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Our view of big island
White sand, crystal clear waters, cloudless sky..... could you ask for any more??? Wow,we arrive at Coral beach on one side of the island to drop off some guests, peer over the side of the boat and look down at the crystal clear waters to the white sands 6 meters below…. I think we’re really going to like it here!!
We’ve just had a nice 50 minute flight from KL up to Kota Bharu on Malaysia’s east coast followed by a 1 hour taxi ride to Kuala Besut where the boats leave for The Perhentian Islands, next we endured a 40 minute bumpy speedboat ride to arrive at Long beach on Pulau Perhentian Kecil where we stopped 50 metres from the shore and had to precariously climb into a tiny water taxi with backpacks in tow…..not an easy feat. This is to be our home for the next 9 days, as we step onto the beach and pick up the backpack we still have no idea where we are sleeping tonight, luckily Long beach, despite its name, really isn’t that long and there are only a few choices for accommodation, none of which take bookings, its first come first served, so we pop our heads into the first one we come across, its not for us! The next, Panorama takes our fancy and we settle on an AC chalet with attached bath for 95 ringits (£19, with 1 free dinner per night) and dump the bags before going to explore the rest of the area, partly to see if there are any better rooms out there, there’s not, so once again we’ve fallen lucky with our choice.
Pulau Perhentian lies 21KM off the east coast of Malaysia’s mainland and consists of two islands, Besar meaning ’BIG’ and Kecil meaning ‘SMALL’ (our chosen one). Perhentian means “station” or “stopping place” and it was here that the early traders used to stop off on their long sea voyages from Europe, apparently if you look at old maps from that time you’ll find that The Perhentians are listed as The Station Islands. Today the islands are home to one small fishing community who live on the smaller of the two islands whilst the big island has no permanent residents. The tourist season on the islands runs from March to November after which the monsoon along with the fishing community claim the place back from the tourists. There is no electricity supply, however for the benefit
of the tourists generators have been put in place so that there is a source of power at certain times of day. There are no roads either, the only way to get around is by water taxi or on foot, you can get from one side of the island to the other via a jungle path that takes 15 to 20 minutes to walk. Everything on the islands has to be shipped in; the boats arrive from the mainland on a daily basis with supplies of food, a bit like Ron Dickson and his mobile shop (any Brookside fans reading this??)…..or Ricky’s spud van (if you’re from Widnes and of a certain age you should remember old Ricky).
You can reach Coral beach by a small track that runs through the jungle across the middle of the island, so we head off one day to have a closer look. Coral beach is much smaller and compact than Long beach, in fact we thought it looked a bit cramped and there wasn’t really a lot of room on the beach for sunbathing, it does have a couple of plus points though, the first being a reef close to the shore
Coral beach
Good for snorkelling, so we were told! that apparently has some good snorkelling and the second, a sunset as it faces west.
Apart from sunbathing the most popular activities on the islands are snorkelling and diving which are really good, we both did a short snorkelling trip one morning and were amazed at seeing lots of very colourful fish and corals around plus we also got to swim with black tipped reef sharks and green turtles. Barry did two dives at two different sites, the first was just him and Jenny the dive master at a flat coral plateau near big island, the second was with a small group of five including Chris (the other dive master from the Panorama dive shop) at a reef around the lighthouse just off coral beach, it was on this dive that he managed to complete his first one hour plus dive (he was under water for 67 minutes in total, quite a long dive by most standards).
We had a good nine days on our island and enjoyed it, especially just bobbing around in the water at Long beach which is shallow, warm and very clear. On the negative side I personally thought that there were far too
Mira Resort
The only access to this resort was by boat many water taxis moored up along the beach, they give off horrible petrol fumes, spoil the view and are noisy (mostly they sit empty because there are more boats than customers). And the beach wasn’t kept as pristine as it could be, it’s a shame when you have to clear drinking straws, beer cans and empty detergent bottles up off the sand before you can lie down, the locals need to realise that although their islands are a little piece of paradise they need a helping hand to stay that way, but the tourists would do well to appreciate that they too are having an impact on the way the place looks.
As we head back to the mainland for our flight back to KL, we’re fortunate enough to meet a real ’Dutchman’ and find that they are not like the Probiscus monkey at all (remember the last blog from Borneo), Mark was very amused when we told him of our story and the sightings in Borneo as we shared a taxi to the airport, he kindly agreed to a photo to prove it too!!
So back in KL we had a final look around the city, did some
Panorama restaurant
Relaxing after the BBQ shopping and prepared ourselves for our 14 hour flight back to the UK for a brief stopover where we’ll literally unpack and re-pack to finish our holiday at Mum and Dads in Spain!!!!
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natasha
non-member comment
This is wonderful island..i jz went back from perhentian island last night. i love perhentian island..