Lifestyle

Where to Buy Batik, Songket & Kelantan Handicraft in Kota Bharu 2026

Kelantan still makes what the rest of Malaysia mostly imports — handwoven songket, hand-drawn batik, hammered silver. Kota Bharu is where you buy it, but the good addresses are markets and kampung workshops rather than shops with websites. Here are eight of them, from the RM7 million refurbished Pasar Besar Siti Khadijah to the songket houses along Jalan PCB, plus the Friday closures and the handwoven-versus-printed test that decide whether you overpay.

Marcus Wong19 August 202614 min readUpdated 29 Aug 2026

> Quick view: eight places to buy Kelantan craft in Kota Bharu — three city markets, the state craft village, three songket houses along Jalan PCB and a silvercraft shop on Jalan Sultanah Zainab. Kelantan's weekend is Friday–Saturday, so shop Sunday to Thursday, in the morning. Almost nothing here publishes prices, so we quote none — the single exception is Kampung Kraftangan, at RM2 for a Malaysian adult.

Why Kota Bharu is still the address

Most of what is sold as Malaysian craft elsewhere in the country is finished elsewhere too. Kelantan is the exception that keeps making it: handwoven songket on kampung looms, hand-drawn batik in village workshops, silver hammered and chased by hand. The state is Malaysia's craft heartland in a literal, still-operating sense, and Kota Bharu is where the output meets a buyer.

That is also why this is a harder shopping trip to plan than it looks. The best addresses are not shops with websites and opening-hours pages. They are three market buildings within a few minutes of each other in the city core, a state-run craft village, and a strip of family weaving houses on the road out towards the beach. Several have no online presence beyond a Facebook page. None of them publishes a price list.

So this guide does two things. It tells you which address is for what — because they are genuinely different jobs — and it gives you the two or three pieces of practical knowledge that decide whether you buy well or badly.

What changed in 2026: Buluh Kubu is being rebuilt

The biggest planning change this year is that one of the three city-centre markets is emptying out. In April 2026 the Federal Government confirmed RM28 million to upgrade the ageing Bazar Buluh Kubu building, and Perbadanan Kemajuan Iktisad Negeri Kelantan (PKINK), the project's implementer, notified traders to vacate. Around 150 batik and craft traders are moving to a disused supermarket in town — the former The Store — while the works run an expected 36 months, 2026 to 2028. The rebuilt bazaar is to carry the name already on its signage, Bazar Siti Aisyah. The project consultant's lead architect, Dato' Ar Mohd Asri Mohd Salleh of MASA Architect, said in April 2026 that construction would start in July 2026 — so by the time you read this the hoardings are up — and set out the scope: extra lifts, reorganised parking, a new atrium at ground level, façade and interior reconfiguration, new electrical and mechanical systems, landscaping, pedestrian walkways and better prayer facilities. The building dates from the early 1980s and opened in 1985, the same year as Pasar Besar Siti Khadijah beside it.

That matters for a shopping trip in two ways. The obvious one: do not plan your fabric buying around Buluh Kubu in 2026 — Pasar Besar Siti Khadijah and Bazar Tok Guru are the reliable stops, and both are a short walk from the same spot. The less obvious one: the traders are not disappearing, they are dispersing. Some have said the air-conditioned temporary premises cost more to rent than their old lots and that they will trade elsewhere instead, so the wholesale stock that used to sit in one building is spread across town for the next couple of years. Ask at Siti Khadijah or Tok Guru where a particular Buluh Kubu name has moved to; in a trade this small, someone on the floor will know.

Plan around Friday, and around the morning

The single most common mistake visitors make is arriving on a Friday. Kelantan's weekend falls on Friday and Saturday, not Saturday and Sunday — and it is now one of only three Malaysian states that still work that way, with Kedah and Terengganu. If you have read elsewhere that there are four, that list is out of date: Johor reverted to a Saturday–Sunday weekend on 1 January 2025, after eleven years on the Friday–Saturday pattern. Bazar Tok Guru is reported closed on Fridays, Kampung Kraftangan closes every Friday, and many kampung workshops close for prayers, some for the whole day.

