Perhentian Islands

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Perhentians

All the blogs and reviews promised we would swim, snorkel and play with the turtles at the waters edge. Well, yes you probably can, but not in September! Turtle nesting finished in August and also the number of turtles has declined partly due to frequent oil spills from nearby oil production platforms and oil tankers. You get to see some turtles on the snorkelling trips though.

Perhentians are made up of 2 islands, Kecil and Besar which are a few minutes by boat away and both have many beaches. The sand is white and the water is pristine.

We arrived at Tuna Bay Resort after flying into Kota Bharu on Fire Fly, driven by a heavily uncomfortable, extremely tired taxi driver who kept slapping his face to keep awake, grunting and loudly sloppily munching on deep fried bananas! It took an hour to get to the pier driving past very basic houses, little wooden huts up on short stilts to avoid the monsoon rains, and the odd cow tied up in the paddock. We spent one night in the village at the pier (boring) in hindsight wishing we had gone straight from taxi to ferry; there is nothing here except the check-in offices for all the accommodation on the island.

It only took 40 minutes the next morning by Tuna Bay Resort ferry and we were on Besar, we had pre-booked the first four nights only. We stepped off the boat onto the pier: the water was transparent, the sky was blue, the sea was blue, the sand was white, the loungers were full and snorkels protruded from the water just a few meters from the shore. Along the beach were a few shack type shops, diving business, bungalows and Tuna Bay Resort restaurant, bar and bungalows on the beach front. The view across the water to Kecil Island was of the local village, a 3 minute boat ride away. We had 12 days to fill in on these 2 islands - the sky was cloudless, the sun was shining, the sea was inviting and it was 35 degrees.

We were shown to our NZ$110 bungalow room and on first glance we were a bit disappointed at the value, although we had been prepared. It was nice, clean and comfortable but just did not value up to other accommodation we had stayed in throughout our trip. Later we were to realise this resort was a palace and we would have paid anything to get back into that room!

The next 4 days were fabulous. A few feet (c 1st pic) from the water’s edge you can start snorkelling, in fact we could stand in the water up to our knees and there would be a hundred fish swimming around our legs, the same fish that would swim with you whilst snorkelling. The coral was just as amazing as the fish. There were these olive green fish that would police the edge of the reef, they would line up in front of you, stare into your goggles, sometimes swimming at your goggles, and they would “nip” you as you swam past. Carl actually got bitten by a fish one morning which left two fang marks on his skin! You could snorkel at high and low tide when you could touch the coral as you swam over it.

At night we would retire to the bar for a few beers and wine, watch the sunset and then have dinner at a beachfront table with the view across the beach and ocean. We would watch the water taxi drivers drinking whilst they ferried the young ones across to Long Beach on Kecil island – the party beach. The restaurant and bar were very busy, full every night, with extra people from other resorts.

After 4 glorious days it is time to move on, visit Kecil Island and find some cheaper accommodation. So we book Shari-la on Coral Bay for a couple of nights and once there will look around for other options. The water from one island to the next was so transparent until we pulled into Coral Bay when it got murky and dirty - this is not a swimming beach. So we walk into Shari-la and into a London Hotel – carpet! Anyway on the other side of the resort is a beach where you could snorkel, the coral was nearly all dead but there were some large colourful fish. Carl spotted a reef shark and jelly fish. The water was filthy, not with rubbish but dirty suds. It rained every evening so we went to dinner at a new restaurant OMBAK, comfy couches, nice staff, big screen movie, cold beer and wine; being Muslim our resort did not sell alcohol.

So where to next: we had 5 nights left. I was desperately missing Tuna Bay Resort so we agreed we would spend the last 2 nights back at the beach, Abduls next door was cheaper - so let’s go Long Beach (the party beach) for a few nights. OMG can reviews gets any worse; every place on Long Beach had terrible reviews except the upmarket resorts BuBu and The World – they were way too pricey. We got so desperate we even considered a 2.5 rating with bed bugs! We did not want to risk bed bugs, or sleep next to a stinky stagnant pond full of mozzies, or leave the room at night to visit the loo, or bunk in a dirty room.

