(There were little written about the town Port Klang and now Klang where I lived in. They are also currently going through great changes that threatened to erase much of its past. Already much of it were already gone for good. I took it upon myself to do something to preserve its memory even if I could not preserve its history. I found a kindred spirit who shared my aspiration. I had met and known this new friend for only 2 months but had done more things together than with some decades old friend. He is a well-known figure among the fishing community and they called him KurauKing. He too was born in Port Klang and now staying just a few blocks away from my current house. Kurau owned a boat but more important, he knows the sea like the back of his hand.
Together, we can do things neither of us can do well enough alone. We started with the "The Sultan Abdul Aziz Gallery", "Death Of A Town Called Perlama" and then proceeded to "Sunset Over Railway Bridge". These had already been posted, if you want to read them, click on the links. Now, we cover part of the South Port and West Port of Port Klang. Port Klang is actually made of 3 ports, South, North and West (in chronological order of their construction). Ours is not a scholarly study but a human one with memories of our youth and our reflections intersperse with descriptions of the space we visit and revisit. We hope to take you with us in our journey and hope you enjoy it as much as we do. Should any readers have anything to add, we welcome your comments here or to send me a private mail. This journey had already begun in MyKlang forum where we shared with our community. I decided to put it up in my blog to share it with the rest of you. It is also posted in Kurau's website, you can play a visit there as well or wait for it to come out in increment here. As it was written in forum style, it is very informal and less structured and I had chosen to retain that with minimal editing and addition.)
This is my town -
When the forum members met recently, we realized that some were either not from this part or were not born yet when the changes swept through the town. Others may have not seen the town as we have seen it. And it is changing so fast that many old landmarks are now gone, disappeared forever from sight and soon from memories as well. Kurau & me thought we will try to document as many places of interests in Klang/Port Klang as we can to give our town some history before they are forgotten. We need your help. Please share with us your experiences, insights, memories so that the tapestries will be richer as more weave their tales into them. If you do not want to do it here, please email, private message, call us or we can meet over tea to hear your story. We volunteer ourselves to make a start but we rather this to be a joint effort with all members contributing.
Perlama was a start. Now we continue with views of South Port and West Port from the sea as some of you may not have seen it from that angle. Kurau was kind to contribute his boat and time for this effort. Hope you enjoy it and be free to use it to promote our town and share it with friends.
This shack housed the "Persatuan Pemancing Klang" (Klang Fishing Association). This is just a temporary building. All the buildings along this stretch of the waterfront front were torn down to be replaced with a new waterfront. So this hut was put up so that their members can at least have easy access to the sea.
It was just after 3.30pm and the tide was just coming in. You can see the pillars of the old jetty that was burnt a number of years back.
On our left is the building which housed the new jetty to Pulau Ketam. The vacant building just before it used to be a 3 storeys building with a coffeeshop on ground floor which served an excellent curry laksa. The upper floors were used for a Chinese restaurant called "Port View". For many years, that used to be a landmark itself. It was the best and most famous restaurant in town and ran by Hainanese owners and cooks. I had countless wedding dinners in that restaurant. On the first floor was an entire wall with a lovely picture of a naked lady made entirely of glossy mosaics. In my entire years of traveling, I had not seen another such picture. It is such a pity I don't have a picture to show. Anyone who had a shot? A rather strange design for a Chinese restaurant but not so strange, because this place were as much frequented by sailors and seafarers from all over the world who arrived by ship as by locals. Alas, the restaurant and its uniqueness were all gone replaced by empty land for many years now.
The jetty to Pulau Ketam (Crab Island).
If you take the main road (Persiaran Raja Muda) of Port Klang, and traveled along it you'll come to the sea which is where the jetty is. There is the LRT station which is the last stop. This view is looking back at that road where we come from. The LRT station is now on the left. The train you see in the picture is carrying containers from North Port through South Port to West Port.
Kurau King carrying petrol for his boat. We had earlier pumped in the petrol in one of the station and carried it in his proton (not the “beemer”) for it stank of petrol all the way.
The water is now coming in quite fast. It should be enough to allow us to sail but first we must retrieve Kurau's boat.
This is the view of the new Pulau Ketam jetty which you will be taking if you want to go to Pulau Ketam.
Kurau's boat is the white boat at the far end. Since we cannot walk on water, he'll have to find a way to reach it.
He went to retrieve this small boat (blue color) which is the water taxi to reach his boat. It is usually tied to the shack so that everyone can make us of it as this place does not have a proper jetty for you to anchor your boat. Everyone chipped in to maintain this boat for the benefit of all. A true “Gotong-royong” (neighborhood/co-operative) spirit. (Another new friend who joined us that day was EK Wong, an accountant by profession who can drink like a fish.)
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