Advertisement
Baling
Massive insense sticksOur last goodbye in Thailand was with Wine. It was, like all others, another tough one. Her and all the guys had been more than helpful and great company over the past three weeks but when you’ve gotta go, you’ve gotta go! We jumped on a bus to Betong on the border of Malaysia.
The border crossing was a bit of a hassle, infact more so than any we had done before. We paid over the odds for taxi fares and on either side of the border any signs of life were miles away. We had every intention of getting a bus to the Perhentian Islands as soon as possible but when we arrived at Baling bus station we were told that because the Buddhists were on an annual holiday in honour of Buddha’s birthday, that all the buses were full. No chance of leaving Baling that night. “Shit”! We both said in unison. We were stuck in a dead and dying little border town and we didn’t even know if there was accommodation there. We made are feelings known to the bus company and as a result an exceptionally nice Chinese lady, of which there are many in Malaysia,
Baling
The friendly locals who helped us out took it upon herself to adopt us for the night until we could get a bus the next day. “You must come and stay at my house tonight” she said. We happily obliged. She sorted us out with some local food and whisked us off for an evening dip in the local hot spring before bedtime. This was super relaxing and it’s entirely possible that, despite sleeping on the floor, we’ve never slept so well.
The next morning she took us for a local Indian breakfast and introduced us to some of the local delicacies before guiding us round both the Thai and the Chinese temples with the aid of another chap whose name we can’t remember. At the latter we were privileged to be asked to join in the festivities and indulged in a little light praying followed by the bathing and blessing of the Buddha. After filling our heads with knowledge and convincing us that Baling was in fact a pretty cool town with an interesting history, she then packed us on a bus and sent us on our way. We left not only with a certain sense of philosophical fulfilment, but also a bag of holy
perhentians
Our home was one of the little huts just above the rocks water each, which they told us we must bath in that evening. We took this quite seriously and we did just that. Once again we’d just totally landed on our slightly sandy feet!
Now buses in Malaysia are nothing like the buses in the UK. They are super luxurious. Their coaches are the same size but there are only three seats to every row. The seats themselves are similar to business class on a plane. They are really comfortable, fully reclining and come complete with leg rests. This bus journey was a welcome break from the shitty buses we had been using in Vietnam. The Malaysians really know how to travel by bus. I don’t know why we don’t have buses like this back in England seeing as it was us who colonised the country in first place. It’s probably just another stupid cock up like sending all our prisoners to the hell hole that is Australia. That was such a great idea.
The journey flew by and we landed in Kota Bharu just is north of Kuala Besut, where all the boats leave to the Perhentians. We negotiated a taxi to save some time. We arrived late
Stefen Sea Sports
The coolest dive school around and ended up spending a night in the tiny little fishing village. There was nothing to do except eat and that’s what we did.
The next morning we organised a speed boat to take us to Pulau Perhentian Kecil which is the smaller of the two islands and is set up more to accommodate backpackers. We landed on the beach and instantly got chatting a guy from a dive school called Stefen Sea Sports. He let us ditch our bags while we hunted out some accommodation.
It’s important to note that there are two main areas on Kecil, being Coral Bay and Long Beach. Long Beach is where everybody goes and is packed with bars, restaurants and far to much accommodation. It has been quite rightly renamed “Wrong Beach”. We opted for Coral Bay, which is on the opposite side of the island and is undeveloped and quiet. As a result it is far more relaxing and has a lot more character.
The guys from the dive school were staying at a place called “Butterfly Chalets”. These were beautiful little shacks right at the far end of the beach that overlooked the sea and received great evening
Stefen Sea Sports
base camp, and the hub of very little activity views of the sun setting over the ocean. We found an amazing hut with a spectacular view. It was the most expensive place that we have stayed at so far at a grand total of $12.50 a night. Between the two of us it wasn’t that bad and once we had seen the view it was too late, as we were already sold. We went back to Stefen Sea Sports to pick up our bags, and booked ourselves on a PADI Open Water course for the next few days. Diving was on!
The dive school really suited us. When we asked our instructor Remy what time he wanted us there he said “around 10. But that depends if you want to have a lie in tomorrow, we could make it later”? We knew instantly that we were going to get along with this guy and we arranged to meet him at 11 the next morning. Remy was a strong believer in practical learning. As a result we didn’t spend all day in a classroom watching videos and learning theory. Instead he taught us everything we needed to know and got us straight into the water which is where the
Stefen Sea Sports
Our instructor Remy. What a dude real instruction is needed.
For the next four days when we were learning we were diving and when we weren’t we were sat at the dive school anyway just catching rays and chatting with the instructors Will, Mel and Remy. In fact the most stressful thing we did while on the Perhentians was set up our hammocks. As we had such an amazing view, careful consideration was needed to set them up in such a small space, so as not to limit the others view. Needless to say it took us a lot of sweat, rope and over two hours of our time but it was worth it as we both spent so much time lying horizontal and swinging from side to side.
Even though the dive school was relaxed we did take it seriously and after a few theory sessions and a couple of dives we took our final exam. The hard work had paid off and we both got 98%! Good skills.
The diving itself was amazing. We saw Black Tip Reef Sharks, a school of Barracuda, Bump Head Parrotfish, Stingrays, Squid, Clown Fish, and a million other things. Pete also so a Titan Triggar
Diving
Setting up the gear Fish at close quarters when one decided it didn’t like the look of his western, white, hairy legs and decided to munch them. After we had finished the course we did a couple of fun dives with our fresh new qualifications. Pete unfortunately missed out on one as he was having trouble with his ear.
On our last night there a random American guy decided to make us celebrate his birthday with him. He turned up with two bottles of Vodka, a bottle of Captain Morgan Rum and something called Orang-utan Whiskey. We happily obliged his offer of free alcohol and celebrations. We made the treacherous journey through the forest to Wrong Beach, to party and dance the night away.
The next morning we bid our farewells to our new found friends, and left the island in the poring rain. We got absolutely drenched on the boat ride back to Kuala Besut and arrived looking like a pair of drowned rats carrying rather large rucksacks. We hitched a bus to Jerteh where we would hop the express V.I.P. down to Singapore to meet Martin’s Dad. We were looking forward to the luxurious comfort so we could sleep the
Diving
Hey..How you doin? journey, and our hangovers, away. This was not to happen as the bus turned out to be a giant freezer on wheels. They had obviously bought their air con from the same people that run the ferries to Phi Phi islands.
It was so cold that it was painfully uncomfortable. We both even ended up wearing these things called socks? Apparently they go on your feet. The bus would eventually take us straight through to Singapore but at some point we would have to deal with immigration. The guys on the bus were complete tossers and made the whole immigration/border control thing a whole lot worse than it needed to be. This is never fun but when you’ve got two simpleton’s hustling you on and off the bus and being about as rude as you can be, it makes it close to unbearable. Nevertheless we arrived in Singapore and the bus dropped us, yep you’ve guessed it, miles away from anything! That was the final nail in the coffin. Bastards!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.049s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 7; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0265s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
John
non-member comment
hey guys... I guess you lost the power to write when you got to OZ
hope all is going well... the beer is a lot more expensive where you are heading now! Remember when boat diving that the Auzzie's cant count past 10 so if there are more divers than 10 on the boat, you need two of them to count you in and out.. Have fun and dive safe! John