Telok Chempedak in the morning

Journalist and guest blogger Jehan Mohd was recently in Kuantan for the kick off of the fifth season of the RHB New Straits Times National Spell-It-Right Challenge. On the last day there, she took a trip to Telok Chempedak to catch the sunrise. Little did she expect to see an entire colony of monekys playing on the deserted beach. Her account and photos below.

I've always had an affinity for the beach and the sea. Being based in landlocked Kuala Lumpur, I tend to go a little nuts whenever I do get to go to a beach. So when I was assigned to cover the SIR Challenge in Kuantan, I immediately thought that the beach was a definite stop I had to make.

And that's how I came to be at Telok Chempedak at sunrise on my last morning in Kuantan.

Sunrise at the main beach at Telok Chempedak

A glimpse of the more secluded beach

The more secluded beach has more rocks

Sea shell, sea shell on the seashore

Rocky terrain of the more secluded beach

Awe-inspiring beauty right in Kuantan

Can you spot the tiny sand crab making its way back to its hole?

Time to head back to the main beach

A view of the main beach from a look-out point on the walkway

Rocky beauty of Telok Chempedak

After ooh-ing and aah-ing and taking loads of photos, we decided to head back at about 8am - and that's when we encountered the monkey residents of Telok Chempedak. Being early on a weekday, the beach was deserted except for a mother and young daughter, city council cleaners, me and my sleepy husband and the monkeys.

When the humans' away, the monkeys will play

Monkeys doing what's only natural

One man's rubbish is a monkey's food source

Monkeys on the beach

A little groomming in the morning

Mother and baby together

Another baby monkey exploring on its own

A monkey Banksy?

A monkey trying one of the vices humans enjoy

Pretend smoking

Family time- the baby throws a parting shot

Comments

Who am I?

Malaysian artist Jeganathan Ramachandram will be exhibiting his paintings in Singapore if a deal with a company to display Human Watching: A Visual Poetry on the Science of Human Watching in the island republic is successful. The intuitive artist told Survey that the move is still under negotiation. Human watching made its debut at Galeri Petronas in March, 2009 and was well received by both art critics and art lovers. Fourteen portraits representing females and males born on each of the seven days in a week were put on view. The depictions (acrylic on canvas) were based on his observations of human behaviour for the past 14 years. Images of seven females and seven males inform viewers through symbols of their strengths and weaknesses and their relationships with other people. Those who have seen Human Watching identified with their profiles almost immediately. Admit it: you are curious about yourself! Males, who were born on Sunday ( bottom picture ), were pleasantly surprised to dis

When a card came out of the blue ...

This post is prompted by a remark made by my good friend Wei Lin. She saw me reading a card I had received from a friend recently and said: "Traditional cards are so old-fashioned." I wondered if that was true and decided to probe into the issue. A Google search revealed numerous articles on the debate between traditional paper-based cards and e-cards. Tracey Grady's examination of the pros and cons of each type is informative. In my opinion, e-cards are not substitutes for the real (traditional) ones and they shouldn't be. I treat e-card e-mails with suspicion because spammers could be using them to download viruses and software onto my computer. I have never sent anyone an e-card and I don't plan to; I dislike the cold impersonality of conveying greetings electronically. I have always liked sending and receiving cards the traditional way. The ritual of going to a bookshop, browsing at the card section, picking a suitable one for the recipient and then walking to

Protect our parents from elder abuse

All's well that ends well. At least that was how Harian Metro , the number one Malay tabloid in Malaysia, portrayed it. Amir Mohd Omar, who abandoned his paralysed mother to the care of strangers at a budget hotel at Jalan Raja Muda Musa, Kampung Baru, Kuala Lumpur, has accepted a job offer from an entrepreneur and Malaysians have high expectations regarding his filial duty. Would he be able to hold it together this time and not crack under the strain of managing his day-to-day life which includes looking after his aging mother? I would like to think that he would do the right thing now. Anti-Amir sentiment ran high when the public read that he had walked away from his physically incapacitated mother, Faridah Maulud, 66, after checking her into the hotel. His distraught mother was discovered by hotel staff a few days later when they found out that he didn't pay the hotel bill. Her gut-wrenching photo on the front page of the tabloid touched many readers of the new

a fleeting stay ...

Search This Blog