The Perhentian Islands

The Perhentian Islands are the furthest away from Singapore you can get on the east coast of Malaysia and around 6 hours by road straight across the top of the country from Georgetown.

Our pick up time was 5:00am but was changed to 6:00am at 10.30pm the night before, giving us one of those “you know what’s going to happen here, don’t you” feelings.  So, with the alarm set for 5:20am we get a phone call at 5am telling us our pick up was here!  Ten minutes later we were down stairs, grumpy and sleepy (I will let you work out which of us is which out of the seven dwarfs).

With only one other couple in the minibus we found a spot and settled down to get some sleep after our impromptu start.  As it seems to be with all our bus (or train journeys for that matter), this was not to be.  After about 30 minutes we awoke to the minibus swerving over the road because the driver was falling asleep!  He did stop a few times and kept taking coffee and chocolate and splashing water in his face, but nothing seemed to work.  Not wanting to be involved in a head on collision with a truck, myself and the Joel (the other male passenger) took it in turns to sit up front and keep the guy talking to keep him awake and to grab the steering wheel if need be.  Emma and Eva (Joel’s girlfriend) helped by studying the insides of their eyelids.  Six hours later we arrived at the port in Kuala Besut to catch the speedboat to the Islands.

The Perhentian Islands are around 20 miles off the coast with the two main islands being occupied.  Kecil is the smaller and cheaper location which has two main beaches with all the hostels lined along them.  The bigger island, Besar, has around ten larger more expensive resorts.  As soon as we stepped onto the boat and noticed the two massive outboard engines we knew this was going to be fun.  The boat did the journey in around 20 minutes which was no mean feat as it was carrying about ten people plus all their luggage.  It was helped by the sea being almost completely flat, but still, the boat driver really gave those engines a good hammering.

Due to the remoteness of the place it is difficult to book accommodation ahead of time and so you just have to turn up and see what you can get.  So unusually for us on this trip we went for it with no real plan other than a return boat ticket.  The islands were pretty much deserted apart from the few hostels/restaurants with no roads, no ATM’s, no anything except jungle and beach.  Thankfully, the book had got it right this time and warned us of this so we had stocked up on cash, Pringles and Oreos (just in case the food was terrible).

We had already decided that we were going to look for somewhere to stay on the more populated Long Beach on Kecil as it had a bit more going on (just) and a larger range of lower cost accommodation.  The speedboat stopped a few hundred metres from the shore even though there was a perfectly good jetty and smaller boats came to ferry us to the beach….for a small charge of course!!  On the way in we had spotted some huts up on the hill overlooking the beach and so decided that would be our first port of call.

They offered us a simple hut with twin beds and an attached bathroom, fan and balcony with a sea view for 18.67 per night…..a little higher than what we wanted to pay but the sea view made up for the price!

As part of the room deal we also had to share the hut with a family of geckos who spent most of their time walking across the ceiling and making loud clicking noises as they fought for ceiling territory at night.  We became so attached to our new friends that we named the larger one Ken and the smaller one Barbie.  There was another fatter one that made celebrity appearances which we called G.I. Joe.  I have no idea why we choose those names as none of them looked like plastic toy dolls….must have been heat stroke.

Long Beach wasn’t that long, only about 500m with around 10 other establishments taking up the limited space between the beach and the jungle.  I’m not one for gushing, Mills and Boon style writing but this place deserves it so here goes……The sea was shallow, electric teal in colour and so crystal clear you could see the bottom.  The sky, dark blue tainted by neither cloud nor pollution.  The sand was as white as snow and so clean it looked like we were the first people to ever walk on it.  We had truly found a special place and our tropical paradise.  Due to this, we ended up spending 6 nights here, the longest of anywhere so far.

Days were spent sleeping, swimming, lying in the sun, writing blogs, reading, a bit more sleeping and eating.  Nights were spent sitting on the beach, listening to dance music whilst drinking monkey juice (the local liquor….I hope?!) and watching locals practice the art of swinging fireballs around their head on the end of chains (answers on a postcard please as to what this art is actually called, because Emma and I have drawn a blank).

To say the pace of life was slow is an understatement and after only a day we realised just how tired we were.  After 3 months of constantly moving every few days and sightseeing in between we have not really stopped.  This was just what we needed.
Now we get Malaysia!