Kampung Pulai - Water & Moon Temple and Pulai Princess Cave

Off we went from Kuala Lipis to Gua Musang. It was a good 1 1/2 hours' drive. The new highway was beautiful towards Gua Musang because there are beautiful limestone caves left and right. My first thought of Gua Musang was, it is "Hanoi on Land"!!! Just picture Halong Bay without water. That's Gua Musang @ Civet Cave.

We first hit Kampung Pulai. The highlights of this village must be explored immediately as I was totally excited. There are a few write ups in Google which made me all the more curious about this place.

Kampung Pulai is a Hakka village some 15 minutes drive from Gua Musang town. The Hakka people came to the village for gold from the period of Ming Dynasty to Qing Dynasty.

Shui Yue Gong Temple or the Water & Moon Temple is a 600 year old Chinese temple and it is famous for granting wishes, especially for the needy. Chinese people from all over the world purposely travel to this temple to have their wishes granted.

 

Guan Gong

Chang Fei

See the cave over at the other end?

Okay...follow me!

Let's go for another adventure

Cross the metal bridge over the Galas River

 

We have to walk along the old mining pool to get to the cave.

Have you seen rubber trees being tapped? I have not so it was a unique sight for me. I was crazy excited but not over its smell. Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!

We have walked around the mining pool. Now we see the Chinese temple across the pool.

The Pulai Princess Cave

Climb! Climb! Climb!!

Ohhhh just another 3 more flight of stairs!!!

Finally!

 

Zhi Xia Dong

A 12m statue of Guan Yin that was formed or carved from a huge limestone stalagmite in 2008.

After enjoying the view and breeze, and taking pictures here and there, we finally dragged ourselves down to the surface of the earth and rested by the dirty looking fish pond. Slowly, we inched our way back to the temple, feeling most satisfied and happy.

Kuala Lipis Part I

Just the thought of being able to stand in the MIDDLE point of Peninsular Malaysia was my "carrot" to drive to Kuala Lipis. Then the plan was to drive all the way to Gua Musang but stopped by at Kuala Lipis. Hence, our adventure started.

Starving like crazy this was our focus at Kuala Lipis, this is the centre of Peninsular Malaysia. Yippy! We made it!

Kuala Lipis is a sleepy little town, lying comfortably by Jelai River. I drove from Petaling Jaya to Bentong, using the Karak highway, then north to Raub and then arrived Kuala Lipis in about 2+ hours.

Kuala Lipis used to be the old capital of Pahang from 1898 to 1955. Yeah, a town in the middle of the forest. It was founded because of its richness in gold and tin. Today, this little town is pretty quiet and many old folks are still around. No traffic jams here. Everybody drives rather slowly!  I guess visitors are scarce too because when we arrived, people were just staring at us. A young man actually came up to us after we walked around the town, asking us where we were from. He told us that he works in KL but comes home twice in a month. We told him we were just exploring small towns in our leisure.

This fantastic food court has the YUMMIEST Hakka noodles and TOMATO noodles in the world!!!

This is the stall to order the Hakka and Tomato noodles, and many other kinds of noodles.

 Hakka noodles

 Tomato noodles

Coffee was also not too bad. The coffee shop lady also sold some homemade kuehs and we tried some. GOOD!

Red bean Hakka kueh

Yam kueh

The old railway station

The town. After eating at the Chinese hawker centre, we walked around the town.

Post office

Lovely old buildings, each has the year it was built at the top.

An old hotel

Another famous place for Hakka noodles

The former state mosque which was built in 1888.

Jelai River

An empty lot in the middle of downtown

An old shoplot

The famous Thean Hou Temple, located right in the middle of downtown, which was built in 1898. From the Chinese hawker centre, you can view the temple's roof.

Okidoki. Time to continue our journey to Gua Musang. We will be back for Part II in Kuala Lipis.