Family travel,  Selangor

Pulau Ketam, Selangor

Spontaneous trip is always fun. The art of not planning is what makes it more exciting.

Few weeks back on Sunday, my family and I went to Pulau Ketam after a morning walk at a park. It was unplanned and I mentioned to my husband that I would love to go and look what’s in Pulau Ketam and he said the magic word—let’s go. We took the Federal Highway and finding our way was easy, we just followed the signboards to Pulau Ketam Jetty.

We bought tickets at the price of RM7 per adult and RM4 per children (one way). 3 adults and 1 kid, to and fro = RM50. We boarded a ferry with a capacity of  at least 70 passengers. Interesting trip as it took us through Pulau Klang to reach Pulau Ketam. The narrow channel is covered in mangrove swamp and is uninhabited.

We reached Pulau Ketam in about 40 minutes time. We saw a lot of crabs when we arrived at the jetty—now we know how the island got it’s name, Ketam means crabs.

We had our lunch there before going around the village for a walk. We were quite hungry and below were the first two dishes that arrived on our table. The rest came later and I totally forgot to snap pictures. Haha. There are a lot of seafood restaurants here and we picked one with a Bismillah signboard. It’s a Chinese restaurant that serves only seafood and I saw that a lot of Muslims came here to eat. I totally forgot the name of this restaurant. But if you come from the jetty, take Jalan Dua and look for a restaurant with the Bismillah sign, it’s on your right side.

After lunch, we went around the fishing village to look at how a fishing village look like mostly the area of Jalan Timur and Sungai Satu.  Pulau Ketam is equipped with almost all the basic facilities—there’s hospital, police station, surau, fire station, power station, post office, bank, hotel and shops. Pulau Ketam is free from traffic jam as the main transportation here is bicycle.

Pulau Ketam was founded when three Hainan fishermen from Bagan Hainan, Port Klang, arrived at Pulau Ketam catching crabs for their living. At first, they came and returned to Port Klang daily. The journey took almost a day, so they built a small house to stay overnight. In 1872, they decided to stay permanently and built a temple named “Chuan Eng Bio” located near Jalan Timur. In 1883, the population increased almost to hundred and major activities were catching crabs, fishes and prawns. Some of them built sundries shops, and fish dealer shops. The locals are mainly Teochew and Hoklo (Hokkien) Chinese, with Teochew, Hokkien and Mandarin Chinese the main dialects spoken.


Chuan Eng Bio temple.

As we explored further, we saw houses and more houses built on stilts. I found it interesting that some of the houses have paintings on top of their windows. It is not just new year painting posted on top of their windows during Chinese festivals but more like a permanent fixture of decoration. Some of the houses have hanging lanterns too. I guess other than hanging it during festivals, lantern continue to be a means of artistic expression, both in terms of functionality, design, and decoration.

We came to the end of Sungai Satu where we reached a fish-dealer jetty. Fish dealing was not in sight as we came about 3pm. I think the dealing is in the morning. We took a rest before heading back the same way to the jetty.

We did not  get to visit Floating Fish Farm is as we were already tired exploring the other part of the island. We will save the other part for later when time permits. I bought a map at Greenway‘s shop and perhaps I can take the Visit Fish Farm Package. For a trip for 4 persons, the price is RM60. The package will include around the island tour on a wooden boat before arriving at the Fish Farm. At the Fish Farm, there will be a tour guide to explain about fishes reared there. Or perhaps we can take the Day Time Fishing Package which cost about the same price. This will be interesting as my son, Yassin, is very keen on fishing. He has his own fishing rod.

References:
http://greenway2u.com/about.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulau_Ketam

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