travel, malaysia, kota bharu

Tootling in Kota Bharu…

…The Kota Bharu Road Trip Day 3.

Job 1 for Day 3 was to get the papers for my new visa submitted to the Royal Thai Consulate. (The reasons for which are explained in the first article.) Opening time is 9am, so I was there at 8:50 expecting to see at least a few other applicants. All I saw was aggressive-looking guard dogs, safely locked behind a gate. Strange.

I looked around for a while, and eventually found a notice board, upon which was a notice, announcing that the Consulate was closed. Oh, goodie. My language even took the dogs by surprise.

travel, malaysia, kota bharu

I had carefully checked for public holidays, both Malaysian and Thai, but I didn’t take into account so-called “Substitution Days.” You see, I was there on a Sunday – which was no problem because the weekend in Kelantan State, is Friday/Saturday. The previous Friday was a public holiday in Thailand, and because the nice people at the consulate were already on holiday because it was the weekend in Kelantan, they decided to take Sunday as a substitution day. Are you following all this? How you can run a country that can’t decide what a weekend is, is beyond me. But thankfully, that’s not my problem, nor yours.

The upshot of all of this was that I now had a spare day, and I had to rearrange the remaining hotel bookings and the car ferry to get home. Well, that was really no problem as I had a whole day in which to do it! And with that done, it was time for a spot of sightseeing.

Most of the interesting buildings are within a small area close to the Kelantan River. I thought about driving there, but the roads are busy and parking limited. So, I set off on a twenty minute walk. First on the list was the Sultan’s palace, or Istana Balai Besar…

Oops! Oh well, at least I got to see the royal garbage removal!…

travel, malaysia, kota bharu

Next to this was a nice covered arcade serving as a food court…

travel, malaysia, kota bharu

Nothing too exciting though, so I headed over to the Kampung Kraftangan, or handicraft village…

travel, malaysia, kota bharu

travel, malaysia, kota bharu

travel, malaysia, kota bharu

This lady was demonstrating the ancient and noble craft of mobile phone usage…

travel, malaysia, kota bharu

Next up was the royal museum housed in a building known as Batu (Stone) Palace, complete with the Royal Rolls…

travel, malaysia, kota bharu

travel, malaysia, kota bharu

It didn’t look too exciting so I didn’t go inside.

Close by is yet another palace serving as a small museum – Istana Jahar. Built in 1887, it has served as a royal residence…

travel, malaysia, kota bharu

Quite attractive I thought.

Across the street is Padang Merdeka, literally Independence Field, perhaps “Square” would be a better word, although it is neither a field nor square…

travel, malaysia, kota bharu

And next to that is yet another museum, Muzium Islam…

travel, malaysia, kota bharu

travel, malaysia, kota bharu

…with the Muhammadi Mosque behind.

This building, known as Bank Kerapu (but no longer a bank) houses a war museum…

travel, malaysia, kota bharu

travel, malaysia, kota bharu

I might have gone in this one, but it was closed!

Which as far as I could tell left only the royal clock tower and the royal jetty…

travel, malaysia, kota bharu

And I’m surprised His Royalness doesn’t break his royal neck on the royal steps.

wwiWell, that occupied a morning. Now what? Jump in the car and head out of town, that’s what. Story coming soon.

Paul

...has been travelling the world for more than sixty years; having lived and worked in five countries and travelled to many many more.

He likes to write about his travels - present and past - along with his other main interests of Drones, Information Technology and Motorsport, and he adds a few general twitterings along the way.


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