Tezza's Beaches and Islands

INDEX

2011-12-12T01:44:00.026+11:00

THAILAND

Ao Sadet from Silver Cliff's restaurant - east coast of Ko Phangan

INTRODUCTION - WHICH ISLAND OR BEACH?
ADANG
BULON LAE
CHANG (big Chang eastern Gulf)
Little Ko CHANG, Andaman side
CORAL ISLAND
JUM
KRADAN
KRABI, RAILAY, TON SAI
KHAO LAK
KHAO SOK NATIONAL PARK
KHO KHAO
KUT (KHOOD, KUD)
LANTA
LAO LIANG
LIBONG, HAT YAO
LIPE
MAK (MAC, MACK)
MUK (MOOK)
NGAI (HAI)
PANYI/PANYEE
PATTAYA
PHANGAN
PHANGAN PART 2
PHANG NGA BAY
PHAYAM
PHRA THONG
PHUKET
PHI PHI
PHI PHI NEWSPAPER ARTICLE BY TEZZA
RAILAY, TON SAI AND KRABI TOWN
RAYA/RACHA
SAMET
SAMUI
SIBOYA
SIMILAN ISLANDS
SUKORN
SURIN ISLANDS
TARUTAO
TAO
WAI (WHAI)
YAO NOI
YAO YAI

General Thailand Information

SOME TIPS ON NOT DROWNING
WET WEATHER INFORMATION
SNORKELLING IN THAILAND
THAILAND'S NICER BEACHES

INDONESIA:

Approaching Gili Trawangan, Lombok on Perama's direct boat from Bali

BALI
BALI - NUSA LEMBONGAN
BALI'S BEST BEACHES - incl THE BUKIT PENINSULA
EAST BALI - PADANGBAI AND CANDIDASA
BALI RICE TERRACES - SIDEMAN
BALI - LOVINA
BINTAN
LOMBOK - THE GILI ISLANDS
LOMBOK - THE KUTA LOMBOK AREA
PERAMA SLOWBOAT - FLORES/KOMODO/LOMBOK
SERAYA & KANAWA ISLANDS + LABUANBAJO - FLORES

MALAYSIA

Taking it easy on Tioman Island, Malaysia

GORGEOUS TIOMAN ISLAND
CHERATING BEACH
KAPAS ISLAND
LANGKAWI
PERHENTIAN ISLAND S
REDANG ISLAND
SIBU ISLAND

AUSTRALIA

Cruising down Whitsunday Island

CRUISING TROPICAL ISLANDS ON A BUDGET
BUDGET RESORTING ON THE WHITSUNDAY ISLANDS
SPENDING TIME AT AIRLIE BEACH
BYRON BAY - BEACH PARADISE
NOOSA HEADS - MY ALL TIME FAVOURITE

TURKEY

Beach, forest-clad medieval ruins and up-valley budget accommodation at Olympos in Turkey
BUDGET CRUISING AND PARAGLIDING THE TURQUISE COAST

READERS' TRIP REPORTS

Trip reporter Rachael and Andy on Ko Muk

Read the trip reports or submit your own

THE FORUM

Yon Cassie has a lean and hungry look (image Deco Dermots)

Questions, comments, shoot the bull.

GENERAL

Sammy BinLiner steps out to the hot-tub seminar in The Worry Collective

JUST FOR LARFS - PART 1
JUST FOR LARFS - PART 2: STONES FROM THE JOKER IN THE GLASS HOUSE (1 thru 11)
JUST FOR LARFS - PART 3: THE WORRY COLLECTIVE

ABOUT THIS SITE

LADY TEZZA'S TRAVELLING JAPAN

Sumo grand champion Hakuho

The basics - Osaka - Kyoto - Hiroshima&Himeji - Takayama - Tokyo - Kyushu - Daytrip to Mt Fuji National Park - Accessing your money - Other helpul stuff

Lovina

2011-10-02T16:29:00.047+11:00

Last visited August 2011

Lovina and area slightly west. Plus Kalibukbuk - image from Lovina Travel Guide-Wikitravel
A bigger version can be seen here. Or click the above image to expand it.

The Lovina strip consists of a string of interlocked coastal villages on the central north coast of Bali starting only a few km west of Singaraja, Bali's second biggest city. Pemaron, Tukad Mungga, Anturan, Banyualit, Kalibukbuk, Kaliasem and Temukus from east to west. Kalibukbuk is considered central Lovina. Lake Bratan is a good spot to stop-off on the way from South Bali. Modified Google Earth image - the E and W bubbles indicate the approx Eastern and Western extend of the Lovina strip although it seems to be growing in both directions each time I visit.

Lovina features black sand beaches. This is the section in front of the Bali Grand Sunset Resort at west Tukadmungga/Anturan beach about 3.5km east of Kalibukbuk. That's the restaurant immediately behind the beach and the "hotel" block in background. The resort also had villas under construction when Lady Tezza and I stayed in late August 2011.

View from the restaurant. Water looks nice and is just that - I used to think black sand beaches would leach into the water but off the Lovina's coast it is very clear. And calm - this is partly because of sheltering reefs but more from dry season's prevailing south-east trades blowing offshore, which tends to flatten any swell.
Water is deep enough off the beach at low tide for okay swimming - there is a bit of coral about 20m out in front of the restaurant with a few fishies making it okay for less demanding snorkellers. Host Viv says the best snorkelling is along the reef which fringes the headland to the east - that area does get shallow at low tide. Dolphin watching tours are offered all along the coast including off this beach - I don't want to sound blase but I see hundreds of dolphins a year from my sun-room in Oz, so I have never gone for this somewhat touristy attraction. Animal rights activists are very anti although some tourists I have talked too have been enchanted. Viv reckons it's the dolphins who are watching the humans and they play a game of FOLLOW ME - appearing periodically several hundred metres from the last area which leads to a flotilla of small boats frantically switching locations.

Because the coast kinks a bit at Anturan you are looking north-west here and get a good view of the mountain-backed west coast of Bali plus on clear days (unfortunately not the day of this shot) the impressive volcano-backed coast of north-east Java. Any aspect with west in it means good sunsets. The above is a nice shot to expand.

I shot this 200m east of Grand Sunset - note chickens from the village. There's gotta be a line in here about the late bird catches the ---- (stranded shrimp?)

Maybe the late fisherman catches the barracuda.

Grand Sunset's food prices are very reasonable - we also ate in nearby warungs in the fishing village but found no price advantage. GS's happy hour booze prices were some of the better of our 9 place whistle-stop tour of Bali and Lombok - wine drinkers will be pleased to know that Viv stocks Margaret River reds and whites (rebottled locally under an Indol label for tax purposes) at a reasonable happy hour price.

