"PULAU PERHENTIAN BESAR - EAST COAST OF... " a Pulau Perhentian Besar Travel Page by bkoon

I finally went to Perhentian Islands, off the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia in June 2004. The trip came about when my friend was planning for a diving trip. It was an enjoyable trip, especially diving at Tokon Laut - Highly Recommended and snorkelling at the beach area.

5 of us drove up in my family's Prado Jeep. It was all the way to and fro Singapore. The journey was pretty long and there was no highway like the North-South Highway. I remembered the tedious trip up to Kota Bahru but the journey back was incredibly fun, stopping along the way and tasting different types of food.

Special thanks to urchinn - Selina for her tips. Also to kenmerk - Ken for his generous tips too.

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Pulau Perhentian is located in the South China Sea 25 km from the coast of Kuala Besut. It consists of two islands, Pulau Perhentian Besar and Pulau Perhentian Kecil. Both islands are surrounded by beautiful palm-fringed sandy beaches and crystal-clear turquoise-blue sea.

Perhentian Besar is the bigger one of the two islands (Besar means big in Malay, kecil means small). The accommodation is distributed over three very nice beaches. The Teluk Pauh in the north in front of the Perhentian Island Resort, the main beach with most of the resorts at the west coast and Teluk Dalam on the island's south-east coast.

The best beach on the islands is Teluk Pauh, a beautiful half-moon bay with white powdery sand and water as clear as in a swimming pool. There are good coral around the points on either side. Here you can snorkel with some turtles, black tip reef sharks and hundreds of reef fish.

At the western end of the bay a wooden footbridge leads over a few rocks to Coral View Island Resort's small beach, which consists almost only out of broken up coral pieces. The main beach of the island starts at the resort's western side and stretches over 1 km to Abdul's Chalet only interrupted by some rocky headlands. The beach is fine sandy with scattered coral pieces and fringed by many coconut palms.

Teluk Dalam in the south of the island is a beautiful wide curved bay with a white fine sandy beach. The water is quite shallow here, the corals mostly destroyed. You can laze away in hammocks under shady casuarinas. Here it is in contrast to the other beaches still quite peaceful.

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