Lets up the budget - but Bubu was booked, the World was booked – there was nothing except where we had been for 3 nights. So back to Besar…..hooray!! Tuna Bay Resort was booked, Abduls was booked…..oh no! Blogs and reviews all said there were plenty of rooms available at this time of year, you did not need to book – lies all lies! So we took a chance on Cocohut &Cozy Chalets – it was next door to Tuna Bay Resort so we could eat and drink and snorkel there, and just sleep at Cozy Chalets. They had a deck with a sea view and not all reviews were bad; some mentioned cockroaches but hey the worst has already happened to me, hasn’t it?

So we arrive, do a sweep and a surface clean, a jandal sole removes a cockroach and his kids from the bathroom and we settle in. I sit on the bed and thud, it collapses. No not my weight! The base is a wooden box with slats across the top, so Carl kicks it back to shape. There are 2 queen beds so we pick one each. Later we swap when lots of tiny ants are crawling on my bed – anything for peace! We sit on the deck and watch a group of monkeys swinging in the trees and squirrels running along the bungalows. We can do this for 5 days – easy.

After a lovely evening at Tuna Bay Restaurant I return to find a baby cockroach on my bed ~squash~ and think nothing of it. I am half asleep and feel something on the back of my neck crawling up my hair, semi-conscious I want to ignore, but decide to check it out. I sit up, run my fingers through my hair and there it is a cockroach on my pillow – I had just brushed it out of my hair! OMG now what are the odds – what am I, a cockroach magnet now. So I jump into Carl’s bed, then an hour later Carl dives out of bed, as a cockroach was scuttling around under the duvet with us. That’s it – they are getting way too intimate for my liking - I am not sleeping in either beds. Honestly, I physically could not put my head down on those beds again. Of course Carl gets back in, rolls over and goes back to sleep – as men do. I am wide eyed and awake all night sitting up on a wooden chair at the end of the bed, lights on, jandal at the ready, fly spray can empty. I could hear them scuttling around, poking their heads up occasionally from the side of the now empty bed to check if it was all clear to come out to play – of course it wasn’t. I can handle a few but not an entire community living under my bed. I know knew why the bed collapsed, the cockroaches are eating it.

We are now reaching desperation point; this was the best available option. So we visit Tuna Bay, their email said the standard rooms were fully booked, now we are happy to upgrade, we will pay anything. We plead and yes they found us a room for the last 4 nights – thank god. I love Tuna Bay Resort – it’s a beautiful place. We snorkel, sunbathe and read every day, lunch at a beach shack, watch the sunset with a beer and wine, and finish the evening in their restaurant eating a banana split! This has been a fabulous place to finish our 24 week holiday, it’s a beautiful spot – way outside the flash packers budget but we have been running under budget – so why not.

One weird thing we noticed was Malaysian tourists wearing matching clothes. One young couple both had on matching pink and yellow striped shorts, white t-shirt and bright pink sweat jackets. Another older couple wearing matching red shorty pj’s style short and shirts. Another family in the pics all wearing matching black and white shorts. Never seen this before, ever.

Only a few resorts here provide good service. Others, well, they are sitting on a goldmine but don’t have a clue - they charge expensive rates for minimal effort. Most staff on this island are uninterested and rude, we only found friendly staff at Abdul, Tuna Bay and Ombak. The others could not give a shit. Further down I have included our observations on beaches and accommodation on Kecil and Besar if you are interested in travelling there. Below is an example; some quotes from reviews of a resort that charges NZ$150 per night on Agoda (Perhentian Island Resort) and that’s just the cheap deal:

The pool was green and looked as though it had not been cleaned for some time: The toilet was the dirtiest I have seen in a hotel: there was a baby cockroach sleeping near my pillow when i woke up in the morning, (come on – wimp!) : the curtains could not be drawn back: the resort is just awful: Staff were miserable and the food is terrible: We didn’t have any running water for one night and were given a big bottle to use to shower in: My husband played in the fuse box and fixed the power: The food was disgusting and the dining area dirty: There were ants swarming all over the breakfast buffet table: The pool was incredibly filthy, with cloudy water, mould and plants growing out of it.

