Day 5 – Pantai Kemasik Kemaman, Nor Arfa Batik Terengganu – Malaysia Tourism Hunt 2012

Oh hello! What do you guys think of the Malaysia Tourism Hunt 2012 so far? Have you been following the previous posts I published? 🙂

I’m dead tired every night but the days out (minus the driving) hunting, playing and picking up valuable knowledge about my own country is well worth the effort. In continuation from my previous update, we were hosted for a night at the Bukit Gambang Resort City in Kuantan. Morning call is 6am, breakfast is at 7am and check-out is 8am, a routine for us by now.

I have been up every morning at 4am to bring you daily updates on the Malaysia Tourism Hunt so you better read my posts ok! 😀
By 6am I’m normally famished and brain dead from 2 hours of writing. A good breakfast helps; and the breakfast buffet at Bukit Gambang Resort City offers an admirably vast selection which were actually tasty.

Half boiled eggs! YES!
The roti jala and roti canai was thin, crispy and served with very good dhal. It was better than some mamak shops in KL/PJ for sure.

The flag off to Kuala Terengganu was by Director of TM Pahang and behind the wheel, I cringed when I saw the distance we were supposed to cover that day. The first challenge however,was a mere 45 minutes away and it involved food. Ah, that was something to look forward to! 🙂

At the district of Kemaman all of us were treated to the East Coast delicacies of lekor, otak-otak, satar and pulut bakar at  Warung Otak-Otak Che Wan.

An educational session ensued. We were briefed and a live demonstration of the making of those snacks were shown.

Below: The making of “Lekor” – aka fish sausage.

Below: Prawn crackers and lekor are usually cooked via deep-frying.

Below: Fish crackers (lekor keping) being dried out in the sun prior to being packaged and sold.

Clock-wise from top-left: Satar, pulut, otak-otak.
For many of the international media, it was a fascinating process and most of them couldn’t wait to actually eat the lekor and satar; which was just as well since the “food challenge” followed right after.
Plates of lekor, satar, pulut and 4 big coconuts was placed in front of each team. The challenge was to finish everything within an allocated time frame. I have got no photos to show of the challenge as I was busy stuffing my face together with my team! Let’s hope I’m able to grab some off the official photographer from Gaya Magazine and then I’ll update this post alright! 😀

If you’re ever in the East Coast of Malaysia, the lekor is an absolute must. Here it’s packed with actual fish meat; versus the ones we get back in the west coast (for example in KL) that’s more flour. Besides lekor, the otak-otak  is also different from the ones in Penang, Muar-Johor and Melaka. As you can see in the picture (bottom right) above, there were chunks of fish meat and less paste.

Finally, just before we hit the road, a token was presented to the kind proprietor for the delicious food.

Another hour or so later, we arrived at Pantai Kemasik for our next challenge. I have to say this was an interesting one!

Firstly, our clues weren’t printed and passed to us on a clipboard.

It was instead, rather creatively hidden somewhere in the sand on the beach.

To “unearth” our clues, each team had to send a female team mate to the front.

Can you spot my butt me? 🙂

And why female? It’s because it’s harder for us to burrow through piles of sand to find pieces of paper wrapped in plastic!

We had a hot, sweaty and anxious 25 minutes digging and burrowing through the hot sand looking for our clues. There were supposed to be 25 such papers since there were about 25 teams. But only 3 or 4 teams managed to find theirs. And the whole challenge was only supposed to be 30 minutes in total!

Finally the marshals gave up and asked us to come forth to see HIS paper. We snapped a shot of each question and hurried off to complete the challenge.

CLUES:

No. 1 – Find and snap a picture of this.

No. 2 – Find and snap a picture of the GREEN version. 

No. 3 – Find something to do with TRSxxxx ?? 

No. 4 –  Find this and snap a picture. 

No. 5 – Find this and snap a shot with 2 team mates.

And here’s OUR ANSWERS! In sequence with the clues above of course.

The number on the boats are all TRSxxxx so a shot of a boat will do.

We flunked this one! LOL. Apparently it didn’t quite match what the marshals wanted.

And the last one!

Well we didn’t do too bad right?? 🙂

A short drive away from Pantai Kemasik was Awana Kijal Golf, Beach & Spa Resort. 

