Malaysia: Perhentian Islands

After leaving the Taman Negara Rainforest, we took a van for 4 hours to the North-East coast of Malaysia to Kuala Besut. From this coastal city, we then took a speed boat for about half an hour to the Perhentian Islands, which is claimed to be one of the best getaway beaches in the world among travellers for snorkeling and diving. We chose to stay on the smaller, less developed island, known as Perhentian Kecil. The beach we stayed at, Coral Beach, had white fine sand with crystal clear water and coral reefs. We were surprised that there was also a lush rainforest in the center of the island. It truly was amazing!
Coral Beach:

A view of Coral Beach

The water was unbelievably clear!

The pier from the beach

A view from our resort of "Romantic Beach," which is a really small private beach that was only accessible from our resort.

The island only had a handful of restaurants, and the two pictured here were our favorites. Meals were extremely cheap, usually costing us about $6 total for the two of us!

The restaurants got pretty crowded at night.

Our Resort:

This is a view from the pier of our resort, the Shari-La Island Resort.

Guests stayed in small private chalets.

Our chalet...which we got for only $28 dollars a night after some bargaining! This was actually the most expensive resort on the island. We decided to splurge since Frank was going to spend his 30th birthday here. We were surprised it was so inexpensive!

Inside our room

Kayaking:

We spent a while kayaking around the island one day.

The views were really nice around the island.

The island had huge rocks around the shore in some areas.

Creatures:

We saw this gecko at our resort.

The island did not have a lack of spiders! We seemed to encounter them daily and they were about the size of your hand. The picture above is of some spiders that had built their web between some trees, but it actually looked like they were flying.

Snorkeling:

We took a snorkeling trip one day, which was one of the best experiences on our vacation! We were able to see some huge sea turtles, beautiful fish and coral reefs, plus 3 friendly Black-tip Reef Sharks (about 6 feet long)!

A woman from Sweden joined us.

This picture was taken from inside the boat looking into the water...so clear!

Frank snorkeling

We saw about 4 huge sea turtles!

One of the colorful fishing boats we saw on our snorkeling trip.

The sun setting at Coral Beach.

Next Stop...Singapore!