If you’re the adventurous sort, and you like to go to places that are not just off-road, but also off-map, then you have to check out the Melaka Sand Dunes.
It’s not a natural feature. The internet tells us that it was part of a land reclamation project that was never completed. Maybe the construction company that was contracted to do it ran out of money, or something. We may never know.
The point is that there is now something like a small desert with sand dunes at the edge of the coast. Google Maps doesn’t show you the full extent of the area covered by the sand. You just have to go and take a look for yourself.
What Google Maps does show you is a carpark, which is just an empty space. At the further end of the car park, there is a barrier that was open the day we came. So naturally we continued driving down that sandy path.
There were other people who parked their cars here and started walking where we drove. Various blog posts told us that it would be somewhere between 1.2km and 1.6km to walk, and would take about 20 minutes.
Naturally we drove instead, as there were no signs telling us that we couldn’t do that. After some time, the road, if you can call it that, ended in a T-Junction. There were many, many cars lining both sides.
On the right it seemed like it led to the way out, so we chose to go left instead. There were cars, vans, and pickup trucks parked on both sides, until the road was narrow enough for just one car to pass.
“How are we going to get out?” asked Teck Hwa, our driver.
“Never mind, just drive first,” said Baby Tilapia. “We’ll cross the bridge when we come to it.”
We never reached the bridge. We eventually reached a point when we could go no further, and there was an empty lot between two cars that we parked.
All around us were fishermen. Hundreds of fishing poles were stuck vertically in the sand on the beach. We started walking in the direction of the fishermen, and spoke to some of them to find out what was going on. What was happening that would bring hundreds of them on a hot, sunny morning to fish here. Why here?
They told us that there was a fishing competition taking place. They have each paid RM100 to come and fish in these waters from 8.30am to 12.30pm, and the person that caught the biggest fish during this time would win the grand prize of RM30,000. 😱
It was about 11am when we were there, and based on our observations, those further away from shore caught fewer fish than those closer to the mainland. Baby Crab, who has years of fishing experience, explained that this is because the bigger fish have more food to eat closer to the shore. It must be because of her fishing experience that she was able to catch such a good fish as Baby Tilapia. 😏
We observed some enterprising people who had employed their kids to walk around to the fishermen to sell them iced drinks. We bet they made big bucks from their booming business under the burning beams of the late morning sun.
Satisfied with the fishing part, we then started to explore the sand dunes. These were formed as the sea winds blew the unused sand from the land reclamation project into piles. Surprisingly they were quite solid, and you can’t sink into them. This may be because of the trees and shrubs that have started to grow on them, their roots holding the sand in place.
Instagramers are sure to come here to take photos to earn views. We read that couples even come here for their wedding photo shoots. But damn, was it hot! We all got sunburned from our hour or so here.
After the mandatory photos, we took a short cut over the dunes back to our car and drove off to have a best left forgotten coconut milk shake at Klebang Beach.
No, just no. Not worth mentioning.
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Adventures of Baby Crab and Tilapia 