Perhentian Besar, Malaysia

 Notes from the journal:

8/9

  • The water was a gorgeous blue color and the ferry dropped us off right at our hostel on Perhentian Besar
  • The hostel was nice in the sense that it was right on the beach with open doors, but not secure at all (no lockers and constantly open doors) and we didn’t get the best sleep
  • Went for a swim right in front of the hostel and ate dinner at Abdul’s Chalet, which was yummy and decently priced for the island
  • Took a nap and then went for our evening swim/snorkel

8/10-8/12

  • Each day was basically the same: woke up at sunrise to go for a morning swim/snorkel, relaxed and read during the day in the shade, went for another swim/snorkel in the evening
  • Saw some black tipped reef sharks and stingrays, ate one meal per day at Abdul’s Chalet, Sophia left on 8/11 (said goodbye for good in Asia)

8/13

  • Waited for my ferry at the end of the pier. It arrived late and my data wasn’t working when I got back to the mainland, which kickstarted my horrible travel day. 
  • The bus information was incorrect so I had to scramble and ask locals about how to get to Kuala Besut. I was told to take a bus to Jerteh and go from there, which I did and it ended up working out but was a bit stressful bc I was running behind schedule and had no idea what was going on. Got a bus from Jerteh to Kuala Besut and then another bus to the airport where local women were shoving their phone cameras in my face. I tried to express (through the language barrier) that I was happy to take selfies with them (and did so) but wasn’t okay with having a bunch of pics taken of me when I wasn’t looking. I get it, it’s weird to see a tourist in that area of Malaysia, and tourists are guilty of much worse. It’s still nice to be asked tho and I would rather take a picture together with locals than have one taken just of me
  • Tried to troubleshoot my eSIM issue at the airport to no avail and asked a nice couple if I could take pics of directions to my hotel on their phone
  • Flew to Johor Bahru and tried to figure out the very confusingly marked buses into the city
  • Eventually got one bus into the city, but got delayed, so I missed my connecting bus, and ended up on the side of a random highway for ages.
  • At this point I was so done with the entire day and very frustrated, especially because the bus that I was looking for never came (it actually did, it was just marked incorrectly). Eventually I just started stopping buses and asking if they were going where I needed. Hopped off and walked 20 minutes in the dark to try to find food and ended up having to eat at McDonald’s (very bad), before finally arriving at my crappy hotel


Read if I referred you to this post:

I enjoyed my time on Perhentian Besar and the water was absolutely stunning! It was a bit pricey for Southeast Asia tho, and definitely more touristy.










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