2008 - Visit Kelantan Year

Hubby and I went to Kelantan to visit his brother's family recently. They moved to Kelantan a few months back before the wife gave birth to a baby boy in Jan. The poor baby has been in & out of hospital since the day he was born due to some complication. They did a lumber puncture but still could not identify the problem. He suffered some kind of fits from time to time and at times his face turned all red as if he was choking. But thank god he's all better now. He still have to go for follow ups but he's fine.

Anyways, given that the trip was decided at the last minute, i didn't have ample time to gather enough info as to where we should stay and places we could go. In the end we stayed at this old hotel -Perdana Hotel. Renaissance was out of the question as the rate was RM280 per night. Luckily when we arrived at the airport i found out from the brochures (that's when i found out it was Visit Kelantan Year.. haha) that the hotel was a mere 5 minutes walk to the cultural centre. The events for that evening include top spinning, kite flying and playing the rebana so i thought it was a good idea to check it out and snap some photos. So after lunch at Bro-in-law's place at Kubang Kerian or should i say, Kube Keghie hehehe.. we headed for the hotel. It was a run down hotel and i was already feeling bad because i am guilty for the reservation.. Money not well spent. Note to self: The Grand Riverview for next visit.. if there's another visit.

I must say it was the longest 3-day trip i've ever been on... there's nothing much there (well, not many places to go in JB too). Apart from the cultural show that we were SUPPOSED to go (we fell asleep), we only went to see some places of worship, a pasar malam that opens every night (Wakaf Che Yeh) and the Pasar Siti Khadijah for some keropoks and scarves. I know there are places of bargain like the Pengkalan Kubor and Rantau Panjang but we're not there to shop so those places were not of priority. They have museums of course, but Dad took me there once when i was in Form 1.

That morning we went to the Pasar, i thought leaving the hotel at 9am was a good idea. So after breakfast we went to the city but to my surprise most of the shops were closed! So we decided to have a drink while waiting. By 10.30am, most shops (at the dry market) were still closed so we ended up buying stuff from those that were already open and not to wait any longer. After having done our shopping i was astounded to see the shops were finally opening. That was 12 noon! Berniaga setengah hari je??... that's odd.

We then made our way to Tumpat to visit this 40m of reclining Buddha that is believed to be the largest in Southeast Asia. After studying the map, we made our way to Tumpat and started looking for signages to this temple called Wat Photivihan (given that it's Visit Kelantan Year proper signages are expected to these places of interest, right?.. Well, WRONG!) we never did find it. Instead we found his 2 brothers:

The standing Buddha at Wat Laikatong


The sitting Buddha at Wat Machimmaram
(2nd largest of its kind in Southeast Asia)

No reclining Buddha, just the one standing and sitting. The rest of the evening was spent watching malay soap "Bella" at our little dismal hotel room since we didn't know where else to go. Hahaha.. Oh well.. so much for visit Kelantan year. Some of the other photos taken. Enjoy!

Baby Haziq sleeping

The Buddha we're suppose to go see (pix taken fr brochure)


In-laws making their purchase at Wakaf Che Yeh
I bought a RM10 scarf


The waiting... at Pasar Siti Khadijah
(hubby pandai2 je nak tukar nama to Pasar Fatimah.. kekeke..)


Pose istimewa :D


Us

Navigator at work


Full moon in Kota Bharu


err.. UiTM dihatiku. Right.


We came across this restaurant while looking for a place to get lunch, hihi..
No, we did not dine there.


Lagi pose istimewa.. Goodbye Kota Bharu.