.::TEKADTLES great escapade::.

Rantau Abang (RA) was a blast!! Starting from our journey from Rumah Ilham, TTDI – Mohsin – T’ganu…my car mates and I rock the City (Honda).

The initial journey however was hindered by a darn long traffic jam near Genting Sempah due to 1 lane road closure + stalled lorry. Instead of reading The Client from the help of my small reading light, I joined Zura and Bet to sing nearly all DEWA + Indo rock songs…(additional speakers, so to speak)

We made a stop at Petronas Karak to refresh for a cuppa corn and err, answered our nature calls. From there we made a few stops at designated checkpoints to keep a pace between Zura’s and Oza’s cars.

Along the journey, we sang and chat craps..tah pepe tah aku pun tak ingat cos most of the time I fell asleep, only to be awaken intermittently by Zura’s and Bet’s laughs and to old school stories.

We stopped by at the famous nightly sight at Kerteh’s refineries. Wow! It was magnificent…we captured a coupla pix before continuing to RA. All those lights and flares were rare in KL…that was why all of us city dwellers so jakun about.

I fell asleep again during the old school Malay rock songs…and awoke when we reached D’Pangkalan Eco Resort at about 5:30 a.m., a resort owned by one of MNS activists – Encik Razali and his wife, Kak Yam. The room was modestly equipped with a built-in shower and loo, one queen size bed (occupied by Zura) and a single bed by moi, and a wall fully remote- controlled wall fan, you know; the basic. Both Azura and I fell comatose again without thinking to change our travelling clothes.

8:30ish
woke up and refreshed to go for beach cleaning. We equipped ourselves with long sleeves t-shirts, sunnies, bandanas, gloves and big construction hats. We laughed ourselves silly as we spoke indons and imagined ourselves like the Indons labours.

“Iyaaa..buk, kapalnya sebenter lagi sampei…uang ratusan ribuk rupiah udeh kuhabisin untuk cariin kerja yg halal di Malaysia…”

whether its correct Indons, we simply don’t care…

Breakfast was the famous T’ganu Nasi Dagang, and I felt so happy as my wish came true to eat this local cuisine. Other Tekadtles (TEKAD group watching turtles) laughed on our attire that morning as we resembled the Indons and joined by Wong (the Myanmars labour) sejibik!! With her brownish jacket, big hat and all…hehehe and all 3 of us modelled for the proposed event that morning.

10:00 a.m.
Found out that the beach cleaning only starts around 5 p.m. so we are left with lepaking activities. Zura and I decided to check the Dungun Town and looked for sun blocks and a few snacks. Oza and Wong went to Dungun market for our BBQ items and the boys went kayaking at a river, just behind our resort. What a lovely kampong view along the road to Dungun. I simply fell in love with the sight and Zura purposely drove 60 kmh to enjoy this moment. It was only 11 ish when we reached the resort back..time do crawled slowly here.

12 – 4 30 ish
ate lunch which was ikan temenung masak pindang, ayam sambal and ulam. And the rest of the noon, I took time to lepak at one “pangkin”; which was very windy…enjoyed reading The Client there and proceed to my room, napping.

5 ish –
We went to the much-awaited beach cleaning. It was very worthy of note, as we have to use a raft to cross the river, and it we have to pull it manually back and forth to make it move from jetty point to the beach point. From there, each of us was assigned to take either glass, plastics, paper or non-recyclable items. Due to our highly equipped Indons labour type attire, Azura and I was assigned to pick up glasses. Man! I can’t believe they are hundreds of lying around glasses, be it liquor bottles, medicine bottles, bulbs, fluorescent tubes, huh! You name it, it was all scattered along the beach line! It was really amazing that all these litters might have been travelled by the ocean from countries as far as Vietnam or further! For me, this was a revelation, and a good workout. It was physically challenging to walk on the porous beach sand, and picking up those litters… had a good workout around the biceps, triceps and hamstring as well. We finished our beach clean-up around 6 ish and decided to move the collected garbage to mainland the next morning…