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Published: August 8th 2009
Our next stop was the Perhentian Islands which are raved about from everyone you speak to who has visited them. We left Ko Tao with a plan on how we were going to get there ensuring we avoided the trouble area in South Eastern Thailand where shooting & bombings have occured as recently as April. We got off the bus at the train station and our trip through hell began...
Our first problem was that the Thais thought it would be a good idea to employ a ticket seller who spoke no English at all in one of the main tourist stations at Chumphon. This may sound really ignorant of us but it's rare to find a tourist who can speak more Thai than the real basics so it's very unlikely that anyone will be able to book complicated train tickets in Thai and it just makes sense that people should be able to communicate to get what they need. But no.. Sophie went up first to ask for 2 tickets to Alor Setar which is on the main train line from Chumphon to Butterworth in Malaysia. In response she was told she needed to take a boat! He had
clearly misunderstood so she tried again to be told "full full". Getting a bit adgited by this point she went back to Dale to vent her frustration.
There were about 5 or 6 trains departing that evening going to various points South. Not all went where we wanted to go but we felt sure that something would be heading roughly where we wanted and we'd figure something out from there so Dale went up next to try and get a ticket. Dale tried to name a different station but again was met with a puzzled face and "full full". We will point out at this stage that the queue was quite big so we had to wait inline about 10 minutes each time we went up.
To cut a long story short each of us went up 3 or 4 times trying a different station each time. The problem was that if you tried to talk though the options with the guy he just got even more confused and it made things worse so we had to try one station at a time. In the end Sophie struck lucky naming a station on the border which had 2nd
class sleeper seats available but for the pricely sum of 744B each. Way more than we had anticipated but we really didn't want to spend a night in this town to wait until the following evening so we booked them for 4 hours time. The second problem then came to light that Sophie had booked tickets to the station that has the most problems and only recently had the trains been reinstated after the April train shootings.. at this point we started to worry.
We had toyed with the idea of going this way when making our route plan but we do value our lifes and we'd decided that one extra bus ride was probably worth it in order to keep us safe but now we'd been forced into plan B and had to go ahead with it. Our 4 hours were spent on the internet trying to make us feel better and thankfully we found a lot of information on people who'd taken this train recently with no problems at all so our minds we put at ease a little.
The train came pretty much on time and after a quick bomb check by the station security
we were shown to our upper level beds for the night with the plan to just pull the curtain round us and hide for the journey! It was a night train so not too difficult really.
The journey was actually ok and we were further put at ease with the multiple M16 armed guards who patrolled the train thoughout the trip. At 11.00am we pulled into Sungai Kolok station and began sweating again. It was only a 1km ride to the border so we decided to just get there as fast as we could and we would be safe in Malaysia! It sounds a bit stupid now but when you read so many stories about what happens and find out that 2,000 people have been killed in these areas in recent years it really is no joke. The station was also crammed with armed guards which made us feel a little better. We quickly found 2 bike taxis who whisked us to the border control and we were stamped out of Thailand and into Malaysia safe and sound!
So we were now back in Malaysia and to be honest were quite glad to have left Thailand behind us.
We were both getting a little tired of the Thai attitude, people say this is the land of smiles but we would dispute this and say it's the land of the miserable.. both backpackers and locals alike constantly go round with downturned mouths and it does get you down after a while.
After all the worrying we were quite glad we'd taken this route as it saved us a hefty bus bill to get across from West Malaysia to the East. We got a bus from the border to the main transport hub of Kota Bulara where we'd planned to use the ATM to stock up on cash for the islands then head straight down to Kuala Besut so we'd be ready to catch the first ferry to the islands the following morning. Then our luck went down again...
As Sophie tried the ATM, for the first time since we'd been away the card refused to work, the bus to Kuala Besut was in one hour so she rushed to the internet to call Nationwide only to be told that the department she needed to speak to was not in for another 1/2 hour. She was completely fed
up by this point so we decided to throw in the towel and book a room in the town for that evening and catch the first bus to the pier the following morning. The first bus was at 6.15am which we felt confident was early enough to bag us a room when we reached the Perhentians.
We spent our afternoon and evening in Kuala Buala trying to find the much hyped about in LP, but non existent in the town night market and generally having a wander around. Sophie was quite happy because Malaysia seems to be the breeding place for all the cats in the world and you only need to take one step to see a stray in need of some love, most had a litter of kittens too which kept her amused and even Dale had a few cuddles when they rushed up to him for some attention.
