Johor 2025 Day 7: Batu Pahat + Yong Peng (峇株巴辖+永平)
- Rick
- Jun 2
- 7 min read
Updated: Jul 12
Day 6: Kluang to Batu Pahat (峇株巴辖)
Monday, 2nd June 2025
The perimeters of the estates around where 888 Boutique Hotel was situated had several long, wide drains and they were fenced up, except at road turn-ins for vehicles. This led to tons of inconvenience when I needed to cross the roads — I had to walk till the end of each fenced-up long drain before crossing the road and U-turned to where I was heading. It took me nearly 20 minutes to walk to Han Kee Cake & Cafe, which was only a straight 500 metres from the hotel.
Both Local Aroma Cafe (道香咖啡馆) and Han Kee Cake & Cafe (汉记面包西果店), situated next to one another, were fully-packed on a Monday morning at 8:35am. I walked into Han Kee Cafe and was seated to a table used by the staff since I was solo. I ordered Kopi-O, roti bakar and a small bun with egg and otak-otak. After finishing the food, I took a small piece of black sesame cake from the self-help glass shelves, paid (for all my orders) before eating the cake.
The influx of customers never ceased and the cafe was constantly running short of tables. I finished the food and left — and reminded myself to avoid Malaysia's school and public holidays next time.
Other than eateries, many shops were still closed at 9:30am on a Monday. I tried finding a different but shorter path back to the hotel by crossing the busy Jalan Bukit Pasir near Burger King, then cut across the estate to a point opposite 888 Boutique Hotel but there was no direct path. I needed to cross another busy road near to San Yuan Gourmet (汕源面家) before turning back to the hotel. This area was designed for drivers only.
I had missed the 9:30am GTL-03 service to Yong Peng Town and the next bus, based on a GTL’s Facebook post, would be at 11:30am from Batu Pahat Bus Terminal and stopping at AEON BIG Batu Pahat. If the schedule was still valid, I had about 2 hours to kill. I spent about an hour in my room to cool down and would use the next hour to wait for the next bus service since I could not ascertain if the schedule could be trusted.
10:30am, I left the hotel, walked over to GN Food & Biscuits (满发传统手工糕饼店) and bought two flavours of the Teochew la piah (潮州朥饼) that I had not tried before. I munched on the biscuit with red bean and pandan filling (碧玉明月) and kept the yam biscuit (芋泥) for later. For me, the nice things about GN Food & Biscuit’s pastries were their flavours and low sweetness.
I was outside AEON BIG at 11am but there was no bus-stop to be seen. A local told me to just stand anywhere along the road and flag, the bus would stop. It was too hot to be standing under the sun so I waited for the bus in the shade of the nearest row of shops, outside RHB Bank. True enough, the GTL-03 bus came at 11:40am, 10 minutes from Batu Pahat Bus Terminal. I would trust the schedule on the way back.
GTL-03’s service route overlapped with Causeway Link Service 8 from Batu Pahat Bus Terminal until Sri Gading and GTL-03 would turn left to Parit Yaani, then to Yong Peng. The bus pulled into Yong Peng Bus Terminal at around 12:20pm, about 40 minutes from AEON BIG Batu Pahat. Yong Peng Bus Terminal had several murals painted on its walls and I briefly checked some of them as I walked out of the terminal.
I walked to the main street that flanked the main road of Jalan Besar and came to Maxims Snack Shoppe (大胡子面包小食). I had been to the coffee shop once before and like their traditional kueh. I took two Nyonya kueh (a kueh kosui and a type of kueh seri muka) from the glass shelve and ordered kopi-O kosong, roti bakar and a packet of nasi lemak. The charcoal-grilled toasts were not to be missed.
I strolled through Yong Peng Town, without a real purpose. I could not eat anymore and would not be buying anything since I still had about 10 days to go on this trip. I walked towards Eng Hin (永兴福州饼面厂), checking out eateries, shops and landmarks along the way. At Eng Hin, undecided if I should get some kompia, I U-turned and strolled back. The stroll under the hot sun took about 1 hour, including getting a yogurt drink from 99 Speedmart.
