Posts filed under 'Kecil Perhentian'
Back in Thailand after a long day of traveling. Yesterday was my last day on the Perhentian Islands and I decided to do nothing and just enjoy the beach and read my book. I considered doing more diving but after talking to other divers I found out that the visibility was not improving so I couldn’t really justify spending the money. It was a great beach day though - sun, blue sky…and Mannie and I spent most of the day on the porch of our bungalow just chatting and sharing my walkman to listen to music.
We had dinner last night with Alex and James - that’s the original 4 of us who shared a taxi to the pier. Again I convinced everyone for a night swim and it was great especially because there was some phosphorecense in the water.
This morning I got up early to pack and then spend some time on the beach before the 12pm ferry back to the mainland. To get to the ferry you have to get on a small motor boat at the beach which takes you out to the ferry, and it was just our luck that as we tried to get on the boat a big set of waves came crashing to the shore and my one duffel bag got COMPLETELY soaked! I was fortuneate that my camera was in my daypack and was ok. Alex’s backpack was SOAKED! What a disaster. Mannie was laughing his head off but I reminded him that his stuff was dry - not quite so funny when it’s yours!
That was the beginning of my traveling today. From there we got the 1-hour speedboat back to the mainland. Then it was a 40-minutes taxi from the pier to the town of Kota Bharu. That’s where I said goodbye to Alex and Mannie - Alex is off to somewhere in Malaysia and Mannie is heading to Amsterdam and then home to Germany after 1.5 years of traveling. In Kota Bharu I took the local bus to the Thai border - another 45-minute ride. At the border I had to check out of Malaysia, then walk across the no man’s land into Thailand and enter Thai immigration. From there I started the half-mile walk to the train station, but I got lucky and the tourist police gave me a ride. I managed to catch the last train by 15 minutes, and got a seat on the 3-hour train ride north to Hat Yai which is where I am for the night.
First thing I did when I got to the guesthouse was open my duffel and hang every piece of wet clothing around my room to dry. Now I am resting up for Part II of the traveling bit to be cont. tomorrow. It will start with a minivan ride from Hat Yai to Surat Thani -4.5 hours - then a one-hour bus ride to the pier then a 2-hour boat ride to Ko Samui, then a bus ride round to the other side of the island where I am meeting friends from Philly! My first 2 visitors from home on this trip - how exciting!
By the way, if anyone is reading the newspaper in Singapore this week, look for an article on the bikini ban in Malaysia and you may see me quoted! I forgot to mention before that on my second day on the Perhentians, Alex, myself, and 2 other girls were approached and interviewed by a woman from the Associated Press doing an article on the proposed bikini ban. Yeah so apparently the Malaysian government is trying to pass the ban specifically for the Perhentian Islands because it’s a particulary conservative Muslim part of the country. The reporter’s questions were along the lines of what do you think about it, would you adhere to it, and would it affect your decision to travel in Malaysia. I thought it was pretty strange and interesting that as we were being interviewed there were about 3 or 4 topless Western women on the beach. I guess that’s one way to follow the ban - not to wear anything at all - hah! No but seriously I cannot understand why or how people can be so ignorant and go topless on a Muslim island. As for me, well if I ever get to the Perhentians again it may be shorts and t-shirts only. I don’t care though - the snorkling will still be kick-ass.
Time to rest up now, dry out, and get ready for some Yo-Yo-Yo Philly culture shock tomorrow!!!!
The Original 4 - James, Alex, Mannie, and me
Dad, heres that close-up you were asking for (dont mind the bottle of Arak Im holding)
May 3rd, 2002
Busy busy on the island…almost no time to relax! Yesterday morning I went on my first dive in Malaysia with Alex. She’s already certified and we had a good time snorkling together so we decided that we’d dive together. We chose Coral Sky Dive Center, one of several here, because it had been recommened to me by one of the dive masters at Ko Lanta. What a mistake! Well, maybe the dive shop is ok but our dive master was crap. To top it off the conditions were horrible - after a few days of rain everything was churned up and the sea was really rough. We went to a site called Twin Rocks, to a depth of 19.6 meters. The visibility was so bad - you could barely see the diver in front of you! There were hardly any fish either - all I saw were 2 lionfish and one big trigger fish that attacked the divemaster’s fin! Lots of reasons why both Alex and I were unhappy with the dive - the conditions of course but that’s nobody’s fault, but really neither of us felt safe with this particular divemaster and in those conditions with poor visibilty (2-3 meters) and strong current it’s so important to feel safe. There were no buddies assigned, a very quick and uninformative explanation of the dive, and generally the divemaster was screwing around with the photographer more than watching his group. Also he did not pay attention to how much air people had left and even though Alex told him when she had 50 barr, he still continued the dive and by the time she got up she only had 5 barr left (ie no air!!). Disappointing, especially because we both had such high expectations after hearing such good things about the Perhentians.
