VIDEO DESCRIPTION:
What happens when you keep riding past the Melaka Submarine Museum? You find an island full of ghost ships, a 5-star hotel with no people, and a legendary local treat!
In today’s video, I’m taking my bike out toward Klebang Beach in Malacca, Malaysia, to explore some massive land reclamation projects. And I ponder the original plan for all this reclaimed land and wonder what happened.
Along the way, I stumbled upon a mysterious island that turned out to be a massive salvage yard/graveyard for abandoned ships and barges. While the security gate stopped me from crossing the bridge, I managed to get up close along the shoreline to check out these incredible misfit vessels.
To beat the intense Malaysian heat, I check out the vibe at Klebang Beach, grab some fresh sugar cane juice, and end the day at the famous Klebang Original Coconut Shake shack—where I got a bonus treat!
Stick around until the end of the video to see the 3D flyover map of my exact route today!
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:
Welcome back to Planet Doug. This video is starting off at a pretty unusual place right here. There’s the sign for it, Museum Kapal Selam, which basically means this is the submarine museum. I just finished doing an in-depth tour of the submarine. You can see it there on one of my GoPros. That is the French submarine, the one that was purchased by Malaysia as part of a contract when Malaysia, in the 2000s, early 2000s, decided to start up their own submarine section of their navy, and they bought two Scorpène submarines from France. As part of the contract and the training package, they also purchased this older submarine. It was a retired submarine from the French Navy, an Agosta class submarine, and they used this one for training purposes. But now they don’t use it anymore, and they turned it into a museum. I just did a tour of that. You can see that in the video previous to this one. But out here is a kind of tourist area called Klebang Beach. I thought while I’m out this far, I might as well ride my bike around a little bit and check out Klebang Beach and see if there’s anything else of interest around here just to look at.
Yeah, they built some high-end hotels out here. There’s a hotel right ahead of me there. What’s it called again? Durkin or Birkin Hotel. Five-star hotel. Like 450 ringgit a night for a room there. Yeah, looks pretty impressive. Then there’s a lot of carnivals and go-kart tracks and arcade games, all kinds of things like that. Then a lot of this land that’s all around me, this is all reclaimed land. It used to be part of the Malacca Strait, but they’re slowly reclaiming the land. They’re building out more islands with walls, and then they fill them in, pack it down, and they just sort of keep building the land out and out and out. I think over in this direction on Google Maps, I saw an island that looked to be in the middle of this reclamation project and it had a lot of boats on it, a lot of ships, different varieties. For me to get there, I think I have to go to the hotel first. It’s the Birkin International Hotel. Turn past the hotel and then maybe I can go out to this little island. After that, I’m going to ride to the beach itself. The best time to come out here, of course, would be on the weekend. This is the middle of the week and middle of the day, so there’s really nothing going on out here. You come out here on the weekend, the beaches will be full. All the restaurants and all the food stalls and drink stalls all along the beach will be open. Today, I think everything is going to be pretty quiet and closed down. I’m just in the mood to ride my bike around and just get a feel for what this area looks like. Klebang Beach.
Huh. That thing behind me there, that’s the Eco Marine Amusement Park. It appears to have closed before it even opened. I don’t know about this hotel either. I know that it’s listed as a five-star international hotel and I can see it, but I don’t know whether it’s open and thriving. Maybe it never even opened. I don’t see a whole lot of activity. When we get closer to the hotel, maybe we can see. Perhaps they built it and then it never actually opened. Could it be another victim of COVID? I’m not sure.
Yeah, I don’t know what’s going on. It looks finished, but I don’t see any human beings anywhere. Maybe they just haven’t fully completed it yet.
Yeah, Birkin International Hotel. I see it listed on Google Maps. That’s where I got the figure of like 400 ringgit per night for a room that came up on Google Maps.
I see a security guard in the security gate. Yeah, it must be partially open, if not fully open. Yeah, two men just went by me on scooters, motorcycles, and of course they both had fishing rods because we’re heading down towards the coast here, down to the shore of the Malacca Strait. That’s where all the fishermen will come.
