Tg Dawai - 2D1N "Sangkar" Experience (Part 1 of 2)

"You will love the experience!  I bet you that!"

That was TT kor kor ensuring me that dear nephew and family, dear cousin and I would love the "sangkar"!  With that statement, he had invited us for this adventure of a lifetime!  Woohoo!

For your information, he was talking about the "sangkar ikan" which literally means "fish cage", this is in fact a floating wooden platform built by a local fisherman to breed fish in the sea. Various species of fish, including a colourful array of exotic coral fish and other fish, are bred here commercially for the local markets and restaurants.

As usual, we travelled back to Ipoh for a night before starting our journey early, to the north, the next morning!  Refreshed and save time mah!
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From Ipoh towards the north, using the PLUS Highway, exit at Exit 170 to go to Tg Dawai!

The gals did not know where their parents were taking them!

In fact, I also did not know what "sangkar" was all about!

Never mind lor, let's have lunch first!

After lunch, we went shopping for water lah, toilet paper lah, tidbits lah and whatever necessary lor!

On our way to Tg Dawai, we were still buying......

Mrs TT was busy fishing out live prawns to be used as baits for the fishes!

Eh, must pay one you know!  Not free one!

Yeay!

We reached Tg Dawai!

We reached Tg Dawai!

Okay!  Time to buy ice!

Needed ice to cool the beer, food stuff and caught fishes!

Ahem!  Provided they get caught by us lah?!

We even went to the wholesale market to source for seafood!

For the night's BBQ lor coz we never expected to catch anything for our dinner mah!

None of the traders were interested to sell to individuals but dear cousin managed to sweet talk one to sell 2kgs of fresh big prawn to her!

Bravo!

While everyone was busy sorting and grading the seafood, dear TT kor kor was busy picking "unwanted" squids on the floor to be used as fishing baits!

Upon seeing poor TT picking from the floor, some traders offered to give him some chosen squids for his baits.

Even the cat got a treat lei!

Meow....  Purrr....

We finally reached the jetty to get onto the sampan!

TT kor kor introduced us to the owner of the "sangkar"; a young, capable and friendly chap!

The two little girls already seated on the sampan when the adults were socialising!

So obedient and cute, right?

Do you know the girls have personal life jackets ah?

Dear nephew really thought of everything one!

Am so proud of you, dear nephew!

There!  The "sangkar" was waiting for us!

One over-exposed photo by dear cousin over the other end of the boat!

Ya lor, I was busy taking pictures of the kids and dear nephew was busy taking pictures of the ride!

As usual lah, 3 cameras in action!

This was it!  This was the main floating hut!

See dear nephew!

So "yau ying", like a movie star, all ready for some big fish actions!

Hahaha!  We shall see, we shall see...

Everyone so busy wor..

Bags, food stuff, fishing rods and all for 2 days fun!

Look at the little girl's frown!

Hahaha!  She wanted to go to the toilet and her mummy brought her here!

No choice, dear, this was what you need to get use to for the next 2 days!

Hey, this toilet was brand new, okay?!

Brother TT got his friend, the owner of this place, to do up the toilet so that we (city folks) will be comfortable when we were there!

So thoughtful of kor kor and thanks to his friend too!

Thank you ah...

We did not waste much time!

Quickly we got ourselves to the next platform to set up our tents.

The staff there helped us to set up shades so that the rain, if any, will not get to us!

We really appreciate their thoughtfulness in making us feel at home!

Thank you once again...

Two tents; the purple blue for dear nephew and family and the yellow one for dear cousin and I!

I tell you ah, we really cracked our head to assemble the tents so that they will not fall on us when we are inside!  Hahaha!

We spent almost an hour setting them up!  Phew!

First time mah...

Ta da!  Done!  All ready and safe to use!

Look at the logistic of this place.

The main platform, the orange hut, was at the furthest end.

The toilet was between that hut and our tents.

In other words, we had to balance on one broad plank or two narrow planks to get from one place to another!

This was attached to join up the whole place, the "sangkar"!

In every square, there was a net containing fishes reared for sale by the owner.

Err, that means we were not allowed to throw our fishing rods in them lah!

Hahaha!

Next thing we had to set up was the BBQ pit!

This pit was specially made for Mr and Mrs TT  by our chairman, TFL!

Beautiful workmanship that turned out to be a jigsaw puzzle for us!

Hahaha!

See, four people had to work on it!

Now, we must fix the A to the A and the B to the B!

There was also C to C and D to D!

Err, what about this small piece ah??

Oh, it was really fun lei!

The engineer and the accountant also had to put on some thinking caps!

Wahahaha!

Yeay!  Finally!  "Kaw tim" (Complete)!

TFL, thank you for this wonderful pit!

It was the saviour of our dinner!

The staff at the "sangkar" collected these mussels for us!

Live ones from the under where we stayed!

Freshly picked for our dinner!

Here's Mrs TT cleaning up the shells of the mussels before they can be barbequed!

Dear cousin was keeping her company for a while and I tried to help clean but chickened out when I found tiny crawlies from their homes I was destroying!

Yikes!

Since I could not be of any help, I joined the rest in what was fun at the "sangkar"!

Yup!  Fishing!

See, I was really holding a fishing rod one!

We settled to fish and the sun went down on us!

Haizz.. guess we used too much time setting up the tents and the BBQ pit!

Oh, I must tell you about these two dogs!

You see, they were also visitors here!

The workers tried to chase them off but they'd only needed to jump into the water and swim to the other side of the "sangkar" to get up and enjoy the place again!

Smart dogs, I'd say!

Dear nephew's first catch!

Eh, I thought you were suppose to fish fishes lah!

Why catch a starfish instead??

Since you caught it, might as well take pictures of it before throwing it back into the sea!

Look at the tiny legs struggling helplessly when we had fun taking its pictures

Were we sadists ah??

TT kor kor said that these starfishes stay at the sea bed and easily get themselves hooked to the baits.

They are actually nuisance to the fishing fans because they keep interrupting their catch!

Turn the starfish the other way and it looked like this; a starfish water sponge!

The longer we had it off water, the drier it got!

Quick!  Throw it back into the water before it dry lah!

Brother TT said that it will not die even if it got drier because once it touches water, it will absorb the water and become alive again! 

He said even if we break one of its legs, the broken leg could grow into 5 starfishes!

Err, true ke?  Or were you pulling our legs lah??

We set fire on the virgin BBQ pit so that we could cook our dinner!

Still shining new but soon it would be tarnished!

Wahahaha!  (Evil laugh!)

Cooking, cooking, cooked!

Yummy chicken wings, fresh big prawns and mussels, fishes and "lam chut", fishballs and much more!

We were thankful to Mrs TT for the wonderful food spread!

Look at brother TT, sitting dutifully waiting for food to be served by his lovely wife!

Hey, little girl, what were you doing there lah?

And where were the rest of the people??

I did not know where everyone was because I was asleep after half a can of cold Tiger!

Drank it because I was too heated by the fire!

Dear darling girl was sleeping because of the long day!

Hehehe, this was my favourite picture of the day coz dear darling girl and I slept in the same sleeping position!

Hahaha!

Thanks, dear nephew, for taking this shot!

To part 2 of 2

(the finale)!