The Perhentian Islands - a paradisiac place to relax

As we were waiting for the night train to the Perhentian Islands to leave KL Sentral, we came to talk to a young man sitting beside us. He turned out to be an Indonesian currently working in London and was on his way to a beach holiday with his fiancé. He was very nice and refreshing, and when we left for our platform we told him goodbye in Indonesian, which left him quite surprised. We could only get to the platform and on the train half an hour before departure, the platform was closed up to that time. KTMB are comfortable and always on time, but the network is not very extensive. There are actually only two lines, one on the western side and another one on the eastern side, whereas these lines run as one until south of Kuala Lumpur which lies on the western line. Which means that every train running from KL to the east coast first has to drive south a certain range before it can join the eastern line. Rather complicated and time-consuming, but perfect for an overnight train. There were only air condition compartments, but bedding was provided and this was no problem.

Unfortunately we still did not sleep very well because of the narrow gauge and the subsequent constant rolling and swaying. The train took us to the village of Wakaf Bahru, where taxis were already awaiting the tired tourists. From there we were driven to Kuala Besut, actually not to the city itself but to a jetty, where one boat company had its seat, obviously the taxi driver had an agreement with them. No problem, we later found out that all ferries to the Perhentian Islands cost the same, namely RM 40 per person for a return ticket. After maybe one hour we arrived at Perhentian Kecil (literally ‘Small Perhentian’), the island of the backpackers, whereas the other island, Perhentian Besar (literally ‘Big Perhentian’) is the island of the resorts and therefore above our budget.

Perhentian Kecil mainly consists of two beaches, Long Beach and Coral Bay, we stayed on the latter in the Suria Resort. The hotel consisted of several wooden bungalows, where two rooms shared one bungalow and had very nice rooms but the vast majority was with air condition, which we try to avoid as often as possible. The rooms with fan were also very nice, but had one drawback they were situated in the uppermost row of bungalows and we had to climb very many stairs several times every day. The positive thing about the resort’s layout was the fact that we had a wonderful sea view although the bungalow was not directly at the beach. The season at the Perhentian Islands is roughly from March to October, they later close most of the places, Coral Bay for instance is completely shut down, because of the upcoming monsoon. So the island was already quite empty but this did by no means disrupt its natural beauty. The beach was not very long but had wonderful sand and was endowed with a lot of shade due to the abundance of palm trees. There were only few restaurants and the place was really calm, the main activity stemmed from the diving school. Swimming was not very good, though, the sea ground was littered with coral pieces, which made going into and out of the sea rather an adventure. As we had come there for swimming and snorkelling, we crossed to Long Beach on a footpath leading through a strip of forest, to have a look at the conditions there.

This was definitely the more active part of the island, one bar and restaurant after the other, shops and diving centres all around, as well as sporadic internet cafes. When we saw the prices, we decided that we and our readers can survive some days without internet. We would have liked to meet Ali on the island, but due to infrequent communication, which was only aggravated by the prohibitive internet prices, this did not work out. Well, maybe another time. Anyway, Long Beach was great for both swimming and snorkelling, and we spent many hours in the clear warm water observing the underwater world. The northern end of Long Beach did not satisfy our appetite for corals and fishes, so we booked a snorkelling tour. We headed for different spots around the two Perhentian Islands, on one of them (between the two islands) we should see turtles and our captain did his best that we could actually meet these incredible creatures. Stephan had his fins on and was in the water very quickly, so he could throw a glance on a huge sea turtle which was swimming beneath him at incredible speed. He tried to follow it
for a while, but man is definitely not an aquatic animal, and so he soon lost sight of the majestic turtle that was constantly followed by small pilot fishs. Another spot was made at Shark Point, which lived up to its name. Small black-tipped reef sharks were swimming by our side, but they were very shy and swam away from us as quickly as they possibly could. What a pity, we would have loved to see them a little bit longer! The trip culminated close to the lighthouse by the Coral Bay, where we saw the most wonderful corals we had seen so far. Apart from that, we were surrounded by many colourful fishes, big and small ones, in blue and green, yellow ones, others in pastel colours and an especially interesting species, small fish striped in black, white and yellow, were constantly surrounding us in big swarms. We felt like in a huge aquarium! We returned exhausted but very happy. This snorkelling was the best one we had made so far.

Although the beaches were wonderful and the snorkelling spectacular, we left the Perhentian Islands after three days. It is true, these islands came as close to paradise
as possible, but rain is not a part of paradise in our view. The rainy season had almost begun, so it was raining heavily every day in the late afternoon. Nevertheless I swear you will have a great time there .Wecome to Terengganu.The Pearl Of Paradise