Monday, April 5, 2010

Small Town Pahang, Stesen Keretapi, Holiday and Me, Dec 12-15, 2009 - Day 3

It was drizzling when I woke up on the second morning. Still, knowing that the rain would be intermittent I decided to go for a ride. I rolled off out of the resort at almost the same time as yesterday. I turned left also just like yesterday but I have no intention of cycling to TC. Instead I wanted to explore the inner life of Kg Balok. As soon I got to the junction pointing to the most promising route I entered and started cycling inwards. The rain got a little bit heavy for awhile and stopped as I cycled further in. Judging from the position of the kampung road I deduced that it was parallel with the main road going further up east. My mental calculation of the distance and direction was indicating to me that I would ended at Balok town itself and I was right. The route was not that difficult and I cycled at a medium pace. As much as I was trying to avoid the rain I was also trying very hard to explore and enjoy the kampung. It was not really a kampung like it once was. Instead of the old stilt kampung houses now many of the houses are modern exclusive bungalows or houses built, obviously, and owned by outsiders. I used to remember as well that part of Balok was actually a low wetland which now being reclaimed for the obvious reason. Once I reached Balok town I decided to turn back and use the Balok beach road going back.

It started to rain again when I was admiring Balok beach I cycled back to the Balok beach recreation centre office to take shelter there. When I explored the place I realised that it was a place where Azmi had his camping retreat recently and instantaneously gave me an idea. So I looked around to gather as much information as possible about the place. It was suitable for our Putra Terrace outing. Once the rain stopped I got on my bike and cycled back to the resort.

Once in the room no one is committed of anything to do. My lovely wife was still in the midst of her record breaking feat, Mar was her usual energetic self, and kakak and kakcik asleep. So I decided to take a nap before we check out.

The night before I decided to stay another night in Kuantan and of course we had to find another place to stay. Since I did not want to go far I decided to check the availability of rooms at the resorts exactly next to Duta Village. We were lucky there was actually a family room for us available at Swiss-Garden. So after we checked out of Duta Village we just lingered around Balok before we checked in again at Swiss-Garden. We have stayed there before so we knew what to expect.

Once in the room once again nobody wants to go anywhere so we just stayed in either sleeping or reading. Later Kakcik and Mar decided to hit the pool. When I woke up from my nap I decided to join them. As planned, for dinner, we went to visit my cousin. Frankly, thinking about it our third day in Kuantan was because I just did not wish to go home yet. Back from my cousin’s place we just hit the sacks. We checked out the next day thinking it would be just it would be a straight forward thing.

When I drove the car to the lobby to pick up everyone and our luggage I daughter exclaimed to me as I got down, ‘ Abah tayar pancit!’. Well, another thing to dela with. I put on my glove and changed the tayar he he he. Then stopped at the first tyre shop the we came to and had the puncture fixed. Because of that we decided to go to Tg Lumpur to have our lunch at the same palce we had out evening tea the day before.

Two and a half hours later we were safely home. He he he while they were sleeping I floored the accelerator.

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