2 cultural performances welcomed us at the entrance. I realized by then that at almost every dinner, every hotel and every venue that we went to there were bound to be a cultural performance or 2. I’m supportive of such efforts from the Tourism Ministry as these performances are beneficial for the international media. Come to think of it, that applies even for our local media!

Then cold towels and drinks were offered as we were ushered into the hall for our lunch.
Wonderful! The cold towel was such a soothing blanket against my burning skin. Ahhhh…!

Lunch was good. A live station making roti canai and tosai proven to be most popular.

The lamb, fish, crabs and beef were all delicious!

Sated, all of us hopped into the car for another 2 hours drive to Noor Arfa Batik in Kuala Terengganu where the final challenge of the day awaits.

A crash course about batik-making and a live demo gave participants some insights into the art of batik. It also provided a fleeting idea of what to expect for the challenge afterwards.

Below: A piece of completed (design only) batik ready to be painted.

“It all started from a design,” Adam of Gaya Travel Magazine said.

And the designs are transferred to the cloth via a “wax mould”. Dip this into the hot pot of wax and press it firmly to the cloth. Remove from the cloth and repeat.

Below: The designs of the batik came from the imprints of these motive moulds. A combination of moulds may be used to create intricate and complicated designs. It’s all in the hands of your creativity.

We moved on to the painting phase. Here the cloth is stretched out and carefully hand painted. Again, the clever use of colours turns every piece of batik into unique work of art.

During the tour we passed by a crystal maker.

His detailed work was worth admiring. Each piece is designed by hand and there was a showcase of all his work available for purchase.

Finally we were handed our clipboards for our next challenge.

Me and Joel went for the Batik Painting while Faezah took on the “Anyaman Challenge” – anyamam translated as weaving in English.

The “Anyaman Challenge” entails the participant to weave a braid pattern using the long leaves provided. We left that in the safe hands of Faiezah while me and Joel begun working on our batik masterpiece.

The key was clever use of colours. Only 3 basic colours were provided – red, green and yellow. We are free to mix and create new shades for our batik.

Below: Some of the completed work of fellow participants.

I thought this one was gorgeous.

Here’s ours! What do you think? :DD

The last clue with the picture of hands and a brush was translated as handkerchief in Malay. Brush/sweep = “sapu” – the act of sweeping and hands = tangan. So we headed to the souvenir shop and grabbed a batik handkerchief.

With the last task completed, it’s time for some pictures! Say “hi” to my new found friends! 🙂

By now I have lost track of time. I couldn’t remember how long was the drive to our accommodation of the night – Permai Hotel in Kuala Terengganu. I was just thankful to be able to check-in and shower.

Dinner at Primula Beach Hotel, a brief 10 minutes bus ride away and was hosted by Terengganu Tourism, Culture, Arts & Heritage EXCO. The arrival of the VIP was followed by cultural performances by SUKTRA Terengganu.

A slide presentation of Visit Terengganu Year 2013 was shown and we digested some history, facts and figures of the state of Terengganu along with lamb, roasted chicken, pasta and mee hoon goreng. I can’t remember his name and title (let me get that from the Tourism Ministry later) but he was nice and friendly as he visited every table to shake hands with the participants of the Malaysia Tourism Hunt 2012.

The participants of the hunt are a sporting bunch and at some point of the night, everyone was on stage singing, dancing and clapping. The final program of the night was a group photoshoot with everyone at the stage.

As we mingled throughout the night, I took the opportunity to snap some pictures with my “new” friends! This is Peach from Thailand!

And the very sporting gang from Brunei – Law, Fairol and Bobby. Are all Bruneians as crazy as them? I must visit Brunei to find out! :DD

We overnight @ Permai Hotel and I passed out the moment I hit my bed. Tomorrow we will hit Redang Island and I can’t wait to see for myself the pristine beach and waters Pulau Redang is famed for! Nights folks! 🙂

** Stay tuned to my blog and follow me on twitter – twitter.com/wackybecky and my FB page – www.fb.com/RebeccaSawBlog where I’ll be posting live whenever possible! 🙂

MORE:
Day 1 & 2 of Malaysia Tourism Hunt 2012 – checking in and meeting fellow participants!

Day 3 – Pekan Kuala Kubu and Fraser Hill – the start of the hunt!

Day 4 – Sg Pasu Homestay and do you know there’s a National Elephant Conservation Centre  in Pahang?

Pictures in this post: