The Trip to Padang Besar

Last Sunday, we took a trip to Padang Besar (PB). It is a town in Perlis that borders with Thailand. The village near PB, Wang Kelian, in fact is the northernmost place in Peninsular Malaysia. We did make a trip near there to go to one of the famous caves.

The trip was suggested by my third son as he is about to take a job in a biotech company (where his expertise will be relevant) in Johor Bahru, leaving his job in BP lab (a 6-day job). He was initially in BP lab at KLIA but since the Covid testing has been reduced, they have downsized the staff and my son had to go to their head office in Shah Alam in the past few weeks (which is a hassle, far from Seremban and he had to stay at a friend's place). Coincidentally, all the family was there during the weekend with my youngest coming back for his study week (and his exams are conducted online). So it was the whole family trip and it has been years since we did this. The last one would be to Langkawi, when they were still small.

Starting at around 8am on Sunday morning, we arrived in PB around 4pm in the evening, making several stops along the way. The driving is mostly made by my sons plus my other half. We stayed at LS Village Hotel, a hotel owned by a co-op (LS stands for Lubuk Sireh). The Sunday night, we found a stall near the hotel and had dinner there. The food is a bit pricey but that is probably we are visibly tourists of the lot there. Apparently there were many UniMaP students living nearby (saw some buses there).

We began our actual sight-seeing on the next morning. Our first stop is for breakfast at Shidi Roti Canai, situated in Abi, near the paddy fields. I had my chapati (labelled as VIP, strangely).

These are some scenery shots taken there.

Our next stop is Lake Timah Tasoh. Here are many pics.

The place had many spots for tourists take photo shots.

Our next stop is Gua Kelam (the earlier mentioned cave - literally it is Cave of Darkness - though it is well lit for tourists to go through). We walked through the cave (me stopping around 300 metres from the main entrance - my ankle was hurting then).

It was at Gua Kelam that we had our first group photo (selfie-style).

In the afternoon, we went to Arked Niaga Padang Besar, which is mainly a shopping place (the least interesting for me). My sons bought some jerseys and my other half bought a dress and food stuff. My third son, did not follow in this part of the trip as he had some assignments to do. It was also raining heavily when we were inside and had to wait for awhile before heading back to the hotel. All of us were exhausted then. Luckily there was a pasar malam (night market) in late evening, in front of the hotel. So our dinner was mainly from this night market.

The next day was our day of travelling back home. Before doing so, we went to the infamous Warung Tepi Sawah for breakfast. We took some pics there.

On the way back, we decided to stop by at Sungai Perak RnR for lunch, a place we have not stopped by before. The RnR is relatively smaller and hence was less crowded, which suits us well.

We arrived home between 4-5pm, after which we just have a McDonalds dinner. The next day, wasmainly resting but I tried to settle my Touch n Go card problem (card has expired) at the Senawang toll but unfortunately the service centre there has closed. Today tried again at Watsons and at the petrol stations but none of them had stock of the cards. Tried doing online but it was problematic. The only thing I got settled is settling my son's Maxis account before he goes off to JB this weekend. Tomorrow, I will start to travel next to Melaka for an engagement ceremony.