The second is arriving in the afternoon. Pasar Besar Siti Khadijah is a working produce market first, and it runs on a produce market's clock: between 7am and 9am it is full, and by mid-afternoon it is visibly winding down. The craft floors upstairs stay open longer, but the atmosphere that makes the trip worth it is a morning phenomenon.

Learn to read the cloth before you spend

Songket is priced by the density and fineness of the metallic weft work, and the gap between a fine handwoven piece and a printed imitation is enormous — far larger than the gap in how they look on a stall front.

The test takes two seconds: turn the cloth over. Genuine handwoven songket shows the gold or silver weft floating loose across the reverse, and the motif reads raised on the front and untidy on the back. Printed cloth looks essentially the same on both faces and lies flat. Real songket is also stiff and heavy, because there is metal in it.

Batik divides the same way. Batik tulis is drawn by hand with a canting, and no two lengths are identical — look for the small irregularities. Batik cap is stamped with a copper block: more regular, faster to make, cheaper, and entirely legitimate. What you are avoiding is screen-printed polyester sold at handmade prices.

This is the argument for spending your first hour at Kampung Kraftangan or in one of the Kampung Penambang weaving houses rather than at a stall. Watching a weaver put gold weft through a warp is what converts "handwoven costs more" from a claim into something you can see.

Bargaining, briefly

These are bargaining markets, and the etiquette is unremarkable: ask the price, take an interest in the piece rather than the number, and expect the useful movement to come when you buy more than one thing. That is precisely why Bazar Buluh Kubu, the wholesale bazaar, has traditionally been the right stop for a family's worth of Raya cloth or a bridal party's sampin — it is priced for people buying in quantity. With Buluh Kubu closing for its rebuild, the same logic now applies at the ground-floor fabric traders in Bazar Tok Guru and the craft floors of Pasar Besar Siti Khadijah: buy in multiples and the number moves.

Silver is the exception. It is priced substantially off the weight of the metal, and with silver reported at RM14,000–RM15,000 per kilogram against roughly RM3,000 historically, there is far less room in the number than a shopper used to textiles might assume.

Which floor you actually want

Two of the three market buildings are big enough that walking in without a plan costs you an hour.

Pasar Besar Siti Khadijah is three storeys, and the craft is on top. Tourism Malaysia's own guide splits it: the ground floor is wet and dry produce — keropok lekor, spices, vegetables, poultry; the second floor is dried goods (dried-fish keropok, beef and chicken floss, local snacks) plus a large food court of Kelantan kuih; and the third storey is what you came for — local handicraft, fashion accessories, batik and traditional Malay clothing. The same guide gives the market's hours as daily 6.30am to 5pm. MPKB, which built it and opened it in 1985, notes that trade here is carried out overwhelmingly by women, and that gold- and silverwork is sold alongside the cloth.

Bazar Tok Guru splits by floor too, and its operator publishes the numbers. PMBK's own page breaks the 856 lots down as 353 on the ground floor, 255 on the first and 248 on the second, each averaging 80 square feet, on the 5.9-acre former Kota Bharu district police headquarters site — the bazaar itself takes about 1.5 acres of it. The ground floor is the one that matters for this trip: it was filled by traders who moved across from the old MPKB market, and PMBK lists their stock as clothing, women's accessories, tudung and Kelantan handicraft.

One line on that page explains the prices better than any amount of bargaining advice. PMBK sold the lots to their traders on a hire-purchase package from RM250 a month over 18 years, with no charges and no interest, and says 400 entrepreneurs took it up and are still trading. These are owner-operators with a fixed, low occupancy cost — not concession holders paying mall rent. That is a large part of why the same cloth costs less here than in a city boutique, and it is also why the traders can afford to hold a price when you push too hard.

What else Kelantan actually makes

Cloth is the headline, not the whole list. Tourism Malaysia's Kota Bharu guide names the state's crafts as silverware, textiles, wau (the big handmade kites), brass work, batik, songket and wood carving — and every one of them turns up somewhere on this trip.

Wau bulan is the one visitors underestimate. A full-size decorative kite is an awkward thing to get home and an unmistakable thing to own, and kite-making is among the crafts demonstrated at Kampung Kraftangan. Brass and wood carving show up in Kampung Kraftangan's sales halls and among the Bazar Tok Guru craft traders. Silver has its own address on this list.

Then there is the category nobody plans for and everybody buys: edible souvenirs. Kelantan's dried goods — keropok, keropok lekor, beef and chicken floss, local kuih — are concentrated on the second floor of Pasar Besar Siti Khadijah, one floor below the cloth. If you are already going up for batik, budget twenty minutes on the way back down. It is the cheapest thing on this page and the first thing to run out once you are home.

Getting between the eight addresses

They fall into three clusters, and the geography decides the shape of your day.

The city core. Pasar Besar Siti Khadijah, the Bazar Buluh Kubu site and Bazar Tok Guru are within a few minutes of each other beside the Kota Bharu bus terminal — Tourism Malaysia puts the market about four minutes' drive from the terminal and roughly 30 minutes from Sultan Ismail Petra Airport. You can do all three on foot in a morning.

Jalan Hilir Kota. Kampung Kraftangan sits beside the Balai Besar and Istana Jahar, so the craft village and the royal museums are one walkable block. They keep the same hours — 8.30am to 4.45pm — and both close on Fridays.

Jalan Pantai Cahaya Bulan. Kampung Penambang — Cik Minah, Wisma Songket Hjh Cik Bidah and Haji Idris Omar — is about 3.5 km north of the town centre on the road out to the beach, postcode 15350. PCB itself is 10 km out, and the Mutiara Rentas Desa bus service 10 runs there from the bus terminal next to Pasar Besar Siti Khadijah, which makes the songket strip reachable without a car if you do not mind walking in from the main road.

The eight addresses

The cards above cover each one in detail, and the comparison table strips them back to what each is actually for.

How to plan the day

A half-day, city centre only. Pasar Besar Siti Khadijah at 7.30am for the upper floors and the view, then Bazar Tok Guru when the heat sets in — it has the food court, the lifts and the air conditioning, and with Buluh Kubu under rebuild it now carries more of the serious fabric buying. Both are within walking distance of each other; look in on the Buluh Kubu site next door to see how far the works have got.

A full day, with the making. Add Kampung Kraftangan on Jalan Hilir Kota in the late morning, when demonstrations are most likely to be running, and it sits beside the Balai Besar and the royal museums if you want to make an afternoon of it.

A day for buying songket properly. Drive out along Jalan Pantai Cahaya Bulan to Kampung Penambang and do Cik Minah, Wisma Songket Hjh Cik Bidah and Haji Idris Omar in one run. Three weaving houses back to back teaches you more about quality than any single stop, and it is the trip that most reliably beats KL prices.

If you are buying one serious thing. Make it silver, at Mohd Salleh & Sons on Jalan Sultanah Zainab. It is the craft on this list with the fewest practising artisans left, and the one where your money most directly keeps a skill alive.

Kota Bharu craft shopping compared — what each address is actually for

Where	Area	Best for	Reported hours	Bargaining?
Pasar Besar Siti Khadijah	Jalan Buluh Kubu, by the bus terminal	Getting your bearings; 3rd storey is the batik and kain floor	Daily 6.30am–5pm (Tourism Malaysia); best 7–9am	Yes
Bazar Buluh Kubu	Jalan Buluh Kubu	Wholesale batik and songket, buying in quantity	Works started July 2026, running to 2028; traders relocated — check first	Yes, especially in multiples
Bazar Tok Guru	City centre, 5.9-acre former police HQ site	856 lots on 3 floors; the ground floor is the cloth and craft floor	Reported Sun–Thu 8.30am–5.30pm, Sat 9am–3pm, closed Fri	Yes
Kampung Kraftangan	Jalan Hilir Kota, beside Balai Besar and Istana Jahar	Watching songket, batik, wau, carving and silver being made	Sat–Thu 8.30am–4.45pm, closed Fri; RM2 Malaysian adult	No — fixed admission
Cik Minah Songket & Batik	Kampung Penambang, Jalan PCB	Handwoven songket at the loom	Daytime; no published hours	Yes
Wisma Songket Hjh Cik Bidah 1921	Kampung Penambang, Jalan PCB (15350)	Songket sampin and bridal sets	Daytime; no published hours	Yes
Haji Idris Omar Songket & Batik	Kampung Penambang, Jalan PCB	Songket and batik, value against KL prices	Reported ~9am–5/7pm; call 09-748 1296	Yes
Mohd Salleh & Sons Silvercraft	Jalan Sultanah Zainab	Kelantan silver, tepak sireh, ceremonial pieces	Shop hours; call ahead	Limited — priced off metal weight

