A stone’s throw away from Kota Baru in Kelantan is Pasir Belanda Resort — a charming place that allows a glimpse into kampung living.
Someone once said: “Today, give a stranger one of your smiles. It might be the only sunshine he sees all day.”
Well, we certainly saw loads of “sunshine” during our two-day stay in Pasir Belanda Resort, Kelantan.
Pasir Belanda Resort, comprising a cluster of traditional wooden houses, sits on the banks of Sungai Pengkalan Chepa in Kg Banggol, a 15-minute drive from Kota Baru.
But Pasir isn’t your typical resort where you laze by the pool and sink into a comatose state under the glaring sun.
As the Dutch owners Harry and Annemeike Mulder envisaged it, guests come to Pasir to savour an idyllic kampung stay, soak up Kelantan’s rich cultural heritage and mingle with the amicable villagers.
A whirlwind visit
The Star photographer Azman Ghani and I got our first dose of “sunshine” on the morning of our arrival.
As we sauntered around Kg Banggol looking for a warung to get a bite, locals on motorbikes flashed their smiles, kids waved and yelled hellos and a pakcik even stopped to offer us a ride in his van.
It helps that the resort opens its doors to the villagers. Local kids drop by to play on the swing and seesaw. The compound faces the main road that cuts through the village.
At Pasir, scarlet heliconias bloom on the grassy lawn while leafy palms, frangipani and coconut trees lend a tranquil ambience.
An idyllic scene as seen from Sungai Pengkalan Chepa.
A wakaf (rest pavilion) sits in the garden where guests can loll about.
The Mulders and their two kids, Jesse, 9 and Abel, 4, live in a 40-year-old, three-bedroom kampung house on the resort grounds.
Like the main house, the guest chalets sport distinctive Malay architecture with singhorra(terracotta) tiles, steep-tiered roofs with curved gable ends and sunbeam motifs on the roof. The sunbeam symbolises the beginning and the end of a day.
Harry was lucky to find a talented local carpenter, Pak Suji, to build the chalets from meranti wood.
Each chalet comes with a veranda where you can plonk yourself on a deck chair, get lost in a good book or just watch the world go by.
The rooms come equipped with twin or double beds, hot shower, air-conditioning, TV and tea and coffee-making facilities. The resort can accommodate up to 20 guests.
One of the best spots in Pasir is its jetty hut perched on the river bank. Guests can tuck into a breakfast of homemade bread served with jam and butter and fried eggs there, while indulging in bird-watching or gazing at a perahu gliding by.
Pak Soh showing the colourful wayang puppets he fashioned out of cowhide.
The Mulders’ good friend, Penang-based David Bakewell, finds the jetty an ideal spot to observe kingfishers, bitterns hunting for fish and the munias feeding on seedheads.
“I’ve also watched woodpeckers, orioles and malkohas feeding in the trees next to the jetty,” says David, an avid birdwatcher and photographer. Across the river, pond heron and mynas feed in the marshy areas, and the occasional rainbow-coloured bee-eater whizzes past.
But on our visit, the jetty was being rebuilt since it had collapsed during a monsoon in December.
Kak Yah, the neighbour
Other than breakfast, the resort doesn’t serve any other meal but Harry encourages his guests to dine at his neighbour’s.
Robayah Hassan, or better known as Kak Yah, whips up scrumptious lunches or dinners upon request. Guests who want to learn to cook Kelantan delicacies can also sign up for her cooking class.
Kak Yah’s husband used to trade textiles in Sarawak. Homemaker and mother of seven, Kak Yah, 51, cooks for wedding kenduri in the village to earn extra income. Nowadays, the regular stream of Pasir guests hankering for her cooking keep her busy.
Azman and I found out why when we requested for the “Special” package, the RM25 per person dinner. The sumptuous spread of Kelantan specialties was mind-boggling.
We had solok (fish blended with onions, shallots, ginger and grated young coconut stuffed into oversized green chillies and steamed), ikan percik, homemade acar, chicken curry with spices, pucuk ubi with sambal belacan and budu (fermented anchovy sauce) and stir-fried pucuk paku (ferns) with omelette.
batik-painting workshop for Pasir Belanda guests.
A local dessert called butih nangka, was a first for us. Little balls of glutinous rice flour are served with coconut milk, spiced with fenugreek, ginger and fragrant pandan leaves.
“Old folks believe that butih nangka helps release the wind in your body,” explains Kak Yah.
As we savoured dessert, she showed us a bunch of postcards and letters from the US, the Netherlands and other parts of Europe, raving about her cooking and congeniality.
