Visit to Pulau Ketam

In between Deepavali and Nuzul Quran recently, I was on leave and we decided to visit the famed Pulau Ketam.  We left after breakfast, and made it in good time to the Port Klang jetty to catch the 10.45am boat to Pulau Ketam.  Since it was a working day, the jetty and the boat was not crowded at all, contrary to some blog postings I read.

Kids posing at the jetty

It was a comfortable 45 minutes ride, and passengers were entertained by an old Hong Kong vampire movie J  The ride took us past the port with plenty of container ships docked, followed by open sea and mangrove swamps.

As usual, the kids entertained themselves with gadgets

Whatcha' looking at?

Crabs...lots and lots of baby crabs, as tide was low when we arrived

View of the village from the jetty, at low tide when we arrived (L), and during high tide, as we left

Upon arrival, we just walked around the village, which is built on stilts.  There are no cars nor proper roads, and the main mode of transport it the bicycle.  It was a hot day but I suppose it’s better than a rainy day, which had been the case during that time.  I’ll let the photos do the talking.

Police station

As the inhabitants of Pulau Ketam are primarily Chinese, there are quite a few Chinese temples

Kids breaking into Gangnam style in the middle of the village square

Houses on stilts

A very primitive public toilet in the middle of the village.  It consists of just a simple hole inside the zinc structure

 The village's secondary school

 Another temple

Boat yard 

A much nicer and modern primary school

 

Shrimps out in the sun at the dried shrimps factory

Workers sorting out dried shrimps at the factory

We walked around a large part of the island and by finally had enough, and settled down for lunch at about 2.30pm.  We chose Restoran Kim Hoe, located at the beginning of the main road as one walks in from the jetty.  Though Pulau Ketam is famous for its seafood, our meal was disappointing.  The sweet and sour crab, and the gungpo mantis prawn, didn’t taste good, neither was the seafood fresh.  Luckily the seafood vermicelli and the fishball soup saved the day.  We also ordered a plate of lala chien from one of the stalls nearby - it was pretty good.  The meal, with rice and drinks for 3 adults and 4 kids, cost about RM 150.

One of the many lala chien stalls in the village

As we were walking out to the jetty, we spotted this uncle selling fried ice-cream near the police station.  We bought two to try - it was basically ice-cream sandwiched in a bread pocket, and deep fried briefly, giving a crunchy outside layer, and cold delight in the centre.

We caught the 4.45pm boat back to Port Klang, and I can finally tick Pulau Ketam off from my Cuti-cuti Malaysia list.