Yeah, I’ve started thinking a lot about the crows of Malacca. It feels like there’s something special about the crows here because there’s so many of them. Another one of the soundtracks of Malacca is the sound, the cawing of the crows everywhere you go. Of course, if you watch a lot of movies and TV shows and horrors, you know, crows are ominous. The cawing of the crow is like the warning you of danger. It’s foreboding. It is kind of interesting all the time that you’re wandering around Malacca.
Yeah, your travels are accompanied by the cawing of the crows. It’s kind of non-stop. I’m wondering why there are so many crows here. There’s something special going on.
This dirt road leads over to this island. I don’t know whether I can cross over to the island. This might be an industrial site. I saw something about a cement plant and maybe there’s a little bridge, but it might be closed. That’s why I wanted to come down here and see what’s going on. Had some heavy, heavy rain the last couple of nights. Last night I slept through it, so I didn’t hear the rain, but I woke up to a very wet world. The road coming out here was partially flooded. Half of the road was underwater. Then this muddy or this gravel dirt road here is filled with puddles. Yeah, a lot of rain came down last night.
This place directly ahead of me, I think, is listed on Google Maps as a cement processing center. This island intrigued me in particular because of the large number of boats docked on the edges. So many ships and barges. I’m curious what they’re all doing, whether they’re working ships or they’ve all been beached there and abandoned. Could it be an entire ghost island of ghost ships? I have no idea.
There’s some kind of a security gate.
Hello. Cannot enter. Oh, no. Okay. What is here? Just like a shop board. Oh, okay. Yeah. On Google Maps, I just saw that island. Oh, it looked not good here. It’s behind there. Yeah. Can’t go to the island. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I saw so many on Google Maps you can see all the boats, all the ships. Okay, cool.
Thank you.
Yeah. Can’t go there. It’s too bad. There’s a bridge, very narrow bridge heading out to that island. Looks very interesting. Like, it’d be a lot of fun to cross it. I think that island would be quite interesting to explore. But yeah, that guy in the security booth, he jumped up fast, man. He saw me. He ran to intercept me, but yeah, I couldn’t see him inside the gate. I mean, inside the shack, so I couldn’t tell whether it was open to for anyone to go in or not. Apparently not. I’m going to head to the tourist beach. I know that’s open to me, Klebang Beach. Just park my bike there, maybe walk up and down the beach a little bit, get a sense of what it’s like. On the way back into Malacca, I know there’s a what seems to be a famous coconut shake operation. I’ve actually been out here for a long time already, for the whole morning in the hot sun at the submarine museum. I’m kind of getting towards the end of my energy for being out in the hot sun. Once I take a look at Klebang Beach, I’ll probably turn around, head back to Malacca proper, but stop off at the coconut shake place. Looks like you can get a coconut shake with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top.
I couldn’t go to the island, but I guess maybe I can head down to the water this way. Anyway, there’s a lot of cars and trucks and vans going in and out of this bumpy road, so it seems to be somewhat open. I know there’s a fishing down here, but not sure what else. Looking ahead, I see a whole bunch of flags. All kinds of flags along the beach, along the shore.
On this bumpy road. It feels like a long distance down to the shore here. Yeah. Over there to my left, I can see all of those ships and those boats that I was talking about. I could have seen all of that if I had managed to get out to that island.
Yeah, maybe I can walk a little bit closer to it and just get some video from a distance.
Yeah, I guess this is a very popular fishing spot. That’s why all the cars are coming in. All the personal cars and motorcycles. I see a lot of fishing rods. Over there on the right is some sort of a sand and gravel cement operation. Maybe this is part of all of the land reclamation projects. A lot of big trucks going in and out. I see some heavy equipment in there.
Yeah, I can’t go in there for sure, but I can walk along the shore here.
