Video: Perhentian Islands

The Perhentian Challenge

Here's a tip. If ever you're arguing with someone about..oh, say, the direction you are supposed to be walking in to get out of the jungle... you really shouldn't tell them that you'll go their way, but if it turns out they are wrong then you will tease them mercilessly for all eternity.

The reason you shouldn't say that is fairly simple. If it turns out that in fact you are the one who is wrong (I know that never happens, but I'm just saying, if it did) then you would probably be very embarrassed, have to sheepishly apologise and then endure merciless teasing for eternity.

Luckily Doug's very forgiving, so I won't have to endure teasing forever - but my little mistake was rather embarrassing. It was embarrassing that we were so lost in the first place.

We set out from Teluk Delam on Perhentian Besar mid-morning, with a plan to take the path across the big island to magnificent Teluk Puah, take advantage of the excellent swimming beach, then take a water taxi to Long Beach on Kecil, the "little" island, and take the "5 minute concrete walkway" across the narrow neck to Coral Bay for some afternoon snorkeling.

Ahem. We had already mastered the first bit of that little adventure, so we made it to Teluk Puah in record time, following the little red and white tape flags that read "AWAS – CAUTION". The gorgeousness of Teluk Puah really cannot be described by language, so I'll allow the videos to speak for themselves.

Once we'd had our little swim we caught Captain Joe's water taxi to Long Beach. No problem there. Captain Joe kindly pointed out the head of the trail to Coral Bay for us and kindly repeated several times for our thickheaded benefit "just go straight down there". So we (luckily) bolstered our bellies with mango lassies and bee hoon before setting off again.

I will just point out here that Kecil doesn't seem so little when you've been lost in the jungle for 4 hours.

It seemed reasonable at the time. Really it did. We reached the trail head only to discover that there were 3 separate dirt tracks fanning out. We managed to make the correct decision at least once and took the middle path to the top of the hill and found a T-intersection. Here we were faced with a problem. The middle path continued right to the door of a very large house, around which we could not see a continuation. None of the available options appeared to be a concrete walkway. We looked left and right, deliberated for a moment (you could hear the cogs thunking) and decided to follow the right hand path with power lines and pipes marching up the hill. Right?

Wrong.

We seriously compounded that first mistake when we noticed a bush path marked by an arrow and the little red and white AWAS flags. Oh look, we thought, the Caution Flags, this must be the correct direction, given that the flags also marked the trails on Pulau Besar and on Tioman. I know hindsight is 20/20, but I can't help slapping my forehead (I have a hand-shaped dent there now) when I try to imagine what we were thinking.

So we trotted down what began as a narrow, though relatively easy trail through brush vines and red-trunked jungle trees.

After about 20 minutes we began to suspect that the path might not be the one to Coral Bay. ( I can hear you say Uh-Huh!) Since we'd been expecting a short walk we didn't change out of our beach clothes and were wearing only thongs. Still, we figured that the path must go to a beach on the other side of the island (where else would it go?) and so we continued on. After 40 minutes we reached a split in the path. I insisted (and cringe now) that the lower path must head towards the island's far side. After a 20 minute loop we arrived back on the original path and I proceeded to argue with Evenstar that the way we came was actually the way we were supposed to be going. I was entirely wrong, but if we'd gone that way we would have saved ourselves another 3 hours of slog.

We trudged on, determined now to reach the paradisal beach of our imaginings that must SURELY reward us for our effort.

I won't bore you with the details, but after wading through forest stream beds, scaling mountains, swinging on vines and inflicting various injuries upon our exposed bodies we reached a rocky outcrop. Far, far, far below lay a coral beach with a huge barge at one end. Between us and the beach was an enormous vertical drop. The path vanished at a clump of thorn bushes on a giant boulder.

We turned around. Eventually, after much hardship (and I am not exaggerating, we didn't take extra water, we were soaked in sweat, I was feverish and had cold chills despite trekking through a tropical jungle at the hottest hours of the day. Doug kicked stumps at least 8 times with his bare toes and I managed to grab a plant which embedded thousands of ultra-fine stinging hairs in my fingers, which I promptly used to rub my eye) we arrived back at Long Beach.

Captain Joe was drinking beer and waiting for us there. He asked us how we liked Coral Bay. We told him we never actually arrived at Coral Bay and his eyebrows nearly shot off his head when we told him we got lost.

We explained the route we took and Captain Joe roared with laughter. He started calling out to locals in the restaurant and on the beach, laughing and pointing at us and yakking 100 miles an hour in Malaysian. Everyone stared and laughed. We blushed and tried to hide under the table.

Captain Joe then recovered and pointed at a poster on the outer wall of the restaurant. The poster was advertising the 2-day Perhentian Island Challenge, something like an island triathalon, that had been held a week before we arrived. It showed extremely buffed and bronzed athletes power walking along a pristine beach. He told us that the AWAS flags marked the route for the Challenge.

The thing was, we really didn't mind getting lost. It's hard to be upset about anything when you are surrounded by Perhentian perfection. Azure waters, platinum sand, lush jungle. We were totally revived by a couple of sports drinks and the fast ride in Joe's boat back to Dalam, wind in our hair and spray on our faces. We even managed to laugh at ourselves and I don't even mean hysterically.

Seriously folks, don't miss the Perhentians. They'll wash all your woes away and if you're lucky, you'll get lost and never find a way back.