Pulau Perhentian Paradise and Taman Negara

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The last time I wrote I was in Koh Samui, which already feels like such a long time ago to me.
On my second attempt I managed to make the journey from Samui to Kota Bharu in Malaysia. The whole journey took me 15 hours by way of bus, ferry, minibus, tuk tuk and taxi. By the time I got into my room in Kota Bharu I literally passes out. My travels continued early the next morning as I made my way to Kuala Besut to catch a speed boat to the Long Beach on Pulau Perhentian Kecil. I stayed at a cool backpackers place called the Matahari, a short concrete walkway from the beach.

I stayed here for 2 days, snorkelling, sun bathing, eating, drinking etc...it is quite possibly the most beautiful beach I've ever seen in my life. A couple of times I made my way through the jungle to Coral Bay on the other side of the island and although it was more quiet, the Long Beach was my favourite destination by far. On my short jungle walks I was lucky enough to see some wildlife; mostly snakes and water monitors. Must add that the food there was great too. Both nights I had a BBQ on te beach just to top it all off.

On Saturday morning I caught the boat back to Kota Besut to make my way to Taman Negara, which is the oldest jungle in Asia (maybe even the world, I'm not sure), at 130 million years old. I met some very cool on the boat and whilst waiting for the bus; namely Mark from Clapham (yes...Inferno's was mentioned) and Marcus from Germany. At the end of an 8 hour minibus ride, which was the scariest of life (the driver insisted on repeatedly overtaking on blind corners on narrow mountain roads ), I put my bags down and went straight to the tourist info desk to get my pass to the jungle before making my way in to explore. I have spoken to a lot of people who have come here and said they didn't see anything here apart from a lot of over sized insects, so I counted myself very lucky when I saw a few snakes, water monitors, wild boar and leopard cats within the first couple of hours. I left the jungle at about 6pm and signed myself up to join the night safari. All in all it was a fun experience, but we didn't spot many animals. By the end of the safari I was suffering from a sore neck from spending the majority of my time looking at the stars. There was barely a cloud in the sky.

Today I am going to shoot the rapids around the jungle. Really looking forward to it.

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Photos

Pulau Perhentian Kecil
The Long Beach

From the Long Beach
I was sitting on the beach having a BBQ and just watched the moon for hours.