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"Uh, buddy? That doesn't sound very good....I think you're leaking. You might want to have a look at your "O" ring." How nice of someone to have pointed this out to me with only having known him for 5 minutes. "Oh and while you're at it, don't forget to spit on your mask." You may have caught on to the fact that we were once again immersed, in all senses of the word, in SCUBA diving. This time around, our travels have brought us to the north east corner of Malaysia to the Perhentian Islands.
After hopping a quick flight from Vietnam's capital of Hanoi to Malaysia's capital of Kuala Lumpur (it is abbreviated to KL over here) and topping up on some needed items for New Zealand's winter in KL's Chinatown night market, we got on an overnight bus (7 hours; landing us at the jetty point for a brisk 4:30 am) to the town of Kuala Besut and prepared ourselves to be wisked away to another island paradise.
One of the first things we noticed about our return to Malaysia after having been around to the rest of South East Asia is that it is obviously much
In rain or shine
nightly volleyball on the beach while the storm rolled inmore "westernized" and therefore much more expensive for much less quality. For example, in Vietnam we were staying in a proper hotel room with bathroom in room, mini fridge and satellite TV for no more than $10 USD/night. For the same type of room in Malaysia, we would expect to pay basically the same prices that we might pay back home ($50+ CAD), that is, if we could even find anything better than a very basic (and usually in poor condition) dorm room. Who would have thought that SE Asia would end up spoiling us? In addition to Malaysia not being as relatively backpacker friendly with accommodations as the rest of SE Asia, it is also not a place to go for those looking for a cheap (once again, I'm speaking in a relative sense here) beer to cap off an otherwise extraordinarily ordinary day. Perhaps the $0.25 happy hour beers that we were used to from Cambodia have spoiled me for life, but whatever the case, most nights we would opt for the large water rather than the beer to end our nights. I suppose you have to pick and choose your battles between a few wobbly
Humongous lizard
there's lots of these large monitors living on the island; this guy (measuring nearly 2 meters from head to tail) strolled by our place every day. pops and world class diving; in this case we opted for the latter.
So, after arriving at an the ungodly hour of 4:30 am (we still can't figure out why they would plan for a bus to arrive at such an unusual hour) we were able to hop on the first jetty boat at 7:30 am to head over to the smaller of the two islands, Perhentian Kecil. After inquiring to no less than 5 different resorts on Long Beach (the more "backpacker friendly" side of the island) we found something both suitable in price and quality at Panorama resort. Although this choice could not be based on staff friendliness or bang for our buck, it was available and had a great vibe so we chucked our bags inside and headed straight for the beach. This was to be our home for the next 8 days.
Once again we found ourselves surrounded by white sand beaches and pristine crystal clear waters and we couldn't be happier....or could we? Ahh yes, that brings me back to the point that I started at: SCUBA diving! When asked what we were expecting to see when diving, Linds and I promptly answered
that "we're here for the sharks and turtles." Although probably not the best advice from a dive shop not running snorkel trips, we were advised that if that is what we were after, it would probably be better to sign up for a day snorkel trip as you are much more likely to see both of these guys when closer to the surface. So we did just that. Most of the make-shift shops along the beach guarantee that if you don't see sharks, you get your money back. We are actually happy to say that they kept our Ringgit that day. In total, we probably saw a dozen sharks and half as many giant sea turtles. Both were not all that bothered by the presence of a dozen or so eager snorklers just waiting to get the best possible glance of these great creatures. But we didn't stop exploring the underwater world there.
Originally we agreed that we would try out just a dive or two and see how it goes. After the first two dives at the sites of "Temple of the Sea" and "T3," we were hooked. We have dove in Thailand and Vietnam so far and
Barney
our resident gecko just based on these two sites, we were impressed with both the corals and the marine life. Not yet having encountered sharks or stingrays while diving in either of the other two countries mentioned, there was definately a void to be filled and "Temple" did just this. Withing minutes of being under, we had already spotted incredible "blue spotted rays" and sleepy nurse sharks. Swirling around the huge pinnacle of Temple, we were never let down with the sites. It was safe to bet that we would be diving a few more times here.
In fact, by the time we were done on the island, Lindsay had logged 8 new dives and 7 for me. We decided that if we were going to be heading to bigger and better places such as Malaysia's Sipidan Island off the island of Borneo (arguably one of the best dive sites in the world) we wanted to make sure that Linds had some specialty dive experience. We opted to do a night dive, a shipwreck dive and a deep depth dive so we could conquer anything Borneo has to offer us. Once again, we were not let down with these experiences.
Hoping
Ready to roll
...literally, we flipped off the boat into the water backwards to go out with a bang on what was planned to be our last dive on the island, we were rather surprised to descend to "Temple of the sea" (it was so nice we decided to dive on it 3 separate times) only to find it completely covered in a couple hundred square meters of stray fishing nets. Don't get us wrong, we love fish, especially barbecued with a side of black pepper sauce (every place has this on the menu at night) but these fishing nets were covering an environmentally protected area and frankly, ruining our dive site. Without any kind of knife on us, we weren't much help to the hundreds, if not thousands of fish that were caught in the nets but we did what we could to try and free the few that were still alive and rip open the nets to hopefully prevent more from being caught. A handful of us decided after our first tank emptied that we would go back with new tanks and an armament of scissors and knives to help free Nemo and his friends. By the end of the day and at least 3 different dives and a couple dozen
of volunteers, we had managed to clear the dive site. We never went back to this site afterwards so I really can't say how much damage was done, but most of the divers agreed that it may take months or years for this site to get back to where it was just a couple of days ago when we first dove here.
Perhaps one of the most important features of a true island paradise is not really how much it has to offer or how much there is to do there, but rather I would argue, that it is quite the opposite. With this in mind, I think that it is safe to call the Perhentian Islands a true island paradise. After our daily morning dives, there was not usually much else to do except sit on the beach and soak up the sun. Reading a book was as daunting a task as any throughout the day. The only other big part of our day usually consisted of gathering 10 or 12 of the people still ambitious enough to start up a game of volleyball on the far end of the beach. Although this particular beach didn't boast the
best sunsets (it faced east), we usually tried to get in as many serves as the daylight permitted until it was time to wash up for a little dinner.
We only planned to be on the Perhentian's for 3 or 4 days however, we ended up there for a grand total of 8 (I think this is usually the case for most people so word to the wise for those planning on going; leave room for an extra day or two longer than you originally planned for). We were originally planning on hitting up yet another island (Tioman Island) off Malaysia's South east coast, but after hearing only mediocre reviews (especially that the diving and beaches were better where we already were) we decided that we would finish out our last ditch effort to brush up our tans before heading to New Zealand in the Perhentians.
Arguably the hardest thing we did while on the island was admit that we finally have to leave and by day 8 it was all we could do to peel ourselves away. Although we still both think of Koh Lipe in Thailand and Koh Ru in Cambodia as our best island experiences
so far along our trip, it is now safe to say that the Perhentians, especially due to the excellent diving conditions, are up there on the list.
It is quite hard to believe that we have already been away from home for 6 months and even more unbelievable to think that we have finished our SE Asia Leg. As they say however, the show must go on. So with that in mind we headed out to Singapore via an overnight train in anticipation of our upcoming flight to New Zealandand and no doubtedly a whole new set of adventures.
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Ben
non-member comment
Flashpacking
Hello great work on the nets!! you done your self and the island proud. I am off to Perhentian Kecil Tuesday, whats the weather like over there?? any reccomendations?? New Zealand is stunning, you will love it.