I slept so well that night in the little hut on stilts that I woke up late, but still decided to get a bus over to Kuala Besut to grab a boat to the Perhentians. Awi offered to take me to the bus station in KT and on the way took me via his house to meet his family and grab some roti for breakfast.
The bus to Kuala Besut was relatively quick but dropped me quite a way from the harbour to get boats to the Perhentians so I jumped on the back of a motorbike taxi, who after a short journey, literally drove me to the edge of the harbour, through all the shops and ticket offices!
The boat over to Perhentian Kecil (the smaller of the 2 inhabited islands) was beautiful in the early evening heat. I arrived at the island and walked inland to a relatively cheap hostel. There are no roads on Perhentian Kecil, and there’s only really one paved footpath which goes over the hills of the spine of the island from the southern to the northern beaches. My hostel was up in the hills, set off the beach and by the time I reached it with my backpack on I was hot, sweaty and dehydrated… I dumped my bag, donned my bikini and headed back down to the beach.
On the boat
Driving past Perhentian Besar
On the beach I got chatting to a few people, one of which was a girl; Isabelle. We arranged to meet at the beach again that evening for food and drinks. After food together we started chatting to a bigger group of people and eventually pushed our tables together. Lots of drinking began and we ended the night dancing on the beach in one of the 3 bars that play music and serve alcohol.
Me, Isabell, Tom, Alice, Sam, Zeppa
Lots of drinks and dancing
The following day I spent slightly hungover chilling on the beach, I met some more people at a little bamboo bar on the beach – it literally was just a bar, with some stools, no other structure. I met Luke, Maddie and Cher who had been on the island for a long time – all working at this little bar.
The beach is beautiful
I went drinking and dancing again that night! It was hard not to, the island has limited electricity and my hostel up in the hills was deserted at night. There was not much else to do past 8pm than go dancing!
The following day some old friends I had met back in Kuala Lumpur joined me, Claire and Rich, and I moved my accommodation to join then in a little private hut at Panorama guest house. This place was much better, being closer to the beach, I no longer had to do the treacherous walk up in the jungle in the pitch black at night! I also met up with the people I met the first night, Sam, Alice and Tom and we went snorkelling on long beach which was amazing, there was so many fish and corals to see. That night…. more partying…. although I took it easy and it was Claire that ended up with a hangover the next day!
The next day was my 26th Birthday! I spent the morning chilling and swimming on the beach before meeting my pals for pizza and drinks. The night ended once again in one the local bars… becoming a routine?!
Birthday drinks with Claire
Getting to know the locals!
Fortunately, despite it being my birthday, I was not so hungover the next day, so decided to go snorkelling again. I hired a little boat and driver to take me out to some different spots than where I had been before. We went over to Perhentian Besar where I saw massive sea turtles grazing on the sea grass in the shallows, a spot where we saw barracudas, and some other great reefs where I saw so many clown fish and other fish – I wished I had an underwater camera!
On my boat with a girl I met on the beach
Ready to feed the fish with bread
Upon returning to Kecil I met some more people on the beach, Caroline from the Phillipines and Daisy and Steph from Australia. We met up that night with Rich and Claire, and a few other new faces Dom and Mike. We were up late watching fire shows, drinking and dancing!
Chilling on the beach
The fire shows were difficult to film
Caroline and Dom dancing
The next day I was invited out with the guys I had met at the beach bar; Luke, Maddie and Cher, who were going our with their Malaysian employer Eppy on his boat! He drove us on his little boat over to the Rawa islands to the North of the island and we went snorkelling and fishing, making a little BBQ on the beach to eat our catch!
On Rawa islands
We stayed until sunset
Got to get me in some pics!
I met the same guys as the previous night and we did the same again, fire show, drinks and crazy dancing! I didn’t know what was happening to me, at no other point in this trip had I drunk so much, I’d been out dancing and drinking 6 nights in a row! This really was the island for partying!
The next day I was seriously hungover and stayed at a roti canai cafe almost all day sleeping in their hammock on the beach and eating far too much roti… It was Claire and Rich’s last night on the island and our last day together, so I hung out with them and we had pizza again that night to celebrate an amazing time on the island.
In the evening I got dancing and chatting to a guy called Jer from Ireland, and we hit it off straight away. I mentioned that I’d love to go to Indonesia next – Bali and Lombok and he said he wanted to go with me, so we exchanged numbers and planned to meet up in KL a few days later to travel Indonesia!
After 1 week on the island I was ready to leave, not only had I had run out of money (on an island with no ATM!), but 7 nights back to back drinking was also starting to catch up on me and I had been to every beach on the island. I was ready for a change, but I was sad to leave such a beautiful place. After travelling Malaysia almost completely on my own, it was nice to meet so many other travellers, I made a lot of friends here and caught up with some ‘old’ ones. It was a great week of partying and one I will never forget. It almost felt like a little holiday amongst all the travelling! This week also taught me one thing about myself… I do like partying and being social. When I first started travelling, I would almost look down on the backpackers that just partied every night and stayed in the tourist parts of town, barefooted and with a Chang vest on! But heck, partying every day IS fun, who can blame them. I think for me it is all about balance. Sure I want to party, but I don’t want to be too hungover or tired to spoil my precious days out here in the sun, learning about culture and nature. Anyway, my balance had been tipped and it was time to level it out again, so off I went…
Post originally published on https://libbyteasia.travellerspoint.com/
View PhD Celebrations! on Libbytes’s travel map.
Libbytes Blog 