My Little Princess and Prince: 2025

While on our way from Pekan towards Mersing, the road was briefly blocked by a herd of cows crossing the road. Earlier I mentioned that I did not get to see any cow roaming around Dungun town. Never did I expect to see them during this drive.

As it's getting late and raining, we did not stopped at Mersing as originally planned. We pushed on so that we could get to JB soon.

At around 7pm, we finally arrived at AEON Tebrau City in JB, where we had our dinner.

We were monitoring the traffic condition at the custom through an app and around 9pm, we thought the traffic is slowly reducing and it's a right time to make a move. However, as we approached the custom, there was still a long queue of cars. To make thing worse, we were "sabotaged" by Google map who led us to a road that was blocked. Quite chaotic and took us about 3 hours to clear both MY and SG customs. We should have stayed in JB for a night and returned to SG the next day.

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14 Dec 2025 - Muzium Sultan Abu Bakar

Nex to Kafe Belibis is another museum, Muzium Sultan Abu Bakar. It is more than just a museum, it is the cultural and historical soul of the royal town.

Named after Sultan Abu Bakar, the first Sultan of modern Pahang, the museum reflects the importance of Pekan as the royal capital. The building itself is impressive. It is large, symmetrical, and dignified, surrounded by well-kept grounds that immediately signal its importance.

We did enter this museum as we still needed to go on a long drive back to JB. We walked around the huge outdoor area of the museum where there are display of some military vehicles.

Across a river, we saw an interesting ship-like structure. After a quick google check, it is a Maritime Museum. However, we did not pay it a visit as we really needed to get back on the road to continue our long drive.

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14 Dec 2025 - Muzium Masjid Sultan Abdullah

Across a canal from Kafe Belibis, we saw a beautiful mosque and decided to walk over to have a closer look. Tucked within the serene royal town of Pekan, Pahang, Muzium Masjid Sultan Abdullah is a place where spirituality and history quietly intertwine.

More than just a museum, it offers visitors a deeper understanding of Islam’s role in Pahang’s royal heritage and everyday life, all set against the graceful backdrop of a former royal mosque.

Originally built as Masjid Sultan Abdullah, this elegant structure once served as an important place of worship for the local community and the Pahang royal household. With the construction of newer mosques nearby, the building was later preserved and thoughtfully transformed into a museum, while ensuring its architectural beauty and historical significance would continue to be appreciated by future generations.

Once we stepped inside Muzium Masjid Sultan Abdullah, we were guided briefly through the exhibits, where we learnt about the history of Islam in Pahang.

One good thing about this museum is that it is rarely crowded. As a result, we got to explore at our own pace and enjoy moments of quiet reflection.

Interestingly, just next to the museum, there are two other mosques, one with silver domes and the other with golden domes.

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14 Dec 2025 - Kafe Belibis, Pekan, Pahang

As advised by my cousin who drives frequently between Kuantan and JB, we decided to drive via the east coast route instead of the inland highway which we took two days ago from JB to Kemaman. We were glad that we took this route because we got to explore an interesting place as we arrived at Pekan town in Pahang. As we approached the town, we saw a stationery train on our right and there were people walking around the train. Initially, I thought it's a real train at a train station and those people were waiting to board the train. After a while, we realized these people were just strolling around. So we decided to park our car by the roadside and explore the vicinity.

As we got nearer to the train, we confirmed that this train was not in operation.

This is Kafe Belibis, a café that is housed within a refurbished KTM train carriage. Inside the carriage, there is original seating turned into a cafe layout, complete with wooden tables and air-conditioning while still preserving that vintage railway vibe.

There’s also alfresco seating outside the train as well as inside an old train station. What a pleasant surprise to bump into such interesting place.

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14 Dec 2025 - Kemaman Chinatown and Kuantan

We checked out of our accommodation in Kemaman this morning. We then drove to Chinatown (Gerbang Cina Kemaman) for breakfast.

We had the popular Beef Noodles and Kemaman coffee/tea.

After breakfast, we drove to Kuantan where we visited a few places before heading to a restaurant for lunch.

Our lunch was at the Chinese restaurant called "油鸡佬", which is famous for its chicken, roast pork and duck.

This marked the end of our Kemaman/Kuantan trip and we embarked on our long drive back to JB area.

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13 Dec 2025 - Reliving Memories of Dungun (Terengganu)

The main highlight today (or rather this trip) was to visit Dungun, a coastal district of the Malaysian state of Terengganu. When we were young, we visited this place on several occasions. At that time, we stayed in actual Kampung environment, and those images are still deeply "engraved" in my memory.

After more than 40 years, it is quite expected that the Kampung area had now been redeveloped. I still remembered there were many wild cows, goats, chickens and dogs roaming freely everywhere, but I saw none during this visit.

However, we could still see some old shops around, which brought back some memories.

Dungun used to be an iron mining town in the 1940s. Iron ore was mined in a small town inland called Bukit Besi located to the west, while Dungun served as the port where the ore was transferred onto ships.

Located in the old town area in Kuala Dungun, there is a series of murals along the street.

We then had our lunch at a coffee shop round the corner. We waited quite a while for our food to be served as there seemed to be only one chef.

After lunch, we drove to a nearby beach which also brought back some memories, including witnessing the leatherback turtles during nesting season as well as a "near-drown" incident.

The seaside in Dungun is characterized by expansive, golden sand beaches and a tranquil atmosphere that avoids the heavy commercialization found in other Malaysian coastal hubs. However, we felt a bit sad to see lots of used plastic containers being dumped on the beach.

As mentioned earlier, I had witnessed Leatherback Turtles nesting on Dungun beach more than 40 years ago. Today, while leatherback turtles are rarely seen, other species like green turtles and painted terrapins still nest on nearby beaches.