Kuantan
— — the long beach the monsoon writes on every winter.
Not only on a wall.
“The capital of Pahang, set where the Kuantan River meets the South China Sea on the long east coast of the peninsula. Teluk Cempedak's curve of sand sits a short drive east of the centre, casuarina trees leaning landward from the wind. In the old town, the blue-domed Sultan Ahmad Shah State Mosque holds the skyline; in the evening, the riverside esplanade fills with families and the smell of grilled keropok lekor. from the studio
Kuantan, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Kuantan is the capital of Pahang, the largest state in Peninsular Malaysia, and sits on the east coast where the Kuantan River meets the South China Sea. It is roughly 250 kilometres east of Kuala Lumpur by the East Coast Expressway. The city centres on a riverside grid laid out under colonial planning and is now the commercial heart of the east coast. Beyond the city, Pahang reaches inland to the Titiwangsa range and to Taman Negara, one of the oldest tropical rainforests in the world, estimated at over 130 million years.
The Sultan Ahmad Shah State Mosque, completed in 1991, stands at the centre of Kuantan with its tall central blue dome and four corner minarets, the dominant feature of the city's skyline. It looks across the central padang, the open colonial-era field still used for public gatherings, to rows of pre-war shophouses on Jalan Besar with their distinctive five-foot ways. The Sultan Abdullah Bridge spans the wide brown mouth of the Kuantan River just downstream, connecting the city to the fishing communities of Tanjung Lumpur on the south bank.
The east coast has a single distinct wet season driven by the northeast monsoon, generally from November through February, when heavy rain and high surf reshape the beaches. Teluk Cempedak, the city's main beach four kilometres east of the centre, is calm and swimmable through most of the rest of the year. The dry months from April to September are the best for the coast, for the offshore islands of Tioman further south, and for the inland reach up the Sungai Pahang toward Taman Negara, where access depends on river levels.