NABM travels to: Folkestone, Kent

If you consider a one hour drive travelling, that is. While trying to figure out which district Folkestone was in, I Wiki-ed it and found these interesting facts.

1. Currently Folkestone has the only sandy beach and coastal park within an hour of north London.
2. Its original site was in a valley in the sea cliffs and it developed through fishing and its closeness to the Continent as a landing place and trading port.



And as a bonus; personal observations:

1. They sure do good prawns.
2. Seagulls don't care about your hair, and they are playground bullies intent on dive-bombing you. If you are brave enough, you could stand up to them, but that could also result in your having seagull in hair.

Setting the scene - it was about 2 months ago, and the day was bright and almost warm. We HAD to make use of the good weather so decided to make a day trip to our favourite place by the coast that is Folkestone. It's roughly around an hour's drive from where we are, and on a warm day like that one, what could be better than having a relaxing drive with the wind in my hair, sunnies up and face sticking slightly out the window?



I sometimes find it hard to believe that Folkestone is in England. On a sunny day, the photos make it look like somewhere in the middle of sunny Italy.

Seems warm, doesn't it? Don't be fooled, it wasn't. But it looked warm, and that's all that matters on this blog.



If I had to find one reason to come to Folkestone, this is it. Chummy's fish stand which is located right by the entrance to the pier, and surrounded by queues of hungry people all the times we've been there.

For £3, you get the smaller round containers shown above, and if you wanna roughly double it (in terms of quantity), you pay £6 for a rectangular takeaway box. We bought both versions that day, and concluded that you do get a little more than double with the £6 portion (and that is more prawns than anyone can have in one sitting. Really.)

Shown above are: Mixed seafood, king prawns and scampi tails.

My personal favourite is the king prawn, and that was what we bought more of after.

I'm guessing it's gonna be fresh fish? I know, I know. Some people will argue that the fish you buy in the UK has probably been caught somewhere in the Atlantic or wherever, and then frozen, and shipped to the UK so it's never really that fresh but come on, it tastes fresh so that's all that matters.

We walked around the high street for a bit, and considering it was quite a sunny day out, the high street was very empty. Maybe I've just gotten used to how busy it always is in London, regardless the day or the weather.

Despite having scoffed down a good few bowls of seafood earlier on, we stopped at this cafe for some lunch.

It was one of the nicer looking cafes along the little alley leading to the high street.

Because I have so much coffee daily during the week, I try not to have too much of it during the weekends. Theoretically speaking, I don't really need caffeine when I should be relaxed and just wandering around in Folkestone, but by the time it was noon and by the time I'd had my fair share of the seaside breeze, I felt myself getting warmer and warmer to the idea of a nice, smooth latte.

Not my lunch - this was a Ploughman's platter.



Fresh, full of different sorts of nibbles and perfect for a warm day out.

I had this instead, which was what I bought earlier when we first arrived, and nibbled straight away so wasn't too hungry for any sandwiches.

The husband had a ham and cheese sandwich. Just couldn't resist.

The mixed seafood was pleasant, but nothing special - tasted similar to the stuff you get from the fish aisle at your supermarket. Scampi tails were fresh and sea-salty. Usually I have my scampi deep fried and served with chips, but this version was good too.



The prawns were so very crunchy, slightly salty, and when dipped in the tangy Marie Rose sauce, oh my it was like a prawn cocktail gone very right.

M’sia – Pulau Perhentian

When we were in Malaysia, the fiance and I decided to spend a couple of days in Pulau Perhentian, which is located on the east coast of the peninsular. While we’d been to Pulau Redang before (40 minutes away from Perhentian), some of our friends were saying that it was getting too commercialised, and that it wasn’t as good as before so we thought, why not try someplace new. While Perhentian isn’t exactly untouched territory, it’s pretty good for a start.

(Lots and lots of pictures – similar pictures – to come, but since I don’t usually post scenic views here, it’s not really that many if you consider it in terms of average per post kinda thing)

There isn’t much structure to the way in which the pictures are organised, so I’ll do my best and tell the story as the pics come along. Sound good? OK.

This was a boat we saw on the way from the jeti to the resort. I’ve seen quite a few fishing boats before, but none which look as colourful and highly-stacked as this one.

The view from where I was sitting on the speedboat to the resort. There were dolphins near the front apparently, but of course I missed that, being in the middle looking out to the back of the boat and all that.

Something else I saw while missing out on the dolphins.

And then when everyone had had enough of the dolphins, I took a little stroll to the front, saw no dolphins, but continued to perch on the front looking into the boat. Kinda for dramatic effect or something.

Here’s another picture I took for effect while I was at the front of the boat. It’s not too often I bring the camera out to sea, so while I had it there, I was going to take as many pictures as I could.

The boat transported not just us holidaymakers, but also some eggs and what looked like a lot of fruits. Someone said they also took rubbish back from the island onto mainland.

After about 40 minutes on the boat, we neared the island. This was what we saw from the boat as we were approaching Tuna Bay Resort – one of the best resorts on the big island – although that’s not implying that it’s five stars or anything.

Dudes waiting to pull the boat in.

While I went slightly nuts snapping about 50 pictures before we even stepped onto the island, it turned out to be a good thing as we didn’t have sunlight like this for the next 3 days while we were there. It didn’t quite rain continuously either, but the skies were kinda grey and so, not the greatest for photo-taking.

Don’t actually have much to say about these pictures, but because I like them, I’ve posted them here.

The water taxi which took tourists either around the Besar island from one resort to another, to the tourist spots, and also from the Besar island to the Kecil island, which seemed to be the party-island where most of the backpackers go to, apparently.

This was the boat that took us from mainland to the island.

Water taxi prices.

The boat which took scuba divers out to sea. We didn’t go on this one as we only went snorkelling.

Another one.

The resort workers taking our luggage (joke) from the boat to the resort.

The deck chairs where we spent quite a lot of our time, mainly snoozing.

This was what the chalets looked like – not quite out chalet but as ours was next to a construction site, I decided this one looked better.

Snooze …

Seriously, how can you not wanna snooze when you have the heat, this view, and not much else to do?

On the first day there, our lunch which came as part of the package deal was some sort of cheese baked pasta. Surprisingly nice, though it was slightly weird how no one told us what we were having, but just kinda nodded at us as we sat down, said the food was coming soon, and then it was there on the table. I know we didn’t have much choice as to what we were having, but they could have at least told us what it was surely?

The next day, we had a buffet breakfast at the same place, and that was quite tasty also.

No matter where you are, even if you’re on a secluded island in the middle of the South China Sea, there is always … baked beans on toast.

Boots buy one get one free. Not the sunglasses.

The weather was kinda grey after the first day.

Pancakes and sausages on the second day.

We then went to feed some fishies by the pier. They go nuts for mushroom buns.

It was an amazing trip, despite not having much to do (and no TV). We went snorkelling (first day snorkelling was interesting, with us mainly trying to keep afloat and not go towards the huge rock covered with barnacles), we went kayaking (work those shoulders) and had nice walks by the beach. Saw lots of fish, really enjoyed ourselves, and would really recommend anyone to go there for a long weekend.