After all that we decided not to do an afternoon dive. Instead I hung out at the bungalow with my roomate Mannie - it was a rainy, stormy afternoon so he read his book and I napped for awhile. Then later in the day the rain stopped and the skies cleared and Alex, Mannie, and I went to the other side of the island for a late day snorkle, then decided to watch the sunset and have dinner at one of the places on the beach. There we sat for quite a few hours, as we talked and watched the sky turn pink then blue then black into the night. It was a clear night with many, many twinkly stars in the sky. Yes, we all agreed that the stars here seem particulary’twinkly’.
So. Today Alex and I decided to try our luck with another dive shop on the island, this time signing up with Turtle Bay Divers. Immediatley we felt better with them when they actually checked to see our certification cards. We were assigned a really good divemaster, Jo, from Australia, who went over a thorough briefing of the dive and in general was much more attentive and aware of her divers. Unfortuneatley though the conditions were still not very good …today we went to the Pinnacle (Temple of the Sea) which is supposed to be one of the best sites here. Seems like every other diver on the island had the same idea because there were 10 other dive boats there and about 90 divers in the water. Agh! Visibilty was not as bad as yesterday but still poor and the current was even stronger then yesterday. So we didn’t see much - just a lot of moray eel, one blue spotted sting ray, and some other fish. I didn’t realize how good I had it in Ko Lanta with excellent visibilty, no current, and just me and the divemaster in the water! Oh well. It’s all good experience, but I don’t think I want to spend any more money diving here when the snorkling is free and actually much better than the diving at the moment. Not much you can do when the conditions are bad and the rain we’ve been having the past few days is definitely the reason.
Alex and I both decided to take the afternoon off again today and when we got back from the dive the sun was shining and the sky was blue so we were happy to hang out on the island and enjoy the good weather. First thing we did was all our laundry to clean out all our damp clothes. Then Alex, Mannie and I went to the other side of the island for another afternoon of snorkling. The vis wasn’t even that good over there and there were some sea lice so none of us stayed in too long. (I was out with Mannie for about an hour.) Now we’re all hanging out on our porches, me writing this, Mannie listening to some of my CD’s in my walkman, Alex spraying her bungalow after finding an ant nest with hundreds and hundreds of ants under her mattress. Tomorrow is my last day here and I haven’t decided if I’ll try diving again or just relax on the beach. Back to Thailand and Ko Samui then on Friday.
Mannie on Snorkle Beach
Mannie and I resting after a tough snorkle (well, not really)
See, everyones doing it!
May 1st, 2002
This place is GREAT! Ok, so when I first arrived, I have to admit that I was wondering is it was REALLY worth it to travel for 2 whole days to get here when I was already on a beautiful island…but now that I’ve been here for 2 days I am convinced it was well worth the travel effort. Where to begin? Yesterday was a GREAT day - I give it five stars on the round the world travel scale. We decided in the end not to do a snorkling trip because it was pretty rough in the sea, so Alex (the British girl) and I had some lunch and then decided to walk to the other side of the island to check it out. It’s about a 10-minute walk through the jungle to get from our beach to the beach on the other side. And quite a jungle it is. Firstly it was chock full of spider webs with GIGANTIC spiders as big as crabs, all sitting in their webs, waiting for the occasional innocent bug to fly through and get trapped for a little snack. Then we walked by an area with some rubbish piled behind the trees and I can tell you I have seen the BIGGEST monitor lizard I will ever see in my life. It looked like a crocodile. It was massive. Luckily he saw us and walked further into the woods. Sigh (of relief).
Onward.
We arrived at the other beach and immediately decided to snorkle when we saw how calm the water was there. After hiring some gear we set off around a cove to a small, quiet beach surrounded by rocks on all sides. The snorkling was incredible! The coral was beautiful. It truly was a coral garden, with literally the entire sea floor covered in coral. And I just kept thinking all the beautiful colored fish everywhere were like the flowers in the garden. Before long I saw my first bump-headed wrasse which is a gigantic blue fish with a big bump on its head. Later we saw a school of eight of them!! I mean, you actually feel small next to them - that is how big they are.
We followed the rocks around the cove and just as we were approaching the point to turn around, I saw a very big black-tipped reef shark coming right at me. I am guessing it was about 2 meters long. It was looking right at me! Yes, I was a bit frightened. I got Alex’s attention and then we watched it circle round us and come back towards Alex. Then it swam away and circled back for a second look. And we were the ONLY ones out there. Wow. After that we were just talking about the shark over and over again.
All in all it was a great snorkle with lots of fish, good coral, and actually a total of 3 reef sharks (I saw another 2 smaller ones on the swim back). We also saw a gigantic grouper that looked like a big rock - he was so big actually that he looked like he should have sunk to the bottom.
