Sungai Lembing Panorama Hill Sunrise 1 Aug 2020

We woke up very early at 5.00 am to get dressed, put on our sports shoes, take our handphones and headlights. We wanted to hike Panorama Hill so that it is not too late for us to see the sunrise.

As we arrived yesterday, so many local tourists came here to spend the long weekend. I still remember the first time when both Issac and Annabelle together with me came here a few years ago.

This time we come here again as a family. We quickly stepped out of our homestay room. We walked out to the town and towards the staircase leading to the hill.

Even though we had walked up this hill before, but it never makes it easy for us. It is indeed really a steep staircase. With the help of a handrail, all of us started our walking journey up.

The sky was dark, and we have to use our handphones lights and headlights to light up the staircase as it was dark. Many people were climbing the hill too. Alvin and Issac were fast, and we did rest awhile at some of the small rest areas at the side.

This time too, Annabelle has tried earlier until she almost reached the top. She kept on saying she cannot climb the hill. Alvin and I keep on encouraging her only to leave 20 over steps only. And for almost 60 minutes, all of us finally reached the top of the hill.

There is a small resting pagoda for the hill hikers to take a rest. We finally sat there and took our sweet time to rest. After resting for a while, we went to a place where we can see the sea of clouds.

It was amazing to see the clouds before the sun rises, and it is just like we are on top of heaven. We were waiting to see the sun rises.

And, there were a lot of people on the hill right now. From 6.00 am till almost 8.00 am, the people get more and more, and the hilltop is getting crowded.

It was a tiring but fun experience. When the sun rose, the sea of clouds just disappeared, and we can see the small town of Sungai Lembing down the hill.

Unfortunately, today is not the day that we see the sun rises. Thus, after waited for quite some time, we decided to go down to the hill and walked towards the only food court in the town to have our breakfast.

What a good hike for all of us! All of us managed to get up to the top even though Annabelle was almost giving up just now!

A Visit to Gua Charas Kuantan

We woke up almost 9.00am in the morning, and check out from the hotel. After our breakfast, we headed to Sungai Lembing.

We stopped at Gua Charas to see the Sleeping Buddha. Gua Charas is located nearby Sungai Pandan Waterfall, on the way to Sungai Lembing from Kuantan.

There are some stairs climbing before you reach to the cave entrance. There is entrance fee of RM 2 for adult and RM 1 for child. Parking fee is RM3 per car.

Along the way inside the cave, there are many statues of Buddha and also Indian Gods. Prior to that, one need to climb up a long staircase before you reach the entrance of the cave.

It is very smoky inside the cave due to heavy incense burning. For kids who have asthma or difficult in breathing, it is best recommended to just view from the outside.

However, there is a distance of walk from the entrance of the cave to reach to the Sleeping Buddha, hence you won't be able to see the Sleeping Buddha from the the entrance.

You may anticipate about 45 min - 1 hour for this visit, including all the steps climbing and picture taking. It is so beautiful inside the cave.

Finally we managed to climbed the stairs and reached the sleeping Buddha place. We were told that we can see the pillar of light shining from out of the cave into the Buddha’s face if it is a good sunny day.

Unfortunately, this morning is not the day. Nevertheless we took a group photo in front of the sleeping Buddha. Annabelle too, managed to scratch her name on the cave wall.

We took few more photos before we went down from the caves. It is indeed have a stunning view of the cave and how huge the cave is and able to cater a temple inside it.

After we drove out from the area to a distance, we took a group photo again with the Gua Charas as the background.

Then, we continued to journey to the Sungai Lembing. And here we are at the entrance of Sungai Lembing.

There are a lot visitors at the Sungai Lembing town. People just came from all corners of the peninsular when the RMCO come inforce. Everybody need a breakout from their home!

Basically we just wondered around at the town, took our lunch at the food court area just to relax and easy, after the short trip from Gua Charas, and prepare for tomorrow morning hiking of the Panaroma Hill.

Teluk Cempedak Kuantan

After last May Sekinchan trip, this would be our family weekend getaway during this pandemic time. We were planning for this trip for quite sometime as celebrate Alvin’s birthday at the same time as well.

We were out from home quite early and we headed to Kuantan straight. It was about 2 hours drive from Kuala Lumpur. It was around 9.00am we reached Kuantan town.

