A Small Potato's Blog: Kuantan Beach-y- Experience

My BB and me went for a breakaway at Kuantan Beaches recently. The experience was definitely indescribable by only words as going to anywhere with your loves one is a heaven, not only that, we had a great relaxing time and great dining. Albeit this is not the best hotel we ever stayed, not the greatest meal we ever had… though it’s still a good and memorable experience worth a talk here.

We chosen Swiss Garden Resort and Spa Kuantan for our trip’s accommodation as we do not want to spend lavishly for this trip. Though it’s not as high standard as the Hyatt or the Cherating’s resorts… Its still way above average with warmth hospitality, friendly and helpful staff (Mostly), great scenery, comfortable suite rooms equip with amenities. Swiss Garden Resort and Spa is located on the Balok Beach which is about 11 meters from the town center. How can I be so accurate? It’s a reading from a GPS!!! Hahahahaha

The place we are going to spend our lovely days

The hotel lobby surrounded by pool of water.

BB picked me in the late morning and we drove down to Kuantan… The drive took us about 3 hrs. Being excited over our getaway… I’m like a curious kid looking left and right for new interesting things, asking dumb questions as I always did, have a great chat with BB on everything…. You know what, I truly think a couple needs no hide between each other and should talk about anything… Our car drove from my familiar KL riding into the highways with no special scenery… We stop by at R & R station at half way…. Oh!!!! I forgot the place!! I’m just not a long distance driver!!!! Bought mineral water… I got tons of mumbling when I only bought a 500ml of mineral water for both of us earlier at the petrol kiosk… After a short rest, we continue our journey again….

About an hour later, we drove out of the boring highways and ventures into Kuantan… I guess, I don’t exactly know where are we… Just out of the Highway lah…. Following all the instruction from GPS to get to our destination… Passing fields, Kampong houses, palm tree farms, turn out from a single tricky junction and we are at the town area… amazing!!!! One things need to share about is the soil in Kuantan are red! Tanah Merah!!! Its many times darker than what we see in KL in construction sites..

We turned at the junction heading to our resort, The pristine shoreline is just along the right side of the road… me trying hard to catch a good shot of the scenery but fail miserably… at last, me cam whoring for self entertainment!!

Reached the Resort at about 3pm… The carpark is so packed and full with rich man’s car start with alphabet W & B on their car plate…. We soon got to know that Petronas has booked this Resort for their function!! We have to check in at another room as ours is the prepaid internet booking.. We were served a welcome drink while waiting for the checking in procedure. No bellboy send us to our room, we went there by ourselves!!!!! Our sea view deluxe room is on the highest floor. The 4^th floor… There are 3 types of rooms here. Garden view (Car park view actually), sea view (Swimming pool view actually) and the suite (ah ha…. This one is really sea view)… Our room wasn’t bad at all… with a small balcony overlooking the pool and a little of beach far away~!!!! Bathroom are adequate, with bathtub… a king size bed good enough for both of us and most importantly, with WIFI in room FOC…

Seaview from my room balcony

Zoomed in to the beach.. The beautiful sight of the Balok Beach

The actual -more- to- pool- view

Candid shot 1

Candid shot 2

It’s neither here nor there for lunch or dinner… so we decide to have our lunch this way at the balcony!

After a rest, we go out to explore the resort.. The garden terrace restaurant is doing some setting up for the dinner function for the Petronas team at the poolside. We walk pass the noisy swimming pool to the beach. Arrays of water sport activities are available here too… a romantic walk on the beach feeling the sandy beach under your feet and enjoying the refreshing sea breeze is a must, there are kite surfing, windsurfing, jet skiing, banana boats and also a paint ball field!!!

We toke a short walk on the sandy beach, drown ourselves in the beauty of the natures… watching little crabs sneaking from one to another little holes… so fun!! I love this kind of relaxing feeling where all trouble is temporary thrown away… we can laugh at each other for doing silly things…

Beach heaven

Me self-entertaining at beach while bb walking around surveying water sports.

soft sandy beach

BB, I wanna play this also!!!!

We can bear our hunger no more and decide to go for seafood. A recommendation from my sis is the Pak Su seafood Restaurant. It’s not far from our hotel and it’s just located next to the shore. Good food and nice view… we’ll definitely give it a try.

Pak Su Restaurant - It looks nice environment, but it cause bad stomach for my BB

The time is still too early for dinner, thus the restaurant is very empty, there’s only one table besides us. We ordered the signature dish, the stuff crab, oysters, deep fried squid ring, venison, Kam Heong spice crab and a fried vegetable. That’s a lot for 2 person’s portion!!! And we almost finish it. The food tastes ok, but there are a lot of unwanted guest hoping to share a piece of our food! Flies!!! Big fat flies with shinning black body!!!! Ewwwwwww!!!! End up my BB got diarrhea for the whole night!!! We will definitely not going back there anymore!!!!

