Kelong Acheh

On the Good Friday weekend, my family and I decided to go for a quick getaway in Malaysia. The place we went was Kelong Acheh. This was the first time I have ever been to a kelong (offshore houses built mainly with wood mainly for fishing purpose), so I was rather excited because I wasn't sure what will be waiting for me there.

Anyway Kelong Acheh was our second choice actually. Our first choice was Ahfatt Kelong, but it was fully booked by the time we confirmed the number of people going. The reasons why we might have preferred Ahfatt Kaelong are:

1. They are cheaper in terms of pricing (MYR225.00)
2. They have free WiFi

I think the WiFi took a huge part in the consideration. I was just thinking that if there is WiFi, then we wouldn't be too bored on the kelong. On the other hand, having no WiFi is good too so all my little cousins will not just hog onto the WiFi and not enjoying the retreat.

Day 1
Back to where I was, the immigration from Singapore to Malaysia or vice versa nowadays has been very bad. It always jam so bad even those hours that you think it's off peak. We left for the Woodlands Checkpoint about 0400hr hoping to avoid the jam. We reached the checkpoint about 0430hr and it was already jammed. We took about an hour to get to the other side of the bridge, which I think it was long for that timing. It used to less than 15 minutes.

After that, everything was smooth sailing, except for a few wrong roads, and we managed to reach Kampung Penyabong (north of Mersing) about 1030hr. The carpark at the ferry terminal charges MYR5.00 a day, so we paid MYR15,00 for 3 days and headed to catch the ferry.

Walking towards the ferry terminal 

Just as we were walking towards the jetty, it started drizzling and we quickly took shelter at the jetty. The drizzle went on to become heavy rain.

Heavy rain

 The heavy rain left us stuck in the jetty for almost an hour, and the shelter wasn't really helpful in sheltering us because of the strong wind as well. Our legs were all wet. Luckily with the company I am with, I took the opportunity to do some catching up with my cousins and time passed rather quickly.

As the rain got smaller, the boatman went back to their boat to prepare for departure. I was rather disappointed when I saw one of the boatman from the other boats throwing rubbish into the sea.

Throwing rubbish in the sea

Notice all the blue plastic bags in the sea? They were filled with ice. The boatman just transferred the ice into the containers on his boat and he conveniently discard the plastic bags into the sea! It would have been serious offence in Singapore, but in Malaysia, nobody gives a damn about it. It's really saddening to see this happening.

By the way, although the price we paid for the 3D2N (MYR250.00 for adult and MYR150.00 for children) include the 2-way boat ride, it excludes the jetty tax (MYR2.00 per pax).

Receipt for jetty tax

The ferry ride wasn't long. It took us about 15 minutes. If we were to go Ahfatt Kelong, it would take about 25 minutes.

Arriving at the kelong

At the kelong

Upon reaching the kelong, the staff welcomed us and brought us to our room.

Our room

Yes, the rooms there are all common room. All of us shared the same room. There wasn't much private space in the room either, the doors and windows cannot be locked. The door, especially, will just open every time the wind blows.

After settling down in the room, I decided to explore what the kelong has to offer.

Underneath the kelong

In the center of the kelong

Large net for catching squid and small fishes. 

Common toilet

The toilets have proper toilet system and a large pail for showering purpose. The only thing is that, we have to top up the water in the large pail ourselves. See all the jerry cans outside the toilets? That's where we get our water from. There are limited supply though, so we had to ration.

After all the exploring, we were just on time for lunch. As we head to the dining area, there are some information pasted on the wall.

Timing for meals

Tips on fishing

So we got ourselves a seat and waited for lunch to be served.

Lunch (1st Day)

The lunch was decent, but I was expecting more seafood (since it is a kelong) on the table though. Their fried squid taste good and that was my favourite dish for the meal. Everything on the table was refillable.

Drinks station

Drinks were free flow as well. They have a chilled cordial, hot coffee, hot tea and plain water (which made up the 4 containers on the table). All the beverages (except cordial) were available for the whole day. Cordial wasn't available in the morning

After lunch, my "fishing expert" uncle walked around the kelong and determined that it was not a good timing for fishing as we will not get any good catch even if we fished. His theory is "Just look around, if nobody got any good catch, then there won't have any good catch even if we fished. If people are getting the good catches, then we will be able to get good catch too. It's like an altogether thing."

Since we won't be fishing, we need to find something else to do to pass time. It's mahjong time!

