That Shipwrecked Feeling on the Perhentian Islands - Heaven

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It was a very early start for us, we firstly had to get a bus to Kuala Besut which is a small fishing village and the gateway to the Perhentian Islands. We got up at an ungodly hour of 6:15 and headed over in the dark to the bus station in time for the 6:45 bus (bus number 639) to Kuala Besut. Upon arrival at the bus station we were annoyingly followed by a taxi driver who kept saying “bus left at 6:15”, to our annoyance the ticket office confirmed this with the taxi driver going “see I told you”, that wasn’t the point we didn’t have 50RM to give him to drive us there so we ignored him and went back to our hostel and went back to bed for the 9:30 bus. Now the reason why we were getting the early bus was because we were told there was only one speed boat a day going over to the islands and that was at 10am, with the next bus (the one we now had to get) being at 9:30 and taking nearly 2 hours to get there we thought we would have by far missed the boat, but we headed over anyway seeing we had exhausted all we could out of Kota Bharu.

To our delight on the 9:30 bus was a local chap going back to his home “the small island” to work ,this was the island we were heading too which is also known as Pulau Perhentian Kecil. We hoped that by him being on our bus surely there must be a boat going to take him, we were right there was a speed boat just about to leave (or they knew two westies were on the bus so they kept it at the jetty until we got there to pay the 50RM each fare). As soon as we got there we speed off in a very full speedboat full of local young giggly ladies taking photos of them with us, a ritual we’ve become accustomed too being in Malaysia, the locals LOVE us!! We guess it is because we so good looking!!!! Anyway our boat ride was going well until the island was in full sight and one engine cut out, we then proceeded to the island in a not so James Bond fashion with one engine at a very slow pace. We must add unfortunately the first thing you will notice when you arrive at Perhentian Kecil and the side of the island we landed on Coral Bay is a humongous horrible ugly jetty, so big it could house a school full of children, immediately G took dislike to this side of the island because of the jetty and once on dry land we proceeded to trudge through the jungle along a well trodden path to the other side, Long Beach. In the guide book this beach is described as the livelier side of the island, how wrong are they when it’s the end of the monsoon season, it was dead, nothing, as it happens this is the side Tony stayed at 7 years ago and to his delight it hadn’t changed much (no high rises etc). Anyway we were greeted by a lovely local chap who runs Moonlight Chalets at the far end of Long Beach, he had a sea view air conned en-suite for 30RM, we said show us the way and off we walked, at this point we must point out there is also an awful jetty this side too but built a bit more sympathetically to the beach, it runs alongside the edge on the beach where on the other side it stuck right out in the middle of the bay.

Anyway we dumped our stuff and jumped right into the crystal clear sea, enjoying a rare factor that we were the only ones on the beach and in the sea, this beach is a good size so it really did give us the shipwrecked feeling.

After a good swim and a sunbathe, we showered and headed back to the other side, with it still being the “monsoon season” nowhere was open on our side of the island for food so we had to make the 10 minute walk to the other side when we were hungry, not much of a chore especially when you see some amazing wildlife on each walk, on this particular walk we came across a snake in the process of eating a lizard, check out our piccies (you have been forewarned big sis!!!). Also on the island are massive Monitor Lizards the smaller cousin to the Komodo Dragon, butterflies galore and of course the abundant sealife which we’ll come to later.

Once on the other side of the island, Coral Bay, we had a bite to eat and finally found somewhere that sold beer, at a whopping 10RM a small can, it was beer so it was good enough for us.

Our first whole day on the island was spent on a boat doing a fantastic snorkelling trip, we didn’t take the camera on the first snorkel which was annoying because the fish were amazing nor did we take it on the second which was shark point where we thought there was no way we’ll see a shark, but G did, a black tip reef shark, she was well chuffed, it didn’t last long once a sucker fish must have mistaken her for a whale and tried to attach itself to her, T thinking she had cramp swam straight over to the splashing and screaming G only to have the sucker fish thinking he had seen a bigger whale and tried to attach himself onto T, a quick whack from T and he was gone much to G’s happiness. Our next stop was where the turtles are and this time we did take the camera, they were massive turtles and we got a couple of great shots, we couldn’t believe how fast they swim tough, it was tough keeping up with them. We had a quick lunch at the Fishermans Village before our final snorkel by the lighthouse, the current was pretty strong here and it was only really small fish, but 100s of them so we got a few good snaps. Incidentally on our trip we saw two great clusters of chalets on their own private beaches, we would have tried to venture too them to stay if we knew for definite that they were open, for future information they were called Mira’s Place and Petani Beach House.

All in all a fantastic snorkelling trip, especially for G with her shark spotting, we wondered how much better it would be once out of monsoon season and when the visibility is 20 plus metres, it was currently only about 5-10 but the amount of fish we saw was out of this world.

For the rest of our time here we once again fell into one of our normal routines, we would sit on our balcony until breakfast/lunch time where we’d head over to the other side (the side G now preferred, typical) before heading around the rocks to some deserted beaches where we snorkelled off the beach, once again getting some great snaps, we’d then head back via Coral Bay for beers and dinner before making our way through the jungle to the other side before it got too dark to walk through the jungle (we were scaredy cats).

We loved our time here, we spent 4 wonderful nights trying to block out the lizards from our room at night, see photo for breaking in evidence on T’s T-shirt we had put at the bottom of the door. We would have stayed longer if there were ATMs on the island but alas our shipwrecked adventure had to come to an end at some point and on our fifth day we had to leave. Incidentally there were about 15-20 other tourists on the island, so it really was like a deserted island, pure heaven if you ask us!!!!

For those authorities who might just read this, please, please, PLEASE don’t let people built big resorts here, there are two biggish buildings on Long Beach now, one is okay as its behind trees but the other looks so out of place, please keep this island how it is and don’t ruin it like some of the Thai islands!!! At the moment it really is a tropical paradise.

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