The last few days has been overcast, with a couple of sunshine at times. We have had thunder and rain during the nights so the snorkelling is not as clear and the tan is fading. Monsoon is near.

Heading Home

Well we have been away 169 nights, stayed in 65 accommodations, travelled on 24 flights, 17 boats, 21 trains/buses and taken 67 taxi/thongsaew rides, and now it’s time to head home. It’s been a fantastic holiday, not as culturally challenging as the last one, but you can’t beat travelling around beautiful beaches in 35 degree heat for months on end. Which place will we return to? – the Gillies in a heartbeat and of course we will always visit Koh Phangan – I still have to go to that Full Moon Party yet!

Hope you enjoyed following our travels as much as I enjoyed writing about them.

Goodbye and see you next time!

Our Observations on Perhentians:

There are very few blogs on Perhentian islands and decent accommodation is limited, most are pretty dire. Customer service skills on these islands can only be described as disinterested and bloody rude at times. Even at BuBu, a resort at 400rm per night had one of the worst receptionists who obviously hated being inconvenienced when enquiring about a room. We experienced exceptional service at Tuna Bay Resort, Abdul’s and Ombak. We are flashpackers, we don’t do the shared bathrooms, but a basic bungalow is not a problem, the issue in these islands is most accommodation is dirty, under-maintained and/or have bed bugs. I definitely recommend pre-booking early to ensure you get into decent well-reviewed accommodation on a nice beach.

Besar

We walked the jungle trek from Tuna Bay to the next beach where Mamas, Watercolours and Coral Resort reside. There were plenty of Beachfront bungalows but the beach is not nice; its murky and does not have the crystal clear blue water the other beaches have. Coral Resort resides on the far corner of this beach and spreads around to a lovely beach with clear water amongst rocks.

There is a pathway through the trees that leads to the next beach which Perhentian Island Resort dominates. Some say it’s the best beach but we beg to differ, although we did visit after a night of heavy rain leaving the sea murky. The off beach snorkelling was not as good as Tuna Bay and the sand needed a good clean.

We took the 40 minute jungle trek to Flora Beach over the other side, again a lovely beach with clear blue water but suffering from very shallow low tide during the day. The resorts along here are old, shabby and/or don’t rate well and some built around stagnant water ponds. There was a great large clean restaurant at Flora Bay, great for a cheap lunch. A steep short trek up the hill and we were back at the far end of Tuna Bay, a lovely spot for swimming, a deserted beach around the tip, and a spot of camping in the trees. I thought this was the best piece of beach on Besar, just before the rocks at the point, in front of camp sites. A walkway over the rocks meets up with our beach which has Abduls Beachfront Bungalows, Tuna Bay and then Cocohut &Cozy Chalets and a couple of other cheapies for real backpackers.

Tuna Bay Resort has the whole package with swimming, snorkelling, bar, restaurant, loungers, squirrels and monkeys swinging in the trees & sometimes visiting the beach front. We loved it, it was far better than anything else we saw on this island. We never saw off the beach coral for snorkelling like Tuna Bay at any other beach we visited (although Tezzas blog says it exists at Bubbles Beach which you get to by boat). Tuna Bay also has Abduls which rates really well and has little beachfront bungalows. Cocohut&Cozy Chalets, well enough said above.

Kecil

Coral Bay was not a nice beach; murky and dirty and therefore the waters edge was taken up by boats. Some swam in front of Senja where the water looked cleaner, but there are better beach options on this island. The Beach is lined with cheap eats and bungalows but has a paved walkway to Long Beach which takes 10 minutes to walk. People stay here and walk to Long Beach for the day and nightlife.

