All because of turtles

Langkawi - George Town - KUANTAN - Taman Negara National Park / Kuala Tahan - Merapoh

After such a beautiful city like George Town, Kuantan was a real disaster. All because of the turtles that I (Emely) wanted to see so badly.

A brief overview of Kuantan:🤔, 🧐, 🙄 oh yes Ramadan, oh and a very nice café (luckily it was open), otherwise there was a beach that was a bit far away and that was it. Because the turtles are quite a distance away from Kuantan. The beach was very beautiful with clear water and at the end of the beach there were great and impressive rocks. You could walk from one beach to another along a jungle, but there were many monkeys that were very greedy and cheeky. So don't unpack any food, otherwise it's gone.

The really annoying thing was that there were no scooters to rent. So we had to use Uber (here they are called Grab) for every trip. RM 10 (2.14€) to the beach and RM 56 (12€) to the turtles one way. That's nothing for us 😑 But as I said, I really wanted to see the turtles.

What's the deal with the turtles:

45 minutes north of Kuantan is a beach called "Cherating Beach", which is visited by turtles from April to August, where they lay their eggs. In order to prevent the eggs from being plundered by poachers, there is a "Turtle Sanctuary" where the eggs are safely buried and naturally hatched by the sun. I wanted to see this. Originally our plan was to ride there on a scooter and stay there until

evening to possibly observe a turtle, as they prefer to come to the beach in the dark. Since we didn't have a scooter, we could only take a Grab to visit the reserve.

Our driver, who was the same age as us, was with his pregnant wife on Sunday and drove both of us. The funny thing was that they had never been there themselves and didn't even know about it, so they decided to come along.

There wasn't much to see there. They had some freshwater turtles on site that you could look at. There were some information boards that were very informative and a sand area where the eggs were buried again and safely.

According to Finn, it wasn't worth it. But I'm still very happy to have been there.

Well, off to common shores again... into the jungle 👏😊