You do know that since your last visit we’ve had Covid here? It put paid to a lot of plans and dreams.
There had been some desultory building of a new wet market ( but too expensive rent wise to attract much interest), the Holiday Inn has closed, the I Love You food court has closed and is in the process of being demolished for a new hotel complex and shops ( which may or may not get built), much of the beach got washed away but otherwise Batu Ferringhi looks just as tatty as it always has!
Until the travel restrictions for domestic tourists were lifted recently, Batu Ferringhi was beginning to resemble a Wild West film set - you could almost see the tumble weed blowing down the main road. Since then domestic tourists have been back in droves, with almost 100% occupancy of hotels at times. Some hotels, and the Rasa Sayang is one, have been rebuilding their beach fronts with massive boulders to stop further sea erosion. There is still some beach, just perhaps not as much as previously. However the beach boys are still selling water sports.
The pavements are once again being taken over by the night market vendors, but there aren’t quite as many vendors as before which is probably no bad thing. Once you’d seen the wares on 6 stalls you’d seen the complete range of what was on offer. Quite a few vendors found more lucrative employment elsewhere and a lot of the Thai workers went home. However the state of the pavements hasn’t changed and due to the narrow road can’t really have much done to them.
Quite a lot of the existing shops and restaurants are now targeting the Middle Eastern visitors. It’s surprising how much Arabic you now see on the frontages.
Due to the Pandemic Entopia was forced to close but is due to reopen soon. The Tropical Spice Garden had a financial crisis and appealed for donations to try and stay open. Most of the other places you probably remember have survived - Frandys, Bora Bora, Andrew’s, etc. kept going throughout. Lebanon opened up a new restaurant and Starbucks remained open.
There is a new road planned to go up to Batu Ferringhi, but I think it’s the 3rd or 4th version of such plans that I’ve seen in about the last 20 years. It is however desperately needed as the traffic now is back to the old days pre Covid with the road in and out of Batu Ferringhi jammed with out station cars from Kuala Lumpur and other places on the mainland.
Not sure if this is what you want to hear or not!