Yeah, that’s what’s going on here. This is a fishing spot. Probably a hangout place in the evening when it’s cooler. Oh, the whole shoreline. I can count 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 fishing rods in that direction. Two more in the other direction. A bunch of guys are sitting in the shade under the tree. They leave their rod and reel out here to do the work and then they can relax in the shade, wait until they catch something. Yeah, pretty heavy duty rods and reels.
Ah, look at all those boats. Yeah, they look abandoned. That looks amazing. A whole bunch of ghost boats. That barge looks like it’s sinking.
As soon as you stop pedaling the bike and you don’t have that self-created wind anymore, it gets hot.
Yeah, I’m actually pretty close to that bridge that heads over to the island. Looks like it’s the island of misfit ships.
I think there are YouTubers out there who specialize in breaking into places like industrial, like climbing to the tops of towers and things. This would be quite a challenge for one of them.
Hello. Hello. Where you from? Oh, I’m from Canada. Canada? Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Far away. Yeah. Just a tourist. Oh, solo. Yeah. Solo. Very nice. Very nice. Do you know about this island? Uh name Klebang. Klebang. Thailand. Uh, Pulau. Okay. I just see all of these ships here. Uh, you can go there, but you security. Yeah, I came in the other side, but there’s security. They say you can’t go there. Can go. Are those ships abandoned? Yes. Like they like. Okay. Just looks interesting. No. They don’t work anymore. Yeah. Okay. Cool.
All right. You say to product want to say product product. Are you want to buy? No, no, no, no. I’m just I just like to take video. Oh, take pictures and old ships like that. They look interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I yeah, I can’t go there. You can’t go there. Yeah. I just go a little bit closer. Yes. I’ll take some video. All right. Okay.
That’s some confirmation that yeah, these are all abandoned. It’s like a yeah, it’s interesting. I never heard about that place, but clearly the purpose of that island is as a place to dump old ships that aren’t you can’t run them anymore. Hello.
Normally from here I would expect to be hearing all kinds of hammers because like I saw ship, you see shipyards like that in Bangladesh outside of Dhaka on the river and they bring all the ships there and then they tear them down, right? They tear them to pieces and then recycle all of the metal, you know, they recycle all the metal. I’m just wondering if maybe that’s what they do here as well. But I don’t hear any hammers. I don’t hear any saws or anything. Hello. How are you? I’m fine. Are you? I’m okay. Oh, you? I’m from Canada. Canada. Yeah. Very good. How long you have been here? Uh, I’ve been in Malacca for about 1 month. 2 months. Yeah. Wow. Okay. I love it here. Yeah. Yeah. It has a good mixture. Interesting history. Yes. Yes. Good food, beautiful scenery. Yeah. Interesting. Like Malacca Strait. Strait. All the boats and the ships. Yeah. Very interesting place. Today I went to see the submarine. Oh, the submarine. Yeah. There. Yeah. Oh, I see. Okay. Okay. Good. Good. Good. And then I came here ’cause I wanted to see the boat. Oh, the big one. Yeah.
Looks interesting. You come here alone or what? Yeah. Alone? Alone? Oh, you have a family? No, I’m not married. No, not married. No family? No family. Okay. Just always traveling. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Then after Malaysia, where you go after Malaysia? Well, I might go to Taiwan. Taiwan. Thinking about going there. Oh, I see. To Taiwan. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I’m not sure yet.
