Since it is the freshest in my mind, I will first record down my experiences at the 3 day course in Dhamma Malaya. Before that, here is what happened en route to Dhamma Malaya.

Arrived in Kuantan’s Makmur bus station at 4:30 am after leaving Singapore’s Lavendar Street at 10 pm the night before. I eventually joined a group of 2 Malays and 1 Chinese guy in a taxi to look for boarding. We alighted at Jalan Taman along Jalan Besar. This is where I eventually stayed the night.

In this room I slept from 530 am to 830 am

Check out the toilet below. See if you can guess where the “shower head” is in the first picture. Notice in the second picture, the pipe doesn’t connect to the floor, it is truncated halfway. That’s right, you feel the water from the pipe dripping to the floor! Hahaha.

I paid 37 Ringgit for a room in the hotel above after having a cup of Horlicks and deciding not to wait another 2 hours to get a room at a cheaper rate of 20 ringgit at the hotel opposite, which has no air-conditioned rooms. By the way, the indian food stall here is not bad. I backtracked and had a plain roti prata here as my first meal the next morning after failing to find food for a couple of hours due to the fasting month. In Singapore, plain roti pratas aren’t tasty. But the one here was. So check it out if you ever have the chance.

I left the budget hotel at about 830 am and walked for more than an hour trying to find the tourist office. The people in Kuantan were all very friendly but they either didn’t understand where I was going, gave me wrong directions or I just couldn’t understand/follow their instructions. Actually, I think what happened was this I gave them the wrong address for the Tourist Office based on something I read here.

Despite not finding my way, I managed to take this picture of the Kuantan State Mosque.

Well, I eventually met “Boy”, this friendly Malay guy who gave me directions to the tourist office. While I was still making my way to the tourist centre according to Boy’s instructions, he drove up in a car, horned at me and asked me to get into his car as he was going in the same direction. He was very friendly, with family in Singapore. It turned out that the tourist office was just behind my hotel, maybe less than a 10 minute walk! He suggested that I visit the beach Teluk Cempedak Beach and then go to Megamall.

Before he dropped me off, he asked why I was in Kuantan and whether I was alone, I told him I was going to Gambang, Dhamma Malaya for meditation. “Meditation?”, he asked and questioned whether I was going to some organization, whose name I didn’t recognize. I shook my head and just mentioned “Vipassana” and “Dhamma Malaya”. I wasn’t sure whether he knew what I was talking (his understanding of English was spot on) or just found my reply plain strange and bizzarre. I suppose not many Malays in Pahang come across a lone Chinese male visiting Kuantan for the express purpose of “meditation”.

But this was a great and friendly guy. Cool guy. I wished I had gotten his contact so that I could show him the same kindness when he visits his family in Singapore (“Orchard”, “Jurong”).

I eventually got a map from the Tourist Office, hunted for food with no success and got back to the Indian coffeeshop opposite my budget hotel. I took a taxi to Teluk Cempedak. Walked along the beach, took some pictures (see below), had a coke at Macs before hailing a taxi to Megamall and then to Terembung Mall. About the malls I have nothing to write about, except for this: very hard to find food!

I walked back exhausted to my budget hotel at about 1 pm. Showered. Slept two hours or so and then left at 3 plus pm to Dhamma Malaya. The taxi ride to Dhamma Malaya cost me 34 ringgit (I was one ringgit short of 35), which was 9 ringgit more than the negotiated rate of 25 ringgit but I didn’t mind at all due to the rough dirt road the taxi had to travel. The taxi driver asked me what’s this place and why was I here. I said “meditation” and struck a pose to show what I meant. But he didn’t understand what I was saying. He just took my money and drove off after I alighted.

Oh well…at least I know why I went there.