Tour of Duty: Kota Bharu

So, if you’ve been following me on Twitter, you would have known that I’ve just returned from the far north of Peninsular Malaysia, in a town called Kota Bharu, the capital city of the Malaysian state of Kelantan.

It would be my first time in Kelantan so you know how it is always exciting to come to a new place for the first time. Getting to Kota Bharu had proved to be not an easy task as I had to go through an 8-hours long drive, probably the longest road trip that I had even been on in the Malaysian Peninsular thus far. There are a few options of routes to Kota Bharu from KL and based on recommendations from some Kelantanese friends, I took the shortest one – the one that would take me through the ever famous district of Gua Musang.

Driving across the middle of Peninsular was such an eye-opening experience. It really was like getting to know Malaysia better and I had to tell myself again and again that this country really is blessed with beautiful countryside.

Gua Musang is probably one of the most mentioned places in Kelantan may be because of its location which is quite far from other towns in Malaysia. IT is such a place that inflicts distress and uneasiness among teachers and Government officers may be because the idea of being posted here and live their everyday life away from the rest of the world is too much to bear.

Gua Musang Railway Station

But of course now that it is well-connected with Kota Bharu to the north and and KL down South, Gua Musang has since lost its fear-inflicting power. In fact, the existence of so many hotels and motels are quite evident to the fact that many people come here nowadays to celebrate its beautiful and peculiar natural landscapes.

So, I arrived in Kota Bharu when it was already dark and the silence of the city struck me as odd as I drove around to look for a place to settle in at least for the night. Then solution came in the form of Tune Hotel and I suddenly realized how I missed the feel of being a traveler – only this time as a domestic traveler instead of a foreign one.

I can’t quite let how the fact that Kota Bharu is so different from what I had heard about go unmentioned.  Being known for its political background and strict Islamic Law, I had expected Kota Bharu to be so Islamic where people don’t wear anything that reveals more than their ankles or something. Oh well, of course I had thought it wrong.

I would say Kota Bharu by its looks is already so modern and so are the people to say the least.If the level of modernization of a city is gauged by the existence of tall buildings, I don’t think it is quite the case here in Kota Bharu where the land is so flat and they are plenty of spaces for new buildings without jeopardizing the city landscape with towering structures (which I’m not a big fan of) and all.

So, there are certainly so many things to write about Kota Bharu and Kelantan as a whole. For one it is so good to see a different side that gives more color to the country. I mean, you come to Penang and Kuala Lumpur and Malacca and Singapore (and most probably Ipoh) and you’ll see how they are so similar at least ‘culchineseturally’. Here,  for instance, you don’t expect to see girls in tight dresses and mini-skirts at Ladies Nights. 😀

Thanks to the strong influence from the neighboring country Thailand, the foods here are also so different from what we regularly see in the menus at restaurants and food stalls in Penang/KL/Malacca/Singapore/Ipoh. I wouldn’t say that they are the exact copycat of what they have in Thailand because I’ve come to find out that Kelantan really is truly unique in their own cuisines.

I had my very first taste of Nasi Kerabu on my very first morning in Kota Bharu and I instantly liked it so much so that it had suddenly become my regular food for breakfast there.

I had my first dish of Thai Salad (Som Tam) when I visited Bangkok for the first time back in 1998. I almost forgot how much I liked it until I returned to Bangkok 3 years later. I had no idea when I was going to Bangkok again so I was so sure it’d take awhile before I’d get to eat Som Tam again – or so I thought. Who would have thought that I’d find it in Kota Bharu?

Gosh – I can easily get enough of any food – ANY food at all – but Som Tam is the kind that I’d LOVE to have on my dinner table every day. If only it wasn’t bad for my gastric. 🙁

If there was one single town in Malaysia that you’d probably expect to see the least of Chinese in its local community, rest is assured for you because Kota Bharu is not really spared from ‘em. 😀

Don’t get me wrong. While I am a big fan of Malay-Thai food despite its halalness and all but I don’t think I can go through weeks or even days without feeding my mouth and stomach with something Chinese. Good news is, there’s always a place for Chinese food in town.

Heard they do serve beer here but the fact that I was there on a job-related task  kinda hindered me from pursuing it. It was my good-boy time you know.. 😛

You know how cuisine enthusiasts in Malaysia and Singapore have been arguing whether it was Penang who copied the foods from Singapore, or whether Singapore copied it’s Chicken Rice from Ipoh or vice versa, I think Kelantan is quite safe from all the food fact disputes.

Guo Chap - A Must try in KB

Even at food stalls you’d see all kinds of 3-in-1 packets and I have to say I’ve never even seen half of them – let alone TASTED them so couldn’t help but getting into a tasting frenzy while I was there.

While I enjoyed being foodie all throughout my stay there, I gotta tell you that beverages in Kota Bharu can be so sweet and sugary it is quite likely that you’d get diabetes if you stayed there for too long – unless of course you know how to order ‘em.

You gotta tell the waiter how serious you are about putting less sugar in your drink because they seem to have a problem understanding HOW LESS IS LESS. I’d usually mention ‘kurang kurang kurang manis’ every time I ordered my drink and they still come up with something so sugary I’d have to pour some more water into it. GRRRRR.

On Duty - together with 5 others

I gotta tell you that it applies not only to drinks but also their local pastries and cakes. Kelantan can pretty much suffocate you with their variety of local pastries and cakes and most of them I was quite unfamiliar with but there seems to be a problem with them – you know they are (overly) sweet and sugary even before you take a bite.

Years of being ruled under the ‘highly Islamic’ PAS has probably changed the people of Kelantan at least in the way they hold on to their Kelantanese sentiment. People have the perspective that they are so enclosed within their own territorial society that they tend to keep a distance from people from other states.

Or that was what I had thought before I went there and again I was WRONG – apparently. While it is true that they have their own language (I wouldn’t say ‘slang’ because they really have their own words), I had come to find out that they were some of the most welcoming people that I’ve ever come across with.

The idea of having somebody from as far as Sabah seems to excite them a zillion times more than it does knowing that they’ve got somebody from Thailand living in their very neighborhood. It’s always good to see their faces brighten every time I tell them that I’m from Sabah although there was one time when a pakcik asked “When did you come to Malaysia?”. LOL. Of course he later apologized when he realized something was not right with his question. I don’t think they should take the blame especially now that they don’t really watch any of those National TVs.

Being an outsider who had the privilege of spending a week or so in Kelantan, some of the locals seemed so eager to know what I thought of Kelantan now that I was there. Oh well, for one, most if not all the things that I had heard about Kelantan were wrong – or at least distorted in one way or another.

They do have churches in Kota Bharu after all

And despite people’s belief that all means of entertainment are DEAD in Kota Bharu, they do actually have Karaokes there. You’ll just have to know where to find them or rather – know the right person who knows where to find them. 😀Just like what a pakcik told me when I asked whether he had ever hoped that Kelantan had more development that it has already had.. “Development? What development?” and he was right. Kelantan for me has pretty much got it all– Visit-worthy places of attractions, crazily HUGE bazaars and shopping areas, pot-bellying food, beautiful town and countryside and most importantly it has some of the most wonderful people that any one could ever meet. ^_^