Perhentian:You will never stop there

We started the journey from Kuala Lumpur at night.Using Karak Highway , we wound our way down through the many mountains of the Highlands and after 4 hours we stopped at a town called Gua Musang in a small hotel mainly got some rest and refreshment.After an hour’s lunch break we climbed back in to a my friends ‘4x4 (thankfully with him) and made the further 3 hour drive to the coast.

We arrived safe and sound, were shown where to get on the boat, had our tickets checked, paid the mandatory RM5 conservation charge and clambered on board a large speed boat with about 8 other sun lovers.

The journey was a bumpy one to say the least, and everyone had to shift up towards the back of the boat and the driver so the poor people at the front of the boat could stop

We were stopped by a man standing outside the first hotel (Shari La Resort) and were told that they had a room available for RM50 per night . So we jumped at the chance as we didn’t fancy a walk along the blistering hot sand with our humungous back packs.

The room wasn’t great (quite dingy), but we had our own bathroom and it was clean enough so we decided to call it home for the next 4 nights.

We made our way down to a little bay by the side of the resort, at around 6pm, and couldn’t wait until the next day for a swim so decided to jump straight in to the crystal clear blue waters of the Perhentians and cool ourselves down. There isn’t really an awful lot to do on the Perhentians, apart from snorkelling/kayaking/diving/swimming and sun bathing, which is good for us as we wanted a nice relaxing, which is coming along nicely.

Coral Bay was peaceful, a small bay with about 3 places to eat which mainly did a fish BBQ every night with tables and chairs placed along the beach. There are a few shops which are little shacks also along the beach with basic things to buy like suncream/postcards etc.

Food here does seem to be slightly more expensive than the mainland, but I guess they can up the price by a couple of Ringgits per meal/drink as there isn’t anywhere else you are going to be able to buy it on the island!

Our time on Coral Bay really was a matter of waking up at around 10am, getting breakfast then heading to either one of the small bays or the main beach for swimming and snorkelling, getting some dinner in the evening and sitting the the resorts lobby in the evening.

We managed to walk over to the other side of the island to the larger beach (Long Beach), in around 5 minutes along a dirt track which has had the surrounding jungle cut back to make it easier for people to get across.

Our first view of Long Beach was brilliant, it seemed alot breezier there than at Coral Bay and obviously it being the large area was a much longer beach with more shops/chalets and dive schools.

We left Coral Bay on Sunday and made our way by taxi boat (no cars or roads on either island) round to the Southern part of the island to a small resort (Petani Beach) which we had booked up at the end of last year. Lucky we had, as it is fully booked throughout the next few weeks and people are turning up each day on boats asking if there are any chalets going.

It is absolutely beautiful here, no photos either of us take will really ever do it any justice. Forget 5 star resorts, this place is perfect. Our chalet is set back a few metres from the beach and there are only 5 chalets in total which .The food here is the best we have had yet in Malaysia, with different specials every night (BBQ’s/buffets/freshly caught fish) which makes things more interesting and so much nicer than having to pick from the same menu every night.

There are hammocks all along our part of the beach (the beach has another resort called Impiani right at the other end) strung up by rope to the many coconut trees. We have both found our perfect hammocks and have spent the last few days in them reading whilst going snorkelling and today we went kayaking over to Perhentian Besar (Big Island).

The water here is so clear and blue its only when it gets really deep you cant see alot, but we have both seen beautiful fish and coral. Phil even spotted an octopus which he quickly swam away from as it looked a bit scary!!

Diving is something that I have always wanted to do and feel very lucky to finally be doing it at last, may there be many more dives around the world to come! So another blog will follow once we have been diving and we can let you know how our adventures of the deep went.

Hope everyone at home is well, it feels as though we have been away forever but infact it is only 2 short weeks, but I really luv Terengganu…the destination you will never forget.