Bali Grand Sunset has a very nice pool - not quite as close to the restaurant as this shot implies. Viv has a sign on the beach inviting passers-by to swim for free. He feels this adds a bit of colour and can increase his food/drink sales although he does not sweat on the latter. A free pool is a great attraction for budget travellers - there are several backpacker/flashpacker places in this area.

Grand Sunset was one of the nicer places I've stayed at in Bali. As a matter of fact the only other place I've had as relaxing a stay is Sideman in the rice fields.
Our GS ground-floor pool view fan room was spacious, comfortable and well equipped. More expensive rooms upstairs have ocean views. Aussie host Viv is a mine of information about the area and Bali in general. Viv is prepared to shuttle visitors to Kalibukbuk or Singaraja for free and has a bunch of daytrips on offer - I was particularly impressed with the Kintamani volcano tour itinerary. Kintamani is considerably closer to Lovina than south Bali where most people start this tour - and Viv's trip involves a waterfall visit on the way and then going down ito the crater itself and visiting a village. Most other tours confine themselves to the top rim viewing area which in my experience is a bit of a tourist trap.

Anturan village is actually located about 1km in from the coast. Bali Grand Sunset is one of 4 properties located between two fishing villages down at the beach. The similar Villa Agung is next door to the east, a nice homestay place whose name I didn't catch next again and at the eastern end of the beach the upmarket Bali Taman. East of here the coast kinks northwards - you bridge a small stream to a string of fishermen's huts along the shore. This tiny village has a few basic stores and places to eat.
Going the other way (west) from Grand Sunset you reach a bigger fishing village within 100m. This has more shops, a handful of restaurants and some backpacker type places to stay. One of the better known is Gede Homestay. Other more budget oriented places in the area include Sri Homestay, Puspa Rama and Mumbul Mumbul.

The beach in front of the village has dozens of colourful outriggers, but the sand in front of Grand Sunset and neighbours is free of boats. The latter tended to keep the beach free of debris.

I noticed when researching accommodation that quite a few places which give their address as Anturan Beach are in fact well west of this area - it seems some places simplify locations so that if they are east of Kalibukbuk they say Anturan, whereas they are actually somewhere in the Banyualit area.

Anturan beach/west Tukadmunnga area - modified Google image. Scale - 400m between Big fishing village and Small fishing village placemarkers. Kalibukbuk is 3.5km further west along the main road - I power walked it in 35 minutes - strolled the similar distance back along the beach in about an hour.

Lovina central is Kalibukbuk. This pic is shot from halfway down the main street of this neat little town - a very short narrow road which runs from the main east-west highway to the beach lined with restaurants, bars, shops, tour booking places and quite a few places to stay. The main street is so narrow it is easy to overshoot on the main road. Look for the Angsoka Hotel sign on the corner.
Appears very quiet in this early afternoon shot (I waited for some traffic to clear), but the place becomes quite lively around and after dinner.
There are several lanes running off the main street with more accommodation.

On my firt visit to Lovina in 2004 I headed up the side lane closest the beach and got myself a budget room at Hotel Angsoka - a joint that gets very good reviews in the travel forums. This place has accommodation from bottom budget hotel rooms to flashpacker garden bungalows. I found it good value in a great location - the main street is 150m, the beach 200m. Very quiet. The nice pool didn't hurt.

The dolphin statue at the beach end of Kalibukbuk main street. A hive of beach stalls and small warungs on my first visit, this is mainly a car park now - the other activities have moved to a new laneway parallel the beach to the east. The beach here is similar in appearance to Anturan. Gets a good crowd of people around sunset - when I first visited it was April and the sun was sinking further south in the west, almost behind the towering volcanoes of north-east Java, which were very clear at that time. Maybe the seasonal winds clear the haze better at that time of year.

Turn right from the carpark and you enter this beachfront market lane with lots of clothing and trinket stalls and more than a few warungs and bigger restaurants. Tree area between lane and beach provides good shade for beach goers - black sand gets pretty hot in the sun.
Interestingly there is now a sign LOVINA BEACH on the main road at a set of traffic lights about 500m east of Kalibukbuk main street - if you take this road it heads at an acute angle and hits the beach far background of this shot.

Kalibukbuk area - modified Google image. Scale - 530m straight line between Main street and Traffic lights place markers.

Although a pleasant walk, the coast back east to Anturan beach is pretty ordinary. There are some big resorts along here but their beach ends are not startling - I honestly feel Grand Sunset and neighbours have the nicest section of beach east of Kalibukbuk. Some parts as above suffer the low tide blues of shallow water a fair way out. But note a few parts of this walk would be difficult at full high tide.

When I first walked east of Kalibukbuk in 2004 there were lots of the above type farming area immediately behind the sand. In 2011 there was only this one in the 3.5km to Anturan beach.
It seemed local housing was as responsible as resort development in building out the beachfront strip.
However there still seems to be plenty of agriculture between the beach strip and a similar strip of development along the main east south road - so it is possible to find your resort surrounded by rice fields and grazing.

EXCURSIONS

A pleasant local excursion is to the Banjar hot springs about 10km west of Kalibukbuk. You can take a local bemo to the turnoff at the police office 7.5 km west of Kalibukbuk. Look for Air Panas Banjar signs. From there waiting motorcycle taxis will take you the nearly 3km up into the foothills to the springs.
There are 3 pools in total - none scalding. The upper one in this shot is warmest, followed by the bigger one in foreground.

The third pool is off to the left of the big one in the previous shot - temperature is about the same but because the water falls 4m it has a massaging effect on aching backs/shoulders. Water is slightly sulphurous - there are fresh water showers when finished.

The place was fairly busy, mainly locals, when we visited on a weekend but I believe if you come up early in the day at other times you can find it very uncrowded.
Entry to the hot springs was 5000rp in August 2011 and there's a nice elevated restaurant with budget prices. Plus some smaller spa pools to the side of the restaurant. The area has attractive gardens and is surrounded by heavy forest. A nice looking flashpacker place to stay is located just before the car park.

Another possible excursion (although we did it on the way up from south Bali) is the Git Git Falls just off the main north south road as it drops from the rim of the Lake Bratan caldera to the coast. This is the bigger more visited lower falls, about half way down the mountainside - maybe 15km from Singaraja and 25km from Kalibukbuk.
The upper falls are a good 6-8km further up the road.

