Today woke up to a cracker day, skies a lot clearer than we have been having. Nice to get haze free days and to see the bright blue skies. Left the hotel about 9am to see the town. Started off going a little south where we came in yesterday to find this magnificent Mosque that we passed and decided to have a closer look today. Then the centre of town, then drove out to the beach area.
As we were driving into Kota Bharu we passed this amazing Mosque and just had to drive back to try and find it. Unfortunately the sun was behind it so hasn't lightened up the front of the building.
This is down the side of the mosque, and the front (previous) photo around the corner on the right.
This was a stand alone dome out the back.
Another angle on the corner of the side and front. I just couldn't stop walking around the grounds and admiring the place. My highlight of Kota Bharu was visiting this place, it looked so modern.
Standing back further to show the beautifully manicured gardens. The gardener was working on them when we were there. Spoke to him to compliment him on his hard work but don't think that he understood to much English but gave us a big smile.He did mention though that it was built in 1992 but my word it has been extremely well maintained. So nice to see something that's got a lot of pride in it as in this country nobody seems to be interested in their gardens. So sad as the place has the climate to do so much in gardening. He was certainly doing a great job as it was immaculate.
We started our walk around the centre of the city to admire some of the sites. Not a big city. This is the Observation Tower. You can climb the steeps to the top to get a better view along the river which runs along the side of the city. But when you see my next photo you will see why we weren't going to climb up there in this heat (34 degrees) just to look at this very muddy looking river. We could see it fine from where we were standing.
You can see why we didn't need to climb up the tower for the view.
War Museum
Sultan Ismail Petra Arch entrance to the Palace.
Jahar Palace
The mosque in town
A bit of real estate in the back streets.
The beach out of Kota Bharu about 11km from the city. Kota Bharu is a little inland which lies along the river banks.
A small village on the way to the beach. A common sight villages like this all the way up the coast.
A women's clothing shop note all the bright colours.
We are always seeing these on the road side stalls all up the coast. We stopped today to ask what they were. They are a thick fleshy fruit inside as you can see in packets above .Similar shape and size to a pineapple but very prickly outer case. We brought a very small one to try but was very sweet and we didn't like it. Very different to what we are used to.
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This is the family selling them in front of their house which is in the background. They are called Buah Darian
This is one of the streets in town next to the markets
The big food market in the centre of town.
PT looking at the produce. All very colourful.
Kabutogani Clock Tower in town. Small but attractive.
One of the shops in the above streets selling all the colourful fabric that the ladies wear. Although they have no choice of style they wear they certainly have a great choice of the very colourful fabrics. Its feels very good quality and so soft. I always thought that it would be that awful nylon fabric but its not.
I like the way they have spelt "textile".
I didn't think that I was going to enjoy Kota Bharu as there was nothing much in the reviews as to what to do. I was under the impression that it was just a drive through town but I am glad that .we had the two nights here to see the place today. A small city but there are a few things to drive around to see. Especially that spectacular Mosque out of town. Such a great sight.
Going back to yesterday forgot to mention the monkey we saw running along the power lines. Too quick to get a photo. Also we hit a large lizard looking thing about 1m long when it ran across the road in front of us. He gave us quite a thump under the car but we didn't kill it as we saw it continue running across to the other side of the road. PT was just saying he hasn't checked the car to see if there was any damage. He looked very thick and strong.
The staff here are so good to us always smiling at us and run over if they think we might need some help. I don't think that they see much of our type of people. I am amazed there are hardly any white people around at all. The only tourists that we have talked to are Dutch but that's only about three couples.
Leaving inland for the rain forests tomorrow staying half way between the East Coast and the West Coast for two nights up near the top of the Malaysian/Thailand border. Its in a rain forest resort so that could be different.Should be quiet away from the noise of cars.
This afternoon PT hooked into skype to Des to get him to set up his tablet in front of his TV so he could watch the AB / Oz game. It was nearly just like sitting at home in the lounge watching it.
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