Pulau Kapas

Trip Start Feb 25, 2007

Trip End Aug 25, 2007

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Flag of Malaysia Pulau Kapas, Malaysia
Tuesday, August 12, 2008

The little boat just drove up on the the beach and chucked out bags over the front, we jumped out with them and wondered along to the Lighthouse Longhouse, at the end of the beach, there were only 10 people on our boat and after walking for about 5 minutes, us and the french girls were wondering along an empty beach. We found the longhouse tucked away in the trees just at the end of the bay. The longhouse itself is a traditional communal living set up used mainly in borneo, with one central dorm room and smaller rooms surrounding it, all 10 foot above the sand on stilts. It was a really cool building and the staff were a good laugh too, all locals from Manang or terengganu, one guy was 42 and had been working in the Longhouse almost since it had been built, he said it has been a travellers longhouse for 20 years now. The island itself is much smaller than Perhentian and is much less touristy. There is very little to do there apart from mess around on the beach, or wander into the jungle or walk along the bays round to the end of the island where you can swim over to Gem Island, a tiny island with a little hotel resort on it. There are about 6 or 7 different accomodation options on the different beaches and none were busy, it was really great to be one of 10 or so people on a great long beautiful white beach. The snorkelling isn't as good on Kapas and there were quite a few jelly fish about too. The weather was amazing, scorching sun all day and then usually a couple of hours storm in the evening or night, amazing lightning flashing through the plastic sheeting that patched up the roof in the dorm room combined with the deafening sound of the downpours on the corregated iron made sleeping difficult at one point. Hannah and Emily, the english freinds we mad eon Perhentians arrived on our second day and from then on it was just us and them and a family in the Longhouse for a further 3 days. The family was an english guy and a german girl and their 2 little kids, 7 and 9. They were really nice kids, they have been travelling around Asia for 9 months, and had amazing knowledge and a cool perspective on travelling for their age. We played a fair bit of football and made massive sand castles and rafts and stuff, it was good because they got us doing stuff and their parents seemed pretty happy to do nothing for a while. Hannah being a teacher, was really good with them too. We all ate together in the evening and at breakfast and got along really well. It was nice to have people of different ages for company for a change, Calum and I said how strange it is that we haven't reallyt had a proper conversation with people over 30 or under 18 for about 6 months. Anyway amazing island, good times, really got into the swing of island life, waking up and doing nothing for a few hours and suddenly the sun is going down again, the heat makes you so lethargic. Left with Hannah and Emily to go south to Lake Chini.