Port Dickson, Finally!

Is it “Teluk” or “Telok”?

When I came to Malaysia for the first time back in January 2019, one of my bucket lists here is to visit every Malaysian states. Until earlier this year, in chronological order, I have been to KL, Selangor (these two are like “automatic entry”. YKWIM), Melaka, Penang, Pahang, Perak, and Johor. Among these states, however, there was one that is “pretty near” and yet I hadn’t been able to visit; and that was Negeri Sembilan.

One of the reasons is that—or it is maybe just my excuse—unlike Melaka, Penang, or Johor, which are relatively farther from KL, Negeri Sembilan does not have as much as tourist attractions compare to the other three. So despite being closer to KL than Melaka, for example, it is still less popular than the latter.

Due to this reason as well, there is not as much as public transportations to go there compare to that to Melaka. I know there is a KTM going all the way down to Seremban, the capital city of Negeri Sembilan, but we all know that KTM is extremely slow—a friend of mine calls it “snail”—and another friend from Seremban also says that there is nothing much we can see or do in the smol city. If, he says, I really want to visit Negeri Sembilan to have a bit of entertainment or something to see, then it is better for me to visit Port Dickson instead.

Because of that, the name of Port Dickson have always come into my mind when I thought of Negeri Sembilan. Although it has taken me almost two years since the idea of the Port Dickson trip comes into fruition. Let me break it down for you.

“Do you want to go to Port Dickson or Cameron?”

“Because I’ve never been to Port Dickson/Negeri Sembilan, this time I prefer Port Dickson. For the next one, we can go Cameron.”

Breakfast at Oriental Coffee—I’m not being sponsored, but I’m open to paid promotion. #eh

It was 29 September 2023. My friend and I started our journey around 11 AM from KL. After having breakfast at Oriental Coffee in Mid Valley, we then continued our journey to the South-East. Nothing much happened during the drive, just some smol chats and all. As I am unable to drive and do not have driving license, my friend was the only one responsible for the driving, back-and-forth—God bless him. Of course, I didn’t want to be an asshole, so in return, I was responsible for all the expenses that day.

The desserts

After about one-and-a-half hour, we finally arrived there. The Port Dickson town area that we see on the Google Maps doesn’t seem to have anything particularly interesting. So we decided to go to Pantai Teluk Kemang where we were chilling, having desserts and some drinks—the overly sweet ones. We both eventually threw them away because the sweetness was too much. I apologised several times to the God up there for throwing the food away. I’m not religious, but when it comes to food, I always feel extremely guilty whenever I have to throw food away, for whatever reason.

It’s a long photo, I know

From there, we went to Tanjung Tuan for some hikes. In less than 20 minutes, we arrived at the Cape Rachado Lighthouse where we can circle it. There were some people from Malaysian Police Department having an event below the lighthouse. From there, I wanted to go to Bukit Batu Putih but we couldn’t find any clear signage that can lead us to the location and my friend was pretty exhausted, too. So we decided to go back.

I was wondering, too

From Tanjung Tuan we went back to Pantai Teluk Kemang to take shower before we went back to KL. Right before we left, I took a picture of Kemang Fried Chicken (KFC) that I completely missed on the first occasion.

Before reaching KL though, we decided to have dinner in Seremban. We went to Empayar Seremban Siew Pow where we had fried fish, lala, and some stir-fried kailan. For around RM100 for two people, I think the dishes were quite worth it. Although maybe we were a bit lucky because the fried fish got a 50% of non-weekends/public holiday discount when we were there. LOL.

First time trying lala—I added another bowl of rice despite saying “quite full” about an hour before

We reached KL around 8 PM that day. Exhaustive. Despite the short trip, I can say that I was really enjoying it. “Tiring, but fun” kind-of situation, you know. And of course, I was also happy because I finally manage to tick Negeri Sembilan on my “Malaysian States” bucket list. I couldn’t ask for more.

Will I be visiting Port Dickson again, you ask? Probably. But if you ask me to go back there by public transport, then I will have to disappoint you all because I don’t think I will have the patience to do that. If—I say If—there is another person who are willing to go there again with me, then I will probably be considering it. But for now, going there once is already more than enough.