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Published: August 18th 2010
Perhentian Kecil
reuben, steve, bart and amanda at aussie bar, longbeachWelcome to part 5 of the blog.
Apologies for the lack of blogs/contact recently but we have been on perhentian kecil, an island with no roads or cars, where the electricity only runs for 10 hours a day, as im sure you'll understand its been a little difficult getting online.
Anyway, when i finished the last blog we were waiting in an internet cafe for a taxi to take us to the bus station, in order to catch the 21:45 coach to kuala besut, the departure point for ferry to the islands. Whilst waiting at said internet cafe we had a slightly scary moment. A guy dressed only in a loin cloth, with his face painted in bizarre patterns, was running up and down the street shouting at passers by. This was all quite funny until Steve stepped out to see what was going on, only to find the guy right outside the cafe, with a rather sharp looking knife in his hand, he then proceeded to brandish the knife in our direction and shout very loudly. The cafe owner didn't seem to bothered by this, he told us it happened most nights and as far as he knew
no one had actually ever been stabbed. Still i wasn't that reassured and retreated to wait inside the cafe until our taxi arrived.
By the time we got to the bus station, the heavens had opened and we were in the middle of a full blown tropical storm, spectacular lightning and some seriously heavy rain. Nonetheless i was looking forward to drinking a few beers on the coach, going to sleep and waking up bright and early in kuala besut, to catch the first ferry to perhentian kecil ("small island").
Once again things did not go quite to plan (that's Asia for you), half hour away from georgetown the bus stopped at the side of a petrol station, the driver turned the internal lights off and got out of the bus, with no explanation. We assumed this was routine. After about half hour of everyone wondering what was going on, we sent Steve out to go and ask. Turned out we had a flat tyre and the driver was waiting for a mechanic to turn up. We waiting here for at least 3 hours, mostly in the dark, and the rain. This may of got some people down
Perhentian Kecil
With bart, amanda, skee, reubs, magdalena, johanna and izabella but we were in good spirits, as along with tom and marcus, the germans we met at the bus station, we'd also met a dutch couple (bart and amanda) and we all had quite a laugh, keeping ourselves entertained while we waited. Eventually we got going again, much to everyone's relief, but it was short lived. Another ten minutes down the road, there was a huge bang from underneath our seats, the tyre had burst again. Luckily the mechanic had been following us, he obviously knew he'd done a poor job! We waited maybe another hour and a half to have the wheel changed again and set off. By this time everyone on the bus was asleep, except for me and reuben. The bumpy roads and slight fear that the wheel might burst again keeping me awake. Eventually i got to sleep sometime around half 08:30, only to be woken 20 minutes later by a small Malaysian man shouting at me to get off of the bus!
We had arrived in kuala besut, however in my sleep deprived and extremely confused condition i had no idea what was happening. We were herded into a small office and another man
Perhentian Kecil
Wasted russian guy! shouted at us to produce our passports and write down our names. In the end we got onto the "ferry", basically a small speedboat crammed with people and luggage. I was not feeling healthy at this point, and could not of been looking forward to the boat journey any less. All of this was forgotten as soon as we caught our first glimpse of the islands. They are amazing, we were heading to long beach, the last stop on the ferry route so we got to see all the best parts of the island's coasts during the hour long journey.
I thought Pangkor was beautiful, it looks like bognor regis compared to the perhentians. We found a room for the night just off of long beach and went to check out the area. We had dinner at a small place on the beach with the guys from the bus, and an English girl we met on the beach, called serina. After this we had a few beers on the beach before everyone we were with decided to call it a night. Me, reuben and steve were also planning on catching up on some much needed sleep, but the beers
Kuala besut
waiting for the ferry with bart, amanda, tom and marcus got the better off us. It turns out longbeach is a party beach, full of backpackers, with bars all along the beach pumping out music and stalls selling nothing but beer, vodka and 'oran-utan' (a nasty whisky type thing). Instead of heading back, we bought a bottle off oran-utan and headed for the loudest sounding party, got very drunk and danced for hours. Sometime around 04:00 steve disappeared and shortly after wards reuben needed to be escorted back to the chalet as he could barely stand, or walk straight. When we got there we found steve passed out on the terrace outside our chalet. I let reuben in, made sure he knew where his bed was, chucked a load of insect repellent on steve and headed back to the party.
I woke up at 08:30 in a chalet that wasn't mine, feeling fucking grim. No sleep, lots of whisky and tropical climates make for the worst of hangovers! Needless to say we done almost nothing that day, save laying around, eating and going for an evening swim. We stayed on the island for 4/5 days, i really don't remember how long it was as the rest of the days
were much the same as the first, swimming in the aqua marine waters, snorkelling, laying on the beach, eating good food and partying til the early hours.
The only noticeable difference was our last night, i wanted to find somewhere that had a TV to catch the news from the football at the weekend. Me and steve went in search of a TV and ended up in a bar on the far end of the beach, where i watched the TV and steve got a little too acquainted with a very strange lady-boy called dee dee. Steve had spent the afternoon, as he had many other hassling the locals to find out if they grow any 'special' plants on the island. At about 23:00 dee dee asked steve to follow her mates back to a room behind the bar, he wanted me to go with him, which i did a little reluctantly but it turned out to be quite fun. There were a couple of malay guys who worked on the island and a girl from sweden in the room and we stayed there and chilled out with them for a while before heading back.
In the morning
we got the first boat off the island and caught a bus to kota bahru, where we will stay for a day or two before catching the train right through the jungle to taman negara national park.
Im still having trouble posting some pictures on here but i have manage to put a few on facebook so feel free to have a look at them there.
catch u later
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