The falls are a pleasant 10-15 minutes walk from a sign on the right hand (western) side of the road going uphill - 50m up the road and on the opposite side from the main carpark. Guides will offer their services in the carpark but are not needed.
There is a nice pool at the foot of the falls if you want to cool off. Lots of clothing, art and trinket sellers along the path offering some ridiculously low prices. Quite a few spots for refreshments too.
The Sing Sing falls are closer to Lovina - a few km east of the Banjar hot springs. But Viv told us water flow was virtually nil at our time of visit (late dry season) so we gave it a miss.
Viv says there are some excellent falls off the coastal road to Amed not a great distance east of Singaraja - he will do this on a daytrip or halfday trip and includes it on his Kintamani tour.

Another excursion is to the Bedugul-Lake Bratan caldera high on the main route from south Bali to Singaraja, although once again we called in on our journey up from Kuta to Lovina. The above pic is of the largest of the 3 lakes, L Buyan, shot from a warung-viewpoint on the southern rim of the crater.

Map of area - a bigger version can be found here. Note the side road which runs on the north side of Lakes Buyan and Tambigan is actually high on the rim, not down at lake-side. You climb several km out of the crater on the main road. The turn into the side road near Wanagirl is actually a very short distance on the downhill run to Singaraja.

Oblique Google Earth image from the south-east. Bedugul is the main town and has markets, a botanic garden, water sports on Lake Bratan, several restaurants and a bar. The general area around the lakes is cultivated intensively and is know for vegetables, fruit, flowers, tea and coffee. There are quite a few places to stay up here - it's one on my must do list. Apparently the country around Munduk is not unlike Sideman - we aimed to tour it but the side-road was under repair and in terrible condition so we only made it to the (viewpoint) camera symbol on image.

A very good description of the area including what to see, where to stay/eat etc is the wikitravel Bedugul Travel Guide.

Other Excurisons
Lovina is about as close as any major destination is to Bali's best snorkelling area at Menjangen in the far north-west, so plenty of daytrips are on offer. However I consder it quite a haul and didn't bother.
There are at least 3 dive operations along the Lovina strip - I believe they travel as far as Menjangen and to the east Tumamben near Amed for the Liberty shipwreck and other attractions of what is often called Bali's best dive area.
Singaraja trips are popular for shopping and historic buildings (this is the old Dutch capital).
I've seen signs up for horse-riding.
I've already mentioned Viv does a Kintamani trip - no doubt plenty of others do.
I saw daytrips to Ubud on offer - it is two hours from Lovina which is longer than from the southern tourist areas.

GETTING THERE
Public transport would be cheapest but a bit of a hassle. You need to get to the bus station in Denpasar for a Singaraja bus and then change for a bemo to Lovina.

The next cheapest option would be Perama's shuttle bus. If the schedule is still the same as when I last did it in 2004, you go via Ubud. I think I started about 9am and arrived in Lovina around 3 pm. But the bus did stop at Bedugul, Lake Bratan for a half hour. There may now be a direct bus - trouble is Perama's schedule no longer shows time of arrival.

Most convenient is taxi or car and driver. The taxi board at Kuta airport does not show a Lovina price, but a Sept 2011 post mentioned 450k. From Kuta town should be similar. A typical trip should take around 3 hours - less at night when the traffic is light. The minus of night travel is you won't get to appreciate the scenery around Lake Bratan.
I think a car and driver from Kuta at this time (2011) might be negotiated at around 400k - Lady Tezza and I paid a full day rate of 500k because we wanted to tour the Lake Bratan and Git Git Falls areas - this was an internet rate and I think you should be able to negotiate less from one of the guys on the street or hanging around hotel parking lots.
Of course many Lovina accommodation places pick up from the airport and other places down south, so this should be your first enquiry. From memory, Viv's airport pickup price was very competitive.

Ubud is two hours in day traffic. This suggests 250-300k in 2011 terms would be okay. We paid Viv 400k to take us to Ubud but that did include transport to and from the Banjar hot springs the day before. Perama would be the budget way to do this trip.

If you come off the ferries from Java which arrive at Gilamanuk in the far north-west of the island plenty of buses run across the north coast road thru Lovina to Singaraja.

From Padangbai Perama can get you to Ubud where you change vehicles for Lovina. A Padangbai arrival from Lombok after mid-day will probably see you overnighting in Ubud.

GETTING AROUND
Bemos run along the Lovina strip from Singaraja fairly frequently.

When I was walking from Anturan beach into Lovina about a thousand guys along the main road wanted to know if I wanted "transport."

Motorcycle and bicycle hire is available at a lot of accommodation and other places - the books say traffic is easier than in south Bali which is true but there is still a lot of heavy stuff moving along the main east-west highway - the ferry from Java is one end (Gilamuk) and the ferry to the eastern islands the other (Padangbai) plus a fair bit of local traffic. This is okay for motorcycles which can move at the same speed but I found bicycling (which I did a lot of in 2004) a bit exciting - there is not much of a shoulder (if any) and lots of vehicles parked roadside.

Viv is correct - backpacker babes do add some colour. Not Lovina, but who cares?

If you have additional information, please post it below.
If you have QUESTIONS, please post them in the FORUM which can be accessed via the INDEX link top right of this page - I don't get to check individual location pages very often but I try to visit the Forum daily when not travelling.
If you visit Lovina and would like to keep us up to date with a TRIP REPORT, have a look at that section via the Index - just a few photos and captions will do fine.

Gili Islands Updated

2011-09-21T17:44:00.070+10:00

Low late afternoon sun tree-shades Trawangan beach-goers while highlighting passing boat and not-too-distant Gili Meno.

Last visited August/Sept 2011

The Gili islands are 3 small coral cays a short distance off the north west corner of Lombok - G Air, G Meno and G Trawangan as you go away from the coast.

The Gilis looking back towards the mainland - Trawangan, Meno and then Air. Rinjani volcano is at top left (image Lombok Travel)

Modified Google Earth image of the Gilis. Bangsal is the main access point from mainland Lombok.

I’ve visited the Gilis 4 times. If you have read this page previously you will have noticed many updates - after the latest visit it is time for a re-write,

Over the years these islands have been pretty attractive for beach lovers, divers and snorkellers. They have been known for pretty good beaches/snorkelling/diving, plus no motorcycles, cars - or dogs. This is still the case, although I personally think Gili Trawangan has jumped the shark - unlike previous trips my latest visit left me feeling its negatives outweighed positives.

Each island is different in character. Meno is completely laid back. Trawangan is party island and pretty commercial. Air is a good compromise between the two and having the biggest local population, gives some idea of local culture. Although I would not go to the Gilis to experience Lombok culture.