Mahjong Time

The kelong has mahjong tables and tiles for us to play on, but the condition wasn't very good though. Some of the tiles were replaced by other mahjong set, so it was quite obvious what tile we had. It's fine though because we are just playing for fun to pass time, so no money was involved.

The time passed rather quickly and food for tea break was served around 1500hr. So we stopped the game and went to check out the tea break even though we were not hungry.

Tea Break (1st Day)

The food for tea break looks good. It was mee goreng (fried mee) and some chilli sauce, so I decided to try a bit of it. I like the sauce the most. It was spicy and sweet at the same time, and there were ikan bilis in the chilli sauce too.

After the tea break, I went to check out on the others to see what they were doing all these while since not all of us were playing mahjong. The younger kids were actually trying to fish!

They were not using the fishing rod, just coiled strings with hook at the front. They were just catching small fishes for the thrill. After they caught the fishes, they will unhook it and let them back into the sea.

And we went back to continue with our mahjong till dinner time.

As dinner was served, I was disappointed with what they had prepared for us.

Dinner (1st Day)

I expected more seafood since we were at a kelong right? They only had crab, and I am not a fan of crab. I still tried the crab nonetheless. It was average only. I was disappointed in the dinner actually.

The good part start after dinner. I had a shower and it's beer time!

Beer Time

This picture is just a tip of the iceberg of the amount of beer we bought. The beer there is expensive (MYR7.00) though, but it's the company that matter right? There is special thing with alcohol, people tends to bond better over alcohol. We had fun and made friends with others who were drinking there too. They were really nice people and they treated ordered fried fish and treated us some.

Deep Fried Fish

It looks like the kuning fish that we usually have in nasi lemak, but I was told it wasn't. So I'm not sure what is it. Who cares right, it all end up in our tummy at the end of the day.

Supper (1st Day)

The supper served was green bean soup. I only tried a little of it because I don't know how to enjoy hot dessert. The taste was good though.

That was the end of the first day. As we were going back to our room to sleep, the room was so cooling as if they were air conditioned. Did I mentioned earlier that the room was very stuffy in the day? So there was a huge difference in temperature during the day and night.

Day 2
We don't have to set alarm to wake up in the morning. Human traffic underneath our room started to increase as morning arrived. As, the kelong is built using just wooden planks, walking underneath the room will naturally create noise and turbulence to the room which were enough to wake me up.

I got up and washed up and head to the dining area for my breakfast.

Breakfast (2nd Day)

It was similar to the tea break on the previous day. Instead of mee goreng, it was bee hoon goreng (fried bee hoon) and nasi goreng (fried rice).

We had arranged for a boat to fetch us to a nearby island to play because there wasn't much to do on the kelong. So after dinner, we board the boat and set sail to the island.

Changing to a smaller boat

As we approached the island, a small boat came to pick us up to bring us to the island because the bigger boat can't get near to the shore since it gets to shallow.

The Beach

This is the beach that we were dropped off to play. It looks pretty awesome isn't it? But what intrigue me on the island were the shipwreck. I don't get to see shipwreck all the time afterall.

I wanted to explore this shipwreck but I was too scared to swim out there because I don't know what will be waiting for me in the water. I saw so many jellyfishes and sea snake while at the kelong, I worried that there will be some of those here too since the island is just located behind the kelong. So I just decided to take a picture with the shipwreck from afar.

Candid shot with the shipwreck

 I was treading water while posing for the camera. I didn't notice there is a rock beside me so my leg ended up kicking onto it while the camera snapped. Look at my expression. It was really painful you know.

It was a really deep cut when I cleaned the wound back at the kelong. You will know why I had that face after you see the picture. Those with faint heart should skip this part. I have made the picture small so that those who wish to skip this part can do so. If you wish to see it, you can always just click on the image to have a bigger resolution picture.

My injured leg

Back to the beach, it is a no man land. I did not find any traces left by human, but I found many traces of creatures on the island

Suspected wild boar footprint

 I saw these footprint and it was obvious that it was made by hooves. My prediction is it was left by wild boar.

On top of footprints, there were holes of many sizes on the ground as well.

I liked the way how the patterns were created around the hole created. I have always seen on TV that people manage to find crabs by digging the hole, so we decided to try digging it ourselves too. We tried many holes, but we found nothing at all. I need to find an expert to teach me on how to do it.

Sailing in the sea

Anyway I found some crate pallet floating in the sea so I decided to just climb onto it and sail out to the sea, like Cast Away. It was kind of fun, but it got bored rather quickly as well. Overall I had a good time there with all my cousins. 

