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.

There is a ship-like structure along the beach which makes a great photo spot.

At night, we had another sumptuous dinner at a Chinese restaurant.

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