GILI AIR
This is my personal favourite (despite the public boat hassles which I detail later), just shading Meno. The main beach area towards the south end of the east coast is more attractive than Trawangan's and offers a bigger range of accommodation, restaurants and other tourist related activities than Meno. If you are interested in non-touristy island life the village here is bigger and less impacted by tourism (Air has the biggest local population of all 3) and the interior and western regions have more farming with quite big areas given to coconut plantations and grazing (Air has the best local supply of water of all 3 - Air means water). More water ussually means less dust - but it looks like dry season 2011 has been really dry -I've never noticed so much dust underfoot. This applies to all 3 islands. If I was thinking of a snappy title for a report on the Gilis I'd label it PARADISE IN DUSTLAND.

I modified this Google Earth image to show the major points mentioned below. Click to expand image if printing is too small.

Like the other two islands, the beach at Air goes right around the coast. I walked it in about two hours (it's 4.7km) and have done the slightly shorter perimeter track in a bit over 90 minutes, bicycled it in under 40 with brief stops. There are soft sandy parts where you must walk the bike.

The beach is attractive in most sections although fairly big sections are joined by coral rock which is exposed at low tide. However in a few areas, the sand extends considerable distances into the water - this is at its best towards the southern end of the east coast, the area I label BEST BEACH.

Like its counterpart at Trawangan, the nicest beach area on Air now has beach furniture provided free if you buy some refreshments from the warungs whose sitting bales you can see immediately behind. This is a real nice area to spend time. Those boats are 3-island snorkelling craft put in for some eats and beach time. This is a 2009 shot - there was considerably more sand in 2011, even at full tide.

There is fairly good coral and fish life about 25 m off the beach at and near where the reef drops off into deep water. The area immediately north of the warung swimming area has some of the best - look for snorkelling trip boats tied up to buoys at the reef drop off.

A feature of all the "best" beach places I mention for each island is that there is usually a current moving alongshore parallel to the beach - you can fall into the water, snorkel out to the reef drop off, float along with the current for as long as you want, swim back to shore, walk back along the beach and repeat the exercise if you fancy. The perfect lazy person's way to snorkel.

Same area as previous shot from the beachside warungs. The reef drop-off can be seen where the water changes colour near the most distant swimmers. The sandy area this side has quite a few fish swimming around for people who don't want to venture out to the drop-off. About 50m left of photo, the reef comes close to shore. The section right off the sand has mainly dead stuff, but there is some okay coral and fishies a bit further out - a fair way before you reach the drop-off.

This area has many other restaurants, some bars, shops, internet, a lot of accom over a wide price range and is less than 15 minutes walk to the right when you get off the boat. Or 4 minutes by dokar aka cidomo - pony cart, which is the island form of taxi. No cars, motorcycles - just cidomos, bicycles or walking. No dogs.

Our Sept 2011 accommodation was Sunrise Hotel which is on the north boundary of the best beach area - a bit far to lug bags from the harbour (some of the track is difficult soft sand for roller baggers). As usual the cidomo driver's quote was way optimistic at 80k which I managed to get down to 50k - still too much for less than 700m.

SUNRISE HOTEL - I've stayed at Sunrise twice. The first visit was back in 2003 when the place was relatively new and I managed to get a Lumbung style bungalow for a song.

This is a more recent shot of the Lumbung bungalows at Sunrise. The place has moved upmarket a fair bit and these definitely fit into the midrange.

I usually prefer a different place when I revisit an island, but Sunrise was on our favourite web-booking site so for early Sept 2011 I took the lazy option.
More in our flashpacker price range is this "deluxe" fan, cold water (saltish - bore levels get below sea-level towards the end of dry season) room, one of a duplex of more budget priced accommodation in the back corner of the garden. This place was spacious, comfortable, quiet, had a big open-top bathroom and seemed pretty new. There was a nice bale with hammocks in the garden across from the veranda. At $us45 including a basic but adequate brekka for two in high season (but not peak) it was not fabulous value, but the Gilis are getting expensive these days.
Biggest complaint was the thin film of dust on the floor which was not cleaned during our 2 day stay. When we pointed this out at the conclusion, the guy on reception explained had we dropped off our room key when going out the room would have been cleaned. We would rather have this pointed out when we checked IN, not OUT.

UPDATE - longtime Gilis and Lombok visitor FreoGirl told me she was booked at Sunrise Hotel during Ramadan 2011 which was a short time before my visit. However the hotel had let her room to somebody else. She had a difficult time finding accommodation elsewhere - apparently the island was very crowded at this time. Freo said that restaurant service was very very slow the last few days of Ramadan and the following few days of Idul Fittri (the celebration when Muslims break their fast) - apparently a lot of staff go back to the mainland to visit relatives. Might be something to keep in mind when booking a trip. In 2012 Ramadan is in July. Note the general consensus is that in Lombok tourist areas operators don't let Ramadan impact too much. It is only the above times when there may be an impact.
I've also read that from the beginning of July thru most of August 2011 it was very busy on Gili Air.

Sunrise has a very nice beachside restaurant out front with views of mainland Lombok and Rinjani extinct (dormant?) volcano when it isn't shrouded with clouds. Food and drink prices are very competitive - they have to be; there is a bunch of similar places within a short distance.

Immediately north of the restaurant, Sunrise has a strip of bales (sitting platforms) with cushions and small tables which are ideal for grabbing a snack or drink and watching the passing parade or enjoying a book etc. What's the bet trim, taut, toned and terrific book-bloke is long-sighted?

Boats in background are daytrip snorkelling boats checking one of the better snorkelling spots. Most of these are from the good-value GLASS BOTTOM DAYTRIP BOATS which do half a dozen of the best snorkelling spots on all 3 islands and also put in for some beach time/eats-time somewhere (differing on which island the daytrip originates from). I did one of these daytrips a few years ago (origin Trawangan) - saw quite a few turtles on the Meno Banks on the north side of that island and put in here at Air for some lunch.

The southern half of the east coast now has a more or less continuous strip of resorts and related places, but the atmosphere is way more relaxed than the similar area on Trawangan. Along the northern half the development becomes a mixture of resorts/restaurants and rural lots given to cattle, signs for accommodation, eats, even yoga up lanes leading inland. Above is a nicely landscaped section of warungs towards the north of the east coast.

The north coast of Air is attracting new accommodation, but like the other two islands is only partly developed and pretty laid back. Most of the places are above budget level.

Post-sunset view from the north-west of Air attracts people from all around the island. Gili Meno is closest background. The low hill left background is Trawangan Hill. And the mountain is Bali's Agung volcano.

Pre-sunrise is okay too - here is Lombok's Rinjani Mountain from Sunrise Hotel's beachside bales.