Pasar Besar Siti Khadijah — Jalan Buluh Kubu (start here, before 9am)

Kelantan's most photographed building, and still a working market rather than a tourist set piece. The famous view is the ground-floor produce hall seen from the upper galleries — a ring of traders, overwhelmingly women, sitting behind pyramids of vegetables, salted fish, budu and jeruk. The reason it belongs at the top of a shopping list is the **upper floors**, where the batik, songket, kain and tudung stalls are. Come here first not necessarily to buy, but to see the range and set your price expectations before you commit anywhere else. The market reopened after a **federally funded upgrade completed in 2025** ahead of Visit Malaysia 2026 — reported at RM5.5 million announced by the Prime Minister and around RM7 million in total allocation — covering rewiring, repainting, drainage, disabled-friendly walkways, rest areas and tourist-standard toilets, with roughly **1,500 traders** benefiting. Tourism Malaysia gives its hours as **daily 6.30am to 5pm**; it is **liveliest between 7am and 9am**, and noticeably thinner by mid-afternoon. **Which floor you want:** the same official guide splits the three storeys — the ground floor is wet and dry produce (keropok lekor, spices, vegetables, poultry), the **second floor** is dried goods (dried-fish keropok, beef and chicken floss, local snacks) plus a large food court of Kelantan kuih, and the **third storey** is the one you came for: local handicraft, fashion accessories, batik and traditional Malay clothing. MPKB, which built the market and opened it in **1985**, adds that trade here is carried out overwhelmingly by women, and that gold- and silverwork is sold alongside the cloth. It is roughly four minutes' drive from the Kota Bharu bus terminal and about 30 minutes from Sultan Ismail Petra Airport.

Photo: yeowatzup / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0

Bazar Buluh Kubu — Jalan Buluh Kubu (traders moving out for a 36-month rebuild)

**Check before you go — this one is in the middle of a rebuild.** In April 2026 the Federal Government confirmed an **RM28 million** allocation to upgrade the ageing Buluh Kubu building, and **Perbadanan Kemajuan Iktisad Negeri Kelantan (PKINK)**, which is implementing the project, served traders notice to vacate. Around **150 batik and craft traders** — many of whom have held lots here for 20 to 40 years — are moving to a disused supermarket in town, the former **The Store**, which was being refitted for them; the traders' association asked for the move to wait until that building was ready. The works are expected to run **36 months, from 2026 to 2028**, after which the venue is to reopen under the name it is already signed with, **Bazar Siti Aisyah**. The project consultant's lead architect, **Dato' Ar Mohd Asri Mohd Salleh of MASA Architect**, said in April 2026 that works would begin in **July 2026** and described the scope: additional lifts, reorganised parking, a **new atrium at ground level**, façade and interior reconfiguration, upgraded electrical and mechanical systems, landscaping, pedestrian walkways and improved prayer facilities. The building dates from the early 1980s and opened in **1985** — the same year as Pasar Besar Siti Khadijah beside it. Traders have said the temporary premises cost more to rent because they are air-conditioned, and that some will trade elsewhere instead — so who is trading where is genuinely in flux through 2026. **What it is for, in normal times:** Buluh Kubu is Kota Bharu's **wholesale** batik and songket bazaar, directly beside Pasar Besar Siti Khadijah. Traders and small entrepreneurs from around Malaysia buy here in bulk, which sets prices with resellers in mind and means the real negotiation opens up when you buy more than one piece — a family's worth of Raya cloth, a bridal party's sampin. Until the rebuild is finished, plan your fabric buying around **Pasar Besar Siti Khadijah and Bazar Tok Guru**, and ask at either one where the Buluh Kubu traders have landed.

