I
decided to make a return trip to Pangkor Laut Resort and accordingly booked a
Garden Villa in early August for last weekend, taking advantage of the public
holiday on Friday. We had to make the trip by bus this time and I purchased a
one-way Transnasional Lumut-bound ticket scheduled to depart Hentian Duta at
09:00 (so happy there are still buses departing from Hentian Duta as I was from
micasa; this means I don’t have to make the trip to Terminal Bersepadu Selatan.
Anyway, the Transnasional bus we were on orginated from TBS).
Friday,
22 September 2017
We
arrived at Hentian Duta at 08:40 and settled down to wait in the boarding area.
It was my first time there (the only other time I rode a bus heading north, I
departed from Pudu) so I spent some time observing things. 09:00 came and went
and still there was no announcement about our bus. I finally went to ask the
chap manning the counter and making the announcement for Transnasional and was
told there was a technical problem with our bus and it would be delayed. We
ended waiting until after 11:15 when the bus finally pulled up and only left at
11:30.
I
only found out about Jambatan Sultan Yusof that links Teluk Intan and Sitiawan
which has been closed since 12 August 2017 just before boarding the bus. This
of course means further delays and after a bottleneck after Slim River, we
finally reached Teluk Intan at 13:30 and after a brief stop at Seri Manjung,
reached Lumut at 15:30. I had planned to arrive 3 hours earlier so that we
could take the 13:00 boat but having missed that and the 15:00 boat, we had to
take the 16:30 boat.
We
bought Arwana bus tickets for the journey back to KL before exploring our
options. A cabbie approached us and quoted RM25. Well, good news that Uber is
already operating there and we got our ride for a fraction of what the cabbie
wanted. We arrived at the Pangkor Laut office at Pangkor Marina before 16:00
and after refreshing ourselves with cold towel and a glass of cold drink, I
requested for a late lunch upon arrival at the resort. At first the staff was
being difficult, informing me lunch was until 16:30 so I asked if she could
phone the resort ahead to inform. I still insisted on my lunch and mentioned that
I managed to get a late one too when I arrived at Tanjong Jara back in
February. Then I talked to another staff and she said she would do her best.
As
we still had to wait for the boat departure, I decided to go and perform
prayers so that I didn’t have to perform prayers only after my late lunch.
There’s a prayer room at the complex opposite the office, within the ticketing
area.
We
boarded the boat just before 16:30 and arrived at the resort jetty 20 minutes
later. Another cold towel and drink awaited us and after checking with one of
the staff, we made our way to Royal Bay Beach Club. I had the same dishes I had
previously: tom yam soup and fried noodles. We left at almost 18:00 and
returned to the reception. After collecting our room key and making dinner
reservations for the two evenings, we went to our room. Our room this time was
nearer to the reception and Feast Village.
We
left for dinner at Feast Village 20:40 and had to wait a while to be seated. I
noticed there were a lot more families at the resort and also groups of
families and friends. Unfortunately, a few of the appetisers and mains had
finished so we had to make do with different order. I finally settled on
tenderloin steak but it arrived quite a while after I finished my appetiser and
I could hardly look at it. I was just too sleepy by then and could only manage
3/4th of one of the two pieces of steak. It was another wait for
dessert and it was past 22:30 when we finally left.
Saturday,
23 September 2017
We
went for a morning walk after prayers and made our way to Feast Village at
07:40 (breakfast is served from 07:30, a bit late in my opinion). I was
surprised to find the staff still setting up the place with some tables with
missing chairs and napkins. I didn’t eat all that much but enjoyed what I took.
We wanted to do taichi (scheduled for 09:30, yoga is scheduled at 08:30 but we
didn’t think we’d manage to finish our breakfast and trek over to Spa Village
in time for it) but I was later told that there was no taichi session for the next
few days. So we returned back to the room (I wasn’t going to jungle trek,
having done it previously) and rested. I had borrowed a book from the library
and set about reading it.
We
left for lunch at Chapman’s Bar and got a ride from Manuel, the resort assistant
manager. I was disappointed to find a buffet lunch spread as I had planned to
order from the menu and was further disappointed by the buffet offering.
Suffice to say that I wasn’t impressed at all. We went to the beach after lunch
but didn’t stay long as it was so hot even under the shade as there was hardly
any wind. We returned to the room and rested. I managed to finish off the book
I borrowed from the resort library.
We
left for dinner at 19:30 and walked to Uncle Lim’s Restaurant. Again, we had to
wait a while for our food and even after they cleared our mains, our dessert
took way too long to arrive. The plate containing the mango pudding was cold to
the touch meaning it was already chilled and surely that had been done way
before i.e., pre-prepared? The ice cream, meanwhile, was already starting to
melt. Why??? I expected better, really. Now I know why we forgot all about
dessert on our last visit: it took just way too long to arrive.
After
dinner, we walked to the TV Room and I watched Love Story. Can you believe that
the story is already 47 years old?!
Sunday,
24 September 2017
An
early start today. We left for breakfast at 07:35 and left our room key at the
reception before having breakfast. Again, I didn’t eat as much as I thought I
would. We left at 08:30 and after a visit to the bathroom, headed for the
jetty. We left at 08:45 and reached mainland at 09:00. We had to wait a bit for
the Uber driver – maybe because it was a Sunday – and reached the bus station
at 09:45. Our Arwana bus left on time and we reached Hentian Duta at 14:10.
I’m
not sure if there’ll be another visit, having been there twice.
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