2019 - Felda Residence Tekam

2 Days Felda Residence Tekam Adventure

25 - 26 July 2019

13 of us, consisting of 12 seniors and 1 young man from Kuantan Chapel embarked on a 2D1N travel adventure to Felda Residence Tekam in Jerantut from 25-26 July 2019. Our mission is to look for tropical fruits, in particular durians.

Day 1 - 25 July 2019

We started our journey early from various places in Kuantan and meet at Zaman Restaurant at 7:30am for breakfast. This restaurant was well known for its Nasi Dagang at one time but is now available on weekends only. So we settled for Nasi Lemak and Roti Canai instead.

Our first adventure stop was at Gunung Senyum Recreation Forest to visit some caves there. Gunung Senyum Caves are located in Pahang about 45 minutes drive from Temerloh. Gunung Senyum, which means Smiling Mountain, is a limestone outcrop which rises sharply 478m above the surrounding oil palm-dominated countryside.

Gunung Senyum is behind us

The mountain is riddled with caves, some of which are visible as soon as you pull up in the car park of Gunung Senyum Recreational Forest. Next to the car park is a traditional Pahang house dating from 1907, a park management office, a food stall, campsite, toilets and surau. But the place, like other similar places in Malaysia, is run down. There is hardly any maintenance.

The seniors trekking up to the caves

Except for two persons, the rest managed to climb up this steep metal staircase to the entrance of the cave

Once we are up inside the cave we are rewarded with a spectacular view of the various rocks formation inside the cave.

These caves are visible from the car park

We continued our journey to Jengka where we had our lunch at the Jengka Econsave food court. After lunch some of us did some shopping at Econsave before continuing our drive to Felda Residence Tekam arriving there at about 3:30pm

After checking into the hotel, our hunt for durian began. We were informed by the reception there is a fruit stall nearby that sells durian but it closes at 5pm. So we quickly made our way there for our first taste of durian kampung and durian kahwin.

We had our fill of durian for RM11 per person only !

The delicious durian kampung and durian kahwin

After our durian feast we rested for an hour in the hotel before leaving for Jerantut for our dinner. Before dinner we visited the church that our 2019 Church Camp speaker Bro. Koh Gim Lam served when he was teaching in the Kebangsaan School nearby during his younger days.

We had our dinner in Restoran Man Fook Lau in Jerantut town while fellowshipping together. We tried some of the local dishes and the delicious steam Tapah fish.

Our six course dinner costing RM24/pax

After the long day most of us retire early but bro. Yong went searching for durians with the help of his touch light. He managed to find a black thorn durian.

Day 2 - 26 July 2019

Our rooms come with simple buffet breakfast. After breakfast bro. Marcus, sis. Eunice and their son Edmund have to leave for Kuala Lumpur for Edmund's medical check up for his UK student's visa application. So our group was reduced to 10 persons for the remaining activities of the day.

After breakfast we walked around the vast plantation around Felda Residence Tekam happily plucking and eating rambutans from the many rambutan trees. Most of the rambutans are not ripe yet. They should be fully ripen by August. However, due to the many trees around we can choose and pick the ripe ones to pluck. Felda Residence Tekam is actually part of Tun Abdul Razak Agricultural Research Centre which we passed by during our morning walk.



Some of the rambutans are almost touching the ground

The following pictures are taken around the compound of the Tun Abdul Razak Agricultural Research Centre.



Fruits trees are everywhere

More fruits trees

Golden Chain flowers

The mangosteens are not ripe yet

The dukongs are also not so ripe yet

Nice durians kampung waiting to drop

Bro. Yong found one during the walk

Bro. Goh was very happy a durian just dropped nearby him

Cempedaks that look ripe for plucking

Me beside a low bearing dukong tree

After checking out from the hotel we went looking for durians at the stall near the research centre. Unfortunately all the durians were booked by people the day before. Since nothing can stop us from the taste of durians we opened the durians that bro. Yong, bro. Choi and bro. Goh have collected around the compound of the resort this morning and ate them nearby the durian stall !

Eating the 10 durians we collected this morning.

This pic was taken beside the durian stall for remembrance that nothing can stop our quest for durians !

After leaving Felda Residence Tekam we drove to Sungai Jerik. Along the way we stopped by a roadside stall manned by an elderly Chinese couple for our 2nd round of durians for the day. However, the durians here were not satisfactory. As we continued our journey we stopped by another durian stall also manned by an elderly Chinese couple for our 3rd round of durians for the day. This time the local durians were better than the earlier stall. Later we had drinks at a coffee shop in Sungai Jerik. As we left, we bought some durians from a shop a few doors away from the coffee shop to be eaten at the Taman Eko Rimba that we planned to visit.

This place like the one in Gunung Senyum is also very run down. There is no caretaker to be seen here and the facilities are not maintained at all. How sad ! We have good tourism spots but our maintenance is of 3rd world standards!

A tree with a very broad trunk at the bottom

This 4th round of durians for the day was the best as can be seen from the photos below

How much did we spent for the 4 rounds of durians and the drink at Sungai Jerik. Only RM12 per person !

From Taman Eko Rimba we continued our journey back to Maran where we passed by the famous Indian temple, the Sri Marathandavar Aalayam Temple, Maran

After Maran we continued the journey to Kuantan using the old trunk road. I have never used this trunk road ever since the East Coast Highway was opened. It was a nostalgic experience passing through the small old towns like Sri Jaya and Gambang. We stopped at Sri Jaya for our late lunch at the Restoran Sin Tong Kok which is famous for its Sri Jaya Pau. Unfortunately the pau stall was closed today ! So we ended up having three varieties of noodles costing RM7.50 per person.

Overall it was a fantastic trip. We should have more of these small groups outings, especially for retirees who do not need to go on weekends and jostle with the crowds.