Image: Tourism Kelantan (Kelantan Tourism Information Centre)

Bazar Tok Guru — 856 lots on the old police headquarters site

The largest single retail building on this list, and the most comfortable to browse. Bazar Tok Guru is operated by **Perbadanan Menteri Besar Kelantan (PMBK)**, which states on its own site that the complex holds **856 lots across three floors** with roughly **400 entrepreneurs** currently trading, on the site of the former Kota Bharu district police headquarters. The mix is traditional clothing, textiles, batik and handicraft — many of the ground-floor traders moved across from the old market — plus women's accessories, tudung and Kelantanese crafts. Unlike the open bazaars it has a food court, surau, lifts, parking and toilets, which makes it the sensible option in the heat of the afternoon or with elderly parents in tow. PMBK's page also gives the floor-by-floor split — **353 lots on the ground floor, 255 on the first and 248 on the second**, each averaging **80 square feet** — on a **5.9-acre** former police headquarters site, with the bazaar footprint itself about 1.5 acres. The ground floor is the one that matters here: it was filled by traders who moved across from the old MPKB market, selling clothing, women's accessories, tudung and Kelantan handicraft. The reason the prices hold up against a city boutique is on the same page: PMBK sold the lots to traders on a **hire-purchase package from RM250 a month over 18 years, with no charges or interest**, and says **400 entrepreneurs** took it up and are still trading — owner-operators with a fixed, low occupancy cost rather than tenants paying mall rent. General enquiries: **+609 747 4082**. PMBK's page does not publish opening hours; third-party listings report **Sunday to Thursday 8.30am–5.30pm and Saturday 9am–3pm, closed Friday**, so treat Friday as a write-off and confirm before a special trip.

Photo: Perbadanan Menteri Besar Kelantan (PMBK)

Kampung Kraftangan & Muzium Kraftangan — Jalan Hilir Kota

The state's craft village, built with timber and bamboo in traditional Kelantanese style beside the Balai Besar and Istana Jahar — and the only address on this list that publishes a price of any kind. This is the place to **see the making, not just the finished thing**: songket weaving on the loom, batik drawing, traditional embroidery, wood carving and silverwork are demonstrated by craftsmen on site, with an attached craft museum and pieces available to buy. Go here before you go shopping, not after. Half an hour watching a weaver work gold weft through a warp does more to explain why one sampin costs many times another than any amount of stall-front comparison. **Hours and admission are published.** Tourism Malaysia lists Kampung Kraftangan as open **every day except Friday, 8.30am to 4.45pm**, with entry at **RM2 for a Malaysian adult and RM1 for a Malaysian child, RM4 and RM2 for non-Malaysians** (subject to change — confirm on the day). It opened in **1991**; the main building is the handicraft museum **Balai Getam Guri**, and four halls — **Balai Kenerak, Balai Kecubung, Balai Tapak Leman and Balai Saga Kenering** — are where craft is actually sold. There is a batik-painting room where visitors can try it themselves. One thing to keep straight: the village is on Jalan Hilir Kota next to the royal museums, while **Kraftangan Malaysia's Kelantan branch office is a different address** — KM 10, Jalan Kuala Krai, 16010 Kota Bharu, 09-712 6266. Late morning to early afternoon is the window when demonstrations are most likely to be running.

Image: Kementerian Pelancongan, Seni dan Budaya Malaysia (MOTAC)

Cik Minah Songket & Batik — Kampung Penambang, Jalan PCB

Kampung Penambang, on the road out of Kota Bharu towards Pantai Cahaya Bulan, is the songket village — a strip of weaving houses where the loom is usually in the same room as the retail rack. Cik Minah is the best known of them, a family house dated by several accounts to **around 1940**, and widely credited with weaving for the Kelantan royal household, including pieces for the Sultan, the Tengku Mahkota and the Menteri Besar. We state that as reported rather than as a documented fact, because the shop keeps no website of its own — its public channel is a Facebook page, which lists the address as S/I-350, Kampung Penambang and the phone as **09-748 1616** (a cikminahsongket.com.my address appears in that page's intro, but the domain no longer resolves). The same page notes a Fair Price Shop award from the Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs. What is not in question is what you will see: full-width handwoven songket, sampin, and bridal sets, made on the premises. This is the address to visit if you want to buy songket where it is actually made rather than where it is resold.

