Walking to Beting Beras Basah

We move on (again) to Perak... practically a continuation from the article The difficult land route to the tomb of Sultan Iskandar Zulkarnain made some 2 weeks ago.

OK. Referring to The difficult land route to the tomb of Sultan Iskandar Zulkarnain... have I told you the visit to that tomb means I have stepped foot on the tombs and touched the tombstones of every deceased Sultan of Perak available in the state?

Well, I was just following the old rite and route taken for the coronation of a Sultan of Perak.

That means I have to complete the whole process at a place called Beting Beras Basah which lies at the mouth of the Perak river.

What is the Beting Beras Basah? It is a sandbank potruding out of the river during low tide.

See the 'black line' in the background? That is Beting Beras Basah.

The problem is how to get there safely. For the mud here could be deep at some parts. You don't want to risk getting stuck or sucked in...

The best way is to get a boat from Bagan Datoh 6 km away. But I just couldn't afford to pay the rather exorbitant fee so decided to take a risk.

Having studied satellite pictures through Google Earth and got feedbacks from some locals, it seems best that we approach Beting Beras Basah from the cape seen in the horizon. Oh, that's my wife ahead. By the way we took our steps on the recent Friday, while the nation was celebrating the Hindu festive celebration of Deepavali...

Me with one-year-old Al-Rasyid. No, we were not celebrating by going to Beting Beras Basah. It's just we wanted to take advantage of the holiday especially after learning the time for low tide. Come at high tide and the sandbank would be submerged under 2 metres of water. Wait another weekend and we're told it would be the period for air mati (static water?)... that is no low or high tide meaning the sandbank would just remain submerged albeit at less than 1 metre of water.

And so on we walked...

A look again at the target...

Ah, the cape...

We started to make our approach...

It seems there's quite a distance to cover...

This picture shows the less deeper part. Mind you when you start sinking to your hips you certainly don't have time to take pictures. You have to scurry out fast even if you have to crawl out of the mud. If you sink up to your waist then you are in real deep trouble. And I don't want my baby to suffer because of my mistake. To be continued...