Kelantan’s rich heritage
The next day, armed with Harry’s detailed map, we hopped onto the resort’s bicycles to explore the nearby villages. Our first stop was a kite-maker’s place on Pantai Cahaya Bulan (PCB) road.
His shop — which is more a wooden shack — was so unassuming that we almost flew past. But inside, a dazzling array of wau (kites) in different shapes, colours and sizes hung from the ceiling.
In one corner, a small and wiry man was bent over his kite, busy putting on the finishing touches.
Sapie Yusof, 61, has been fashioning kites from buluh duri (bamboo) frames and paper for 36 years. His kites cost between RM30 and RM11,000. Sapie actively takes part in various kite competitions around Malaysia.
Though Sapie was finishing up his kites for the Pasir Gudang International Kite Festival which was in a few weeks’ time, he obliged us with a chat.
Sapie’s wau shop is a modest shack filled with colourful and impressive kites.
A short five-minute ride from Sapie’s shop is a keropok (fish cracker) factory in Kg Kedai Buloh.
Engku Noraini Yaacob, 49, and her husband run a small cottage industry churning out keropok lekor and dry fish crackers for the local market. When we dropped by, the factory was idle due to the shortage of fish supply because of the rainy season.
Engku Noraini dished out some tips on how to choose tasty crackers. Tamban fish (Sardinella albella) is the best and a good keropok lekor (chockful of fish and not flour) shouldn’t be oily when fried.
The usual self-guided bicycle tour includes hopping on a ferry to Kg Laut and dropping by a well-known Tok Dalang’s (master puppeteer) panggung (theatre) cum workshop.
Yusoff Mamat or Pak Soh has been playing wayang kulit (shadow puppets) since he was nine.
At the workshop, visitors learn how the puppets are created from cowhide and how the Tok Dalang brings the puppets to life via characters from the Ramayana epic.
Aside from performing nationwide, Pak Soh, 59, has also travelled to Tokyo, South Africa and Indonesia to showcase his traditional art.
Engku Noraini Yaacob runs a keropok factory near Pantai Cahaya Bulan. — AZMAN GHANI/The Star
Our final stopover was at a batik “factory” run by Zahari Haji Daud.
A 10-minute stroll from Pasir Belanda, the shop — housed in a wooden shed — produces good quality hand-drawn batik priced from RM100 and above.
At Zahari’s, visitors can also sign up for a batik-drawing workshop.
Dutch tourists Hendrik Jan de Ru, 60, and his wife, Anke Noorts, 53, took the same bicycle tour as us the day before.
“Staying at Pasir and in the village really stimulates your senses — different smells, sounds and sights and easy contact with friendly people,” says Hendrik.
“Places like Langkawi and Kuala Lumpur are beautiful but they’re too touristy. What we like is the feeling of authenticity, a real village with real people.”
Yes, for urban Malaysians like us, we too relish the down-to-earth village folks with their copious amounts of “sunshine” living in the heart of Kelantan.
Making a home in Kelantan
Pasir Belanda opened its doors to its first guests at the end of 2005.
Owners Harry and Annemeike Mulder from the Netherlands wanted to live outside Holland for a while and decided on Malaysia.
“I first came to Malaysia in 1989 for a six-month internship. During my travels around the country, I found that I liked Kelantan best. I told myself I would bring my future wife to see this beautiful place,” says Harry, 40, a former mechanical engineer.
The couple settled in Penang in 2003 because they had friends there and started a travel agency to bring Dutch tourists over. It took two exhaustive years before they found their dream house in Kelantan.
The house was built in 1969 by an Englishman, Datuk Howard Foster Biles (1916-2003). Biles came to then Malaya as a marine officer in World War II and was later appointed the Protector for the Orang Asli in Kelantan and Pahang.
After he retired in ’69, he became the supervisor of the Kelantan Royal Household. Today, the Mulders lease the house and land from the home’s Malay owner.
“There’s something special about it,” gushes Annemeike, 40. “It’s a wooden kampung house on stilts. It has a great view, breeze and nice neighbours.
Since we liked it, we thought others might like it too.”
The couple’s son, Abel, 4, was born in Kelantan and today, the family has blended in comfortably with kampung life. The children attend international school in Kota Baru. Harry and Annemeike speak Malay with a Kelantanese dialect and share a great camaraderie with their neighbours. A primary schoolteacher in Holland, Annemieke now teaches English to the local kids whenever they request a class.
What are the Mulders’ long-term plan?
“We just live day by day, year by year,” Annemeike chuckles.
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(Nik Zafri's comments "Sometimes I wonder, is it a coincidence that they name this place "Pasir Belanda" (Dutch Sand) and the Mulders are from Netherlands?")
