We said goodbye to Koh Phi Phi and hopped on board the 8 AM ferry back to mainland Krabi. From there, we caught a 10 hour minibus to the Thai-Malaysian border. We crossed the boarder as it was closing at about 9:30 PM (literally jogged across the no-man's-land bridge that separates the countries), and then caught another taxi for the final hour long ride into Kota Bharu. By the time we found a guest house at 11 PM, it had been a very long day of traveling.
We chose Kota Bharu as our destination because it is the gateway to several travel routes in Malaysia. From Kota Bharu, you can 1) take a boat out to the Perhentian Islands, 2) a bus down the east coast of the country, or 3) take a train through the jungle-filled interior of the country. Because we entered the Malaysia without a comprehensive plan of how to navigate the country, we figured we could stop in Kota Bharu for a day or two, get our bearings, and make a plan from there. After researching, however, we chose option 4), a flight out of Peninsular Malaysia, across the South China Sea, and into Malaysian Borneo, the island part of the country. Our reasoning was as follows: each route that we researched--for example the Perhentian islands--were described as 'incredible, second only to islands off of Malaysian Borneo'. The Taman Negara (the jungle through central Malaysia) was described as second only to the jungles of Malaysian Borneo as well. We figured, why choose between a list of 'second-best' options, when we could just fly to Malaysian Borneo and experience the best! So as of now, the remainder of our trip will take us through Kuala Lumpur, across to Malaysian Borneo, and finally to Bali, from which we will return home.
However, the one 'roadblock' to our decision was that in order to find cheap airfare to Kuala Lumpur, we couldn't buy last-minute tickets. We had to wait a few days in order for the cheap fares to become available. So, we purchased tickets four days in advance, and figured if we had some time to kill anyways we might as well do it in the Perhentian islands, after all, it was only a 30-minute boat ride away!
The Central Market in Kota Bharu. Looks pretty... Smells horrible.
Clash of cultures. We were really surprised just how many people were at the good ol' Mc-y D's here.
At one point we stumbled upon a cultural center, where Jessica got some hands-on music lessons.
Once we were confident with our plans and the tickets were booked, we headed over to the beautiful Perhentian Islands. We arrived early in the morning on Coral Bay, a small beach on the west side of the island, and checked in to a bungalow on the beach. From there, we began exploring the activities of the island.
Our first thought: diving. Now that we are 'Advanced Divers' (not to brag or anything), we figured we might as well flex our diving muscles and see what the Perhentians had to offer. It turns out, the islands are famous for their dive spots, including multiple shipwrecks and a gigantic pinnacle called 'The Temple of the Sea.' The site, a volcanic rock barely piercing the ocean, isn't all that impressive from the boat, but follow that same rock 75' to the ocean floor, seeing just about every type of marine life that SE Asia has to offer, and you'll know why we loved it so much. Some highlights included hundreds of "nemo" fish, some aggressive Trigger Fish (our dive master had a little tussle with one), lionfish, tons of schools, a black-tip reef shark, giant puffer fish, scorpion fish, boxfish, and just about every anemone and coral in the book. Add to that 60-70 ft visibility and you have an amazing dive.
Because we had a few days on the island, we decided that we would dive three times, once per day. This made for an incredible schedule of diving in the morning, working up a voracious appetite for lunch, then spending the afternoon either hiking or just hanging out on the beach. On our favorite hike we found a smaller beach with almost no other tourists on it, which made a great setting for some frisbee, reading, and playing in the surf.
The dive company we went with, they were great.
The "town" on Coral Bay. There are no roads, and therefore no vehicles except small boats. There are only about 5 restaurants on the whole beach, and every night they all have a barbecue special with lots of fresh seafood!
Sunset on Coral Bay.
Mira Bay, a small beach we came across on our hike.
The highlights of the island, besides the diving, included the fruit shakes (especially coconut) and the gorgeous sunsets. On our third day on the island, by the time we had finally gotten the lay of the land, we moved to a westward facing bungalow that we found on a hike. It overlooked Coral Bay and had a private balcony made for sunset watching. That evening, the sun performed spectacularly, giving off brilliant colors as it sank into the South China Sea.
By far the best sunset we've seen thus far.
Daytime view from our porch.
Another look at the view. (Our bungalow is on the left.)
On our final day, an afternoon hike led us to yet another uninhabited beach, which we decided would be a great place to lay around reading and swimming in the late afternoon. As it turned out, the beach was not as uninhabited as we anticipated. Though we didn't run into any other humans, two enormous monitor lizards (link to wikipedia), at least six feet long and probably around 100 pounds, came out of the forest and basically told us "Get the hell out of here." We grabbed our belongings and carefully walked backwards over the rocks as the lizards followed us for about 100 yards until finally they turned and retreated into the forest (we managed to get some pics, though!). Although we are told that they are not very aggressive towards humans, we did not want to stick around and find out why those beasts were approaching us. Overall, the afternoon excitement ended up being one of the coolest parts of the trip!
Just above where Pres is reading is where the lizards passed by...
Scary...
The female monitor taking a dip.
Though a stiff pina colada might have helped to ease the nerves after the lizard experience, alcohol is extremely hard to find and/or extremely expensive in the Muslim country of Malaysia, so we settled for a coconut-shake, cheers'd to a successful and fun few days, and went to bed early. The next morning we were catching the early boat back to the mainland to continue on the adventure...
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