Ombaks has just opened up on Carol Bay which is a restaurant and bar, shows a movie every night and you can sit in comfy sofas outside, get a cold beer and glass of wine with dinner and staff are lovely. Otherwise there is nothing here at Coral Bay. On the other side of Shari-la are some small beaches (really just one beach split by rocks) with dead coral and some fishes, but when we visited the water was dirty and there were lots of jelly fish.

Long Beach is a beautiful beach with pristine water but was suffering from low tide when we visited, but you would still swim off the ground, or sit in the water as the sea floor was so clean. I could not see any coral, but some people were snorkelling – I am sure there would be a few fish. There are reports of near tragedies at this beach as apparently at some times of the year it has some pretty lethal rips. It has upmarket accommodation with BuBu (horrible looking motel style block) and The World (owned by BuBu but did not see rooms) but otherwise the rest of the accommodations report dirty, infested with bed bugs and review very badly on Trip Advisor. You can hire beach mats and umbrellas for the day for 10rm. We never visited at night as it poured every evening we were on Kecil and too expensive from Besar for us, but you could see that they have loud music, fire torches, dancing and beer as low as 7rm for a chang. There are shacks along the beach to eat and drink and shop. The World has 25rm cocktails, 10rm beer - but no toilet!

We walked to Mira Beach from Coral Bay to check it out, it is isolated on its own beach, took us 25 minutes to walk the jungle track from Coral Bay. Very rustic basic bungalows, some without attached bathrooms. It had a nice beach though and the bungalows and restaurant food rate well.

Costs: (NZ$1 = 2.5rm)

Accommodation is expensive for what you get, so don’t have high expectations for value for your $. Trip Advisor and Agoda reviews say it all.

Getting There – it cost 78rm (NZ$1 = 2.50rm) from Kota Bharu Airport by taxi, 70rm for 2 one way on the Tuna Bay boat to the island. On the way back we got a taxi at the pier for 60rm to Kota Bharu town. From Kota Bharu to Airport was 30rm, then when we arrived from KL taxi to KLCC was 70rm.

Snorkels - 5rm to hire per day. You cannot use fins/flippers in the beaches with coral.

Food - Beach shack food is 4rm for a plain roti, 8rm for a chicken roti or stir fry to 10-15rm for western or Asian meat dish. Fresh juices 6rm, can of coke 3rm. Nicer restaurants average 25rm for a main course, 10rm for a juice and desserts 10-15rm. At Tuna Bay you can grab a great vege salad for 13rm, fantastic mouth watering fresh fish and chips for 20rm. Their BBQ was 150rm per kilo for tiger prawn, and 70rm per kilo for fish. Breakfasts you can get for 10rm. 500ml water is 1.50rm and 1500ml 3rm. Beer is 10rm, cocktail 25rm and glass of wine 20rm. The food is not spicy unless you request it.

Incidentals - like small shampoo is 15rm, insect repellent 25rm, fly spray 12rm, a disposable razor 3rm, small sunscreen 50rm. Lilo 30rm and sunglasses 35rm.

Laundry – 8-10rm per kg

Reading - Abduls you can swap 2 books for one, swap 1 plus 5rm for one, 10rm for no exchange just purchase. This is the cheapest we found to buy a book, some charged up to 50rm deposit which you got back in full if you returned the book.

Clothes - Sundress will cost you 45rm, men’s billabong shorts 65rm, a sarong 25-40rm, t-shirt 30rm

Transport - Around beaches/islands by boat – all prices are per person and doubled at night after 7pm and tripled after midnight. Between:

Tuna and Long Beach – 15rm

Tuna and Coral Bay – 20rm

Tuna Bay and Bubbles – 25rm

Tuna Bay and Kecil local town – 5rm

Tuna Bay and Mamas & Watercolours Beach - 6rm.

Long Beach and Coral Bay - 25rm

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