Embracing Beaches in Kuantan

Every time I visit a new place, I always have an urge to roam around, just explore the place no matter how uninteresting a place can be *ehem... Dumbarton.. Ehem...* It has been 3 weeks since I arrived in Kuantan and I have to say this

Kuantan is more awesome than it seems!!! - quote lalanandaFRY

Before coming to Kuantan, I read many online articles and blogs about stuff to do here. I am quite a boring person usually but when I am living alone in this foreign place, I tend to have the motivation to explore it, or at least get a feel of the place. I was chatting with one student doing attachment at the hospital and I found that she wasn't local either. However she has been here for many months now and she introduced several places to visit around.

She mentioned that Kuantan is a coastal town and that everyone visiting should at least reserve time for the many beautiful beaches. At that time, the only famous beach that came to mind from nearby was Cherating because of all the publicity for being the first Club Med in Asia. Little did I know that there were at least 4-5 locations within 10-20 minutes drive away from me. So yesterday I had a spontaneous urge to visit some of those.

This is main road leading to the beach

So my first stop was one of the most popular beaches here, Teluk Cempedak. I assume it is the most well known one because at least I have heard of it *I know I don't know much*. It is actually the most commercialized beach I have seen in Malaysia. Where else do you get McDonald's, KFC, Burger King, Chatime and Tutti Frutti all within walking distance to the beach?

For the hell of it, I had Prosperity Burger at the beach!

Nothing much to say, just a beautiful beach and lots of monkeys!!!

My next stop was Pantai Batu Hitam. I have not heard about this beach before coming to Kuantan but I read about it recently and got me interested. If you know Malay language, you should already know that this is a beach with black rocks, similar to the Black Sand Beach in Langkawi but better. This beach is around 15 minutes drive away from Teluk Cempedak and is the total opposite in terms of commercialization. There were only 2 little traditional Malay restaurants there serving coconut water and simple food. But the interesting part is that I enjoyed it more than Teluk Cempedak, I have no idea why!

The atmosphere was calm and pleasant

There were some people fishing while standing on larger black rocks

With black rocks came black sand, and the sand was very fine and felt very comfortable slipping between my toes. Another thing I enjoyed about this beach was that there were a few Malay families with their children playing with water, flying kites and collecting shells, scenes that I like to capture with my camera.

After spending more than 30 minutes enjoying the breeze and taking photos, I decided to return home, stopping at the Jeti for a short stop for some photos. I was lucky the sky was clear and sunny the whole day although it was cloudy in the morning. Maybe I will visit some other places in Kuantan later... I have lots of opportunities later on!

View from Jeti Shahbandar along Sungai Kuantan

lalanandaFRY
27/1/13