For some reason this small city has a 24hour McDonalds, it also sees the need to deliver 24 hours a day too, (do they do this in England now?) but on this occasion we were thankful of it's all day opening hours and managed to have a
Mcbreakfast before we caught our early morning bus to Kuala Besut.
When we arrived 2 hours later we were greeted by a very helpful Malaysian girl who took us to her office to get us our boat tickets to the islands. She was a little put out that we were going on the 8.30am boat commenting that we should still be ok for accommodation but she didn't sound too sure. For some background we were aware that it is highly recommended for you to arrive early on the islands to secure a room because they are scarce in the high season but we thought that an 8.30am boat counted as early so were undeterred.... what they should actually say is that if you miss the first 07.30am boat to the island and don't have any accommodation booked then don't bother coming as you'll have a nightmare!
The approach to the islands is just what you imagine it will be.. lush jungle covered islands with crystal clear blue water surrounding it. As you get nearer to the shore on the speedboat you can see straight down to the bottom of the sea the water is just so clear with
hundreds of fish swimming around. At last we'd arrived in heaven but would not get to fully appreciate it just yet as we had one more hurdle to overcome...
We got dropped off at Long Beach which is home to the main backpacker accommodation and Sophie bag sat while Dale walked the length of the beach trying the guesthouses for a room.... to no avail! He tried every place on the beach only to be told by them all that they were full.. well with the exception of one place that had a room for RM200 way above our budget. We were a little unsure of what to do but decided to try Coral Bay round the other side of the island as there was also a lot of accommodation there so caught a taxi round for the pricely sum of RM20 each!
Unfortunately Coral Bay was much the same story with no rooms. Dale kicked himself when he was offered one room for RM80, went to check out another place then returned to find the room had gone. There was literally nothing on the island except the overpriced option and we were beginning to worry. We didn't
want to go back to the mainland as the boat is quite expensive at RM70 return each so made a plan to sleep on the beach for that night and try again tomorrow. It was glorious sunshine and we have slept in worse places so it seemed like a good solution.
We spent the day on the secluded Romantic Beach which is beautiful white sand and coral just a metre or so out to sea teaming with tropical fish, reef sharks, cuttlefish and many other creatures. While Sophie sunbathed Dale set to work with the survival skills he'd learnt from his SAS Handbook and started to make us a shelter for the night. We attracted quite a lot of interest throughout the day with people asking what we were doing and saying they'd love to be in our shoes.. we did offer to swap with them as we really wanted a room but when push came to shove they didn't really want to swap.. surprise surprise! After a whole day snorkelling & baking the sun started to go down and Dale started up his fire to give us some light and we got quite cosy in our shelter watching
Just outside our bungalow
We saw sharks, turtles, and napoleon fish herethe huge thunderstorms out to sea.
We couldn't really have a nice dinner becuase we had all our bags with us and didn't want to lug them around to the other beach so we enjoyed a snack dinner of take away tuna baguettes, crisps and cheese biscuits.. yum! It was getting on for 10pm when the winds started to get up and we had to hold down the sarong/scarf/rainjacket/ripped up poncho roof covering for fear of it blowing away. Because it was so dark we hadn't noticed the black storm clouds approaching bringing the huge thunderstorm we'd been so amused to watch earlier.
After the winds come the rain which started off slowly then worked up into a full blown monsoon storm and it was only a matter of minutes before our shelter was in pieces, our bags were soaked, we were soaked and we had to run into the bushes to try and hide from the rain as much as we could. For about 2 hours we stood under the bushes with the rain lashing down around us not wanting to run for better cover because our bags would have got even wetter.
At about midnight
the rain left off enough for us to run up to the posh hotel at the top of the beach and dump our things under a walkway which at least had a roof. At this point we weren't sure what to do because we were so so wet our brains had also filled with water so we just sat for a while enjoying the partial shelter. In the end an American Man told us he'd seen an area in the hotel where there were some settees and at least it had walls so we dragged ourselves there and made a home for the night. The 'room' was actually a corridor outside some other rooms and we got some funny looks as people came and went to the toilet during the night but we were kind of dry.. we'd managed to get changed and hang out our things at least so we really didn't care.