We had our breakfast at Yi Soon Restaurant. Although it can’t be called authentic specialites, but there is no doubt that the taste is really good.

This bowl of pork bone and peanut porridge did not disappoint at all. The soft and dense pork bone porridge, with its natural sweetness, is very good. Moreover, it comes togehter with two side dishes marinated by the owner himself.

Issac ordered the a bowl of tomato mushroom noodles. The first taste of soup was enough to surprise me. It was so sweet and not sour at all. There are also refreshing mushrooms that are not soft, and the simple noodle soup, but it warms the stomach and heart.

We like it very much. We were sharing our portion of food with each other. Other than that we ordered some Chinese dumplings with dry mee. We were so hungry and I had forgotten to take some of the food pictures.

After our breakfast, we drove to the famous beach in Kuantan – Teluk Cempedak. It is supposed to be a pretty "happening" beach. You would see huge crowd especially during this long weekend holiday, but due to the pandamic, the beach did not feel crowded at all.

Most interesting part of the beach: A wooden bridge/walkway that connected the main beach to another smaller beach which was less crowded. It was a long walk but it was most scenic.

The walkway passed the beach side and giant-sized rocks. People actually climbed over the bridge to sit on the rocks! And there are a lot of monkeys were wondering around and trying to snatch pedestrians’ food.

It is so co-incidentally I was carrying some snacks and wet wipes and unfortunately all were snatched by the monkeys!

We had been here in the year of 2008 when Annabelle was 1 year old. We were celebrating her birthday at Kuantan. Issac was almost 2 years old at that time. Alvin got this funny idea of wants to take the photos exactly 12 years ago, we will see how it is looks like! It was so funny!

There are a lot of changes at Teluk Cempedak during this 12 years of time. There are a lot of stalls and buildings were erected to cater for the ever increase of retail space at the area.

We had a break at the Starbuck Coffee and around 12 noon we left for our nect destination – Muhibbah Seafood Restuarant. It is a very famous and recommended seafood restaurant in Kuantan. The seafood here is very fresh and sheap. You can never get this kind of price in the city or even town. Secondly, the food here is very different, as they provide dishes that you hardly find in some of the seafood restaurant, like shark meat.

This is their famous shark meat. We ordered 2 types of different flavour of shark meet – one is Kunf Pao style and the other one is curry style. It's very fresh and the sauce is very nice. Other than that, we ordered deep fried sotong, steamed egg and stir fried vegetables too.

After the lunch, we drove to check in to the hotel. We stayed a night at Kuantan before we headed to Sungai Lembing the next day.

We had our dinner at Alor Akar Seafood Restaurant. Their signature dish is the herbal chicken or Chinese said ‘Begger Chicken’. The portion is huge and is very tasty as well.

We also order the butter-fried mantis prawns and salted egg yolk squid.

And homemade tofu with minced pork and salted fish. The cooking here is very homely and portions are generous at a very resonable price.

After the dinner, we called off the day and back to hotel to take a rest. In the evening both Alvin and I were out and walked at the side of the river just next to the hotel we stayed.

There were a few guys fishing on the platform along Sungai Kuantan. May be it is due to the Covid-19 pandemic. There were less people along the road and eateries at the Medan Selera which we saw along the road.

It is a great day for all of us and we had our stomach filled up with good and yummy food!

Extraordinary Daughters of God #4

I am a Mother

~ Sister Benjarin K Tan

Elder L. Tom Perry taught, “Motherhood is the noblest and greatest of all callings.”

"While not all women have the opportunity to be a mother, God does entrust all women with the divine responsibility of mothering, nurturing, and guiding his children. You are not alone in this divine role. You are partnered with Him, our all-knowing and loving Heavenly Father."

"God is not only there to hear and answer your prayers when you call upon Him for help; He is continually blessing you as you do this hard and important work. He is ready to help you become an even better, stronger woman, wife, and mother."

Sister Benjarin K. Tan or Sister Beam grows in the Church. She graduated from BYU Hawaii where she met her eternal companion, and now she stays in Malaysia.

She is an online English Tutor. She has a cute son and is expecting her 2nd child. Currently she serves as Young Single Adults Advisor, Primary teacher and Pianist in the Church.

Please do come in and listen to what she would like to share with you about her motherhood journey relying on God's strength.