Kota Kuala Kedah (The Kuala Kedah Fort)

This fort was one of my playgrounds when I was between the ages of 8-10 years old in the early 80s. To get there I had to take the sampan from the Kuala Kedah Jetty.  The sampan ride cost 30 sen.  So, my childhood friends and I used to go there just to enjoy the view or to play near the lighthouse or just to trace the stone wall back and forth counting the cannons.  When we got back home (very late in the evening), my grandmother (and sometimes my aunty) was already waiting with a cane - for daring to venture outside her realm and she somehow always knew that we went to the fort. Though she never used the cane, the sight of her holding it was enough to stop me (and my friends) for a few days.  And being a child, her image was soon forgotten when we again went off wondering the nook and cranny of Kuala Kedah and somehow we always ended at the jetty, and before we knew it we were already in the sampan in a jiffy and after a frightful (not so much at that time) cross to the other side (we used to call it Seberang Kota) reached the fort feeling happy and liberated - because there's no one to scold us.

And it's a privilege to be able to take you guys down there this time around despite being in the night time.

That's the lighthouse.  Somehow we never got the nerve to climb up to the top.

From another angle.  This stonewall was newly built.  It wasn't there when I was small.

The Kuala Kedah Jetty is in the background.

The reason my grandmother was always furious was because the stone wall was the only barrier between the land and the sea.  Of course we didn't see the danger then.

I don't remember the wall being this current height.

One of the cannons that's still there.  I also remembered a famous cannon named 'Meriam Badak Berendam' literally translated as the Wallowing Rhino.  I'm not sure whether this is the one because the one I remembered was placed outside the stone wall and just above the water surface.  But legend has it that the cannon was guarded spiritually.  It could submerge underwater and could also made itself seen. Come to think of it now, I think it has more to do with the tide.

This is the same cannon as the picture above.  Another cannon that I can remembered was called "Meriam Katak Puru' or the Toad.  Now I don't know of any legend for this one.

That's the Tok Pasai Bridge, connecting both mainlands that are separated by the Kedah River.

Another picture of the Kuala Kedah Jetty.

Behind the building was the main gateway into the fort.  That's the entrance we used when I was little after disembarking from where the sampan berthed and a short walk on ruined wooden planks above the water..  However, the one I remembered was simpler in design - similar to the entrance of the A'Famosa Fort - below.  The building is a museum.  It wasn't there when I was small.

The A'Famosa Fort: Just the entrance, not the whole structure.

I'm glad to be able to bring you girls to places I fondly remembered from childhood.  Maybe we can go back during the day and see the vast complex of the Kuala Kedah Fort.  

I remembered it then as a barren site and always hot and without living souls.  We were the only humans there but we were not scared - the more space for us to play around.  There were no other structures except for the light house and the gateway.  There were some small wooden kampong houses nearby but most were outside the fort - a fishing village.  That's why the sampan was the only mode of transportation then.

I guess the new generation will remember their childhood as one being on the sofa, holding some kind of gadgets and munching something and getting fat in the process.

I have loads of fond memories from my childhood and of my 2 childhood friends and my partners in crime - Anita (Ta) and Zaleha (Adik Aa).  Ta still lives in Kuala Kedah and Adik Aa is now in Alor Setar.  I always think of the wonderful times we had together as small children, being carefree and innocent, especially when someone talks about the fort.