Kuala Sepetang River Cruise 2 Jun 2016

It was an instant decision we made during our time waiting for check-in to the hotel.

Daddy was asking the owner of the hotel how to book or buy the ticket for the river tour, as we have seen many tour buses brought a lot tourists for the river tour.

While we were waiting, the kind uncle introduced us to the tour operator, then Daddy gave him our contact number, so he can call us later.

After we came back from the walkabout around the town, we were all resting in the room, until a man knocked on our door. He was from the Port Weld Eco Tour, he introduced himself and the package offer to us.

The package include sightseeing fisherman village, variety of boats, Kampung Seberang, fish farm, eagle watching, Kuala Sangga, seeing firefly and viewing evening sunset. It would take approximately a 2 1/2 to 3 hours journey. All together is RM150.00 including 2 adults and 3 children.

Daddy just on the deal, and we were asked to wait at the ground floor lobby at 5.00pm. A young boy was waiting for us and guided us to the boat.

There were a few families on the boat as well. The children were so happy and excited on the trip. There were 2 little tour guide on our boat, the boy whom guided us to the boat, he is a teenager and in secondary school; the other a fat boy is in primary school. Both of them are funny and talkative.

First, the boat brought us to the “little island” which made by the cockles shells, there were monkeys on the areas too, unfortunately it is not meal time yet, thus we can’t even see them.

After that, we were brought to the upstream of the Sungai Sepetang to see the fisherman village both sides of the river. There is an overhead bridge linked both sides of the village. According to Ah Boy, that was just finish constructed a few years ago, before that the villagers still using the boats to come and flow between both sides.

There was a cockles washing factory in one of the house facing the river, various of boats, big and small, parked just out of the houses.

There is a boat repair yard too, the one and only at Kuala Sepetang. Every fishermen will go to the same yard when their boat need to repair. The boat stopped nearby the mangrove forest where the eagles live.

When our boat reached the calm water area surrounded by the mangrove forests, the boatman shut down the engine to eliminate the noise.

Ah Boy went to the backside of the boat with a bag full of chicken skins and starts throwing the pieces into the water. The eagles here seem to know when a boat is around they would have a feast on offering.

Look at the sky and you will see many eagles circling. And then they will start swooping down to catch their food floating on the water and take off in split seconds.

The eagles have terrific eyesight and can actually pin point a target such as a fish from a far distance.

After, we were going to the fish farm, whereby the fish farm was purposely built up by the local tour operators to create the tourist attraction.

There were horse shoe crabs, and surprisingly puffer fish! Everyone of us can feed the fish by taking a paper cup full of fish food.

Issac was so brave in touch and hold the puffer fish! ah Boy gave a clear explanations on the puffer fish characters, and their habitual.

After the fish farm, we were heading to the Kuala Sangga. Kuala Sangga is a small fishing village with only a few dozens of households, mostly are Teow Chew clan.

Majority of them live on shrimp industry and raising live stocks as supplementary. There is no water and electricity supply here and thus, villagers have to drink rainwater.

Early immigrants attach great importance to education and they established a Chinese primary school for their children. However, there are only approximately 20 household here and 20 over students with 10 teachers in the Chinese primary school. There was a house just next to the school, I guess that should be the teachers’ hostel.

There are a few Chinese temples on the island, and a catholic church as well. During when we were strolling along the boardwalk, we were hearing sort of Thai music were playing on the music player.

Daddy said, mostly are Teowchew people, they are more font of Thai music.

Ah Boy even shown us the so called ‘pirate king’s house. Kuala Sangga used to be the home of the pirates, and their leader used to stay here.

The house looked a bit old, but I believe the local did help to paint the external of the house, thus it still looked ok from the front.

At the back portion of the house had been falling apart already. The ‘Pirate King’ story added on the eeriness of the house itself.

There were 2 boats ferrying Chinese tourists here too, during we were waiting for our boat to park at the jetty.

After Kuala Sangga, we were brought to the open sea to see the sunset view and the eagles.

It was almost 7.00pm. The whole day was so hot, thus we were hoping to see the nice sunset as well. Unfortunately, the clouds were so thick that, it had blocked the sunset view.

It was not our lucky day too as we unable to see any of the pink dolphins. Annabelle was so disappointed that she cried a little during asking her Daddy about the dolphins.

It was almost 7.30pm when the boat heading to the Kampung Dew. There, we were able to see the firefly. It was so strange that the firefly only come to certain species of trees.

In the dark, it looked like a blinking Christmas Tree shining in the dark. And, it were just a few trees on the river side, not the whole stretch of the trees along the river. Just only for a while, then we were taken back to the jetty, and completed our river cruise tour of the day.

It was so tiring but really a fruitful one. The children were so happy about it. It was almost 8.00pm when we had our light dinner in one of the restaurant at the village.

Then, we were so tired and went back to the hotel, took our shower and have a good sleep. The river cruise concluded our day at Kuala Sepetang, and we were never regretted on that, it was the highlight of our day!