City dwellers in Singapore are always on the lookout for affordable & quick getaways from the Lion City. But that does not always mean that you need to take a flight out to some remote exotic islands in the region. Our Malaysian buddies planned a fantastic trip for 14 of us to the sleepy fishing town of Kukup located about forty kilometres southwest of Johor Bahru, in the district of Pontian, Johor.

The weekend promised to be the perfect remedy to the hustle and bustle of Singapore and the best part – I have got my Sony HDR – GW77VE to capture all the wonderful moments. This amazing device is Sony 1st Full HD Waterproof Handycam with self shooting function. It offers stellar experience for travellers like myself with high 20MP resolution as well as shockproof and dust resistant capabilities.

Our trip to Kukup started early at 7.30am on a Saturday morning. A mini van was waiting to pick us up at the taxi stand just outside Bishan MRT Station. Tried my new gadget on Crystal, Seth and Kenji as we commence our journey to the checkpoint. Please pardon the initial blurry moments, I was still fiddling with my handycam.

Despite being a Saturday morning, crossing the causeway was pretty smooth and fast. We even had time to stop by a fruit stall by the road to purchase some durians and rambutans.

Upon reaching Kukup, we had a quick lunch at a restaurant along the main road before heading into a labyrinth of kelongs. The first few kelongs that we walked past were more for residential purposes. As we venture deeper in, we started to transit into the ‘Holiday Kelongs’ zone where these kelongs were built by the more well to do locals to cater to the thriving tourism scene. Our Resort Kelong was easy to identify from afar, it’s the only one with pink exterior and walls. It was huge comprising of a large hall, 3 air-conditioned bedrooms, spacious kitchen and connecting backyard for evening barbecue. I shall bring you through a quick tour of the place below.

We had around 1 hour to laze around, sing karaoke and play card games before we head to the authentic wooden structure kelongs.

Some of us used this time to write our dreams and wishes onto the sky lantern aka ?? (???) in preparation for the evening.

While the more mischievous lot went to fish for mud skippers which surfaced around the kelong during low tide. It was quite an eye opener for me. The larger mud skippers were generally smarter and avoided our baits while the young inexperienced ones were more aggressive and easier to catch.

The journey to the authentic kelong wasn’t exactly as exciting as I thought it would be. Just the usual bum boat ride to a shabby looking kelong which I seriously think has been long abandoned. The only fun part about this tourist trap were our 2 young guides.

Our first stop of the tour was to see an assortment of fishes commonly reared at such kelongs. Pretty impressed with these 2 boys. They may be young but they were pretty knowledgeable.

Archer fishes were up next. These fishes are known for preying on land based insects and other small animals by literally shooting them down with water droplets from their specialized mouths. See them in action below!

They saved their prized fish – The Puffer for last. It was a little cruel to get them all puffed up. I do pity the poor fish …

For me, the real fun at the Kukup starts after night falls where we got to try out considerably dangerous stuffs that were banned in Singapore. We started modestly with lighting up of giant sky lanterns and setting them free into the night skies before….

moving on to more thrilling feats like launching of fireworks.

These Harry Potter Wands were a hot favourite too. You can seriously engage in a make believe magical duel with them!

Of course being newbies, things did not always went 100% well. Thankfully, all the damages were contained within the flower pots.

We have neighbours with really strong fire-powers too!

Nothing ends off the evening better than a joyous burst of firecrackers.

Having exhausted our pyrotechnic, we ventured out to the main street for a little shopping and massage before calling it a night (except for the mahjong folks who slept at around 5am in the morning).

Kukup was a wonderful quick getaway from the city and we only spent around $80 per pax for accommodations and transport. Will definitely consider heading back again with close friends and relatives.

All photos & videos in my post were taken with my new Sony HDR-GW77VE without any touch up. What you see is what you get. The video was a lot sharper on my computer as compared to my Youtube version that you see in the post. Nothing tells a travel tale better than crystal clear videos. I love my Sony! 🙂

You may also like to check out my posts on other exciting travel destinations here