We manage to catch the sun set during the dinner and decided to go to the Berjaya Mall for a walk. We initially wanted to watch a movie together, but Kuantan cinema is only showing limited choices of movie, and 3 out of 5 is malay movie~~~~~ Berjaya Mall is small… something like our IOI mall… with a Parkson departmental store, a rows of box karaoke, amusement center for the kids and teen, and shops… The way heading to the carparks are really curvy, we have to turn and turn and turn till you drowsy before you reach the carpark… We at last went to shop for some alcohols at Cold storage. We bought a bottle of rose wine.. While choosing the rose wine, BB has already paying attention bottles without wine cock while me only busy seeing countries of origin for the wines… me dumb dumb!!! As we didn’t manage to get only the cuttlefish tentacles, we went to 7 11 to buy all the Ken Ken cuttlefish…

Have a look at this… I have been laughing non-stop for the funny packaging of this cuttlefish… “Chewing gum of the Orientals????” The Chinese wording meaning shredded cuttlefish, but its in a piece and there are more funny terms at the back…. Hahahahaha… We bought 10 packet of this and BB finish it all by himself that night.

BB was complaining he is having a bad stomach and we have to get back to the hotel. BB is having diarrhea the whole night because of the unclean food from Pak Su and also the big fat flies… Thanks to them for ruining our first day of Honeymoon. My Baby is just so pity!!! And tonight I learned than tea can cure bad stomach…. Me while waiting for BB has fallen asleep and with a super bad stomach, he finishes all the 10 packets of cuttlefish… How can you do that huh??? When I wake up in the mid night, he is putting the last piece of cuttlefish into his mouth, without even wanna share with me…L

We both lazy pigs of course miss the sunrise the next morning… after some loitering, we went to the Terrace restaurant for buffet breakfast. Variety of food is very less here and replenishment is very very slow. Also short of a lot of cutlery… The scenario here makes me few like a whole bunch of refugee is grabbing for food!!!! Terrible!!!! And, here also a lot of flies!!!!! Every meal we had here we have to share it with the flies!!!!

We go for a short walk again at the beach for some morning refreshing sea breeze… Me keep on bugging BB to buy a kite and play with me!!!

The sand made PENYU has been there everytime we go to the beach.

After the walk we went out to the town again… We have a mission.. We have to buy the cuttlefish tentacles and a kite!!!! Yay!!! Not too far after going out from hotel, we saw a shops selling salted fish… we went there and manage to get our cuttlefish tentacles…. The whole packet is only the sotong head and their tentacles… I love it… I tried to chew the cuttlefish and drinks kiwi juice at the same time.. it feels really yucky!!! Don’t try that ok…. But I still love the cuttlefish.

Oh… I spotted an attention catching things here… There’s a Warong here called the Mumbai Tom Yam, best in Kuantan!! What is Mumbai gotta do with Tom Yam huh?

After we got all the dried and salted foods, we then drove to Telok Chempedak… Telok Chempedak is a nice beach and the Grand Hyatt resort is located here… A big piece of painting like scenery with light blue skies, shinning bluish sea and white sandy beach is just in front of our eyesight… We did romantic things here… we bought ice cream to eat and walk along the beaches… But romantic things come out the other way round in reality with my messy melting and dripping Mcdonald ice-cream and the “slurp slurp” sound I made licking on it!!!! Hahahahahah

We also walk along the pathway at the end of the beach for some greenery scene.. walk in a small jungle, seeing trees, rocks, little fishes…. You know, either me and BB are not this kind of nature trekking person who can walk under the hot sun and sweat like pig for seeing sea and trees… But we did it together this time… Thanks BB!!! The experience is real good.

Wow..... so beautiful beach

My bb took this photo for me!!!

We then bough a small colorful kite here for us to play later… After that we pass through an unattended golf course and the hotel staff actually recommended this place for golf… next to it is the Mini Zoo of Kuantan… I wanna go see animal~~ oh!!! Got bears at the sign board! I wanna see bears… I wanna see bears!!!! BB of course tolerate with my unreasonable request to visit the zoo!!! Its my BB first time going to Zoo and my second time after the first time picnic with my family at Zoo Negara when I aged 3!!! There is this stray monkey running around, untied in the zoo…. So scary, what if it attacks me?? Grab my stuff??? You better stay away from me far, Boo Boo (Nick name I use for monkey since I was a kid)…. My camera and Gucci bag both worth more than a thousand!!!

No bears here… disappointed… There’s only Ostrich.. Very big one… an otter that turn around non stop like a clock, lazy python, gibbons, peacocks and wood pecker…the weather is sooooo hot we can’t stand it… its not that we are from a colder place or what.. but me, the only moment I normally spend under the sun is only crossing road.. The rest of the time I’m either in car, home, office or shopping, all air condition environments!!!