Based on GTL-03’s schedule, there were supposedly services at 2:30pm, 3:30pm, 5:30pm, etc, to Batu Pahat from Yong Peng. Seeing that I should be able to catch the 2:30pm bus at the bus terminal plus the use of the washroom, I quicken my steps and reached the terminal at 2:20pm. There was no GTL bus in sight. I went to the washroom.
A GTL-03 bus arrived during the few minutes when I was in the washroom. I walked to the front of the bus and signalled that I wanted to board it, but was told that the bus was for 3:20pm. Did I missed the 2:30pm bus? Sigh...
I would not want to step into the heat anymore so I waited at the bus terminal. At 2:55pm, the GTL-03 bus driver informed me that the MSYP004 service by Mayang Sari would depart for Batu Pahat at 3pm. I boarded the service that was not known to me and the fare was RM3.50. I learnt a lot from really going around rather than looking up outdated or non-existent information online.
The MSYP004 service departed at 3:10pm, travelled to Parit Yaani, similar to GTL-03, but branched off from here to Batu Pahat instead of going to Sri Gading. The service passed by Han Kee Cake & Cafe and reached Batu Pahat Bus Terminal just before 4pm. I tried searching for schedule information on any of the local buses in the bus terminal but there was absolutely nothing.
I walked to the Glutton Street of Batu Pahat, which was the main reason why I came to the terminal. The street was just 100 metres from the bus terminal. I came to a sup kambing stall along Glutton Street. I had wanted to try this stall for a long time. The last time I was in Batu Pahat in April 2024 was during Ramadan and the stall was closed. I would not miss it this time.
I had a mix of mutton with tendon in soup and some bread to dip into the soup. The sup kambing was very good and not spicy. I also chatted with the stall owner, who had worked in Singapore before, on issues about the hot weather and some of the silly problems created by the United States.
I intended to settle dinner before going back to the hotel but it was too hot to walk and too early to e-hail a Grab car — it was not 5pm yet. The best way to burn calories, from all the eating, would be to walk, of course. I shopped in Eco-shop and waited in the bus terminal until 6pm then started the 2.3Km hike to my dinner destination, just few units away from Han Kee Cake & Cafe.
I walked along Jalan Mustaffa towards The Summit, a big mega-mall but was rather rundown. I had never taken the route before and it cut through a residential estate with a number of restaurants hidden in there. 12 minutes later, I was at The Summit used the washroom and walked through the air-conditioned shopping mall and exited from the other end.
In Singapore, jaywalking could be fined. In Malaysia, one would never get to the other side of the road if he/she chose not to jaywalk. And there were ultra few pedestrian walkways for people to walk on. Either the Malaysian government was forcing its people to buy cars or too many Malaysians were driving such that no pedestrian infrastructures were required. That was my thought as I crossed Jalan Bakau Condong, a super busy road, with no pedestrian crossings to Taman Makmur.
I remembered I still had a yam biscuit, from GN Food & Biscuits, in my small backpack, took it out and munched on it while walking. It was not too much actually — I would not want to bring unsealed food into the hotel room.
I came to Tang SanZang Desserts House (糖三藏糖水馆) at around 6:40pm, ending my hike. This was the second time I visited the dessert house. The reasons I chose this place was because its desserts were not too big portion, served food too and it was air-conditioned. Seeing that their new series of gui ling gao (龟苓膏) were too cute, having the shape of turtles, I ordered one with pearls. I had their signature minced meat noodle (三藏肉酱金旦面) too. After the meal, I got a hot Snow Fungus with Snow Pear (银耳雪梨) in place of an iced drink.
It took me more than 20 minutes to walked to the hotel using the "long and tedious path" that I used in the morning to get to Han Kee Cafe. Back at the hotel, it was very quiet in my room. Most of the guests staying in the same section of rooms as me had checked out and I had an undisturbed night.
Day 8: Eats at Batu Pahat (峇株巴辖)
Comments