Welcone to Paradise...

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Having decided to depart Thailand a day later than our visa technically allowed us to, we expected some hassle at the border. That didn't turn out to be an issue but the journey itself wasn't the best.

We took a boat from Koh Phi Phi to the mainland and then caught a bus from Krabi to a town called Sungai Kolok on the Thai/Malay border. From there we walked into Malaysia (stopping briefly to pay our fine and get stamped in of course!) and took a taxi to the small town of Kuala Besut. The taxi turned out to take 90 minutes and the journey itself was a further and unexpected 110kms! We eventually reached our destination a lot later than planned and booked another boat to the Perhentian islands, leaving the following morning.

After a roller-coaster speed boat ride we pulled up to the Perhentian Kecil pier on Coral Bay and got our first glimpse of paradise...

The island is tiny. You can walk from coast to coast in about 15 minutes. The interior is all thick jungle and apart from a small fishing village to the south, there is little more than a couple of dozen make-shift restaurants, shops and chalets. We found amazing accommodation in a little beach side chalet and quickly realised that Malaysia was going to be a lot cheaper than Thailand had been. This was very good news.

The island has two prominent beaches. Coral Bay is a small beach, littered with coral as the name suggests, that gets perfect sunset views and Long Beach- the main beach- a long stretch of white sand with crystal clear turquoise waters and a couple of beach side bars. The two beaches are separated by jungle and to access one from the other you have to take a jungle trail. There are monitor lizards everywhere and some of them are huge. We also saw some flying squirrels (no monkeys though).

I spent much of my time here reading in a hammock by the sea and I could have spent a lot more time doing just that, had we not had an itinerary to follow! We attempting to go body-boarding on Long Beach and I got quite badly burnt, so that kept me off the sand for our last day or two on Perhentian Kecil. The sun was a lot hotter than it had been in Thailand and we all got burnt, despite our regularly applied factor 50... not a good sign of things to come, as we will only be getting closer to the equator!

We celebrated St. Patrick's Day on Long Beach (having hunted out a couple of other Irish people staying on the island) with a couple of beers and a Pogues CD! It wasn't your typical Paddy's day but we couldn't complain under the circumstances!! The following night another group of Irish people arrived, bringing with them a tri-colour and some Tayto crisps and they had a bonfire and a small 'post-Paddy's-Day' gathering on Coral Bay. We were also on the island for March's full moon and one of the bars held a Full Moon Party. It didn't exactly compare with Koh Pha Ngan's version but we had become friendly with the local DJ at this stage and he let us control the decks for a while that night which was pretty cool.

We spent about 5 days on Perhentian Kecil and I was really sad to leave at the end of that time. It was the first beach destination that i felt i could have spent a couple of weeks on and had we had the time I would have. It was so relaxing and so laid back, the weather was amazing and the wildlife was great, the sea was beautiful and all the local people were really lovely. Out of all the beaches and islands we have visited thus far- Perhentian Kecil was my absolute and definite favourite.

Reluctantly we decide to move on and devised a rough itinerary for our month in Malaysia...

Next stop: Kuala Terengganu...

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