We left my uncle’s resident somewhere at 730am and reached Kemaman at 8am. We straightly did our survey and we received a good cooperation here from our local future client and its contractor.
Our survey finishes at 2pm and we were looking for a place to overnite. Before doing that, we took this opportunity to buy some raw fish cracker or ‘keropok’. We had been told that the best ‘keropok’ in Terengganu came from Kemaman and Losong (Kuala Terengganu). To be more specific, we were looking for the ‘keropok’ made by a small home based manufacturer by the name of ‘Cap Perahu’ or Perahu Brand. We bought lots of ‘keropok cap perahu’ together with its sauce once we found the place.
After that, instead of looking for a resort here in Kemaman, I drove just a little bit south for about 15 minutes to a place called Cherating. It is a popular tourist attraction beach in Pahang. So officially, we had left the state of Terengganu Darul Iman.
Once reaches Cherating, I looked for a place to overnite and my intention was to rent a chalet that is nearest to the beach. So, I rented a chalet at a place called Ranting Beach Resort. The rate is RM120.00 per night, a small chalet with air-conditioned system and hot-shower. Again, I had made a mistake. This chalet / resort doesn’t seems to have the spirit of respecting nor honoring guest. The boy that I guess was the front office staff never throw even a smile during our check-in transaction. But still, I wanted to stay by the beach and rented the chalet.
In the evening, I walked by the beach and it’s confirmed that there were not many tourist around. At the point of this visit, the beach was slightly dirty, lots of empty can drinks can be seen along the beach. The water was also a bit murky. Maybe the monsoon still haven’t really subside yet. It’s a disappointing decision I had made to stay at Cherating. To make things worst, we encountered a ‘no-electricity’ moment for almost an hour as our chalet was having electrical tripped. I should had stay in Kemaman, at least I can do some fishing and angling activities.
We went to 2 restaurants for our late lunch and dinner, foods tasted were not tasty. Although we had nothing to do, we slept around 12am that night thinking of our journey back to Melaka.
I don’t think I will be recommending Cherating beach to be a must place to visit here in Malaysia. But I think it won’t be a fair comment for me to make just by judging from my one day stay here in Cherating. I positively think that one may have a different /better holiday if we stay in an established hotel or even the Cherating Club Mediterranean.
Nevertheless, the tourism board of Pahang should stressed more on appreciating tourist to all chalet operators here in Cherating. Operators should be more alert on how valuable the tourism industry is, tourism is more than just building a chalet and rent it to people. Also, some activities relates to beach activities should be introduced to ensure that guest / tourist can have choices on what to do while they are here in Cherating. I can only see an operator that offering surfing board to be rented and surfing class for beginner.
