Destination: Sungai Klah Hot Springs
Date: February 18, 2012
In all my life, I’ve never heard of Sungai Klah Hot Springs until 3 weeks ago. Apparently Malaysia has its very own natural hot springs too! So peeps, you can save your air tickets money to Taiwan or Japan and just spend RM12 on Sungai Klah Hot Springs instead.
Our journey started with confusion – apparently when you key in Sungai Klah Hot Spring into Google Map or GPS, you get 2 locations:
1) Sungai Klah Hot Spring Park at Kuala Kangsar (1 ½ hour away from Penang)
2) Felda Residence Hot Springs at Sungai Klah (2 ½ hour away from Penang)
So which is the correct destination? Since we’ve read that it takes 1 ½ hours to get from KL to this place, we assume that it would be a 2 ½ hours journey from Penang. Thank God we were right! So if you are starting your trip from Penang, choose the further location! Else I really have no idea what you might see in Sungai Klah Hot Spring Park at Kuala Kangsar.. *sweat*
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| Kuala Kangsar?! NOPE! |
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| When in doubt, take the longer route! *evil grin* |
Before we started our journey, we had our breakfast at Juru’s Subway. The counter staff that day really outdid himself! You won’t believe how much vegetable he managed to put in our sub. Not just lettuce but everything! Even olive was a big handful! Can Subway hire more guys like him?
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| Subway Sandwich with tons of vege and olives! |
It was around 11.30am when we arrived at the park. You have to park your car at the entrance, buy the ticket (RM12 per adult) before getting picked up by tram to get into the hot springs area.
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| Finally Arrive! |
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| The Map! |
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| The Tram! |
We first arrived at the Therapeutic pool area. There were like 3 major Therapeutic pools there with temperature signboard to tell you how hot each pool was. Some We’d decided to dip at the shaded 30-35 degree Celsius pool. In order to enjoy the optimum health effects on the pool, you have to dip in the pool for 30minutes. You might think: 30 minutes? No problemo! But the truth was: It was hot when you first stepped in, then you got used to it and you sit there saying: it is not that hot! After 10 minutes, your sweat started to drip nonstop and you felt like being cooked alive slowly. We wondered whether it was because of the 12noon sunny weather or it was because the Therapeutic pool was accelerating our metabolism for weight lost. Let’s hope it was the second option!
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| How many kg can i lose if i dip in this for 30 mins? |
If you are a thrill seeker, you might want to try out the reflexology path with hot spring water. If you think walking on reflexology path is bad, try walking it in hot spring water. Come to think about it, it might not be that bad since your feet are already cooked enough to have less reaction to the stony path. Oh ya, there was also an unlabeled pool there – you are encourage to try it out! You might be able to sue the park for safety negligence for a big sum of money. That is if you don’t mind getting boiled alive. Btw, we did test it with our foot.. *facepalm*
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| The Deadly Path... |
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| The Deadly Unlabeled Pool! |
After the never-ending 30minutes dip in the 30-35degree Celsius pool, we went to the hot spring pool to get a look. It was a beach-like pool with artificial waterfalls surrounding it. You would sit under the “waterfall” for the water to pour on your whole body. The hot spring was of course HOT! Now I started to wonder why in the world anyone would want to dip in a hot springs in such a sunny Malaysian weather! It was actually not that sunny when we were there but the heat really makes us uncomfortable. In fact, you would feel dizzy if you dip in there for too long.
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| Sammy wants a dip too! |
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| Hot Spring Pool - the "waterfall" is at the back... |
That’s when we found that the giant vase near the pool was our savior. There was cold spring water inside the vase for visitor to cool themselves down. Once we started to pour ourselves with the cold water, we just couldn’t stop! We just kept pouring and pouring like taking a bath in front of everyone. *facepalm* I think the others must thought us crazy!
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| SAVIOR!!! |
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| Like a Wetdog after Cold Spring Water Pouring... |
By that time the sun was hiding behind the cloud and it looked like it was going to rain. We’d decided to do the ‘egg boiling’ in hot spring thing 1st before the rain started to pour down. Our egg got cooked in 10 minutes time and this was our lunch along with Gardenia Ikan Bilis Bun. The rain started to pour once we finished our lunch. But this did not stop us! *heroic theme*
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| Becoming a Chef! |
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| Egg: HELP!!! |
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| Lunch: Ikan Bilis Bun & Egg... |
We ran to cold spring pool in the rain and totally enjoyed ourselves. The water of this pool is from mountain spring water. There were only a handful of people there and we got to stand underneath the artificial waterfall for a long long time. The high velocity water was hitting our shoulder and back forcefully – it was better than any massage! Perhaps we could call this a natural Jacuzzi massage?
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| The "Waterfall" Massaging Spot - Photo taken before the rain... |
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| Another Part of Cold Spring Pool - Photo taken before the rain... |
The rain kept pouring and the weather was getting really cold. That was when we left the cold spring pool with cold breeze blowing on us. That’s when we decided to go to the hot spring pool again. It must be serendipity but when we reached the hot spring pool, there were fog all above the pool – it looked like those Japanese or Taiwanese hot spring pool (well, at least how it looked like on TV since I’d never seen one myself). Wow! What a good fortune! We actually managed to see and dip in a hot springs surrounded by fog in Malaysia! Unfortunately we did not manage to take a photo of it as our camera was not with us due to raining.
The experience of dipping in the hot spring pool in a raining and cold environment was totally different from our earlier sweaty experience. Now I understand why people love to go hot springs in Japan/Taiwan since they normally have cold weather. The experience was surreal and we sat under the hot waterfall (this time hot natural Jacuzzi massage) for quite some time before calling it a day.
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| Last Photo before Leaving.. See the weather? |
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| The Fog at the Hot Spring Pool somehow looks like this.. |
So is this place fun? Well I guess it really depends on the weather and your preference. If you enjoy dipping on a pool for a day, this is the place for you! There were basically no other activities here other than pool dipping. Strange it might sound but I think that this place is more suitable for rainy day! You can’t really enjoy the hot spring that much if it was a sunny hot day unless you plan to spent most of your time in the cold spring pool in a hot spring park. =p
It was almost 7pm when we reached Juru to grab our dinner at Isshin Japanese Restaurant. This was our first time dining in this restaurant since we normally dine on the island itself. We ordered the Salmon with egg rice set (RM18) and Unagi with egg rice set (RM26). We were served with appetizer – some vermicelli with carrots and vegetable. We were amazed when our main course was served – the bowl was so big and it was full of salmons! Basically the salmon covered the top part of the bowl until we couldn’t see the rice beneath! It tasted yummy too! Totally worth the RM18. The Unagi given was also quite a lot as well. The only downside of the main courses was there were too many onions. But it was there to give extra sweet taste to the set in overall. Highly recommended to try this out (especially the salmon with egg rice set) if you happen to be in Juru Autocity.
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| It's Dinner Time! |
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| Appetizer & Green tea |
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| Interior |
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| Unagi and Egg Don |
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| Salmon & Egg Don! Thumbs up!!! |
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| It only costs RM18 for a set! |