I pushed my bike all along the shore here and there’s just all fishing parties here. Families, young men, older men, just all along the shore here. They have tents and vehicles and they have barbecues, jugs of cold water, cases of ice. They’re all well prepared for a day of relaxing and fishing. This is as close as you can get to this ship graveyard from this side. There’s the bridge that I had my eye on. Even though you can’t get in from the other side, there’s a security guard there. If you really wanted to, would there doesn’t seem to be any security here. You could still cross the bridge and go exploring out there. I’m not going to try to do it today. I am something of a rule abiding fellow, so I don’t want to be trespassing where I’m not wanted. Even so, if I really wanted to go out there and do some exploring, that would be like a whole morning operation. I would have to come out here like first thing in the morning when it’s still cool. I’m full of energy. Then I could climb around on one of these ships. Right now, yeah, I’m already beat. The heat has defeated me already. Just going to the submarine museum, that was enough for the day. Yeah, even if I was willing to take the risk of trespassing and go out there exploring, I just don’t have the energy for it right now. Yeah. But it’s kind of cool to get this close. Now I can completely confirm what this island is about. It really is a ship graveyard. These are all abandoned, out of service barges, ships of all variety. Yeah. If you had a drone, fly a drone over that and you were confident in piloting a drone that far and getting it back again, you would get some amazing footage. This is the best I can do with my GoPro from here.
Yeah, I think right here if you, it’s a little bit of a trail. Hear those crows? There’s always the ominous cawing of crows in Malacca. There is a shack here. This could also be a security guard. Could be somebody in there right now. I’m not sure. They’ll probably hear my voice and come out to see who I am and what I’m doing. But yeah, here’s the beach. I can go down here, I think. Should be fine. Just as long as I don’t lose my footing on these rocks.
Yeah, there we are. Very cool.
Back on the pavement, leaving from the fishing shore area there and the island of misfit boats, the salvage yard for abandoned boats.
Just passing by Birkin International Hotel again. Yeah, I can’t figure that place out. I don’t see any activity at all. I don’t see any people, nothing. But it sure looks like it’s brand new, newly built. Maybe the grand opening is still on its way.
Ah, and there is the famous beach, Klebang Beach. From here, it reminds me of all the beaches near to Port Dickson. I think that’s basically what it’s like. As I said today, what day is it? It’s a I can’t tell what day it is, but anyway, it’s middle of the week, a week day. Almost everything is going to be closed. Won’t be a lot of activity. Just as kind of a reconnaissance mission, I’m going to head over to the beach and take a look at it. Yeah, I thought I might walk up and down the length of the beach, but I think it’s just too hot to do that. I might just find a spot where I can ride my bike to a point where I can see the beach, and that might be as far as I’ll go. We’ll see.
Around the corner. Oh, this is called a Klebang Walk. That’s a nice area here. Little park with a bunch of trees giving a lot of shade. That’s the key to any beach here. You got to have shade. Without that, not much you can do. Yeah. I have no idea what the swimming would be like here. Oh, there’s actually a sign there saying no swimming. It’s not a swimming beach at all. It’s just a place to come in the evening. It’s probably nice and cool. Nice breeze coming off the water, stroll around. Then all around me there are food stalls and little cafes and restaurants. I guess that’s the point of Klebang Beach. If some place is open here where I can get a cold drink, I’ll do that. Oh, I see somebody with a metal detector.
Just to take a look at the beach, what it looks like.
Ah. There it is.
Klebang Beach. Yeah, it’s very nice over here. I imagine on the weekend there’s a whole bunch of tables probably that you could sit at. Get yourself something to eat across the road. Sit down here in the shade to eat, look out over the water. There’s the Birkin Five-Star Hotel.
Nice. Yeah, I’m not in the mood to walk up and down the beach in that hot sun. Not right now.
Lima ringgit.
Lima ringgit. Here you go. Thank you.
I got my cold drink. Some sugar cane juice. Ice.
Yeah, it’s really nice.
Just going to sit down in the shade for a minute or two and enjoy this.
One more place I wanted to stop. My goals for today for this morning started with visiting the submarine museum and that’s in the other video, my first video. I wanted to see the salvage yard island, all those ships out on that island, and I got pretty close to it. I got a pretty good sense of what it was all about. As I said, even if I decided to go across the bridge onto the island, I don’t have the energy anymore today to do any serious exploring or climbing around on those boats. Yeah, it was enough just to see the boats from a distance.
Then Klebang Beach. Got myself a sugar cane juice drink. That was pretty sweet. Now I’ve turned my bike around to head back into downtown Malacca back to my hotel. On the way in about two and a half kilometers, I’m going to be passing the original Klebang coconut shake operation. If it’s open, I’m going to pop in there for a coconut shake to reward myself for being out here in this heat for so long.
