Perhentian Islands

We journeyed from the jungle in Taman Negara to the beach town island of Palau Kecil off the east coast of Malaysia. I am not sure why but it seems that all the other travelers we have been meeting are either from France or Italy so our bus ride to the boat terminal seemed like we identically ended up on an Italian family tour bus. Loud but entertaining. 

Coral Beach

You know when they say a place is paradise? Well this island is pretty much what they are taking about. Surrounded by steep jungle slopes, white sandy beaches and turquoise water, you can't really ask for much more. We stayed at Long Beach, which we found out later is the party island and play dance music until 4am (we are thankful for earplugs). Directly across the island on the west side there is Coral Beach which is much more laid back has better food but a smaller beach area. We spent most of out days on Long Beach and nights at Coral Beach watching the sunset and eating Malaysia BBQ. 

Long Beach

We spent 4 days on the island, one day we went on a snorkeling tour heading to 5 sites, and getting to see some sea turtles, squids, sting rays and many tropical fish and coral.  The tour ended with some swimming in Turtle Bay which is without a doubt the nicest beach I have ever been too and you can snorkel right off the shore. The only downside to the day was that although I applied 60 SPF waterproof sunscreen 3 times to my back I still got pretty burned. 

Our last day we tried a discovery scuba dive trip which takes you with an instructor and goes through all the basics of scuba diving plus an hour long dive. I thought that whole thing was really good and it was amazing to be able to breath underwater, only downside was that apparently I have a fear of being underwater and not able to come to surface quickly so after a slight panic attack I decided that scuba diving is probably not my sport and I should stick with snorkeling. Milos loved it though, who knows maybe he will get his PADI certification in Bali?

Coral Bay

 After the Island on the east coast of Malaysia we headed to the west side visiting the Island of Penang!