Day +1792 : Awana Kijal (1) - The journey

I am fine today.

We supposed to start our journey at 6:30am yesterday but I overslept as I only slept 2:30am in the morning. My wife did wake up early but she didn't wake me up because she would like me, as the driver, to have more rest before embarking on the long journey.

My wife was the trip manager this time as I didn't have a single minute to think about it. My roommate, Kah Kiong, told me that it is very hard to find food around the resort. Having every meals in the resort will definitely incur a big dent in our wallet. So my wife had to plan for the meal in addition to the other needs such as children clothing (in fact mine as well) .

I didn't know exactly how to reach the destination though I heard Richard saying that just follow the path to the Genting Highlands first and then go straight, but after that where should I go was unknown. I did a quick search on the internet in the morning and found out that there was something called East Cost Expressway which extend from the west to the east and looking at it, this must be what Richard was saying.

Without too much worry, I started my journey to Genting Highlands, and then followed the East Cost Expressway until the last exit - Jabur. However, I didn't know which way to go exactly after that. My intuition told me that I should look for Kuala Trengganu sign and followed that path, and indeed I saw one which pointed to Kuala Trengganu and Cheratin. Not long after the turn, I started to worry because there was no Kuala Trengganu road sign anymore, and all I had was something pointing to Chukai. There was no rest stations, houses or shops along the way. The petrol was running low, and there was no u-turn available.

I called a church member who is a contractor and is doing a project in Trengganu. He goes there every week. He told me, after I exit from Jabur, I should take the Kuantan path instead of Kuala Trengganu, and then followed the coastal road to my destination. And worst still, he said that he didn't know Chukai. I called Richard. He was not too sure too. In fact, I had no choice but to press on. After quite a while, I reached a smaller road, and I saw many kampong houses along the way. I stopped and asked. I was very relieved that I was on the right path :-) I was told also that there was a petrol station just a minute drive away.

We reached Chukai at 12:00pm, stumbled onto a Chinese seafood restaurant after a small mistake, and had lunch there. The restaurant owner and his wife are Foochow. It took him about about 45 minutes to serve four dishes that I ordered :-( It was most probably because we were the first customer of the day, and they needed to warm up first. But anyway, they were very friendly and kept on talking to us, initially in Mandarin, and later Foochow.

Chukai is a city in Kemaman district. You can read more about it here and here. Awana Kijal is about 25 minutes drive away.

We reached Awana Kijal 1:30am and the meter read 330km.

The map of East Cost Expressway (click to view a larger one). It is still under heavy construction, and will extend to Kuala Trengganu eventually with exits to Chukai, and Kijal.

Bugs captured while we stopped by a rest station - Daniel and Joseph took this photograph
Kampong road leading to Chukai
Filling up the tank - relax, someone will do it for you :-)
Kampong houses


Canteen on the road side, we almost had lunch here but were driven away by flies - too many of them
Animals beside the canteen


Chukai
The restaurant that we had our lunch

Menu - just in case you need to decide before visiting the restaurant


Parking ticket machine - need to key in the car park slot number.
4 dishes cost RM74.30 including rice and tea - the portion is huge.

Sweet and sour spare rib - RM20
Fried squid - RM20 (easily cost RM30 to RM35 in KL)
Fried egg
Fried kangkong
The owner treat us guava free of charge. She told me apart from doing the restaurant business, she and her husband also maintained an orchard. They went to the orchard before coming the to restaurant every morning.
Reaching Awana Kijal

Apartment - where we stay
To be continued and see you next post :-)