great view of the road bridge over the Sungai Kurau river. I have plotted the location on the above map, it's a secluded place so hopefully I got it correct.

This place serve the best Cucur Udang (Prawn Fritters) that most of us have ever eaten. The Cucur Udang were thick and filled with fresh soft-shelled shrimps, turnips & chives.
You must be wondering what that plate of yellow Chinese noodle is doing here?

It's the local style of eating; wrap the yellow noodles around a quarter cut of the Cucur Udang and them dip into their nice chilli sauce....
and then.... YummY!

Here they also serve sea-food Curry Noodles, filled with cockles, shrimps, squid, slices of fish and some strips of boiled pre-dried pork skin. Again the small shrimps are served together with their soft shells and head too, interestingly they were easy to bite into - the shells are that soft!
(... read more of Kuala Kurau's Cucur Udang)

And one last secret they let us into - one of the bestest iced white coffee that I have ever tried. Our local friends claim that this is better than those from the coffee bars, I must agree with them whole-stomachely..... er..... I mean whole-heartedly.

Eating there also gave us a nice panoramic view of the road bridge over the Sungai Kurau river...

... a peek of colourful dragons statues atop a nearby temple roof.

Our new Kuala Kurau friends : 王梃炎, 王梃炎 and Kung Khang Ming.

Went it came to paying for the food, we found out that our new-found friends had already settled the bill and despite our polite objections, they did not want any repayment.

2:10 pm - We left the small town with fond memories, we have indeed been very warmly welcomed in Kuala Kurau.

Our knights have now turned guardian angels and escorted us all the way from their town to Route A100 to ensure that all went well with us.
Thank you, my friends. You all have been wonderful hosts.

3:00 pm - We turned into a road that will lead us to the Kuala Gula Jetty.
Hey! There's a bird sanctuary here! We are on a tight schedule, the bird sanctuary will have to wait for another day.

At the jetty, our boats were there ready and waiting for us. We quickly folded our bikes and boarded; it's only four to five of us per boat as they had to fit in our bikes too.

Our four boats went a short distance down the estuary and then headed out to the open sea.
I have taken my bike onto small ferries and speed-boats to Pulau Ketam; onto ferries sailing the Mekong River and even onto long-boats at Taman Negara. But this will be a first for me and probably for most of my buddies - speeding along on this small boats on a 30 km. ride in the open sea. On this boats we will be heading to Kuala Sangga and then onwards to Kuala Sepetang.

To top it all, our boats were overtaking and criss-crossing each other. We were having as much fun riding on the boats while waving and shouting at each other.

Approaching Kuala Sangga, we saw these red pyramid roof buildings floating in the sea; these are chalets for tourists. An interesting concept.

4:15 pm - After more than an hour's sailing and as we neared the Kuala Sangga jetty, a thought popped into my mind.
Kuala Sangga is rumoured to be a former pirate's haunt, are there still pirates there?
Dare we disembark?

This is page 3 of a 6-page blog, on our journey from Kuala Kurau to Kuala Sangga.. Click Here To Go To Title Page.