Muslim Travel Guide Malaysia: Redang Island, Terengganu Crystal Mosque and Halal Resort Food

Reposted from the web

Summary: This Muslim travel guide to Malaysia follows a family trip to Redang Island and Terengganu, covering The Taaras resort, halal hotel food, beaches, mosque visits, the Crystal Mosque, Tok Aman Bali resort, and Muslim-friendly travel notes.

Redang Island and the Crystal Mosque (Masjid Kristal) in Terengganu Are Beautiful, Uncrowded, and Friendly to Chinese Visitors is presented here as a firsthand travel account in clear English, beginning with this scene: Redang Island is in the state of Terengganu, Malaysia. You can fly from Kuala Lumpur to Terengganu Airport in one hour, then take a taxi to Merang Jetty and ride a boat for about 40 minutes to reach the island. The account keeps its focus on Halal Travel, Yiwu Food, Mosque Travel while preserving the names, places, food, and historical details from the Chinese source.

Redang Island is in the state of Terengganu, Malaysia. You can fly from Kuala Lumpur to Terengganu Airport in one hour, then take a taxi to Merang Jetty and ride a boat for about 40 minutes to reach the island. The boat ride to the island takes 40 to 50 minutes by speedboat. It is a bumpy trip, so I strongly suggest taking motion sickness medicine before you leave. From what I saw, most passengers get seasick. You can also choose a flight and hotel package offered by the hotel to fly directly from Kuala Lumpur to Redang Island, which saves you the trouble of the boat ride. The cost for one person to fly to the island is 700 RM, and it is more cost-effective if you book it together with your room.

The most beautiful beach on the island is the private beach at The Taaras Beach & Spa Resort, which is also the best hotel on Redang Island. Including three meals, accommodation, and activities, the average daily cost is 2,000 RMB. The entire hotel is a resort, and we chose to stay here. We handled all our dining and entertainment inside the hotel, which was very comfortable.

The Taaras Beach & Spa Resort offers Chinese-language services and is considered the most popular Redang Island hotel for Chinese speakers. It is the best choice for friends who enjoy island resort vacations and family trips.

You can occasionally see wild monkeys on the island. We saw them while eating breakfast; as soon as a guest left, a monkey jumped onto the table and grabbed the leftover bread.

The hotel has a mosque on-site with separate areas for men and women, and you can hear the call to prayer for all five daily namaz.

We chose to have all three meals at the hotel. The hotel has three restaurants that serve Western food, Malay food, and Chinese food. Everything, including the Chinese food, is halal. The price per person for each meal is about 60 RM. All expenses inside the hotel can be charged to your room and settled when you check out.

The hotel breakfast is quite rich, featuring mostly Southeast Asian specialties, along with Western and Chinese breakfast options.

Redang Island is an eco-friendly island with well-protected nature. You can often see various small animals inside the hotel, and I even saw a large lizard.

The white sand on the hotel’s private beach is very fine, and the seawater is clear and blue. Fahim can play in the sand all day long.

There are many small white crabs on the sand that run very fast and are hard to catch. The corals and seashells on the island are protected, so you can only look at them and cannot take them away.

The hotel provides snorkeling trips that you can sign up for at different times each day. You do not need to bring your own snorkeling gear, as the hotel boat will take us to two nearby islands for snorkeling.

Fahim was still a bit scared of the ocean, so I pulled him into the water for a quick soak.

Fahim really loved the tomato pasta kids’ meal at the restaurant.

I liked their pizza the best, while my wife preferred the Malaysian fried rice (nasi goreng).

The hotel has a kids’ play area with a trampoline and a ball pit, and adults can play billiards or board games. Our family of three stayed here for three days and two nights. I walked around the village outside the hotel to buy a charger, but there were hardly any shops and I couldn’t find one. I suggest you prepare before arriving on the island or go to KTCC Mall in downtown Terengganu to shop.

Terengganu Crystal Mosque (Masjid Kristal)

After leaving Redang Island and returning to downtown Terengganu, you can visit the Crystal Mosque. It is Malaysia’s first smart mosque and is built from glass and steel. Not far from the Crystal Mosque is an Islamic architectural art museum. It has many miniature models of famous mosques from around the world. They looked quite realistic when I passed by, but the museum is outdoors and it was too hot on Friday (Jumu’ah) for me to go inside.

The mosque is built on the water, and they say it looks even more beautiful when the lights come on at night.

It was undergoing renovations when we arrived, but it looked like it was almost finished.

We took a taxi to the largest shopping center in Terengganu, KTCC Mall, and saw that the driver had a flag supporting Palestine in his car.

Secret Recipe

I had coffee and cake at Secret Recipe (Shi Zhi Mi), a famous Malaysian dessert chain, inside KTCC Mall.

My wife said she loved their desserts when she studied in Malaysia ten years ago. The shop’s style has changed quite a bit over the years; they added simple meals and the dessert portions are smaller, but the taste remains the same.

JOHNNY’S Thai Restaurant

This place is incredibly busy. We arrived at 3:00 PM and it was still packed with people.

As usual, we started with two glasses of fruit juice, which were cheap and delicious.

Thai tom yum soup (dong yin gong tang) is a famous Thai dish that I really enjoy.

This meal cost 100 yuan, and it was very tasty and worth a visit.

We also stayed one night in Terengganu at the Tok Aman Bali Beach Resort. The hotel is far from the city center and located by the sea. There are very few foreign tourists here, and the hotel guests are almost all Malay.

Since it is on the coast near the mainland, the water is not as clear as on Redang Island, and the sand is not as fine, but it is not commercialized either. This hotel is relatively close to Perhentian Island, and you can take a boat to Perhentian Island from here. Perhentian Island is a new tourist resort island developed in recent years.

I caught a big crab by the beach in the morning. The crabs here are bigger than the ones on Redang Island.

A serving of Malay fried rice at the hotel restaurant only costs a little over ten yuan, which is about the same price as the night market.

The hotel restaurant tastes very good and is very cheap, much lower in cost than on Redang Island. This is the night market held at the hotel every evening.

You can see cats everywhere in Malaysia. Whenever we sit down to eat, cats come over to join us.

I like this resort hotel because it has many play areas for children, which helps them burn off energy and have fun all day.

One side of the breakfast restaurant faces a lake, and the connected river flows toward the sea. I saw a few crocodiles on the other side of the lake.