Asian backpacker

I’ve always said I’m not a beach bum and that I’d rather visit other places than “just a nice beach”, but to be honest… all these nice beaches one of the other are starting to get to me. It took me time to really enjoy the peace and serenity of these amazing beaches and just sit back in the sand, enjoy the breeze and go for the occassional swim or snorkel session. I must say I’ve grown more fond of beach destination, given that they have things to do other than just lying on the beach, such as snorking, surfing or even diving.

The Perhentian Islands is just a place like that. It consists of 2 main islands where you can stay at and a bunch of smaller islands surrounding it that have tons of great divespots. I stayed at the smaller island as that’s where most of the budget accomodations are located at and also the majority of the diveshops. Even on an island as big as this you can still choose where you stay, either you stay on the “main” beach areas where most of the action is going on, or you choose to stay on a more remote beach area. I choose for a more remote area since I was feeling rather tired from traveling and I wanted some time to recharge myself, it does get tiring eventhough it’s so much fun tho….

  The good thing of my slice of remote beach is that it’s “easily” walkable to the main beach in just an hour or so. You go through a part of the forest and top of the hill which offers you a rather amazing view of part of the island.

It’s really a pity that I never really get to show you guys much whenever I go diving. I don’t have an underwater camera and that’s usually the best there is to see…. I already told myself that next time I’m going to do a trip like this, I’m going to invest in an underwater camera!

Anyhow, I visited 3 dives sites on Perhentian Islands, them being: Pinnicle (Takong Laut), T3 (Terumba Tiga) and Sugar Wreck (my first wreck!). Each one of them were simply amazing, great visibility, lovely corals and sea life and the shipwreck was really cool to dive. I loved the few swim throughs we had and just to visit a ship wreck was beyond awesome. Eventhough it was a rather simple dive site and wreck, the view was really great! I’m sure I’ll be doing more wrecks in the future!

Besides the diving there wasn’t much else to say about the Perhentian Islands, just a nice place to chill out and relax and catch your breath. I stayed for a few days and afterwards made my way to Kuala Lumpur. I could have stopped by the Cameron Highlands, but don’t exactly remember why I didn’t, I’ve heard really great things about it so if you do happen to stop by Malaysia, please visit the highlands and lemme know how it was!