Launch of the Perdana Trail

The evening by the poolside at the Cerana Coffee House in Hotel Perdana Kota Bharu was lovely and balmy. This was the evening they were officially launching the Perdana Trail, last Saturday. We were each given a lovely piece of material to be worn as selendang or shawl upon registration...

Food were arranged in little stalls and there was just so much to see, admire and being me, photographed....

A lovely waitress in all smiles, as usual ( as one of my fellow bloggers did comment, they have a kind of "ailment" here... it is that all of the staff are practically always smiling.....!! ) was serving lovely honey lemon chrysanthemum tea to the guests.

Food was plentiful and so were the fruits on display... The fruits itself were truly fascinating.... as you cannot find them in hotels in KL....Most of these were traditional fruits...

Then.. there was the barbecue side of the pool where chefs, and sous chefs were all busy barbecuing some seafood up for guests to enjoy.... and there was such a huge range of fresh seafood , yours truly was again fascinated and mesmerized... It was hard to select what I want because if my stomach could take it, I wanted everything.... hahahah

The pool was illuminated with beautiful lights and already cordoned off... the stage had been set at the other side of the pool with a huge screen and dais...

My room mate, Naomi and I along with the lovely Elana and Wendy shared a table just next to the pool...

The official launch of the Perdana Trail began with a performance by none other then some of the hotel staff doing a Dikir Barat performance which was pretty amazing...

Then  Hotel Perdana Kota Bharu’s GeneralMANAGER Muhammad Taha

Zainal gave his speech dressed down as a local traditional fisherman. If you do not yet know about it,, this amazing Perdana Trail was initiated by him to enable guests and visitors to learn more about the various charms, attractions and background of this quite misunderstood state... 

Why misunderstood? Ok, it is because of all the rumours of it being a hudud state and that there are a few more that says that Kelantanese are pretty fanatic in religion and so on....and that was exactly some of my thoughts, I am ashamed to confess as well before embarking gingerly on this trip, which definitely turned my thinking around 360 degrees...

The people here are actually quite laid back, easy going, friendly and nice , at least all of those whom I have met during my stay here in Kelantan for the 3 days I was here, both all around the hotel and along the Perdana Trail....

The grand launch was quite interesting which really drew our attention when some of the hotel staff got into a small sampan with a treasure chest and paddled all the way to the centre of the stage....In this treasure chest was the bunting which En Taha and the guest of honour from the Kelantan Tourism Centre revealed, to mark the launch....

We also got to be mesmerized by the hard work this old man put in into creating a lovely wau bulan...

It is said that he can create one of this lovely wau in one day....

 To make a wau, bamboo is used for the frame.  The bamboo is split and soaked in mud for two weeks supposedly to prevent the bamboo from being attacked by weevils as well as to make it more flexible. The bamboo splits are then bent into a complex but lightweight frame, tested with one layer of paper and making alterations accordingly to make sure the kite is structurally sound. The patterns are meticulously cut from rice-paper and glued on piece by piece to form intricate motifs. 

Apart from the performance and appearance of the Malay kite, the sound is considered important as well. The sound created or dengung as it is called, depends on the force of the wind. The higher the kite flies and the faster the wind, the higher the pitch, making the sound ... w-a-u-u-u,   w-a-u-u-u. 

The Wau Bulan is one of the most popular wau. It is named because the bottom half or the tail piece resembles a crescent moon.... The Wau Bulan is unique to Kelantan. Some of these waus can be as big as a man, measuring up to 3.5 metres from head to tail. It is definitely one of the largest kites around and can soar to quite a height....In Kelantan, it can be a sport for some men as one kite could take two grown up men to handle it.....The patterns in the Wau Bulan are based on local flora and fauna, as well as birds and animals...

Malaysian Airline System has chosen the wau as its logo, to symbolise controlled flight.

Don't you think these waus here are just so lovely... and it is not very cheap to own one either.. One of these small waus can cost anywhere from RM150 to RM200  and the bigger ones from RM300 and above.....

Tadaaaa... here is yours truly with a chance to hold a lovely big wau bulan ... I really love the design on these wau.. they are so colourful, bright and gorgeous!!!

After having some fun "exploring" and "learning" more about the wau, my stomach started rumbling and I went back to my table to get some food....

Look at the squid.... and prawns being barbecued....... the smell... oh, the smell is just sooooo.... tempting....

Finally after much deliberation, I decided on getting one whole siakap or barramundi fish to myself along with half of a huge squid and one giant prawn....

  

Then I also got some otak2 and satar...

“Satar” is a kind of snack food processed from fish flesh. It is popular in the east coast states of Kelantan and Terengganu.  “Satar” is processed using the flesh of Yellow-striped scad (ikan selar kuning), Threadfin bream (ikan kerisi), Jewfish (ikan gelama) and Spanish mackerel (ikan tenggiri). The otak2  here is somehow made the same way....

And there you have it.... my BBQ seafood... all to myself... hehehe

And of course, before I forget my manners, thanks for this amazing opportunity and experience to both Hotel Perdana Kota Bharu and Destination Malaysia magazine , TM Info-Media.....

Read more about the Perdana Trail here:   http://www.mieranadhirah.com/2015/05/the-perdana-trail-discovery-of.html

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