December 02, 2012

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.

5 comments:

WK Liew said...

Good outing for the kids rather than just stay at home & play with their games & watch TV

Unknown said...

I've never been to Pulau Ketam, looks like it should be in my radar for next year! Esp cheap seafood, heheheh and my kids love seeing crabs on the beach.

Kit said...

Pulau Ketam looks really interesting! My cousins wanted to take me there previously but I didn't have time. One day, hopefully.

I'm amazed to see that the squat toilet still exists - the last time I saw one in KL was probably in 1981?

Don't you just roll your eyes at the kids with the iPads? Yan Yan is very nice to just watch - my girl will never do that.

chinnee said...

we havent been there until now. not cheap eating there ya...

A Mom's Diary said...

WK - definitely

Irene - it's good for a day trip, but don't expect too much la. Haha.

Kit - I was amused by that toilet too :-) No la, Yan Yan always fight with her jie-jie for the iPad or my Samsung phone.

Chinnee - not that cheap, and not really good either. Can definitely get better quality food in PJ. Not sure if it's just that shop that we went.