Perhentian Paradise

The Perhentian Islands, to be fair, are a little bit fabulous. They are made up of 2 text book paradise islands. We stayed on the bigger one, Besar. The smaller one is called Kecil. You can only get here from the mainland by boat, which leaves from a small town called Kuala Besut. There are no jettys on the island so the boats leave you on the beach near your resort.

Crab V Fish

We stayed on Flora Beach resort, which was spectacular. The sand was as fine as flour and the water so clear it was like glass. Life here is so relaxing. The scenery is just amazing. There are no roads to the other parts of the islands, only small boat taxis that go from beach to beach and a couple of jungle trails that you can take if you feel like a hike. There are hardly any people here, so you mostly just have the flying foxes and lizards for company.

I found Nemo!!

We went snorkelling with tons of tropical fish in the coral reefs, they just swim right up to you to see whats happening. Some of them even take a nip at you if you get to close to their nest (or whatever it is fish live in), but it doesn't hurt. Scares you enough to leave them alone though. Was really amazing stuff. We were even lucky enough to see a mature turtle and swim with her for about 20 minutes before she left us for dust. She was absolutely huge, about the same size as me. You can see a photo of her posted up above. I had to dive right down to get the photo and I was right next to her, she turned towards me for a second but I backed off before she got too close, apparently they pack a nasty bite if you get too close during peak egg laying season (this time of year).

Nipper fish

Next we went looking for sharks. And we found them. Black tip reef sharks. They are so quick and about 6 feet long. They dissappear as soon as you spot them so its very hard to get a picture, but you get quite a scare when they come up behind you and pass you by, expecially the first time. I actually nearly had about 7 heart attacks. I'll stick up a photo of one later.

Apart from the snorkelling (and getting sunburned while doing it) theres not much else to do here except eat and relax. Which is the whole idea of an island paradise right? Except I can't sit still for more than 5 minutes, I had Aishlings head wrecked. The resort had a little book rental shop though so that came in handy for keeping the ould mind occupied for a while.

Our Beach Paradise

All in all I'd say this was one of the best parts of our trip so far. As hyper as I am it still was really relaxing. Highly recommended.

Turtle Power!!

Whos that handsome chap in the hammock?