And here we go. Eight or nine kilometers back to the city. Two, two and a half to get my coconut shake.
I arrived. Here it is. Pretty much the last stop for my day, for my morning anyway, other than the hotel. The Klebang Original Coconut Shake Shack. Well, it doesn’t say shack, but that’s what I’ll call it.
Yeah, it’s more of a roadside service place than anything else. Kind of a drive-thru.
Hello. Hello. Yeah, I saw I already hit my head.
Where you from? I’m from Canada.
How much is it for one coconut shake? With ice cream. With ice cream? Five ringgit. With ice cream. 80 cent? So with ice cream.
I’ll have with ice cream. What? Yep. Do you have a QR? Touch and go. Oh, cash only.
Yes, please.
I only have a 10. That’s okay. Yeah.
Oh yeah, look at that. It’s definitely a volume business. They prepare them in advance. They have a whole cooler full and they make a whole bunch of them with or without ice cream ’cause yeah. Very popular spot. Kind of surprises me that it’s cash only considering it’s like volume business and tons of people just driving up in their cars. But he said, “Yeah, it’s cash only.” It’s kind of odd.
That is nice. Ice cold. That’s the main thing. It’s got to be cold. Cold. Cold. Nice and thick with the ice cream. Yeah. Planet Doug approved.
Home stretch for my bike ride back to the hotel. I ended up having two coconut shakes there. I bought the first one and then I started chatting with the man who was working there. He pulled out a chair for me, sat down next to me and we tried to talk for a little bit. Lately, I don’t know what it is. I have a real hard time communicating with local people in whatever language. I just I don’t know. I can’t understand what people are saying anymore. I don’t know what it is when even when they’re speaking English, the rhythm of the words and the sentences just so I have to do a lot of excuse me, pardon. Could you say that again? It takes a long time to communicate. Anyway, we were chatting for a while and I got down to the end of my shake and then he said, “Oh, do you want one more?” At first I said no, don’t want to be too greedy, right? I already had one ice cream at the submarine museum. Then sugar cane juice, then coconut shake with vanilla ice cream. Having another one seemed a bit excessive, but then I changed my mind right away. Oh yeah, absolutely. I’d love to have another one. I got out my wallet and he said, “No, no, no, no charge.” He was offering me one, a bonus coconut shake for free. That was very kind of him. He told me a story that not long ago he met another foreigner there. I’m not sure if she has a YouTube channel. I think she does. A young woman calls herself Emma Eats and he showed me a TikTok video of her getting a milkshake at that same place and then talking with him on video. I watched Emma Eats TikTok. That was kind of interesting. But now, yeah, back on the road.
Getting busier and busier, of course, the closer I get to downtown Malacca.
I don’t have plans to stop anywhere else. I think I can wind up this little video here. As I said, my main goal for today was to visit the submarine museum, and that’s a separate video. But then I thought since I’m out there, I might as well ride around a little bit, record some of the neighborhood on video, basically just to show what it looks like out there, what Klebang Beach is all about. Now that that’s done, head back into town. Thanks for hanging out with me. Shout out to the Crunch Club. Everybody who made it this far, watch the video all the way to the end. Those are my Crunch Club members. Put CC in the comments to let me know. Shout out as always to the Planet Doug supporters out there around the world using Touch ‘n Go, Buy Me a Coffee, PayPal, and then of course all the Planet Doug Patreon members. Yeah, shout out to all of you guys.
Yeah, there’s a QR code to all of those platforms at the end of the video. Right after this conclusion, I’m going to put in a 3D map that shows the route that I followed this morning from my hotel out here and then back again. You can trace exactly where I went. If you want to track down Klebang Beach and get yourself a coconut shake, you can track it down on the 3D flyover map. All right, got some traffic here.
That is it. Shutting down for now and I’ll see you next time.