Pangkor, Malaysia

We'd got 6 days free before Jason's friends arrived in Kuala Lumpur. We'd debated scuba diving, trekking, visiting a different Malaysian city...in the end we opted to go to the beach for a few days of chilling and catching up on blog writing.

It was easy enough to grab a bus from KL to Lumut and then catch a ferry to Pulau Pangkor on the West cost of Malaysia. It wasn't too far for us to travel and didn't eat into our days. The ferry drops you off at the village side of the island where there's a little industrial harbour producing a lot of dried fish. The island looks really cute with brightly coloured piers, wooden boats and luscious green surroundings... I had high hopes for this tiny island way of life. We caught a bright pink taxi and got dropped off at Teluk Nipah where all of the tourist guesthouses and hotels are. We hadn't organised anywhere to stay and so needed to do the dreaded search of hotels. I wasn't feeling that great (I'd caught a cold) and so opted for the first place we went in...we only lasted one night here... there wasn't anything particularly wrong, it just wasn't that pleasant either. We instead moved next door to Omback Inn where we stayed for the next 4 nights.


Pulau Pangkor definitely wasn't our favourite island. All those initial high hopes at the cute little harbour soon diminished. We hired a motor bike to explore the island ourselves, but unfortunately we'd seen most of the island after about a one hour round circuit. You can only travel around the island on a circuit road as the middle is dense jungle. A lot of the beaches are filled with litter or dirty from the local fish drying industries. In fact the best beach was right by us anyway so for the next 3 days we didn't move from Coral Beach.

Coral Beach was pleasant and very picturesque. A cove of palm fringed beach with emerald green water (the colour caused by the limestone in the rocks). Jason got plenty of swimming practice in, able to swim to an offshore island and to a small lagoon. I tried sea swimming with him a couple of times, but I get panicked by what may be lurking underneath me... I'm determined to get better at it! There's plenty of wildlife around too, with numerous eagles and hornbills by the beach and resident monkeys at our bungalow.

Teluk Nipah was a strange tourist area. On week days there was nobody there and many of the little food cafes close. There's no evening scene and everything shuts at 10ish. We had a lot of early nights and couldn't complain that it wasn't relaxing. Our evenings consisted of afternoon drinks on our own chalet balcony, going to a little cafe, ordering some fresh seafood and a beer and then heading home for an early night (probably just what we needed before the boys were due to arrive).

I'm afraid to say that all we did for 4 days was beach, eat and sleep.

We headed back to KL after our time on Pulau Pangkor. When we got back to Kuala Lumpur we had one evening to ourselves before Jason's friends arrived the next day. We treated ourselves to a cinema evening at the Pavilion in Kuala Lumpur and watched 'The Imitation Game'; a brilliant film and a very enjoyable evening. I now feel well and truely rested and ready for two weeks with 4 boys as company.