Blogs from Terengganu, Malaysia, Asia - page 33

Perentian Island - Pulau Besar Thank you all for your useful comments on my recent plea for help over the Mozzie Bites. Does fruit get classed as sweet Alan?, ah well, spicey for me from now on. I thought John Leonards was excellent and was up for trying it until I read Jen's and realised that they like 'smelly'. I laughed out loud I'm afraid at Jen's, and the memory of her standing on the jetty at Manukan near Kota Kinabalau, with her arms crossed while 'sweaty steve' carried her luggage along the pier. It is impossible for me to keep from being 'sweaty' carrying a 16 kilo backpack and possibly a 2 kilo front pack (depending on the book I am reading) in 30 odd degree's. I would have liked nothing better than to find ... read more

Our arrival in Georgetown was met with a search for a room in sweltering heat that eventually ended after stumbling across a not too scummy guest house. The standard of accommodation in Malaysia seems to be the worst value for money compared to everywhere we have stayed so far, and it took a while to find a place that didn’t resemble a prison cell or smell of dead things. After securing a couple of nights at a friendly guest house, we took a stroll around the colonial streets of Penang’s capital. Georgetown possesses a diverse mix of race and religion and both China Town and Little India represent the huge mix of different cultures present throughout the whole country. The main religion here is Muslim, although both Hinduism and Christianity have a following but as a ... read more

Unbelievably chilled out! I spent a whole week on Perhentian Kecil, or "the wee island" as I referred to it. I found out just today that Perhentian literally means "resting place" (not in a morbid way!) and I can't think of a better place to relax to the max. My new travel buddy Stacey and I landed a pretty good chalet in the first place we tried on Long Beach, which was lucky given how hard it can be find accomodation there at the minute. We had a couple of days of swimming in lovely warm, clear water and toasting ourselves on the beach before our diving started. I really enjoyed doing my Open Water PADI course, once the super-boring videos were over. The fish and the coral were ah-mazing! Highlights of the Perhentian Islands... * ... read more

Heya all, thanks again for all the messages, great to hear em has got the taste for beer!! Were now on perhentian besar, at the tuna bay resort, which is a lot posher than i thought it was gonna be, like a real hotel really, not just a shack that im used to. The weather has been amazing so far, but it is only our second full day. Got a wee bit sunburnt yesterday...spent too much time snorkelling, but when theres a coral reef just off the beach it would seem rude not too. So many fish, its like being in an aquarium, apparently there are turtles around aswell, havent seen any yet but im going to go for a swim later this afternoon. Food is incredible, just having loadsa bbq'd fish...mmmmmmmmmm Nothing much else to ... read more

So usually i'd just start the blog with us arriving in Pulau Perhentian, however on this occasion i will have to start with our journey from Taman Negara.... We arrived back on our motorised kayak to the dock where a guy had previously booked us on a coach to the jetty, a boat to Perhentian and our hostels on the island, this was our first mistake, TRUST NO-ONE! When we arrived back he advised us that our coach was running half hour late, no problemo mate still more than enough time... An hour later we were started to get a tad annoyed as the man advised the bus may not be here in time ad we may need to take a cab. Fine as long as we don't have to pay anymore, but he was attempting ... read more