The west coast is largely unsettled with only a few places to stay. What we have here is a fair bit of cattle grazing on green fields which contrast markedly with the drier neighbouring islands, interspersed with coconut plantations. The beach is pretty good but the reef joins the sand here and goes to pools of water and exposed rock at low tide. The drop-off into deeper water is only about 20m out and is worked over pretty intensively by dive boats and snorkelling trip craft from all 3 islands. Air has several dive outfits.

The south of the island is dominated by the harbour. Air has the biggest area of reef-protected anchorage and attracts the lion's share of cruising boats. The public boat pier area which is also the arrival point of the fast boats from Bali is out of shot right of frame. Laneways lead away from the harbour into the village behind those trees. Most of these continue into the island all the way to the north coast. Intersecting lanes take you to both the east and west coasts. Some of Air's better value accommodation can be found along these lanes, usually within a hundred metres of the coast. Some coastal accommodation can be found close to the harbour area, particularly out of frame to the left (west).

On a visit in 2009 I wanted somewhere nearer the harbour and got me a $11 room including breakfast and aircon in this near west area the at tiny Hotel Gili Indah. This was a pretty reasonable place which also had two fan bungalows with nice sea and mainland views in front for around the same price. Next door was the rather flash Hotel Villa Karang with a nice pool and some good looking bungalows which were being discounted fairly fiercely in what was shoulder season. This area is less than 15 minutes walk from the best beach area at the south end of the east coast.

My second row room was one of a duplex at Hotel Gili Indah.

MONEY - in Sept 2011 there was no ATM on Air. However the money changer a very short distance east of the public boat pier seemed to be offering very good rates - much better than elsewhere on the island (several places on the east coast change money) and the other islands.

UPDATE - early Dec 2011. I was reading Camill'es Samui (Thailand) weather blog (Camille was doing a bit of off season dive industry stuff in the Gilis) and he showed a pic of an ATM under construction/nearly finished on Air. Camille said it's in the harbour area.

PUBLIC BOAT HASSLES - we had difficulty in trying to access Bangsal by public boat at the end of our latest trip. The guy in the ticket office said we would have to wait for some time until 20 passengers were available but that we could charter a boat for 300k rp (public boat tickets 8k).
5 minutes after he told us this, a full boat left from 40m down the beach - he reckons it was a charter. Sure, a charter full of locals.
We hung around for 30 minutes - a local lady said we could go on "her" boat if we paid 20k each. As soon as we got on a hoard of locals appeared from nowhere and jumped on too - of course this was the next public boat, but they were determined that the westerners pay more.
Okay, 28k aint much and way better than 300k, but the principle rankles. This is the sort of crap which turns some people off visiting - certainly Lady Tezza will not return. And no doubt such nonsense has contributed to the high patronage of the fast boats from Bali.

My suggestion if you are island wanting to stay on multi-islands and then going to the mainland is to visit Air first and then use the Island Hopping Boat to jump to the other islands. This boat has a fixed time of departure and as far as we could see had no price surprises. Trawangan to Lembar public boats get more tourists and for some reason more local passengers, so leave more often and from what we could see when there, tourists seemed to be having few hassles getting a boat.
BTW few westerners we saw were going back to Bangsal from Air. About a half dozen down at the harbour when we left were waiting around for the fast boats back to Bali.
Check the warnings about Bangsal in the GETTING TO THE GILIS section towards the end of this page if you are going thru there. The place seemed better to me, but not a whole lot according to people I spoke to on the islands this latest trip.

Interestingly frequent visitor FreoGirl told me she had no problem getting a public boat during Ramadan - lots of locals leaving the island at that time.

GILI MENO
If you want a relaxing beach holiday with a bit of good snorkelling or diving, this is the place. Meno is the smallest island, has the lowest local population and the fewest accommodation places/restaurants. Nevertheless there are places to suit most budgets and finding a vacancy online was no problem in late August/early Sept 2011, whereas Trawangan online was pretty much booked out a few weeks beforehand.
You can walk right around the island by the beach or the coastal path - the latter is 3.9km long. Once again sandy patches makes walking a bicycle a must in some parts.

Another modified Google Earth image. The lake below the distance line is not a tourist attraction - apparently it's pretty saline and swampy. However to me, mozzies have never seemed worse on Meno than the other islands - and are not a big problem in mid-late dry season.

Approaching the island. Water is pretty clear at Meno. Pictured is "downtown" Meno, which mainly consists of my favourite Rust beachside restaurant/bales, a few shops and internet across the coastal lane behind and some other restaurants which set up similar BBQ dinners to Rust. The incoming boats land at the public ticket office beach about 50m to the right. There is a pier which seems unused about 200m north of the office.
The beach is not too bad here but improves as you move south (left of shot). There is plenty of beachside accommodation each side of pic and a bunch of cheapies a short distance up a laneway immediately to the south of Rust.

Best beach area is right on the south-east corner of the island, about 500m from the boat landing place. I rate this the best beach area in all he Gilis - white sand, a bit of broken coral, some good tree-shade back of beach. Like Air, you can wade into the water and swim out to the reef drop-off where the coral and fish are pretty good. I found these improved a fair bit heading north (towards the camera) As you can see it is not exactly crowded, but that's Meno. Unlike the other two islands there is very little beach development at the best beach area - one small bar behind the trees and a budget/flashpacker bungalow place behind the section of beach at the far end of shot - Birumeno. Both were new to me from my previous visit.

Birumeno looked pretty sweet to me. We are talking about 750m from the boat landing area here.

If you want a pretty nice place closer to the boats (450m), Kontiki may be the one. It overlooks the section of beach immediately north of Best Beach and has a wide selection of accommodation from budget into what looks like flash/flashpacker or maybe lower midrange. Gazebo (midrange) and Malia's Child (budget/flashpacker) are two other nice looking places immediately north of Kontiki.

Our budget fan hut and neighbours at Kontiki - late August/early Sept 2011. Spacious, comfortable, nice bed, good bathroom with fresh water. Good sized balcony with a tap at the steps for sandy/dusty feet. The joint has about 20 bungalows scattered thru a reasonably nice garden area (considering the dryness of the island this trip) of various types including some pretty cute 2 storey aircon jobs. The restaurant was up front with nice views over the beach and towards Gili Air and the mainland. Food was okay and reasonably priced by my budget joint standards - but service was slow apart from brekka where the hired help rather than family staff were pretty slick. The inclusive breakfast was basic but adequate unless you are a fang-merchant.

This is the Kontiki beach area across the coastal track from the restaurant. Sunlounges free to guests. The sand here is pretty nice and continues a fair way into the water at low tide - coral and fish on the reef drop-off were a bit better than off Best Beach IMHO. Once again, drift snorkelling with the tidal current is the go all along this south-east section of the coast.