The busy otter

Dunno what bird, so fierce looking

Ostriches

Pity looking Gibbons... dun look at me like that.... i can't rescue you out!

We then drove to the East Coast Mall… a newly open and largest mall in Kuantan… This mall is not too bad, with a Carrefour and most international brands outlet here… There’s a MNG outlet here… so far I only know 2, 1 in Genting First World shopping arcade and the other one is here… MNG clothing here is at least 50% cheaper.. but of course its not new arrival products… Why can’t they have one in KL???? I can guarantee good business if they have it in KL…………….

We then stop at Sushi King for lunch… ordered some sushi, shishamo, grill ika… all not nice!!!!! Then have a leisure walk in the mall… Before leaving, BB decided to have a caffeine drinks at Black Canyon Coffee…. He had a coffee while I am too full for any dairy drinks… I order a lemon juice instead.. And we share a fried chicken wing…And in this big mall, we can’t even find a single shop selling cigarettes… my bb stock is running out!!!!

We then drove back to the hotel and rest till evening and we go out again for our kite surfing session… It’s very windy and almost going to rain… The wind is just too strong to play a kite and we only manage to fly it awhile… even the string break!!! BB so pity, have to chase the kite back for me…. Me just like a small kid…

Since we can’t play the kite, we stop at the Parrot Bar for a chill out… Parrot Bar is under the canopy of the lush tree providing you a very cozy yet close to nature environment. The beachboy bar tender told us it signalize rain’s coming when the sea is turning to grayish.. when good weather, its blue sea…. We drink beer and chat with the beachboy, over looking people enjoying their sea sport, sheltering at the tents when rain comes, when the strong wind blow and rang the chime… its sounds a really fantastic melody….

We enjoy our drink at the Parrot bar

Grey skies and grey sea signalize rain's coming

The wind blowing on the chime hang on Parrot Bar Ceiling

We walk back to the room and eat our cuttlefish and watching tv

I made a little special surprise for BB tonight… I prepare a romantic rose petal bubble bath for him… but before he even get a chance to enjoy my brilliant romantic idea, I cam whoring with it first!!!

My naughty idea preparation

We get dressed up for dinner; we at last chose to dine at The Blossom Chinese Restaurant at the resort. The restaurant is full house and we need to wait till the next guest leave, but the receptionist is helpful enough she informed us immediately when there’s table available. The Blossom do served steamboat dinner and buffet dinner for only RM39++ per person… I am not so sure how the buffet is served, should be order from the menu and they serve it for you… and a lot of variety also… We go for the ala Carte menu… I leave the decision for bb and he get us a lavish dinner for the night!!!

He ordered a bowl of shark fins for our sharing, abalone cook in oyster sauce, roast duck and my favorite, Fried asparagus!!! We both had a wonderful meal here of the tasty food, the warmth hospitality of this particular waitress, I didn’t get her name, but she’s the only Chinese woman working there… It seems like she is the only one working, running in and out taking orders, checking if the customers are alright, replenishing teas, socializing, but the rest just staring at the entrance… She is really helpful and frankly speaking, I think kudos should be given for her care and passion in her work…

Drooling seeing our lavish dinner????

We had a great dine that night even though I keep on interrupting BB when he wanted to eat to snap these make you drooling pictures. Sorry BB!!! We then spend our full night drinking our wines and alcohol at the balcony and had a very very heartful chat… I was drunk that night and I am still curious about what did I do to you that night BB!! Cause you’ve been smiling to me mysteriously for many days…..

The next morning, we wake up reluctantly for our breakfast at The Garden Terrace again… and worst still is there are more refugees grabbing for food… as we saw a big 2 buses carrying students from Singapore for their school holiday trips and too we spotted a rows of BMW’s superbike park right outside the entrance of the hotel last night… They must be a gang of them having some functions here….

We then have to make a full stop to our trip at Kuantan and pack our luggage to leave the hotels… Of course we do understand we have to back to reality after a few days in heaven… just reluctant lah!!!

There is this signboard at the lift lobby, no durians and mangoesteen… but why mangosteen is prohibited???

There are a lot of 7 11 in Kuantan… we at least see more than 20 of them in different location during our 3 days here…. and a lot of pharmacies tooo

The feeling of going back home is of course less the excitement and anxiety and after a while, I fell asleep… BB says my head swing left and right when I sleep!!! Hahahaha…

BB bring me to Karak town for a nice lunch… We drove to the Yik Kee Restaurant in Karak New Village…

Yik Kee is a family maintained restaurant… the ambience for this restaurant is so antique… remember when we were kids… They sell sweets at the cashier counter in bottle?? And the goldfish brand kopitiam chair… so miss my childhood time!!!!

BB ordered a big prawn noodle for both of us… this noodle is sooooo tasty…