My visit to the Perhentian Islands was quite nice for the most part. From Kuala Lumpur we took the 10 hour sleeper train to Tanah Merah. We then got a 1 hour taxi to Kuala Besut, where the boats leave from. Finally we went on a half hour boat to get us to Perhentian Kecil Island. We had been to the Perhentian Islands a few years ago so it was nice to see what had changed and what had stayed the same. I was very happy to see there was not much change, only one new resort on the Coral Bay side.
White sand, palm trees and azure blue sea is about the best way to describe the Perhentian Islands. Yup, that description is rather tasteless and you have all probably heard it plenty of times before to describe a tropical island. But that's it, that is what the Perhentian Islands are like.
Our first night we stayed at Maya Chalets. It was right on the beach, so it was quite breezy and cool. I thought the bungalow would be a great place to hang our hats for a few days, but by morning my opinion had changed otherwise. I woke up and I couldn't see very well but it looked as if I had a few dots on my arms. I got out of bed (I had been sleeping on a thermarest on the floor with a bug net) only to see that my arms were COVERED in red dots! I looked in the mirror and saw that my face was also covered in dots, along with my back! We went and asked the guys at the hotel and they didn't know what it was. We continued down the beach and asked our internet guy friend. He was pretty sure they were bed bug bites. We asked a few more people and they all were pretty sure it was bed bugs, so we looked online and came to the conclusion that it was bed bugs. I was VERY lucky that the bites never got itchy or I would be covered in scars and the bites would have taken way longer to heal. They took about a week to go away.
We moved over to Ewan's bungalows for a couple of nights, to steer clear of the bed bugs. Since Ewan's is up away from the beach there isn't much breeze, but I would rather be a bit warm than have bed bugs, any day. The food at Ewan's Cafe was just as amazing as I remember. Last time we came Ewan's Cafe was a little place that wasn't very busy. Word has gotten out and it has turned into a thriving restaurant, that is jam packed at lunch and dinner everyday.
During the day we would go down to the beach and go swimming. The snorkelling out in front kind of sucked there because most of the coral is dead. There was the odd patch of live coral with some fish calling it home, so I took my little underwater camera out. It was my first time taking photos of fish with it and it proved to be very difficult. One if the hard parts was diving down to get close enough to the fish without scaring it away. It was also very hard to keep the camera still while holding my breath. The last hard part was equalizing while I went down at holding the camera. I normally don't have to equalize when I'm diving down just snorkelling, but since I had a cold it would hurt my ears if I didn't. My cold is gone now so I will be able to go diving if we go anywhere with good diving.
Despite being eaten alive by bed bugs, my stay in the Perhentian Islands was quite nice. We are heading to Myanmar next, to see Bagan and Inle Lake!
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