Looking for the tombs of Sultan Shahabuddin and Sultan Iskandar Zulkarnain...

In the article Latest visit to the old abandoned mosque at Teluk Memali (or is it just Bandar Baharu)? I've told that I've visited tombs of 2 Sultans and a royalty before going to the old abandoned mosque. After that I visited the tomb of another Sultan by the name of Sultan Alauddin Mansur Iskandar Muda some 2 km south of the mosque. It's a tomb I've never ever visited before because of its very remote location.

Actually I've tried once to get to this tomb 2-3 years before only to find the road badly broken and very unaccesible. This time I managed to go in far by riding a bike with a local. Even then we had to park the bike somewhere and walked a distance.

After the tomb of Sultan Alauddin Mansur Iskandar Muda, there's 2 more tombs of Sultans I haven't ever visited. It's supposed to be on the same route heading south... why, according to the signboard the tomb of the next Sultan should be just a kilometre or down the route and the other tomb another kilometre away. But I was told the route is no more accesible with some parts having to cross rivers and such apart from secondary jungles. The only way to reach it said the local is to drive up north to Kampung Gajah to get to the only bridge crossing the Perak river within a 20 km radius, then get to Kampung Bandar a distance south of Pasir Salak for a boat. I had no choice. I had to drive some 25 km to get to that place...

So here we are at the area near Kampung Bandar...


Thank God I managed to get the help of some locals for a boat...

In the yellow shirt is Pakcik Ismail accompanied by his nephew who owns the boat. I came across him while looking for the mosque of Kampung Bandar and he roped in the nephew when I told him I had to get a boat in order to reach the tombs of 2 Sultans across...


Here is a look behind after we've passed the mouth of the river Kinta. Seen in the middle is an island, to the left is the river mouth. The tomb of the 15th Sultan of Perak, Sultan Iskandar Zulkarnain is somewhere on the right bank of the mouth. We went on ahead because we wanted to get to the other tomb first, that of the 21st Sultan, Sultan Shahabuddin...



About 200 metres later we entered a swampy area...





The small opening is enough for a boat to get through. But at times we have to push the plants apart as it not only blocked the way, it could also get entangled to the boat engine and fan...

After tying our boat at the banks we climbed up only to find out two Indian persons fishing at the connecting canal. We were perplexed. How did they got in when this place is said to be inaccesible by land? Well, they did'nt realise that neither did they knew the way. It seems a friend have brought them by car, cutting through a nearby oil palm plantation. Hmm...






Anyway we went on with our business looking for the tomb of Sultan Shahabuddin...






Thank God I could spot the tomb building in the background. Even Pakcik Ismail was not sure of its location as it's been awhile since he's been around...






Next, it's time to look for the tomb of Sultan Iskandar Zulkarnain.






We retraced our steps back towards the mouth of the Kinta river. Seen on the right is the island in front of the mouth. I did a check with Google Earth and found it 300 metres long...

At this point we have entered the Kinta river. In the background is the island...

About 300 metres upstream from the mouth or so we turned right and entered what looked like a drain...

We climbed on land and followed Pakcik Ismail...

The old man pointed to the direction where he remembered the tomb to be. However no one could catch any sign of the tomb building structure...

Did he made a mistake and embarked at the wrong place? Pakcik Ismail decided to try another spot a bit upriver...

Memory dictates that the tomb shouldn't by any further from this point. Both Pakcik Ismail and his nephew who have often plyed the waters around agreed. He walked towards the river mouth to look for signs...

The thick foliage continued to deny us any glimpse. We decided to return to the boat...

Here we stopped at a point between the first stop and the second one...

Still no luck. Not only the thick foliage blocked the view, there's actually deep drains at some parts so you can't simply walk through by trial and error...

Pakcik Ismail became more perplexed. The last time he had a look at the tomb was sometime last year. Then, he could spot it easily from the river banks. But now it's nowhere to be seen. We decided to have a look again from the first stop.

After walking around for quite a distance Pakcik Ismail concurred that the tomb should lie within the high foliage seen in the background. I took this picture at a place some 300 metres (I think...) from the river banks while it is clear to them the tomb should not be more than 150 metres away. At this juncture I was too tired to verify. The last time I had a meal was breakfast around 8 am while when I took this picture, it was almost 5 pm.

Remember I have been around to a number of places before coming here. Besides, the way to high foliage was blocked by a rather big and deep drain which seemed to encircle it from all points. I have no choice but to call it day. There's still a number of places to be visited before the day ends and oh did I tell you? I had to leave the wife and little baby near Kampung Bandar as there was not enough room on the boat. So I didn't want to keep them waiting... it's been one and a half hour since I left...