Perhentian Paradise

We found a way to beat the heat we took a VIP air conditioned bus from Hat Yai to Kuala Lumper (KL). As nice as it was to get away from the plus 35 degree temperature we were neither dressed nor prepared for the -35 temperature that the bus dropped to that night during our travels. Let’s just say a lot of glass could have been cut that night. We finally arrived into KL at 3am and were on a hunt to find a hotel. Off we went with our pulley suitcases down the street; the first stop was a 7-11 to hit up a bank machine. The 7-11 clerk suggested the Citin Hotel just down the street. It was a nice hotel and very clean but had the worst beds ever we both slept with springs digging into our backs. Apparently we were really tired as we over slept our free breakfast witch ended at 10:30am. We decided we would check out and switch rooms to ensure a more comfortable sleep would be had the next night. We packed up our bags and put them into the hotels storage until a room was cleaned and we could move into it. We started our day looking for KL’s China Town in search of dim sum. We are in Asia so easy task you would think, right??? Not…they have one dim sum restaurant and it was closed so we ended up at a street food court which was quite good and very cheap Afterwards we hit up Central Market which is a hip trendy little mall made up of herbs, shopping, and galleries. It was here where we found the fish spa. Basically you stick your feet into a swimming pool full of fish and the little guys eat the dead skin off your feet…it was ticklish for the first 5 min but it was wonderful and worked wonders. There is one in the States but it’s extremely expensive so really this is the one you should patronize.
One thing we noticed while walking through China Town and Little India was the cleanliness of KL and lack of bad smells compared with its neighbor Thailand. We have also yet to see (knock on wood) Old men with young girls so that’s a plus and have noticed that there is not much inflation in Malaysia and so not much room to negotiate price of items. Some things are the same, street vendors selling their knock off wares and playing loud knock off music. The bonus is that the knockoffs seem much better quality than that of Thailand’s; however, we did not price shop in Thailand so we can not compare prices. Regardless the shopping is well worth it. A trip back to the hotel, goods in hand, proved futile as the room we were switched to had worse beds than the original so we grabbed our luggage and once again were looking for a hotel room. We found a place in Chinatown called Chinatown Boutique Hotel; good location, brand new, comfy beds, and great staff who helped us out quite a bit…stay here if you are ever in KL. Morning arrived much to early as our cab picked us up for 7 am to go to the airport. This was a bit of overkill because we arrived 4 hours early for our flight so early that we could not even check in for the flight but hey we avoided the morning rush hour traffic so not all was lost.
A quick flight took us to Kota Bharu and we were off in a cab to Kota Besut to catch the afternoon speed boat to the Perhentian Islands.
After the quick 45 min boat ride we arrived at the breathtaking views of teal blue water and white sand beaches. We were both so excited and wonderful feelings about what our next 10 days of pure bliss would be like. Well it did not start off on such a great note as we did not have a hotel booked and due to past experiences thought this would not be a big deal, but we were proved wrong. If you are coming to these islands do book a hotel in advance even if only for the first few nights. For the next 4 hours we were on the hotel hunt yet again. Two water taxies later and 2 locals calling every resort on both islands ended up providing us with two options, one was a hole in the wall so dirty it can only be described as disgusting and since we had to keep up with our princess image we settled for our second option Bubu Long beach the most expensive hotel on the islands… don’t judge us it was clean, new, had free buffet breakfast and free wifi. We arrived at our hotel and finished checking in just after 5pm again Kathy managed to get some sort of discount it was rather minimal overall but a discount none the less. We put our bags down and went off to find a restaurant for dinner. After eating we were sauntering back to our hotel room to make our usual 10pm bed time and discovered this was quite a hip beach and had quite the night life so we decided to make an exception on our curfew to go people watch for a while and relax from the hectic day. When we returned to our hotel there were 4 people sitting around with all of their luggage we being the social butterflies that we are got our nose into their business only to find out that the couple was waiting to catch a taxi boat to the next island to get to their hotel but the two swiss girls were homeless and no accommodation could be found. They were planning on playing cards all night under our covered beach bar and continuing to look for accommodation the next morning. Us being the concerned female travelers that we are sublet one of our queen beds to them for the night…this was a win-win situation as it cut our costs down and gave them a really nice place to stay and sleep for the night.
The loves and loathes of Long Beach….
The Perhentian Island are truly amazing with breathtaking scenery and perfect weather but we do not want to rub in the fact that we spent 10 days of pure bliss of rest an relaxation on some of the world’s most beautiful beaches so instead we will quickly note our loves and loathes:
LOVES
- One night while walking down the beach we ran into a turtle, its shell was as big as a two person kitchen table. It was coming up on land lay eggs we were told. Wow how many of you can say you have ever ran across a massive turtle before…we can.
- Lindsay went up to by a rum and coke and for $9 CAD came back with a mickey of “Monkey Juice”. Monkey juice is made from tree sap and can only be described as smooth rum. It is 24.5% alcohol and made locally.
- Diving and snorkeling were amazing here. You could snorkel right off the beach from your hotel and easily see 30+ different species.
- The water was teal blue and crystal clear, you could see to the bottom without any problems.
- We met some really interesting people during our stay here but we would like to mention one person in particular; Greg from Kentucky and we mention him not only because he asked for and is following this blog but also because he blogs his adventures himself and landed a writing gig to go to Mexico out of a previous blog. He has also spent time in a remote island in Indonesia with a dirt poor family surviving on plain rice, some veggies, and broth made of pig’s fat for a month. His stories are awesome and we are truly happy to have been engaged by them over dinner one night. Even though we always forget to say goodbye when we leave for the night Greg, we never forget you we just can’t find you
- .All the restaurant’s, pubs and clubs floors were all made of sand. Everyone was dancing shoeless feeling the soft sand under their feet and between their toes; we thought this was cool and a neat experience.
- The last love that we want to mention is we both love the rich coconut color skin we are leaving here with.

LOATHES
- Getting our hotel room broken into and Lindsay’s phone/iPod and Kathy’s dad’s phone (which he lent to us) stolen. Yeah that is right the most expensive hotel on the island is the one hotel we have a theft problem with. Not just any theft problem but a theft problem that consists of hotel staff as the door to our room was actually not broken into but unlocked with a key.
- The food…Meh it was ok but nothing to write home about.
For example Lindsay kept ordering tuna fish sandwiches and time after time she would get 2 tbl of tuna thinly spread between 3 slices of bread. Lindsay thinks she only gets 1 tbl of tuna and Kathy thinks two so we compromised on 1 tbl of tuna and 1 tbl of filler such as mayonnaise.

We finish this blog with a few interesting tidbits:
- Water taxies double their price after 7pm, we did not use this service we just found it interesting
- We have yet to stay at a hotel in Malaysia that has a top bed sheet (you get a bottom sheet and a comforter on top).
- Air fare, is very inexpensive. Since time is money and our time is so valuable we have made the executive decision to fly everywhere we can. Paying somewhere in between $50 and $100.00 CAD round trip to each of our international destinations destinations.

Stay tuned to hear about our upcoming adventures in the Philippines.