The boat came to pick us up about 1200hr. We headed back to wash up and just in time for lunch.

Lunch (2nd Day)

The lunch is better than the first day from my point of view. They have the deep fried squid again which I like. The other dishes were pretty decent too, or probably because I was hungry after a whole morning of fun.

After lunch, I saw my cousins fishing again, so I decided to give it a try (I have never fished before by the way). Throughout the whole fishing experience, I only managed to catch one fish.

Fishing in progress

I feel a little embarrassing though. My little cousins caught more fish than me!

Anyway, in between the fishing, we had pisang goreng (fried banana) and ubi kayu goreng (fried tapioca) for tea break.

Tea Break (2nd Day)

I like the the ubi kayu goreng though. They had this black spicy sauce for us to dip for the tapioca. I like it so I ended up eating a lot of it. I think the carbohydrate content for this tea break is almost equivalent to my usual day's carbohydrate. No doubt that I got fat after this trip.

During this trip, I figured that I should at least catch a sunrise or a sunset. I forgot about it on the first day so I decided to do it on the second day. This place can't enjoy the sunrise because it was blocked by an island. Since sunrise is impossible on the kelong, I decided to catch the sunset before dinner. Guess what... the clouds were so nice to me. I see nothing at all. It was very disappointing.

Sunset with no sun

Dinner (2nd Day)

For dinner that night, I went to the dining table late and they had started eating so I couldn't get a picture of it. It doesn't matter anyway because it was exactly the same as the previous dinner with prawns instead of crabs.

As night came, it's the same practice! We got ourselves more booze. That night was quite bad though. We wanted to shower but there wasn't any water left. Some inconsiderate people just used up all the water on the kelong. I was quite upset about it though.

Cheng Teng for Supper (2nd Day)

That's about it for the second night. In the middle of the night when we were sleeping, it rained quite heavily. The rain was leaking through the roof but it wasn't the very bad kind, so all of us managed to sleep through it. I was surprise some of them didn't realised it was raining in that night when we talked about it in the morning.

Day 3

As I woke up on the third day, I went to wash up as usual but the water supply was still low. We had to wait till rather late before the water arrived. After that, we had breakfast which I forgot to take a picture. It was nasi lemak.

It was time to go after breakfast. Although there wasn't much thing to do there, we had fun, so we were feeling a little upset that we need to leave and come back to Singapore.

Leaving the kelong

Arriving back at the jetty.

After getting back to the mainland, we went to a nearby shop to buy some food just in case we got hungry half way through the journey

Otah for the road trip back to Singapore

We got some otah because it smelled nice. I don't really like the taste though. It was the sweet version, too sweet for my liking. My parents don't like it too. But I would say their fish filling in the otah was really generous. After stocking up on food, we hit the road.

Back to the road

Along the way, we tried to minimize the amount of pit stop because we wanted to reach the custom early enough to avoid the jam. We stopped only twice throughout the journey. The first stop was a quick one to relieve ourselves, but I also grabbed a Magnum ice cream along the way. It's a must have when you are in Malaysia. They cost exactly the same price as Singapore but in their own currency, so it is totally worth it to eat Magnum in Malaysia.

A must have in Malaysia

The second pit stop is to have out lunch. We heard about this famous bak kut teh along the expressway, so we decided to find it along the way back and we manage to find it!

Kiang Kee Bak Kut Teh

It's the Kiang Kee Bak Kut Teh. We were there about 1300hr but a lot of ingredients were sold out. That's how good their business was. 

Menu

So we just looked at the menu and ordered whatever they have left. So the pictures were what we ordered.

Everything was pretty delicious but I feel that it wasn't good enough for me to crave and go back there again so I was wondering if the reviews were overrated. I gave them the benefit of doubt too, it probably didn't taste good because these were the leftovers from the main bulk of customers. I would go back and try it again if I ever have to chance to give decide what kind of review I would give to them.

After the pit stop here, we drove all the way back to Singapore. We were stuck at the the checkpoint for almost 2 hours before we got out of it, but I think it would have been worse if we reached any later.

Overall, the trip was a fruitful one. I experienced life on a kelong and fished for the very first time. Going to these places once in a while is definitely a good experience, I would recommend all of you to try it too.

If you got any other places to recommend, feel free to leave me a message. I might just take up your idea and you will get to see my review about the place after my trip. So just leave me a message, don't be shy. =)

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