Ferry from Madura to Surabaya

Continued from The morning scene outside our hotel in Ampel.

So we have seen Ampel in the morning. Then we visited the tomb of Sunan Ampel. Later our driver picked us up at the hotel and brought us to the nearby island of Madura. After visiting a number of places there we decided to head back to mainland Jawa by ferry.

The ferry would brought us back to the port off the city of Surabaya where Ampel is located at.

That's our car (hired) fitting tightly besides a bus.

Looking back that's the jetty we embarked from.

For a better look around let's go to the upper level.

The pedestarian area.

Looking out from the upper level one could see plenty of ships.

Across lies the port off Surabaya, the busiest port in eastern Indonesia.

Turning and turning anti-clockwise.

Zooming in. That's the bridge we used to get from Surabaya to Madura.

The morning scene outside our hotel in Ampel

Entering the next day of our Jawa island round trip. Starting with this article I want to use the spelling Jawa, not the Anglicised word Java. Continuing from  Late night visit to the tomb of Sunan Ampel.

Wednesday 2nd May 2012, time to start a new day of adventure.

Looking out from the balcony of our hotel it seems Ampel was just picking up in activity.

This is our hotel, a remnant from Dutch colonial times.

Walking out of the hotel I headed for the tomb of Sunan Ampel again but this time with the wife, kid and baby.

Kelantan river at Kedai Buluh jetty

Continued from The beach called Pantai Cahaya Bulan.

From Pantai Cahaya Bulan we headed for a place called Kedai Buluh which has a riverside food court.

Facing the mighty Kelantan river not far from its mouth it offers nice vistas.

But I have already shown pictures from this food court in the article Kelantan river from the Kedai Buluh food court made almost a year ago.

So I decided to savour different angles from the jetty down here.

A look downriver.

A look across.

A look upriver.

The beach called Pantai Cahaya Bulan

Continued from Pengkalan Datu river at its mouth.

Later in the afternoon we went to the strip of beach known as Pantai Cahaya Bulan.

Pantai is the Malay word for beach, Cahaya means light and Bulan the moon.

So Pantai Cahaya Bulan literarily means the moonlight beach.

However this beach facing the South China Sea used to be more popularly known as Pantai Cinta Berahi.

Cinta means love and Berahi, passionate. So Pantai Cinta Berahi means the beach of passionate love.

Locals simply abbrevivated it as PCB. Later the name Cinta Berahi is deemed to sound very sexual, encouraging couples to commit things they should not have done before getting married. And thus the later government of Kelantan who consider themselves more Islamic decided to change it to something more innocent sounding.

As the abbreviation PCB has become so popular they have to maintain that.

And so the beach became known as Pantai Cahaya Bulan, the fact that it does bask in moon light at times notwithstanding.

Pengkalan Datu river at its mouth

Continued from Pengkalan Datu river close to the river mouth.

Next I went looking for the river mouth.

As the way is not accesible by car I had to take quite a long walk.

Looking at the background I could surmise I was already close to the sea.

But I must see the actual river mouth.

So I walked further on.

Here's a look upriver...

A look across.

A look to the river mouth.

Beyond that is the open waters of the South China Sea.

Pengkalan Datu river close to the river mouth

OK. Switching to the East Coast trip of 26 March-4 April.

In the last article here on the trip The 'real' Danau Tok Uban the vast lake that is Danau Tok Uban has been shown. The following day, Saturday 30th March we decided to head the opposite direction towards the coast. Soon we arrived and this part of a river called Sungai (river of) Pengkalan Datu.

In olden times it was the main river used by the Jembal royal dynasty to get to their ruling centre. Here's a look upriver. The main ruling centre known as Kota Jembal (now in the small town of Kedai Lalat) is about 7 km in this direction.

A look across. Here the river is about 160 metres wide.

A look downriver. The estuary is around 800 metres away.