Kuantan, Cherating, Terengganu, and Kota Bharu

Kuantan: Beautiful mosque lit up at night
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Ok so to be fair these several days are kind of a blur, as we were moving so frequently and not finding much spectacular.  We moved up the East coast of the Malaysian peninsula, stopping at 4 cities along the way, often for only 1 or 2 nights.  This is how it went when we left the island:

We spent a day in transit and ended up in Kuantan for one night.  This was a "big" city that buses actually run to, although it was nearly impossible to get there because it was the last Sunday of Hari Raya- think of traveling the Sunday after Thanksgiving.  But we made it and found an alright city with a big mosque, mega malls, and personality-less hotels.  It redeemed itself with an amazing street fair full of delicious street food for dinner, and a surprise parade outside our hotel.  The next day we caught a local bus to Cherating.

Kuantan: Parade on the way home
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In Cherating 3 days flew by as we slept on the beach, attempted to celebrate Halloween (we dressed up as Canadians for the day), and then spent more time relaxing on the beach.  We had an amazing chalet where they lit mosquito coils for us every dusk, and an expansive and empty beach.  Really, what more is there to life?

But we never should have left Cherating, because we ended up in Kuala Terengganu where there was only one hostel which was dirty and gross (full of bedbugs), and the tourbook misguided us on a long adventure to find ais krim goreng (fried ice cream) which was far from satisfying.  We left the next day...

Kota Bharu: a Jenny-sized town...
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...and went to Kota Bharu, the northernmost city on the east coast, which showed a lot of potential with several lovely mosques and an interesting cultural center.  Unfortunately it was Friday, so all the sites in this nearly 100% Muslim city were closed to the public.  The cultural center would have been open, if it weren't for the fact that it closes completely for the monsoon season, which we missed by 3 days.  We stayed for 2 days (in 2 different hostels - also bedbuggy), and prepared ourselves for our trip into the jungle.