Another view of the beach adjacent Kontiki - this time panning left from the previous shot. Boats are not a permanent feature - having just dropped some people off from a daytrip.

Pushing past Kontiki, Best Beach and Birumeno gets you to the west coast area. Like the other two islands there is least development here, particularly since Bounty resort closed down (a storm destroyed their pier which used to take the big fast Bounty cruiser which came up from south Bali via Nusa Lembongan - the resort lost heaps of patronage).

Bounty, a fine looking place when I first visited Meno, looks pretty sad these days.

There is little wrong with the sand on the west coast but the reef rock comes close to shore. However this means snorkelling opportunities just off the sand at high tide, some nice pools to sit as the water drops and good fossicking at low tide. Coral close to shore means more coral debris on the sand than at Best Beach.
Those are snorkelling and dive boats in the background.

The north-west coast of Meno has a small cluster of nice resorts and beach warungs - real great for viewing sunset which is approaching in this shot - hence about the biggest cluster of people you will find in any one spot away from the boat landing area.

You may have gathered I'm a sucker for sunsets - and so I paused for a feet-up beer or four. This is where my estimate to Lady T - "I'm going for a quick lap of the island, be back in an hour" - tends to blow out. So shoot me.

The north coast has a few places to stay - like the other islands this is where you can find some of the newer more upmarket places.

Moving on sees us back on the east coast, where there are a few bungalow places along the northern half including Blue Coral here (actually Blue Coral is really on the north east bend of the island). I stayed at this place on my 2003 visit, $6 no brekka - nice people, good traditional bungalows across from an average beach (a lot or rock coral right off the sand), but the restaurant was mediocre and it was a bit of a slog down to the nice beach/multi restaurant area in the south-east. The last holds true in 2011 but the place itself looks to have been pretty heavily upgraded.

Development is intermittent until you approach the pier/boat landing area. There is a coastal trackside warung near the pier where all sorts of long-term type travellers tended to congregate late afternoons.

South of the pier we are back in the territory of Rust restaurant/bales - one of those places where you can dine over water at high tide. On my first visit only the bales existed. Prices were amazingly low, and they ran two menus, one for people staying on Meno and a more expensive one for daytrippers from the other islands and Senggigi. These days there seems to be one menu, but the prices are still very reasonable and the grub pretty good. There are a couple of nearby competing restaurants - all of them turn on a seafood BBQ in the evenings. Rust has quite a big general store on the opposite side of the track.

If you are looking for a bottom-budget place to stay, take the lane to the right leading inland just south of Rust. As the signs show, there is a bunch of places up there. On an early trip I stayed at a place called Pondok Wisata a short distance inland - associated with Rust. This place is not on the signs above and when I walked up latest trip things seemed very different. There has been a fair bit of development.

GETTING AROUND
Once again it's cidomo or bicycle if you are not prepared to walk. Like the other islands, the cidomo mafia quoted outrageous prices latest trip - like 70k to take us from the boat arrival area to Kontiki, a trip of less than 500m. And the bloke was not prepared to come down. So we walked - over half the trip is paved where we could roll our bags.
To try to get some perspective on cidomo prices on arrival at the islands, I earlier went into a bungalow place on the north end of Trawangan posing as a prospective customer next year and asked the price of a cidomo down to Sentral, one of the longest trips you can do in the Gilis at over 2.5km. The quote was 70k. I figured the bungalow owners would not pad the price price for prospective customers.

MONEY
No ATMS or banks. Several places will change money, but the rates were not very good.

GILI TRAWANGAN
I've always liked Trawangan. Sure it's been busy and crowded but the preponderance of backpackers and divers gave the place a pretty nice atmosphere.
But I came away in 2011 thinking it has gone too far. It is way more developed than in 2009 and seems to have become the in-spot for midrange tourists visiting Bali to get their taste of Lombok - this is the only spot in a 9 place whistle-stop tour of Bali and Lombok where online bookings were difficult to find for late August/early Sept*. Note I have nothing against midrange tourists - but add them to the other visitors and things are getting hectic. There are now too many people, cidomos, bicycles and Indo blow-ins after a fast buck. The transport mafia and (British) dive cartel run unchecked. Accommodation prices run 20-50% higher than similar places on Bali. The joint to me is gaining the same atmosphere as Kuta Bali did in the 80s.
Although Kuta Bali in the 80s wasn't particularly DUSTY - Trawangan in 2011 was. This is despite the paving of the main coastal path from boat-arrival to Sentral in 2009 - it seems to me that until the lanes leading off this up into the village are all paved, wet season is going to wash mud and dirt down onto the pavement where it turns to dust in dry season and is stirred up by the passing hordes.
Noise can be a problem - Trawangan is known as the party island and if your accommodation is close to a venue, particularly the rotating DJ party, you could have loud thump thump thump until 4am. Not to mention sporadic outbreaks of fire-crackers.
I heard earlier in 2011 that the parties had been organised to feature a different location every second night - Mondays at the Blue Marlin Dive Club, Wednesdays at Tir na Nog Murphy's Irish Pub and Fridays at Rudy's.
The Irish Pub seemed to run two consecutive nights while we were there although the second night was not as noisy.
* Online bookings were hard to find but there were still vacancy signs on arrival. So it seems high season 2011 was not as busy as in the previous few years when there were reports of people sleeping on the beach at Trawangan. Looks like the farcical circus by bozo Euoropean and US financial/economic officials/politicians was biting in 2011.

But hey, the above rant is just my take. I reckon ragers who want a tropical island with somewhere to party with good dive opportunities and a reasonable beach will consider Trawangan fits the bill real well. Others will find Meno and Air do their tropical escape better.

BEST BEACH AREA
Once again we are looking at the east coast - but further north than the other two islands, about half way up, some 400m north of the boat arrival area and 800m from "downtown" known as Sentral. In this area sand runs into the water for a good 25m and there is deep water at all tide levels.
The fringing reef is only about 25m off the beach and is good for drift snorkelling - but in 2011 I found that the coral on the drop off which had previously been as good as at Meno and Air had been inundated with falling sand which seems to have drifted from nearer the beach,. Meaning the coral and fishies were nowhere near as good as previous years or that at Meno and Air.
There's quite a lot of trees in back of the beach for good shade, particularly as the day moves on.

This May 09 shot shows the main beach area. The beach chairs were new from my previous visit, but not as bad as appears - they were provided free by the restaurants and bars along the beach road provided you buy some food or drink (and they didn't seem to be sticklers for insisting on this). It seems sand quality in this area in the past has been adversely affected by dust from the unpaved beach road and crowds began to drop off in favour of nice areas further north - the beach furniture has certainly attracted people back. The beach road was concreted in 2008 according to locals. There is a heap of restaurants along the beach strip (and plenty of other accommodation).