Photo: Malaysian kain songket (sampin) — Salahuddin Al Muzaffar bin Mohd Amri / Wikimedia Commons, CC0

Wisma Songket Hjh Cik Bidah 1921 — Kota Bharu (bridal sets)

The "1921" in the name is the point: this is one of the older songket names in Kota Bharu, and it trades on that lineage. Its stock centres on **songket sampin and full bridal sets** — the pieces where handweaving still commands a real premium, because a wedding buyer is one of the few customers who will pay for the density of gold work that takes weeks on a loom. It sits on **Jalan Pantai Cahaya Bulan in Kampung Penambang (postcode 15350), about 3.5 km north of the town centre** — the same strip as Cik Minah and Haji Idris Omar. Like most of Kampung Penambang's houses it runs its public presence through Facebook rather than a website, and it does not publish a price list. Worth pairing with Cik Minah in the same trip: seeing two established weaving houses back to back is the fastest way to learn to read quality, because the difference between a fine and a coarse weave stops being abstract the moment you have both in your hands.

Image: Wisma Songket Hjh Cik Bidah 1921 (Facebook)

Haji Idris Omar Songket & Batik — Jalan Pantai Cahaya Bulan

The third Kampung Penambang address worth the stop, and the one visitors most often mention for value: shoppers coming from the Klang Valley routinely note that the same quality of cloth costs noticeably less here than in a KL boutique, which is exactly what you would expect when you buy at the source rather than after two layers of margin. It carries both songket and batik, with typical trading hours reported as **around 9am to somewhere between 5pm and 7pm** depending on which listing you read, and admission to look around costs nothing. It has no website of its own, but it does run a Facebook page and an Instagram account (**@hajiidrisomar**), and its own Instagram bio gives **09-748 1296** as the number to call for batik, weaving and songket orders — worth using before you drive out, because a kampung shopfront keeps its own times. Combine it with items 5 and 6 and you have a single afternoon along Jalan PCB that covers three weaving houses — far more useful than an hour spent circling the same three market halls in town.

Image: Haji Idris Omar Songket & Batik

Mohd Salleh & Sons Kelantan Silvercraft — Jalan Sultanah Zainab

Kelantan silver is the state's other great craft, and the one closest to disappearing. This long-standing shop on **Jalan Sultanah Zainab** (listed at No. 1260-B) is among the addresses in town that still carry it — tepak sireh, ceremonial pieces, jewellery and the hand-chased floral patterns Kelantanese silversmiths are known for. Buy with your eyes open about the economics. As reported by Free Malaysia Today in March 2026 in a profile of Tumpat master silversmith Mohd Ariffin Wok, the price of silver has risen from around **RM3,000 per kilogram** historically to **RM14,000–RM15,000** now, and a single silver keris takes roughly **500g of metal** and several days of work. That is why a genuine hand-worked piece is not cheap and never will be, and why the number of practising artisans keeps falling. If you want the craft to survive, this is the item on the list worth spending real money on.

Photo: Malay silver betel set (tepak sireh), Asian Civilisations Museum — Wikimedia Commons, CC0. Illustrates the craft, not this shop's stock.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Bazar Buluh Kubu still open in 2026?

Not as the bazaar you may have read about. In April 2026 the Federal Government confirmed an RM28 million allocation to upgrade the Bazar Buluh Kubu building in Kota Bharu, and Perbadanan Kemajuan Iktisad Negeri Kelantan (PKINK), which is implementing the project, gave its traders notice to move out. Around 150 batik and craft traders — many with 20 to 40 years in the building — are relocating to a disused supermarket in town, the former The Store, which was being refitted for them, and the traders' association publicly asked for the move to be timed to that building being ready. The works are expected to take 36 months, from 2026 to 2028, and the venue is to reopen as Bazar Siti Aisyah. Some traders have said the temporary premises are more expensive to rent because they are air-conditioned and that they will trade elsewhere instead. For a 2026 trip, treat Pasar Besar Siti Khadijah and Bazar Tok Guru as your reliable fabric stops and ask locally where the Buluh Kubu traders are currently set up.