At 6.30am after virtually no sleep we were determined we'd get a room so made our way to Coral Bay Beach to stalk people leaving their accommodation for the 8am boat. We had a reservation of sorts up our sleeve at one place after having
the idea to give the owner RM50 to secure a room should anyone leave in the morning. Dale staked his position here while Sophie waited for others to leave further down the beach. The problem here is that we couldn't both bag a room by putting down money as one would lose it so there was a lot of running up and down the beach to meet up and see how things were going for the hour we sat there trying to ensure we had a roof over our head that night.
After a lot of tooing a froing with the owner of the room we'd put a deposit down on nowhere to be seen, Dale saw people leaving a room and we checked in ourselves into one of the Butterfly Chalets which offer the undoubted best view on the island. The chalets themselves are not much to look at and the owner doesn't make any attempt to improve this while he sits looking at the sea all day every day, but they are awesome. Just in front of our terrace were some rocks and then after that were crystal clear waters with great coral, fish, sharks and turtles
underneath. To be able to wake up to this every morning is quite special and we couldn't get enough of that and watching the sunsets in the evening.
We were so glad of getting a room, especially one so great and best of all we could now enjoy proper food actually sitting down on a table together again so went and had our first Malaysian breakfast of Teh Tarik (strong tea with condensed milk poured from a height to allow air in) and Roti Cani (fried pastry with a dhaal curry dipping sauce). After this we got down to our usual activity whilst here of sunbathing and snorkelling in the glorious sunshine followed by a yummy seafood BBQ in the evening. Each morning as we ate breakfast we also watched the crowds arriving off the boats going though exactly the same ritual as we had days earlier with worried faces pacing up and down the beach with a lot of shaking of heads and we did sympathise.
We did manage to venture away from Coral Bay & Romantic Beach on a few of the days though. One day was spent over at Long Beach which is just a
15 minutes walk through the jungle to the other side. The beach here is undoubtedly bigger & whiter but we much preferred the seclusion of our beach so didn't return after that one day! Another day was spent making the 30 minute walk round to Mira Bay on the South of the island. This a lovely private beach with one guesthouse only accessible by foot or boat (as are all the bays as there are no cars here!). Again the beach here is gorgous but the snorkelling is not so good so we mostly enjoyed lazing on the beach here having a snooze!
We were keen to see some different coral and had been told that the lighthouse about 1km off Coral Bay was the best place included on the island snorkelling trip so we decided to go on our own and caught a taxi boat there. We'd met a lovely couple here on the island (hi Ade & Iraira!) who lent us one of their snorkels so we had one each and off we went to see what we could see at the lighthouse.
Normally there are a whole host of tour boats here but when we
arrived we were the only 2 people which made Sophie more than a little nervous. As our taxi sped off with a promise to be back in 1 hour we perched ourselves on the lighthouse and looked down at the water below where we could already see millions of fish milling around. After a bit of coaxing from Dale who'd jumped straight in, Sophie ventured into the water holding on very tight to Dale's hand for security. True enough the fish & corals here were amazing.. there were just so many of them and you got to swim though huge schools of fish of many different types as you explored. After a while more boats came to join us and it got a little crowded but our time was up and our taxi driver pulled up and we sped back off to the mainland.
With Sophie's confidence raised we headed out from the beach to go snorkelling in front of our chalet where Dale had previously seen Black Tip Reef Sharks and Blue Spotted Rays and spent about 2 hours swimming around here because it is so beautiful. We were both exploring the coral garden with Dale slightly in
front when he shouted back to Sophie to quickly join him. She was desperate to see one of the sharks and assumed this was what it was so swam as quickly as she could to see what was there. It wasn't a shark but he'd gone one better and spotted a Green Turtle swimming along on the floor and we were both so excited to see this so close to the shore too. We followed it for a while but it swam out to the ocean and we didn't fancy following it out there so we left him to it. This really was a highlight of our time here and along with the sharks, bump headed napolean fish, cuttlefish and huge monitor lizard sightings we were happy with our nature spotting!
After 6 days on this beautiful island we decided it really was time to drag ourselves away and boarded the 8am boat back to the island... it's the first place for a long time that we were both quite upset to be leaving and we think the nightmare we had getting there made us appreciate it all the more. Our next place would be in complete contrast as
we were visiting the 160 million year old rainforest Taman Negara...
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zsteve
S
Perhentian
Hi there I'm off to Perhentian in a few weeks time and enjoyed reading about your experience. I will definitely make sure to be on the 7:30 boat as I have no SAS experience whatsoever :-) Safe travelling