It was pouring cats and dogs when I bid KL good bye and got into my bus to the LCCT in order to fly to Kota Bharu on the north-eastern coast of Malaysia. As always the flight with Air Asia was delayed and I don’t know why I still bother to book their flights. Oh wait, I just paid €30 for the flight ;-) I didn’t get what the problem was but getting bored in the departure I talked to a Norwegian couple who happens to be on its way to the Perhentien Islands, too.
There was just one conveyer belt for the luggage in the arrival hall for domestic flights. Seems like Kota Bharu is not the most popular town in Malaysia. We shared a taxi to Kota Besut where our ferry departed. It was quite a bumpy ride although the sea was calm. I didn’t pay attention and so I took a seat near the bow. Of course it is going to be rough there, what a stupid mistake.
Pulau Kecil (which means small island) is about 35 minutes from the mainland by speed boat with 400 hp. You could walk around the entire island in a few hours but most of the beaches are separated and there are no paths to other beaches. Also there is no jetty, thus a small boat has to come from shore to pick up the passengers. Of course that service wasn’t free and so we were charged 2RM each for 8 minutes of work. Nice rip-off
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| Beach of Paulau Kecil |
I checked in at the first chalet that had rooms available. Like everything else on theses small islands rooms aren’t as cheap as on the mainland. I paid 55RM per night with bathroom and got a discount of 10% for diving with them. Checking out the room I stumbled over a giant lizard, at least 70cm and looked forward to him dropping by at my bungalow….not. Also there are lots of squirrels in the trees around and some huge butterflies as big as my hand.
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| Bungalows in the Panorama Chalet |
All power on the island is created by generators and our guesthouse turned the generator off at 8:30 – 11:00 and 16:00 – 18:30. Although the reception staff informed me upon check in, I was quite confused when I fumbled my contact lenses in the next morning as suddenly the entire room went dark.
Booking with the dive shop on site gives you several discounts. You can refill your water bottle, which is nice and so you save about 8-10 RM per day. Also you get 10% off your room rate and also you can use the LAN cable to access the Internet. The dive shop was recommended by travellers I met and I was quite happy with the equipment and the staff.
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| two of my dive buddies: Miri and Marc |
The visibility never exceeded 10m and at some sites you could barely see your buddy 2 meters in front of you. This was the case at T3 where there are lots of tunnels and swim thrus. The divemaster disappears in a black hole and the next two guys were afraid to go after. I cut in front and just went into the black hole. This was my second dive at this site and so I knew that there was nothing scary in there. The divemaster stirred up a lot of debris and I could hardly see the extended arm in front of my face. It was a very narrow swim thru and I bumped my tank several times at the low ceiling. Apparently I took the wrong turn when suddenly an arm grabbed me at the shoulder and showed me the direction.
On another site I made my way thru an upside-down wreck. The swim thru was about 70cm high and with your tank on the back there was not much room to the ground. This one was about 5 meters wide and after carefully sneaking in the hole I looked around to get an orientation when I suddenly starred into the eye of a single 1.2m-barracuda. In the pre-dive briefing we got informed that there are sometimes barracudas in that hole but this pal got me for a second and I guess the encounter cost me at least 30 bar ;-)
I finally looked up some fish and so here is what I saw on the Perhentien Islands: Blue-ringed angelfish, needle flish, pipe fish, trigger fish, cuttle fish, lion fish, scorpion fish, red-breasted wrasses, bamboo sharks, blue spotted stingray, blue spotted ribbon tail ray, pink anemone fish, clown fish, white tip reef shark, moorish idol, batfish, parrot fish, snappers, cleaner shrimp, nudi branch and many more.
As mentioned before I dived another two wrecks, did a lot of swim thrus and hovered over impressing coral gardens. At 18€ per dive including all gear I figured I need to get as much experience in the water as possible. After 8 dives I got some problems with my right ear and had troubles equalizing. So I knew it was time to quit and booked my return boat for the following day.
I met 2 police officers from Duesseldorf and Dortmund who went from Germany to Wladiwostok by motorbike and then shipped their rides to Singapore to continue their trip. The two guys and my dive buddy Claudia, who was born in Germany but has been living in NZ for the last 25 years, went out for dinner most nights. We crossed the Island to feast on a nice BBQ-Buffet or went to our local beach for some grilled blue marlin that was excellent. Those are really nice guys and I really enjoyed our time drinking monkey juice (blended rum with 25% alc and a great hangover potential) and listening to live music.
Also, all the people I have met at the dive shop were easy going and laid-back. Everybody is on holiday and just looking for a good time.
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| Claudia, Günter and Frank |
On my last day I went snorkelling with Claudia and we saw a school of bumphead parrot fish.Those fish are my favourite because you see them fairly often, they look nice, their size of up to 1.2m is just impressive and you can hear them from a far distance feeding on the corals or stones. After lunch the fish went thru a narrow canyon when suddenly a reef shark (which ist considerably smaller) appeared on the other side of that canyon. All hell broke loose and there was a lot of confusion among those fish. Really nice spectacle to watch.
3 divemasters were introduced into the community of professional diving at our shop. This big celebaration drew the attention of about 30 fellow divers and some random tourists who just happened to pass by. The inductees were given a covered scuba mask so they cant see and then had to drink a “fuckload of booze” as the instructor called it thru a snorkel. Tough stuff since you cant breeze thru your nose and the snorkel is filled up with liquor. Only one managed to drink up but he had to empty his stomach shortly after.
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| The Inductees: Nico, Gus and Suhaimi |
All in all the Perhentien Islands are among the top 3 so far with Bali and diving the GBR. Go check it out if you ever have the chance. Oh, and bring some cash as there is no ATM on the islands ;-)
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