What day should I avoid shopping in Kota Bharu?

Friday. Kelantan is one of only three Malaysian states — with Kedah and Terengganu — whose weekend falls on Friday and Saturday rather than Saturday and Sunday. Older guides list four, but Johor reverted to a Saturday–Sunday weekend on 1 January 2025 after eleven years, so it no longer belongs on that list. Bazar Tok Guru is reported closed on Fridays, Kampung Kraftangan and Istana Jahar close every Friday, and many kampung workshops and family shophouses shut for Friday prayers, some for the whole day. Sunday to Thursday is the reliable window, and mornings are better than afternoons everywhere on this list: Pasar Besar Siti Khadijah is at its fullest between 7am and 9am and thins out noticeably by mid-afternoon.

How do I tell handwoven songket from printed imitation?

Turn the cloth over. On genuine handwoven songket the metallic weft threads that form the motif float loose across the reverse side, and the pattern reads as raised on the front and messy on the back. Printed or machine-imitation cloth looks essentially identical on both faces and lies flat. Weight and drape are the second test: real songket is stiff and heavy because of the metal thread. This is also why a visit to Kampung Kraftangan or one of the Kampung Penambang weaving houses before you shop pays for itself — once you have watched gold weft go through a warp, the difference stops being theoretical.

Is it cheaper to buy batik and songket in Kelantan than in Kuala Lumpur?

Generally yes for comparable quality, and the reason is structural rather than promotional: Kelantan is where much of it is actually made, so buying in Kota Bharu removes the layers of margin a KL boutique has to add. Shoppers at the Kampung Penambang houses consistently make this comparison. But we are not going to quote figures, because none of the addresses on this list publishes a price list. Prices move with the density of the gold work, the width of the cloth and how many pieces you buy at once — which is why Bazar Buluh Kubu, the wholesale bazaar, is the right stop if you are buying for a family or a bridal party rather than a single souvenir.

Where can I actually watch batik or songket being made?

Kampung Kraftangan on Jalan Hilir Kota is the purpose-built option. Opened in 1991 and built in timber and bamboo, it demonstrates songket weaving, batik drawing, wau (kite) making, traditional carving and silverwork on site; the main building is the handicraft museum Balai Getam Guri, four further halls sell craft, and there is a batik-painting room where you can try it yourself. Tourism Malaysia lists it as open every day except Friday, 8.30am to 4.45pm, at RM2 for a Malaysian adult. The alternative is more informal and often better: the weaving houses along Jalan Pantai Cahaya Bulan in Kampung Penambang, where the loom usually sits in the same room as the retail rack, so watching and buying happen in one visit. Kelantan's batik workshops are concentrated in Kampung Kota, Kampung Puteh and Kampung Badang, several of which take visitors through the production process.

Is there an entrance fee at any of these places?

Only one. Kampung Kraftangan on Jalan Hilir Kota charges admission, listed by Tourism Malaysia at RM2 for a Malaysian adult, RM1 for a Malaysian child, RM4 for a non-Malaysian adult and RM2 for a non-Malaysian child, and it is open every day except Friday from 8.30am to 4.45pm. Istana Jahar, one block away, charges the same rates and keeps the same hours, so the two make an easy morning together. Everything else on this list — the three market buildings and the Kampung Penambang weaving houses — is free to walk into, and none of them publishes a price list for what they sell. Note that Tourism Malaysia marks its figures as subject to change, so confirm at the counter.

Which floor of Pasar Besar Siti Khadijah sells batik and songket?

The third storey. Tourism Malaysia's guide to the market splits it floor by floor: the ground floor is wet and dry produce, the second floor is dried goods — keropok, beef and chicken floss, local snacks — plus a large food court of Kelantan kuih, and the third storey is local handicraft, fashion accessories, batik and traditional Malay clothing. So the efficient trip is: photograph the produce hall from the upper galleries, go up to the third floor to shop, then stop on the second on the way down for edible souvenirs. The market is open daily from 6.30am to 5pm and is at its fullest between 7am and 9am; it is about four minutes' drive from the Kota Bharu bus terminal.

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