Much the same area in August 2011. Maybe the tide is a bit lower, or the beach has reformed from storm erosion prior the 2009 pic (which was soon after wet season). Note much of the beach furniture is gone - there is still a bit out of shot back of beach closest the beach warungs.
Looks like the beach furniture experiment did not achieve dividends warranting the replacement of stuff when it wore out. Or maybe as tourism increased on Trawangan there's been enough people to keep both this area and places further north sufficiently busy for traders.

Another Best Beach shot - this one from a bit further south and as the shadows show, later in the day.

New to me since 2009 - this impressive beachside structure just north of Best Beach area. Turned out to be a turtle conservation place with hatchlings in tanks. Gili Meno had a more modest version just north of Kontiki. I didn't notice one on Air.

Northern section of the east coast. In the early noughties this area was mainly bare beach with discontinuous resort development the other side of the beach track. In 2011 development goes virtually all the way up the east coast and the above is typical of the beach area - lots of resort/warung sun lounges and plenty of warungs and bars on the beach side of the track. In other words a continuation of the sort of development from Sentral to Main beach area. Plenty of attractive new accommodation along here - a lot of it pushing into the midrange.

Looks like the Swedish non-kini team doesn't stay at the east coast's Dream Village again next visit.

Can't think why

The last 200m of the east coast is more lightly developed. If you are thinking of booking one of the handful of resorts here, be aware that there is a power plant generator in this area. This would not be a problem for north-coast properties.

THE NORTH COAST
Like the other two islands the beach and coastal track goes right around the island. Distance is slightly more than Air at 4.9km so once again you are looking at a leisurely walk of 120 or so minutes via the sand, less on the track. And if you cycle, once again soft sand makes walking your pushie a must in parts - on Trawangan for maybe 25% of the journey.
The north coast is probably the most attractive area on Trawangan. There are sections where the reef rock does not come right into the beach (or sand has been pumped to cover the rock), and quite a few resorts, mainly midrange or better, have set up here. However they are not cheek by jowl and the atmosphere is relaxed. The biggest problem is distance from the boat area and Sentral - the latter was 70k (2011) on a Cidomo if called by the northern resorts - but who knows what the drivers would want at the other end.
There are a few nice beachside warungs up here.

Right on the north-east corner of Trawangan is this rather attractive beachside warung. Meno in background.

THE WEST COAST.

May 09 shot of section of the west coast from Trawangan Hill. Note the triangle of Bali's Agung volcano on left horizon.

Despite the Bali views and great sunsets this is the least developed part of the island. The beach is nice enough, but the coral rock comes right to the beach and much is exposed at lower tide levels. On the inland side of the coastal path conditions seem pretty dry. Nevertheless development is taking place here, with some nice new resorts and signs up for villa developments/ a few under construction. I reckon half the villas will be owned by the cidomo mafia. The other half by the dive shop cartel/Bangsal porter cabal.

New since 2009 - the Ombak Sunset Resort. I'm thinking this is probably a new branch of the very nice Villa Ombak at the south end of Sentral which is Trawangan's oldest upmarket resort.

Seemingly closed since 2009 - the well regarded Sunset Bungalows on the south-west coast. This is a May 2009 shot - in 2011 the bungalows looked pretty sad, the grounds overgrown and the sign virtually unreadable. Some bungalows appeared occupied - by locals? Seems a pity that budget travellers are not prepared to walk the 10-15 minutes from Sentral, particularly in these days of people sleeping on the beach on arrival.
But it has happened before - a little further south is a great cheapy I stayed at in 2003, Bintang Bungalows. It was closed down by my 2009 visit as still this appeared the case in 2011 when I passed by. But appearances can be deceptive: I found a review of Bintang on Trip Advisor from someone who stayed there in August 2011. Maybe they shut down before I hit the place at the very end of August - maybe they went home on Lombok for the end of Ramadan into Idul Fittri.

Unexpectedly about 500m of the sandy coast track between Bintang and Sunset has been paved - including a separate footpath and set of steps which start the climb up Trawangan Hill in the area immediately on the Sentral side of Sunset. The word is an Italian planned to start a flash bar along here and maybe a resort later - the bar structure is there. But maybe he ran out of money - or local influence.

TRAWANGAN HILL is the highest point on the island. It can be accessed from the set of stairs near Sunset mentioned above and apparently from some points in the village interior. It's mainly dry scrubby grazing land up top. You can get views over the whole island but I found it frustrating in that there was no point where I could get a clear, expansive shot of the village, south, north or east coasts. The best vantage is the west coast outlook as per pic up page.

THE SOUTH COAST - Trawangan comes to a shallow v in the south, so that we really have the south-west coast and the south-east coast. I've already mentioned the demise of Sunset and Bintang bungalows on the former, but there are a few new places and a sunset bar or two along here. The south-east coast is experiencing an extension of Sentral with some new properties in the flashpacker/midrange, but in 2011 was still a pretty relaxed place. The beach south of Sentral is pretty nice and seemed to attract those long time island stayers.

SENTRAL
Towards the bottom of the east coast proper, Sentral is a concentration of restaurants, bars, shops, resorts etc and can be considered downtown Trawangan. It is one of those places which seem hot and dusty during the daytime but are pretty nice when all the lights come on and people congregate at night. You can catch a movie at a bar or listen to live music at a restaurant. Once again a few places here host DJ parties during the week, so if you stay in this area you could have to contend with some early morning* WHOMPA WHOMPA.

*a pedant may argue 4am is getting closer to mid-morning.

Part of Sentral. Some of the restaurants on the left have pretty nice views of the sea and mainland Lombok. Pretty lights at night.

THE VILLAGE
If you take one of the lanes leading inland from central or anywhere up the east coast to Best Beach you will find yourself in the village. Of interest to most travellers is that there is a good selection of accommodation here, ranging from bottom budget into flashpacker. As the beach and Sentral are never more than a few minutes walk, village accommodation has no disadvantage.

GETTING AROUND
Once again it's bicycles, cidomos or shanks pony.

Cidomo enters Sentral from the west. I'm so used to these dudes overcharging I rolled my bag from the boat harbour to Beach House latest trip. I asked Beach House how much for return - 50k! For 500m - my local cabbie could do this distance for less and he has a $us40 grand vehicle plus horrendous road tax and vehicle + public liability insurances.

