A City of Our Own Part IV: Batu Pahat

Posted by See Guo Lin on April 26, 2011

“There are no other places that I love as much as my beloved hometown Batu Pahat – the perfect ratio of blend between serenity and modernisation that I cannot find in another place.”

Guo Lin shares about the town where he was born and grew up in. Guo Lin is a Web Developer and Analyst in Stampede.

Batu Pahat town, also known as Bandar Penggaram is the second largest city in Johor after Johor Bahru, and the 10th largest city in Malaysia (as of 2008). Johor is the southern-most state in Peninsular Malaysia, while Batu Pahat is located on the west cost of Johor. The development of Batu Pahat has surpassed Alor Setar and Kuala Terengganu, which have both achieve city status, although the government has no plan to upgrade the status of the town yet.

The name Batu Pahat can be translated as chiselled rock in English. Popular belief among the town people regarding the origin of the name is that it was taken from a chiselled rock well located at the mouth of Batu Pahat River, believed to be dug by Siamese troops after a failed attack on Malacca. Another name of the town, which is Bandar Penggaram, literally means the town of salt-makers. The name is less often used by the locals, except when differentiating the Batu Pahat town and the Batu Pahat district in a context.

The most significant and symbolic landmark of this small town is the fountain with a sculpture depicting a pair of floating hands chiselling a rock in the town square, Dataran Penggaram. Families come to the town square to have picnics and other family activities during evenings and weekend nights.

Batu Pahat contributes the most to textile production of Malaysia, with more than 300 textile and garment factories established here. Other than that, food processing, electronics, and furniture industries have also established prominent existence in the city.

Some of the refurbished pre-WWII shophouses in Batu Pahat. The wall sculpture are unique for each shophouse.

I was born in Batu Pahat town, was brought up and educated here during my childhood and adolescence. Then I left for Perak, a northern state in Peninsular Malaysia for university for about five years. After that, I went straight to Kuala Lumpur to work for about two years. During these seven years that I am not really living in Batu Pahat, the little town has grown a lot. Several shopping malls and hypermarkets have flourished within a few years with the third town centre established.

Having travelled and lived in different places in Malaysia all these years, there are no other places that I love as much as my beloved hometown Batu Pahat – the perfect ratio of blend between serenity and modernisation that I cannot find in another place.

Images courtesy of Achmal.

I enjoy the air and the climate in Batu Pahat. Whenever I step down from the long-distance coach, I feel relived again breathing the air with the scent of my hometown. I enjoy driving in the town centre of Batu Pahat. Everyone drives at a decent speed but not overly fast. The pace of life is just nice for me.

Although Batu Pahat is not a big city like Kuala Lumpur or Johor Bahru, I never have trouble getting something I need in Batu Pahat. Food and household supplies are definitely cheaper than those in big cities due to the standard of living. Electronics and IT products are more or less at the same price as those in the cities as well. Although we do not get big-scale concerts or exhibitions here, the other things are pretty much comparable to those in Kuala Lumpur or Johor Bahru. If there is a thing that I would complain about Batu Pahat is that whenever there is new high speed broadband and cellular network or technology, Batu Pahat usually only gets them after they have been rolled out for a few years in the big cities.

Nevertheless, Batu Pahat is still a great place to settle down to me. Urban development has destroyed much of the tranquillity in big cities. Even so, I can’t live without a good amount of urbanisation. My beloved hometown Batu Pahat has the ‘just nice’ amount of both to me, and I selfishly hope it stays at the size it is now so that the serenity can be retained.

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Koh Lipe Trip

Posted by Syazwan Hakim on April 3, 2011

“While still in the shuttle, my eyes caught fantastic view of the beach with light blue crystal clear waters and shining white sandy beach I never see before.”

Syazwan visit Koh Lipe, Thailand along with Shaiful as a part of Stampede on-site Project. Syazwan is the front-end developer at Stampede.

Trip to Koh Lipe, Thailand was my first trip out of Malaysia. It is a small island in the Southern part of the Andaman sea with white sandy beaches and crystal clear waters. Located only an hour from Langkawi using speedboat, this island is part of the Tarutao National Marine Park, a large group of over 70 islands.

Choose Telaga Terminal as our Shuttle service, we depart from Telaga Harbour Marina at 9 am and arrived at 10 pm. While still in the shuttle, my eyes caught fantastic view of the beach with light blue crystal clear waters and shining white sandy beach I never see before. Since there is no jetty at Koh Lipe, we need to ride small boat which can load 10 person at a time with noisy motor for landing on the beach.

Once on the beach, first thing we do is to retrieve our passport at the immigration post. Both of us are shocked because the post is just a simple wooden shelter. This is where they do most of the thing such as immigration check up and shuttle ticket counter. In our case, which only a day trip, we don’t need to retrieve our passport. What we need to do at the shelter is to check in for evening shuttle.

After the check in process, we take a walk along the beach finding something to eat. Luckily somebody at Telaga Marina Harbour suggest us to have a lunch at “Bangroon Halal Food”. “Bangroon Halal Food” also provide money changer service. About 5 minutes walking, we arrived at “Bangroon Halal Food”. While eating, we met the restaurant owner named Bang Harun. After some chatting with him, we asked about the boat service to take us for snorkeling. After finish our lunch, we are now ready to go snorkeling.

The snorkeling trip take 3 hours on 3 different spot on the other island. First and second spot are quite disappointing because it’s on the middle of the sea. The waters is dark and there is nothing much to see while snorkeling. The sea current also quite strong and float us away from boat. Fortunately the last spot much better with clear waters and a lot of colorful fish. They all hiding from sunlight below the boat. The fish seem like didn’t bother our presence, so we can easily touch them while snorkeling.

After 10 minutes snorkeling at the last spot, i notice a big group of shining Anchovy rounding me. It is such a fascinating view to see a lot of shining fish around me. Since last spot is near the shore and the waters is not too deep, we got a very nice view of the coral on bottom of the sea.

On the way back to Koh Lipe, heavy rain and storm caught us in the middle of the sea. We are a bit worry at the moment since the boat is small and the wave is high. While on the boat, I realized that how fast weather can change. We manage to get to Koh Lipe at 3.30 pm.

While Shaiful finding something sour to cure his sea sick, I went to the immigration post to get info about our shuttle. They told me that the shuttle only leave Koh Lipe at 4 pm. Since there’s only half and hour before shuttle depart, we decide to stay near the immigration post waiting for the shuttle. 15 minutes gone and the there’s no sign of the shuttle departure. That time, I just realized that Thailand time is an hour late than Malaysia.

Since there is still 45 minutes from departure, I and Shaiful take a walk along the Koh Lipe walking street. Nothing much on the shop along the street. Most of them provide cybercafe and the famous Thai Massage. It tooks us 15 minutes to reach the end of the walking street and we decide to go back to the beach. On the way back, I noticed a sign board that attract me. The signboard tell us how far Koh Lipe from big city such as Kuala Lumpur, London and Paris.

At 4.45 pm which is 3.45 pm Thailand time, the boarding collector ask us to fill the small boat which take us to the departure platform. On the platform, we need to give our boarding pass and take our seat on the shuttle. Another 1 hour journey to Langkawi. We reach Langkawi Telaga Marina at 6 pm. Since this is one day journey and part of Stampede project, I will surely give a second visit just for holiday.

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