PULAU PANGKOR

Leaving Tanah Rata and the Cameron Highlands on Sunday we were hoping that heading west to the coast would bring back the sun, though given our rainy weather and overcast skies as of late we weren't entirely optimistic. However, the sun god or gods must have heard our pleas because as the bus descended out of the highlands the clouds slowly started to give way to blue skies and by the time we made it to the town of Lumut, right on the coast, we were stripping down from our long pants to put on our shorts and tees as it was back to the full blown sunny blue skies that we last really saw in Singapore.



From Lumut we took a short ferry boat ride to Pulau Pangkor, a small island off the west coast of Malaysia, into the port of Pangkor Town. From there a taxi ride, in a pink mini-van, around to the western side of the island, arriving into the sleepy town of Teluk Nipah, where we were greeted with plenty of sun, sandy beaches and warm water in which to swim. The town itself was reminiscent of the town of Montezuma, where we stayed in Costa Rica, with one main street, a couple of places to stay & eat and a big half moon stretch of beach fringed with jungle trees. Upon arriving on Sunday, only about half of the restaurants and guesthouses seemed open and each day we stayed on the island it seemed even fewer were still open. A couple of days in and we had one option for lunch, though never the same place two days in a row, and two at most for dinner, if we were lucky. We joked that this was the locals' technique, simply to stop feeding us, in order to turn the tourists out of town when they were ready for a new batch to arrive. Though most likely there was just no rhyme or reason to which restaurants were open given it was low season and the kicked back lifestyle of island living seemed to trump actual work.

Sunday we checked into our guesthouse, a sort of beach bungalow set up, complete with hammocks to swing on, and then made a b-line straight to the beach. On Monday we spent the day lounging around on the beach, soaking up the sun and exploring some of the other beaches nearby. Just north of our beach was a cove called Teluk Coral, or Coral Bay. The water, pictured here, was especially green due to the coral. That night we made a return visit to this great Thai restaurant that we discovered the first night that sits right on the beach and serves up fresh fish as well as Thai dishes. Little did we know that after being open the first 2 nights of our stay, and being packed, it would then be closed the rest of our time on the island for no apparent good reason. But I did get to enjoy some great calamari while it lasted and K has some tasty curry dishes.

On Tuesday we took a boat ride out into the bay to check out some of the other beaches, one named monkey beach that didn't have monkeys but plenty of dogs, as well as some rock formations, one that looked liked a whale, though was named dolphin rock, and one named crocodile rock that actually did look like a croc. We also cruised by Pangkor Laut which is a smaller island off of the main island that has exclusive access only to visitors staying in the resort that runs $300 a night. Though the rooms do look uber-deluxe as they are on stilts in the water and apparently the resort caters to your every whim. Our boat driver/guide told us it was a big honeymoon destination. After getting a view of the posh life, albeit from the cheap seats, we then got dropped off on a smaller island, maybe a half mile out in the bay from the beach we were staying, where we snorkeled for a couple of hours. We got to see plenty of great fish, green coral, and even a monkey that was checking us out from the rocks on the shore. Click here to check out a video that I shot of some of the fish we saw while snorkeling.



On Wednesday we decided to take a walk south down to a beach called Pulau Basir, which is the other big town on this side of the island. It was more resorty and the beach, in our opinion, wasn't as nice as ours, but it was good to get out and move around after a couple of days of sitting on the beach, even if we were scorching hot by the time we arrived. After a brief dip in the water to cool down we decided to get a taxi, another pink mini-van as all the taxis were pink mini-vans on the island, to head back to our beach for some lunch, assuming we could find a place open. Later that afternoon while relaxing on the beach, actually swinging on one of the many swings that hung from the trees along the beach, we bumped into the French woman and her two girls that we had initially met back in the jungle at Taman Negara. Despite the fact that only the mom spoke English, we had made friends with the two girls, especially the oldest girl, who was 10 years old, and really bonded with K. They were traveling for a couple of months, just the 3 of them, and this was not the first big trip she had taken with her daughters. It was very cool to see someone out traveling with their kids as we hope to be able to keep our travel exploration going even after we start a family ourselves. That night we took in a great sunset, listened to some locals having an impromptu guitar sing along on the beach, and made plans to head out that next day. We easily could have stayed a few more days on the island as the beach was great, the water was warm, the sun was hot and the pace of life was very relaxing. Though with our trip winding down we decided that if we did head out we could hit one more destination before we made our way back down to Singapore to fly home. That next morning at breakfast, as we were preparing to leave the island, we ran into the French woman and her two daughters again. The older girl, Alicia, was quite cute as she wanted to take photos with us and then when we were leaving, as her mother translated to us, "She wants to kiss you goodbye but she's too shy to ask." Followed by, "We're French, we kiss everyone all the time." So we said our European goodbyes with kisses on either cheek, and took another pink mini-van taxi ride back to Pangkor Town on the other side of the island to then catch a ferry back to Lumut. From there our next stop was a bus ride south to Malaysia's capital city of Kuala Lumpur, which would be quite a big change of pace from the island. More about KL in the next post.