Chinese New Year Holidays

The hubby had 2 days off for Chinese New Year so we headed for Bukit Mertajam, Penang to visit his mom.. Since we were travelling from Kuala Terengganu, we used the north route traversing through Kelantan (Jeli) Perak (Grik) and Kedah (Baling - Kulim) to reach BM. We have been through this way before a number of times and every time I was hoping we would encounter a herd of elephants crossing the road.. but noo, we weren't that lucky! Here's the signboard which we would see along the way warning about elephants crossing:

Anyway, nothing ever exciting happened on the 8-hour drive... Some pics from the 'kampong' - not as merry as Hari Raya where some if not all of the hubby's siblings and families converge to celebrate at the family home:

Typical kampong house, lots of trees

Flowers planted by widowed sis-in-law living with mom-in-law

Natinal flower of Malaysia - the hibiscus

'Cat's Whiskers' - herbal plant

These plain white beauties smell heavenly..

Rambutan trees around the house bearing fruits!

Still green pineapples

'Bunga Kantan' - an essential ingredient for 'Laksa Penang'

White chilli - don't be fooled by its milky colour; your mouth will be on fire if you bite it

On our way back home we spent the night at a hotel in Kota Bharu, Kelantan, continuing the journey back to KT the next day:

Kelantan River: taken from hotel window

Dawn breaking..so calm and peaceful..SubhanAllah!

What are these guys doing with those iron scraps, you may wonder..

Ta..da...amazing isn't it? Robotic figures made from those scraps

Really creative..MasyAllah..we happened to park near the Kelantan International Trade Exhibition and these are made by students of Giat MARA, Pasir Mas 

This is a petrol station in Bachok. Second time we stopped here for prayers because of the neat surau in its compound

Clean and tidy

Shiny white doors

All sparkly and chromy in the bathroom

Only one complain - the glass door by the side, no privacy for the Muslimahs..

And hey what's this? Goolwa cockles? No, it's Tok Bali cockles.. we saw these on the way, bought some and they tasted just like Goolwa cockles (maybe the ones in Adelaide tasted wee bit better because we picked them ourselves..)