On Kuala Terengganu in a day

I've never thought I would step foot in the capital city of Terengganu. I've never even thought of going to the east coast before. But somehow by fate, I did pay that city a visit in May. It's not a big city, the Chinese population is so minute that, I think they just occupy the Chinatown, which is like, just one street as compared to the entire city.

So, somehow, birds of the same feather flock together, and we spent our morning hiking through the Chinatown. There are some degree of upgrading the city for tourism purposes I suppose, after all, not many would even stay overnight other than to have some business meetings here, or as a dropover to some of the islands offshore.

But the only Chinese temple we came across in the city is quite pretty. I presume restoration were done. Or not. But the carvings are pretty amazing.

After some light breakfast, we walked through the market. It was pretty busy. Locals doing their groceries while we were just passing through. Local products such as keropok lekor are in abundant. But it shocked me that the turtle eggs were sold in the market! To my horror! It's supposed to be protected?! How could the local government not do anything about it when they themselves know this illegal trade is happening there?? Speaking of Malaysia Boleh huh? Apa-apa pun boleh. *sobs*

We headed to another white elephant facing the waterfront after we came out from the market. I said it's a white elephant because none of the stalls are operating. And basically the whole building were just sitting there serving no purpose other than to impress tourists like us. We climbed up the mountain in curiousity wondering what the fort would look like on top of the hill, only to find ourselves disappointed with just a big bell, a few cannon, and a light tower. Fine, it has some historical value to the city.

Upon coming down from the hill, we walked around the foot of the hill to where the palace is located. I can't really remember which palace this is to the Sultan, but it was kept pretty cleanly. How could it not right?

Opposite the palace, the government spent quite some funds building a big waterfront square. It was as dead as it is, no funfairs, no hawker stalls, no nothing. But it was after all, a Friday. Lazy weekends perhaps? But there were some boat racers practicing alright. It would be quite a nice place to hang out in the late evening I'm sure.

I look at Terengganu as a state where Muslims predominants. So mosques are all over the place. The state government invested in building a park somewhere further outskirt of the city, with miniature mosques from all over the world. So yes, miniature mosques where all the nabis were or whatever the names are, you could quite certainly see them in the park. Just that we decided against spending that amount of entrance fee to enter the mosques park when there's this Crystal Mosque just opposite.

The entire mosque is built of glass. With the reflection of the sunlight, it's no wonder they named it the Crystal Mosque. Or perhaps, it was supposed to do so to fit the name... Hmmm...

Lastly, how could a visit to Kuala Terengganu be complete if we don't pay a visit to the floating mosque right? It was a Friday alright, so mass prayers was in suit. But we managed to get some pretty reflective capture of the mosque under the burning weather. Nice.

But all in all, I'd say it's a peaceful city. Many of those who came from the east coast claimed that racial integrity is far much stronger as compared to the west coast. I couldn't agree more.