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Published: April 17th 2014
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How I wished I can have a
perhentian (stopover) here longer or forever.
I had been reading a lot about this beautiful island, and read almost every blog entry about Perhentian since I started following travelblog. Many refer this beautiful place as heaven, paradise or so. This gave me a high expectation on this island, and honestly was a little let down during the first 15 minutes after I set foot on this place. What let me down? The trash and the dead corals.
When I first arrived at Coral bay, I was so excited to look at all the fishes and corals thru the crystal-clear water. Yes the water was very clear indeed, but the dead white brittle corals had me disappointed. The 10 minutes walk from Coral Bays to Long Beach was another let down for me, the trashes were everywhere along the pavement. I was a little upset with the irresponsible tourists who threw plastic bottles, cans and tissue papers, since I didn't expect any flaw due to the often use of words paradise" and "heaven" by the travel bloggers. My disappointment lasted only 15 minutes, after when I realised the breathtaking scenery of this island
and the vibe have outweighed the flaws and my high expectation was unrealistic.
First thing that took my breath away was the blue sea. It was really the kind of blue I saw in pictures. After checking in, my friends and I couldn't wait any longer and went straight into the water, bodysurfing and enjoying the sun. It was weird when saying that we were enjoying the sun on the beach because normally as typical Malaysians we hated the sun, but what is beautiful beach without the freaking hot sun? The water was sooo clear that I wished it wasn't salt water so I could drink it all day while soaking in the water! Waves on Long Beach were more choppy than on Coral bay, and the sand is whiter at Long beach. We spent most of our time at Long Beach soaking in the water, sun baking, again jump into the water.
We did snorkelling at Turtle Point and Shark Point. The corals were dead in the shallow part of sea and also lesser fish in the shallow region. Generally at this two spots, the undersea views weren't very nice, probably due to too many tourists had
The sunset at Coral Bay
watching the sun goes down the horizon while enjoying dinner visited and scared away the fishes and every thing nice fades after being over popularized. But the boatman did bring us to some other spots where waves were stronger, deeper sea, but the corals were huge and more fishes. Especially at the lighthouse which was near to the Coral Bay. We went there twice, first in the afternoon, I struggled to swim as the waves were too strong at that time and we couldn't stay long enough to enjoy seeing fishes and corals. The second time we went there was in the morning, which was a better time to snorkel at that point. Some adventurous men even managed to climb up to the top of the lighthouse and jumped straight down from 10m height. During the 2 days snorkelling, I did not see any turtle or shark, which was a huge disappointment. Maybe I went snorkelling at the wrong place. Next time I will make time to snorkel at Coral Bay.
On the first day we went for a short hiking trip to the defunct wind turbines and solar energy field at the top of the hill. The starting point was at the Chillout Cafe, Long beach just in
case you like to know, because there wasn't a single sign post directing you. Nearby the wind turbines there was a long staircase where the view was spectacular. Any picture taken from there with the cliff and long stairs with water splashing against rocks would make a nice postcard. Plus no tourists were there when me and my friends were there, only there was one guy hiking up when we were ready to go back to the beach.
The last spot of my snorkelling trip was Romantic Beach, it wasn't really the perfect place to snorkel but since the waves were calmer there, I swam and fed fishes. You can rent a kayak and kayak from Coral Bay to Romantic beach, and enjoy the quiet surrounding (if you are lucky enough to be there when no big boat carrying tourists and playing loud musics)
On my last day on Pulau Perhentian, I felt really reluctant to leave. Seeing the beach view from the terrace of mohsin chalet, I hated to accept that tomorrow I won't be able to see this view anymore and my one week holiday was soon coming to an end.
I will
Sunrise at Long Beach
We managed to get up early to watch sunrise on our last day in Pulau Perhentian be back, the beautiful Pulau Perhentian Kecil.
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