Terengganu Darul Iman

Hah. after bringing you all forward for the last 2 post, let's backtrack a little to the point where I was in Kuala Terengganu after my more more teeing adventure in Redang.


27-28 July - Kuala Terengganu, the capital city of Terengganu. If you follow closely with my blog, you would have noticed that I came back and forth to KT a few times in between my trips to Tanjong Jara, Pulau Redang and now I am back to do some real sightseeing in the richest state of Malaysia.

Being declared as a city in January 2008, KT to me was one of the "nicest" cities I have ever set foot on in Malaysia. Nice not in terms of people or culture but infrastructure. As Terengganu is the only state in Peninsular Malaysia that has oil reserves, they have all the money in the world to spend. And they have really spend a lot in making "Nice" stuff. The domestic airport which only has flight to and fro Kuala Lumpur is one such example of elaborate spending.

As I was saying, I met Han He in Pulau Redang who coincidentally will be spending a few nights in a friend's house in KT and he has invited me to go sightseeing with him in Terengganu town and the best of all, he has a car to do all that. How cool is dat? So upon checking in to my dorm, he came to pick me up at the guesthouse. Our first stop, Taman Tamadun Islam (Islamic Civilization Park) and the Crystal Mosque. The 300 million ringgit project which comprises of an Islamic civilization theme park and a real mosque is situated on a man-maid island called Pulau Wan Man (Wan Man Island) in the huge Terengganu River.

All over KT town you will see advertisement of this so called man-made wonder initiated by our current Prime Minister as it's the latest addition to Visit Terengganu Year 2008. Upon reaching, we visited the crystal mosque, but to my disappointment, the mosque was just a small mosque that is made by glass panel despite having the name of a Crystal Mosque. Not many muslims uses this mosque for prayers though but you will see truckloads of school children visiting this place.

Next, we paid RM10 to enter the 3/4 done Islamic Civilization Edutainment Theme Park. As the name suggest, this theme park is actually made up of 21 small sized replicas of famous and influential mosque around the world. 4 out of the 21 has a small theater which explains its importance to the Islamic civilization through video but it's only available in Malay. We rented a bicycle to cycle around the park because it's just too hot to walk around as the park has no covered walkways and trees. Overall the place is not a bad place to visit if you are in town but the 300 million ringgit price tag it has is definitely too much.

Then we drove to Pulau Duyong, about 10 minutes away from Pulau Wan Man. This island is home to the HeritageBay marina and resort which currently only holds the Monsoon Cup, a 5 day international sailing competition that takes place in November every year. For that, Malaysian government has again spent over 300 million ringgit since 2005. Since it's not the monsoon season yet, the resort and marina was almost completely deserted when we arrive. It's sad to see how much taxpayers money has been dumped onto elaborate projects such as these by our dearest government that do not benefit the public at all.

Our last stop of the day was the museum, unfortunately we arrived too late and it was already closed by the time we reach. Han He fetched me back to my guesthouse and after bidding farewell to him, I ventured alone to the waterfront city and Chinatown of KT about 15 minutes walk from where I stayed. The waterfront is nice to explore in the evenings as you can see amazing sunset. It's also interesting to notice that even though the modern bridges have been built across the Terengganu river, many locals still choose to travel by river taxis at the waterfront.

I would like to thank Han He for everything. If not for him, I would not have see Terengganu as much as I would like to. It's meeting people like him that makes my whole journey worthwhile.