A circle of my friends and I seem to agree on a joke about Kuantan as we first arrived at the town a year ago. Rural migrants, we call ourselves. Having been forced to migrate from the big city of Kuala Lumpur as a result of our campus relocation, the first thing we noticed about the town was how slow it seems for everything to get done.
Our colleagues used to tease my friend as she drives her rustic red Kancil about town. Five minutes, they would say, I bet she’s going to lose her temper in five minutes. A true KL urbanite who used to live in Seattle for eight years, driving in the sleepy town of Kuantan is certainly a challenge for my friend.
Fast-forward almost a year and a half later, I find myself complaining about anxiety to my friend as we drove home after a visit to Mid Valley Megamall. God, I don’t remember how busy KL was. My friend smiled and nodded, I don’t think I’m going to remember KL after all these years of studying, it’s Kuantan which actually shaped us.
Rural happiness
My friend is right. Despite our never-ending complaints at the beginning, we soon discover tons of excuses to appreciate the city. Besides, the thought of graduating in a year gave us a firm resolve not to let time pass by with us brooding in our rooms.
One of the first things Kuantan has to offer which readily melt our heart was of course, its sightly city. The air is clear compared to the smoky haze we are accustomed to in KL, and often we wake up to a thick fog blanketing our campus in the morning. I particularly love it the way we could see the beaches as I drive up the spiral route to Berjaya Megamall parking lot, we could even taste the salty air sometimes during hot days. Teluk Chempedak, with its vast shoreline and friendly breeze, became our playgrounds day and night. The audacious monkeys and their little ones, together with the weary cats, are simply considered as the rightful inhabitants of the beach. Oh, did I mention about the macaques with their hooting match, and the way we could spot the hornbill couples jumping from tree to tree while waiting for the traffic light to go green?
In Kuantan, everything is so blended in together it is impossible to pick one thing apart from another. Look at one of its many food court, for instance, Dataran Gambut, which features a local band every Wednesday night. It was a defining moment for me the first time the band took their seats and play their music, because it was so unlike I had expected a music band to be. The members are usually escorted by some family members, ranging from wives to elderly dad. One of the singers (the only female singer) wears tudung and sings in Mandarin! During one Maulidur Rasul night, the band started their session with a lengthy selawat, to be joined in by other diners despite the awkward looks of few youngsters. My friend and I could sit there by ourselves without ever feeling out of place. Recently we found a new eatery spot, Relax Cafe, where I enjoyed a delightful Terengganu traditional mini bun, served English way complete with a New Zealand butter and home made kaya and soft-boiled eggs. It was hillarious! Restoran Zaman is another place I couldn’t help but be amazed every visit. Not only the customers are plenty, but they seem to come from everywhere; TUDM, tourists on the road, and the nearby residents. It makes me feel like I was the one who is a native Kuantan dweller.
Speaking of native Kuantan dwellers, I would say they are a vivacious lots. Not quite as wary as Kelantanese or as proud as KL urbanites, it seems like they are always ready to say something to us everywhere we go. In addition, the way we get to reach to every different nooks and crannies of Kuantan city allows us to befriend different people. We encountered a kind lady during one of Ramadhan nights, at the mosque where we had our tarawih, who is now a landlady to one of my friends. My car was once sent to a workshop located deep in one of the kampungs hidden behind a factory. We even cut a business deal with one of the restaurant owners we used to frequent during our supper excursions. Living in Kuantan to me feels like being in a magical kingdom where we get to go places and meet different people to complete our tasks. Unlike in KL, where we are only students whose life are bound by the surrounding boundaries of our campus, in Kuantan we became its inhabitants, one with the city itself.
Kuantan in a nutshell
In a way, this was how Kuantan shaped us. It slows us down from the usual hurried KL lifestyle. We have no traffic to avoid, no LRT schedules to keep up to. Everything is almost within a 10-minute drive. We could sit with our friends, enjoying each other companies, and simply watch people going about. We could visit a cafe so often the waiters know us and let us be by ourselves how many hours we intended to. Kuantan relieves us of the many aggrandizements we used to crave (shopping spree, Burger King, Hush Puppies) we turn to the comfort of our personal friends to get by the ample time we have in our hands.
We learn to communicate through lengthy conversation, exchanging ideas on our likes and dislikes. We get to know each other better, and we become avid observers of each other’s habits we could spell each one’s with eyes closed. Friendship become important, and materialistic substitutes become, only substitutes.
I would like to relate about the variety of food we have experienced, but that is another story…
