We are back. (obviously) For what I thot should be an ez going trip and something that should end mid afternoon, today had been certainly an energy sapping, "make your leg in need of a massage" day. I think partly due to the HOT sizzling weather (at kukup), and also the demands on our leg power for the walkabout. Some people were rather weak in that department and kept complaining about tiring and want to faint and cannot walk. Hng.
We started around 7:15AM, meeting at our standard meetup point. Jane reported sick and Shan couldn't make it as well. So, it was left with four of us to hit the road. GG was a little late, and when he arrived, we admired his new shiny rims and sped off to the custom without much of a Jam. The causeway was sort of jam at the earlier stretch, but that was due to buses blocking the roads, making the way to the checkpoint effectively on 2 lanes. But passing that point (of the butt of the blocking bus), it was quite fast as the queues were short.
We did our usual breakfast at Danga Bay, stuffing ourselves on Nasi Lemak. GG had a special menu that he tapaoed from Singapore. We all "WAH" and thought in our hearts that the next trip, will get him to tapao for us as well. This is GG first overseas outing with us, and he brought along his other better half of his ghost. We did some rounds of intro and a little chit chat.
We reached Kukup around 10+am very smoothly but the weather at this time was scorching hot. I was tempted to strip to my trunks but with the ghosts around, better not. Didn't want them to see my Dragon tatto on my back. First thing to do was to do the visit to fish farm/National Park thingy. Boat came and ferried us to the National Park. From there, we had to pay RM10 for each adult, and RM5 for children. Since our "act like Malaysian" attempt was not successful, no discount for us.
From the entrance, it was a 600m walk down the boardwalk through the mangrove. First, we walked through the suspension bridge and everyone had to walk the plank, "captain jack sparrow" style. From there , there were various stops for observation of some silly crabs and telescopic snails (not kidding), mud slinging skippers and motherly monkeys. Reaching the end was an observation post. But some people didn't take their tongkat ali and couldn't make it climbing up the 5 floors of the tower. From there, the view as airy and nice, although, it was mostly views of tree tops and more tree tops in various shades of green.
After that, back to the jetty to wait for the boat to head for the fish farm. Not sure why, but today seemed like school holiday and the place was very packed. (hey, it IS school holidays...). So the boat was like 5x overloaded and we had to hang on to the front railings, with the salty sea water spraying on to our faces, alla titanic style. At the fish farm, due to the crowd, the tour was rather short and uninspiring. The archer fishes were in a bad mood and didn't want to do "kill" any dried ikan bilis on the planks.. Some more showing of a dog shark, king crab, spider crab, grouper etc.. and then back to the boat to Kukup town. GG by then was famished and we went for a simple seafood lunch at the restaurant there. We all did some guessing on the cost of the lunch and to my surprise, it was quite cheap. around RM80 for about 10 of us.
It was then shopping time and we picked up quite a bit of kukup goodies and munchies and also tried the famous Kukup Jelly, free gift from 7. After some rest, we decided to head for Tanjong Piai. Although I had not driven there before, the way was quite simple from the road signs. The road started to be more uneven, pot holey and less maintained and we drove past some huge banana plantation. Boy, I am sure that this place will be very spooky at night. (night trip here anyone?)
Reaching Tanjong Piai, there was carpark fee of RM2. Mrs cat bought tickets for all with her fluent malay and we managed to get by by paying only RM5 for each adults, the fare for Malaysians. (Non Malaysians should have to pay RM10). We took some pics of the large rock and proceeded in to walk down the jetty. The place here was rather breezy and so the heat wasn't so bad. At te end of the Jetty, we saw a banded sea snake waving at us. After some rest for our legs, we walked the rest of te boardwalk to the true southernest point. The park had erected a giant globe to mark the location. GG did some checking with his GPS device and nodded his head in approval. From that place, we could actually see Singapore Tuas side, with all the flame spewing pollution pipes from the industrial area. My phone went a little hay wire and kept receiving promo messages from Indonesia and Starhub. We walked back to the .Info counter, had a rest and toilet break. A naughtly monkey came by and frighten the hell of anyone. I thought of using my Kung Fu but better not. Maybe Monkey got flu...I didn't want to be the first to get Monkey flu.
Moving out, we headed for Perling to meet up with Vita for dinner. The way back was quite tricky and I almost got lost. Good thing that GG had a good memory and was able to tell that we were going the wrong way. After some bad-tracking, we found our way back to the road to JB. The weather towards JB suddenly looked very dark with lightning flashes and all. True enough, it began to rain shortly and it was to continue until quite a heavy downpour. The sudden cool weather was quite a respite from the heat, but driving became more difficult and we had to drive slowly to perling amidst all the heavier traffic and splashing flood waters.
Luckily we managed to get to Perling unharmed (hey, I am raincat you know) but arrived there quite late. Poor vita had been waiting like 2 hours. We met up and went for a better dinner at a posh looking restaurant. Food was quite delectable and we had a good meal with Vita's mother who was there with us. After that, some shopping at Perling Mall and gu ni hoon and off we go to head back to Singapore.
But strangely, the way back was rather jammed today, even via 2nd link. The queue was quite long at the malaysian custom and then after that, at the Singapore custom. Heard that Vita got into a slight accident at the malaysian end, but not sure what happened as we were not together anymore. Hopefully it wasn't anything serious.
So, quite a good eventful trip. Too bad quite a few of you guys missed it. No chance for fishing, but Tanjong Piai seemed to allow people to fish. (Saw someone with a fishing rod). Since the seafood was quite cheap, we might be back there again. After we all recovered from our aching leg muscles.
