Monday, September 22, 2008

Desaru Beach Weekend Getaway (Malaysia)


While my Mum came to visit us, we decided last minute to take her to Desaru Beach in JB Malaysia for a weekend family getaway. Little did we realise that the place is so Ulu that our GPS didn't even have the exact route to our hotel. We only roughly guessed where we were going based on the bigger map of JB. We had no idea how remote this place was. It took us roughly about 2 hours to get there, but only an hour and a half to get back. The roads were pretty narrow and only one lane for each direction, got a bit scary at time when other cars were tailgating us.

We picked to stay at The Pulai Desaru Beach Resort based on pictures that showed a nice swimming pool and it being right on the beachfront. The place is so secluded and so peaceful. It almost felt like you were on another island. The hotel itself is pretty good, 4 star quality resort. We tripled shared with my Mum and requested one King Size bed and one Single bed. Both beds were really big. What's more, the room was huge! It was probably the size of my living room plus kitchen. The room had a small tv, a walk in wardrobe with a safe box, a sitting area, and a separate vanity area and bathroom area. In the bathroom there was a bath tub and a separate standing shower area. The resort does show a little wear and tear but I'm not one to be too bothered by it. The swimming pool was great. It had a slide and a mini waterfall. And just over the pool wwas the beach. A very clean beach at that. Tho not exactly the white sand type, it was nice all the same.

The hotel breakfast buffet isn't very nice tho. We've had better at other hotels. The one thing that really irked me was in the wee hours of the morning, someone came and rang our doorbell like 6 times between 4am-7am! We're not too sure, but think it has something to do with the ramaddan and them letting people know when it was time to eat or to pray since there wasn't any mosques around to call the prayer. But for light sleepers like me it was definitely annoying especially since I had no idea what was happening. I even thought someone was playing a trick on us or even the bell was faulty or maybe a ghostly visitor! (ok maybe the last one might be a little crazy thought from the interrupted sleep).

For dinner we ventured out to another town that was 'supposed' to be nearby called Sungai Rengit for cheap seafood. I had read on the web about this seafood restaurant famed for its lobsters called Jade Garden Seafood Restaurant. It was rather scary driving to this town because again the road was just one lane in each direction and practically nothing on our left and right except bushes. Not even street light posts. My research before we left paid off because I could tell Edmund roughly where the restaurant was near. After driving around the town for like 15 minutes we found the restaurant we were looking for. The restaurant was crowded with families and Singapore cars in the driveway. In front there were tanks filled to the brim with lobsters big and small. There are different prices for big and small lobsters. We ordered 3 lobsters cooked in special gravy, bamboo clams, squid in sambal, soft shell crab and fried noodles and 3 cans of coke. Guess how much our bill was? Only RM175!!

On the way back, we stopped by Holiday Plaza and had lunch at a Wong Kok Char cafe. It was a great weekend getaway. 

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