June Choo's Diary: 3D2N Tanjung Sepat / Malacca /Durian Buffet - DAY 3 (16

Day 3 - 18 June 2012

Morning breakfast at one the famous Bak Kut Teh shop

The boss

Varieties of Bak Kut Teh

Told him that his photo will be uploaded to the internet. See his beaming smile!

Boss's sister

Outside the stall, this lady wearing check blouse, selling local dry seafood products. She will follow you all the way to lover's bridge till you board the coach

Wendy, the staff of the resort having breakfast here too

All seated, ready to be served "Big Breakfast Bak Kut Teh"

Fish bak kut teh, simmered with chinese kiam chye (preserved vegetables). A unique taste, but GOOD and fish was very fresh.

The original Bak Kut Teh. Generous portion of the meat

Water was boiled using gas stove to brew the chinese tea

Along the streets of Tanjung Sepat

The whole place is a very slow moving pace. Hardly you can hear any horns from motor vehicles. Even though if you are walking slowly in one of the lane, the vehicle behind you will just patiently follow your pace. The best part is that the driver can still smile at you.

You can see vegetable and herb plants planted in front of their houses. Such as chilli padi shown below

Can you see the brinjah?

Lemon grass

Lady fingers

see how this lady finger grown in this shape at the
top of the branch

Ribena flower

A fruitful papaya tree and noticed that the tree is very short in height, even a kid can easily touched the papayas.

Next, we proceed to this family business owned coffee shop that roasts and sells coffee powder made from locally grown coffee beans. The process is done manually from roasting to grinding to coffee powder.

The coffee beans are dried under the sun

Stacks of coffee beans at the entrance of the shop

There were already many visitors inside the shop when

we reached there, mainly from tour groups

The owner explaining how the beans are roasted

A old model of a grinding machine

After tasting the brewed coffee and buying the coffee powder, we proceed to this famous hainanese handmade pao factory

Some of the fillings like mui chye (preserved salted vegetable)

Meat and egg fillings

Dough resting

The paos are cooled in the stack of trays after steaming. You can also buy the steamed one to sample before deciding which type of pao filling to buy back. When buying back, make sure you buy the cooled one and not those from the hot steaming trays

The paos come in different varieties, meat pao, vegetable pao, tau sah pao, peanut pao, kaya pao, pork pao and lastly the unique mui chai (preserved vegetable) pao

mui chai pao

handmade

A family buisness as you can see

The next stop, we arrived at this tapioca factory where

the tapioca are freshly made and produced about more

than 40 varieties of chips

The worker demo the peeling of the tapioca skin using a special knife which will peel the skin very thin and evenly

Afterwhich, the peeled tapioca will be dry over here

The tapioca will be sliced through this slicing machine

And again the sliced tapioca will be placed over the net to dry

Adjourning to the shop for the tapioca products

Inside the shop

Tapioca chips are packed in big packets that are ready for export. This is the non-spicy chips

Spicy but yummy and crispy tapioca chips

Pumpkin fried crispy crackers

Hot chilli tapioca chips

They also sell assorted cookies

Our next stop, is the Lover's bridge. Beside there is a shop selling the local products, dry seafood, biscuits, decorative items

Candies

The Ocean seafood restaurant is just next to the lover's bridge

Walking towards the lover's bridge

A vast spectacular view of the sky joining the sea. If you are staying overnight in Tanjung Sepat, is best that you view the bridge in diferent timings, in the morning and the evening sunset. It is definitely worth looking at the bridge during sunset where it will cast a golden yellow colouring surfacing the sea and the sky. At this time, it is low tide and you can see many of the tree branches standing up at the seabed, unlike when it high tide, only full view of only the blue sky and the sea.

The bridge also serves as a fishing boat jetty. In the early
morning, many fishing boats will bring back their catch

a standalone coconut tree branch with some up springs

As we are there in the late afternoon, the whole bridge is exceptional quiet with many fishing boats landing, comparing to the busy morning activities

Another side view of the beach

Having lunch at this seafood restaurant

Practising "one leg" kungfu?

Rice served in a big wooden rice tub

Fried bean curd with garlic, fried onions, vegetables and sauce

Tasty seaweed tauhu soup

Simple and delicious fried chye sim

Fried prawns with chilli sauce (har lok)

Fried fish with assam curry wrapped and steamed in lotus leaf

Mussels

Very fresh crabs fried with black pepper. Yummy!

Oyster eggs. Look at the oyster, it is round in shape unlike in our hometown. The seafood here is very fresh and I should say it is considerably quite OK with the pricing