Kukup Fishing Village, Johor Malaysia 25-26 Sep 09

It's been more than 10 years since we last visited Kukup, a bustling small fishing village in Johor Malaysia. We were contemplating a local chalet initially but couldn't book the bigger and better ones so decided to organise a 2D1N short trip to Kukup instead, together with hubby's relatives, 22 pax in 4 cars.

There are many chalets in Kukup for short getaways, typical itinerary:
Day 1
Morning - If self-drive, OTOT to Kukup (otherwise, transport can be arranged)
11am - Reach Kukup town, free & easy, shop for local products
11.45am - Seafood lunch (part of package)
12.30pm - Boat ride to chalet, check-in, free & easy (walk around, karaoke, mahjong, card games)
4.30pm - Afternoon tea (part of package), free & easy
8pm - BBQ Seafood dinner (part of package), free & easy
Day 2
Morning - Breakfast (part of package), free & easy
11.15am - Check-out, Kelong tour by boat (part of package)
12.15pm - Seafood lunch (part of package)
1.30pm - OTOT Departure

The families met at around 8.30am and set off at 9am. Surprisingly, traffic at Tuas Checkpoint was really smooth. By 11am, we had already reached Kukup. As it was still early for lunch, we hanged around the shops for local products, mainly the salted fish and dried goods.

Limited parking at the town itself. Cars were directed to a nearby sheltered and guarded car park (small fee chargeable) and shuttle service provided.
By 11.45am, all of us were famished and couldn't wait to tuck in to the sumptuous 8-course seafood lunch. Couldn't remember all the dishes now, there were prawns, squid, crab, fish, veg... not bad!
After lunch, we took a short 10min boat ride to the chalet (1/2hr to walk). Overall, the chalet is quite spacious and clean with 3 bedrooms (enough for 24pax), 1 living room, 2 toilets and 1 kitchen. Important thing, there is air-con.
Bedrooms with double-decker beds, which are not exactly comfortable and a little crikey, but well, can't have high expectations.

Spacious kitchenette.

After settling down, we walked around. A small fishing boat just returned and sorting out the shrimps.

Sunning small shrimps before fermenting to make Cincalok.
Cleaning up jellyfish.
Sorting out shrimps and small fishes.

For making dried shrimps.

Houseflies. Very common in fishing village.

Mobile hawker peddling some food.

After walking around, we went back to the chalet for a lazy afternoon of mahjong and games. And every other hour, mobile hawkers would come a-knocking to peddler some goods, ranging from ice-cream to coconut to agar-agar to local produce. Enterprising indeed.

4.30pm - afternoon tea. Fried beehoon with curry chicken was served. Then back to more mahjong!

Finally the highly anticipated seafood BBQ dinner. Best thing, we didn't even have to BBQ the food ourselves, there were local staff who did it for us!

Spread was pretty decent. The usual like chicken wing, fishball, hotdog. I love the tender satay and totally raving about the deep-fried prawn cracker with sweet chilli sauce, a local specialty apparently.

The most impressive was the jumbo-sized prawns, certainly giving the ones at Newton Circus a run for their money. Other dishes include homemade otah-otah, curry squid etc.

I guess everyone was satisfied at the end of the dinner and highly anticipating the highlight of the evening - fire crackers!

Various types of fire crackers are available for sale, like one-off rockets which could shoot up into the sky, 20sec-long types which are spectacular and colourful or simple ones like Harry Potter's magic wand which spat fire. Although these were small scale, it was already a treat for city-dwellers like us to release them on our own and experience the pretty sight at such close proximity.

After the fire crackers highlight, back to more mahjong, games and bedtime...

Next morning, everyone woke up to a late breakfast of nasi lemak, fried noodles and kueh kueh. Then it was free & easy till check-out at 11.15am where we were fetched by a boat to a nearby Kelong for a rather mediocre kelong tour, showcasing a couple of pathetic fish, sea star (poor sea star)... Then, it was back to the seafood restaurant for lunch. Spread was likewise not too bad. Finally, OTOT home sweet home.

Not too bad for a short getaway with family. I guess the BBQ seafood dinner and fire crackers were worth the trip itself. For those who are interested to find out more, google 'Kukup chalet' and you will find different packages and chalets. This time, we got the package from http://www.kukup.bravehost.com/ which provides quite good service.