Down memory lane

Last week me and my youngest daughter drove up to Kuala Trengganu.We stayed there for three nights as my daughter had to attend a wedding that took two days consecutively.We started at eleven in the morning from KL and drove leisurely stopping at any place and any time we liked. We stopped for coffee at Petronas gas station in Gambang, after that we stopped at Dungun ,stopped again at Marang and finally we reached KT at about 7pm,checked in the hotel that was prebooked (otherwise you have to sleep in your car if you don't have anyone to tumpang as all the hotel will be fully booked during the weekends and during the holidays).

We had a long eating list to be done ,that is to eat keropok lekor for our breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner, also not to mention nasi dagang , laksam and all the goreng - gorengan thing like sotong goreng ,ikan goreng celup tepung and sata on everyday basis.After all you don't go to KT often.For this I have to check and double check my cholesterol pills,..well..., I don't want to land in hospital bed in a foreign land.

The very next morning we went to Pasar Payang supposedly to cuci mata, but we landed in buying gula kerek ( which is a dying product elsewhere in the country ), cili kering from Yunan ,rempah nasi dagang and other things that catch our imagination.

The dry market is clean (even though the building is old ) and on the first level they are selling all the batiks, songkets ( hand woven as well as machine made ) also barang-barang tembaga and others.Uniquely,most of the merchandise are locally produced and not laden with made in Siam or China things.

Since YAB Dato' Ahmad Said is very persistent in getting royalty money from the government ,I hope some of the money goes to reinventing Pasar Payang,to match the new building across the street.Also various courses for the sellers at Pasar Payang to match the ladies at Pasar Siti Khadijah who are very customer friendly. Some of the sellers in PP were very indifferent , we had to start talking or asking first then will only they start being warm to us.This attitude of 'tak sayang kedai' really exasperate us.But there's no denying that some of them are very friendly and really make us feel most welcome.Anyway we really enjoyed shopping there .

We fell in love with some homemade bread at this particular stall ,but the owner was not there. We waited for a while and then came two men who said they had already waited about half an hour ago.We decided to go elsewhere first and to come back later. My daughter told me that stall must have something good otherwise they won't be waiting that long. Soon after , the owner came with a trolley load of keropok lekor.They told us that keropok lekor is the best in KT. He said he sold fried keropok at his stall in Pulau Kambing,and his customer had to queue up everyday to buy the keropok.We were very excited and told him we will go to his stall to eat keropok goreng. We couldn't find signboard for Pulau Kambing,all we found were signboard for Pulau Duyung. In the end we had to give up the idea.

When buying food always choose the popular stalls. The unpopular ones will bring disaster to you, like for example the food is not tasty, the keropok is tough and extra oily due to being fried repeatedly. So we must be patient if the queue is long. We had this experience of oil splashing on our face when we bit the fried keropok lekor


We enjoyed going to Pantai Batu Buruk , to watch the sunset.I told my daughter that when she was small our family used to stop at BB Beach everytime we balik kampung to Pahang ( we were in Kota Baru for 5 years )and we used to eat at the beach stalls. My daughter was surprised when I told her she used to eat fried icecream here. She couldn't believe icecream goreng already existed in the 80's. But sadly enough she couldn't remember any part of the journey from KB to Rompin ,she said all she could remember was ,there were long journeys. I told her we used to break journeys at significant places like pantai BB,we also used to stopped at Pusat Peranginan Sekayu and we really make the journey balik kampung like an expedition to our children.

I felt so touched when she asked me were they such a nuisance to us during those long journeys. I explained to her that all of them are very precious to us and everything we did were for them ,they were our first priority.She even asked were they good as children. Maybe she thinks it is so tough to be married and to raise small children.Being a carier woman herself she might feel she can't cope with all the responsibilities. Now I understand why she shudders when the topic of marriage crops up.