Last night we had a big group of people for dinner - about 15 or so, mostly all solo travellers, and one cyclist even - an American guy who’s been cycling SE Asia for about 6 months. He was happy to swap cycling stories. Then we met up with some young Malaysians from KL who are here on holiday and we were drinking’monkey juice’ with them. It’s actually the Malay version of Sang Sum, callen Arang Tum. Anyway it was cool to hang out with some liberal Malaysians and get their impressions on life. (It’s a very strict and conservative country here - if you are caught smuggling drugs you get the death penalty and although alcohol is not illegal, it’s very much frowned upon by the mostly Muslim society.)
Then, after that, by about 1am at this time, I suggested a night swim and to my surprise some people actually agreed! So six of us went out for about an hour and had a blast playing in the waves and enjoying the moonlight.
This morning it was raining but somehow Alex, Mannie and I got motivated to go on a snorkling trip and I am SO GLAD that we went! Turtle bay - 4 TURTLES! (my first EVER!) Shark Point - 3 black-tipped reef sharks. And finally the Rock Garden - 2 sting ray, 2 squid, many, many fish, 1 big puffer, 1 orange sweetlips, and get this, another 5 sharks! Talk about a great day. Yes, indeed, it was well worth the journey.
The resident spiders
Snorkling Beach (ie home of the shark)
Alex and I, STILL talking about the shark
April 29th, 2002
So I decided to go to more islands, but this time in Malaysia. I’m on Kecil Perhentian, which is a small island off the eastern coast of Penisular Malaysia. Just as the season is ending on Ko Lipe, it is only just starting here.
I left Ko Lipe the other day and got as far as Hat Yai which is the biggest city in Southern Thailand. Between a minivan ride to the border, then 2 taxis and a boat ride, I knew I’d never make it to the Perhentians in one day, so I decided to take advantage of being in a city and spend the morning shopping, running errands and doing email, then take the minivan to the border and try to get on the morning boat the following day.
All was going well and I got on the 3:30pm minivan for the 4-hour ride to the Thai/Malaysian border. I was the only foreigner on the ride - me and 10 other Malays. Malaysia is actually one hour ahead of Thailand so we wound up getting to the border at 9pm (8pm Thai time). It was already dark and after I went through Thai immigration I had to walk across a no-man’s land/bridge to get into Malaysia. I definitely felt like I was in a Russian spy movie as I walked across that bridge by myself in the dark.
After I got through Malaysian immigration, I looked for any transport heading to Khota Bharu, a town 45 km from the border and my destination for the night. Well, the last bus was at 6:30pm and there was NO ONE else around to share a taxi with me. I hung around for almost an hour, waiting to see if anyone else would show up to share a ride and hoping that someone passing by might just offer me a lift, but in the end I wound up taking the taxi alone and sucking up the full cost of a four-person ride ($10 US total).
In Khota Bharu I found a guesthouse and set up a taxi and boat ride to the Perhentians for the next day (yesterday). Luckily there were 3 others from the guesthouse headed down there so we shared the taxi - it was me, Alex from the UK, James from South Africa, and Manuel from Germany. All very nice people. On the 2-hour boat ride here, Mannie and I decided to try to share a bungalow because the cost of lodging on these islands is quite high when compared to Thailand ($10-12/night instead of $4-6).
When the boat arrived, the four of us set out to check out a few places and find a good place to stay. We were feeling a little disappointed at first because everything was pricey and not even that nice, but then we found a place at the far end of the beach for 20 Ringit ($5) so since we are sharing it’s only $2.50 each. We’re staying on Long Beach here on the Kecil island, which is the smaller of the 2 Perhentian islands. It’s a metropolis here compared to Ko Lipe - they have music, movies at the restaurants at night, ice cream (ie freezers), chocolate, books for sale and rent, and a few shops to but sarongs and sunblock. Of course if you just arrived from Philly it would look like a deserted island, but for me it looks pretty busy. There are about 10 bungalow resorts and 5 dive shops on this beach. The thing that is most different for me though is the surf - there are actually waves here - and rather big ones too! In Thailand there is absolutely no surf whatsoever so this is quite a change. The waves here actually get so bad that they don’t even run boats at all between November and May. I don’t know how good the snorkling and diving will be as a result of the surf but we will see. This is apparently an area with a large sea turtle population so I am really hoping that I see some!
Last night the 4 of us had dinner at one of the restaurants on the beach (fresh barracudu BBQ for them, veggies for me). While we were eating a girl came up to me - Shona, a Canadian girl whom I had met back in Nha Trang, Vietnam in February! We could not believe that we were running into each other again! What a crazy small world it is sometimes. We spent some time catching up on each other’s travels since we last saw each other. She’s heading to New Zealand next week for a few months so maybe I’ll see her again (we have exchanged email this time!).
Anyway I am hoping to get on a snorkling trip today but I’m worried that the surf is too rough again. If not it will just have to be a reading books, laying on the beach, swimming, and relaxing type of day…not a bad alternative I know!
Dont worry, be happy…this is how the locals do it
The view from our bungalows
Kecil Perhentian, Long Beach
April 28th, 2002
