Our own little bounty island

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After travelling through 3 countries in 1 month we wanted to take some time off to relax a bit.. We had seen so many advertisements for all kinds of ' bounty islands' that were determined to go to our very own bounty island.. So there we went, off to the perhentian islands.. Well, it was everything we hoped for!

The start was a bit stressful, we had taken the night bus from KL to Kuala Besut, and as most people who know me know, I can't sleep that well in buses.. So I was very tired and sleepy when we arrived in Kuala Besut at 5 am, where it was completely dark and we didn't have a clue where to go to. We kind of got dragged out of the bus by a guy from some travel agency, who wanted to get us on the boat from 6.30.. Uhmmm.. Hard choice.. Actually we had been advised to book a hotel before we would get on the boat, and as far as we knew the first boat would be leaving only at 8, so we weren't really prepared for it, especially with our sleepy heads. But the guy told us we should book the hotel on the island, it would be no problem because it was low season, and except for that guy the city seemed to be completely quiet, so we decided to trust this guy and take the boat from 6.30. Additional problem: we wanted to get money in KL, cause we knew there would be no ATM's on the island, but we had forgotten. We figured there would be an ATM in Kuala Besut, but there wasn't.. So we had to take a taxi to the closest town with an ATM, where of course the first ATM was out of service and the 2nd didn't accept my bankcard (still don't know why), but fortunately it did accept Emma's. So we hurried back to Kuala Besut, got on the boat and finally arrived on the island, around 7.15 in the morning. There the search for a room started.. We were fortunate to be in there in the low season, so there were still quite a lot of rooms and we managed to get a decent room (after an exhausting search, everything seems to be more trouble when you're tired), unfortunately without hot water, but with a private bathroom, aircon and a great view. After a breakfast we enjoyed more than we probably have enjoyed any of the others, we decided to catch a few hours of sleep while we'd still have electricity and thus aircon (till 12am), so we'd be fresh and rested enough to start our little holiday..

Well.. After the somehow exhausting start everything actually turned out to be just the way we hoped it would be. The beach was white and wide, the sea clear blue and luke warm, the people relaxed and friendly, the evenings were a lot of fun, the weather was sunny, everything we had in mind! Life was just very easy. Everything was close to each other, restaurants all pretty similar, so no need to worry where to have dinner or lunch, etc etc. But besides laying on the beach, swimming and floating in an incredibly gorgeous sea, finishing a lot of books (especially me 😊), drinking many fruit shakes, having lunch at the beach and such stuff we have also undertaken some things.. We have been snorkeling, seen tons of gorgeous fish and coral, sharks, turtles, too much to sum up. We have been diving, which is even more amazing than snorkeling, it's like 3D snorkeling.. Incredible! At first i wanted to get my PADI, but because I had some ear problems after the frist dive that werent' gone yet the next day, I decided it might be more responsible to continue for my PADI another time. Actually, it wasn't that bad, not I got to do more stuff together with Emma, like the snorkling, what was a lot of fun. (yep, we are also somehow surprised by the fact the we still enjoy each other's company and aren't sick of each other yet 😉 ). Furthermore, we have seen monkeys, baby turtles that we were allowed to give a first dip in the sea, a fishermen village at the other side of the island.. And we had a lot of parties 😊. So funny, since everybody seems to know each other on the small island and since it was low season and not that busy, everybody came to the same place to party.

So, to cut a long story short, our bounty island was definitely a little piece of paradise.. 😊 But 6 days was enough, we regained enough energy to continue our trip and now we are really looking forward to all the other places we're still gonna visit.. We just arrived in the Cameron Highlands, where it's a lot cooler and (unfortunately) more rainy. After that, we'll go on to Melaka, then Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, and finally wrap up the Asian part of our journey in Bali. Altogether, we have a bit more than 3 weeks left before we'll fly to Australia. Ahhh time flies by!!

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