The Historical Sg. Lembing

Last weekend, Arep, Acap, Musab & I went to Sg Lembing. It was Acap's idea. It's just so boring in Kuantan with nothing to do and with so few people. I just tagged along to get away from the ultimate boredom... I hadn't been to Sg Lembing before, although it was just about 35km from Kuantan.

That was the first time in 4 yrs... We departed from Pak Lah at around 8.30am. With Arep's driving, it took us about 45min to reach Sungai Lembing. The town is quite isolated from other towns. It is surrounded by secondary forest and connected to Kuantan by a narrow winding road (seems that I exaggerated a bit). It can also be accessed from other smaller road from Panching.

The town is an old town with shophouses from the British era. Most of the residents are Chinese with a few Malays. Near the town centre, there is a British-Indian-style old Masjid Jamek. The market was dominated by Chinese and from my point of view, the town is quite similar to Benta in Raub.

We started our activity by climbing the panoramic Bukit Panorama. It is located just at the back of the town, about 1km from the town centre. I didn't wear suitable clothes to climb the hill because I thought it was just like walking up a not so tall hill. However, Arep and I regretted it. The hill was so tall and the stairs was steep (luckily there were stairs although not complete to the top). However, in a pair of jeans, t-shirt and jogging sneakers I managed to reach the top in 30min (I had to stop a few times to catch my breath in between). The 'amoi's who we met while climbing up said they took about an hour to reach the top. Luckily, we managed to save our faces despite our unfitness.

We spent for about 15min at the top taking photos and enjoying ourselves with the beautiful panorama. I tried to upload some pics here but the internet connection is not good. Maybe I'll share the pics some other time. Walking downwards was a lot faster than climbing up. It took us about 15min to be at the foothill again where we parked the car.

After taking a short rest and cooling down, we headed to Muzium Sungai Lembing. The museum exhibits the mining activities that were once the pride of Sungai Lembing. In the old days, the town was one of the busiest and most prosperous town in Pahang. It had one of the largest underground tin mine in the region. However, due to the drop of tin price and reduced production of tin in the 1980's, the mine had to be closed down and many residents fled the town. Most of those staying changed their job into agricultural activities. Currently, Sungai Lembing is a cowboy town dominated by the elderly.

After that, we drove around to look at the site of the old mine. The mine was not open for visitors as it was more than a hundred years old and needed major conservation before it was safe to be visited. We just go back to Kuantan after that and didn't have the time to take a dip in the river b'coz we wanted to have a good rest before going to Sri's brother wedding ceremony.