I have never seen near so many people bicycling on earlier trips. Once again, look to be squeezed. 70k a day. A week later in Kuta Lombok I got a motrocycle for 50k. The same will cost you 35k in Kuta Bali, a bicycle 20-25k tops.

DIVING - Trawangan seems to have half a dozen dive outfits. People I talked to suggested they are owned or dominated by a British dive cartel and that prices were fixed and equal - above non-Gili locations. They agreed the dive sites are pretty good.

Just about any time you look there is a dive boat coming into or setting off from Trawangan - here Dream Divers at the beach in front of Sentral.

ACCOMMODATION
There is such a huge range of accommodation on Trawangan that I'll leave picking a place to your research. I can only comment on the places I've stayed:

On my earliest trip I hopped off the boat from Bangsal and walked a short distance north where I found Ozzy's. It had great big tiled rooms and a nice balcony for $8 including brekka. Very nice and good value at that time. The room was so big there was another double mattress leaning against the wall and even with this on the floor there would still be plenty of room to move around. So those wanting 3 or 4 to share a room could give this place a look. It is only about 5 minutes walk to the north off the boat and is actually about 100m north of the "in" beach and snorkel spot, although I thought the beach and reef drop off adjacent Ozzy's were nicer.

This is a May09 shot of the Ozzy's block of rooms I stayed at on my early visit. But the place has moved considerably upmarket - these rooms were now 200k (still fan but no doubt flashed up inside as much as these balconies) and there were some new and very attractive A-frame aircon bungalows out front for 350.
I asked again in 2011 and the aircon jobs had gone to 450 plus. There were similar new bungalows in the back. I dunno, that's getting a bit expensive. But the Gilis are expensive, particularly Trawangan. ph (0370) 648528
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What sort of a place can you get arriving cold and taking the first accommodation offered by a tout on the beach?
Well, in the case of Melati Homestay, not brilliant but adequate.
On my 2009 visit, Perama’s slow boat from Padangbai in Bali had engine trouble meaning it was just on dark when I hit the beach. I knew a couple of nice distant lodgings from previous trips but was in no mood to hike there. So when a local guy waiting on the beach told me he had a nice room 2 minutes away, I decided to take a look.
POSITION. Melati Homestay is 15m up one of the small alleys off the main around island coastal track opposite the boat landing area - take the alley almost opposite the public boat ticket- office - there is a MELATI SIGN on the corner with several others. This is a very handy location - 3 minutes south of the best beach area, 5 minutes north of SENTRAL and surrounded by a host of restaurants, dive shops and other tourist orientated businesses along the main coastal track. Pretty quiet at night - some very distant thumping of a base speaker, the call to prayers at the mosque behind BEST BEACH before sunrise and a busy community centre across the alley which kicked in after 6am.
THE ROOM. In a block of about 6. Spacious with plenty of room for 2 plus gear. Concrete interior walls, tiled floors, looking a bit used. Big king sized bed, soft slightly saggy but comfy mattress, nice pillows. 2 fans, lights a bit poor. Okay clothes storage, a dressing table, no hooks, no shelves. Big bathroom, western toilet, good water pressure (water pretty salty), no basin/soap/toilet paper. Mirror in main room, not bathroom which is a bummer for shaving.
Spacious veranda with seats/table, clothes hanging line.
STAFF. Very friendly guys with a can-do attitude. One fan stopped working - sealed non-repairable type. Stops working, you throw it away. Not in Lombok - guy said it needed oil, unsealed it with a screwdriver, added some oil, reassembled it. Worked a charm.
Gets better - I noticed water leaking from shower connection pipe, so I figured the little tap there needed tightening. The whole fitting broke off in my hand! The salty water had corroded the metal. Water shooting across bathroom from broken fitting and hitting opposite wall. Guy takes 5 minutes to turn water off and them comes in with an a pair of pliers! No pipe wrench which is the minimum I would need with a job like this. Replaces fitting with a brand new one in 2 minutes flat. Where did he get a new fitting at 9pm? Even had some of that special thread-sealing tape plumbers use. I got the impression corroded fittings are not a surprise on Trawangan.
These blokes remind me of my dad’s generation who could fix anything. Had to, they had as little money as the average Indonesian now.
VALUE. I’m not real sure. In 2009 125k including breakfast was a fair bit more than I’d been paying for better rooms back in Bali, but I’d seen a few posts saying how dear Gili prices had become. Anyway, 125 is still a bargain by western standards.
Brekka was basic - coffee/tea plus choice of sandwich/pancake/jaffle. But the jaffles were tasty, and I do enjoy that sludgy Bali/Lombok coffee. Phone 0370/642352
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On the latest late August 2011 trip I had Lady Tezza with me so went a bit upmarket. As mentioned the booking sites were pretty maxxed out, but we managed to find a room in our not-too-high price range at Beach House, which is in Sentral, about two-thirds along the strip from the boat harbour end. This joint has some very flash options including pool villas, but their "Tree Houses" in the back garden were more flashpacker standard.

Not built up trees or on high stilts - the most that can be said of these were that they were under some trees in a small garden compound up the back of Beach House's property.
Fan, hot (fresh) water, TV+DVD, room safe, just enough room for two and gear, huge comfy bed, good net. Must have been real cute when brand new - now starting to get a bit worn around the edges. That important tap at the steps. Service was good. Quiet although when the DJ party started up at Murphy's Irish Pub out on the main strip next door the thumpa thumpa got a bit intrusive late in proceedings. Did I mention the fire-crackers?
Murphy's is part of Tir Na Nog resort, so that may be a place to give the big miss if you don't want noise.
Notwithstanding - at 420k including a good semi-buffet brekka and a real nice pool, our room at Beach House was pretty good value for Trawangan.

A pool in the heart of Sentral! A visitor from early days would not believe it - now there are several. Towel service, bar to left. In back of shot you can see the roof of the Beach House restaurant which is beachfront on the opposite side of the main pathway thru Sentral, with neat ocean and mainland Lombok views. Food here was pretty good, maybe 20% more expensive than budget restaurants. Tended to get absolutely packed at dinner time and the place can seat well over a hundred people - I think the seafood BBQ is pretty popular.

MONEY
In late August 2011 there were 5 ATMs on Trawangan - 2 roadside at Villa Ombak west end of Sentral and 3 in the Best Beach area. No banks yet as far as I could see. Money can be changed in many places - rates are pretty poor.

MOVING BETWEEN ISLANDS
The best way is to use the ISLAND HOPPING SHUTTLE BOATS which go island to island for around 20k (2011). They tend to run Air-Meno-Trawangan once in the mornings and reverse afternoons which allows you to daytrip as well as shifting accommodation. Buy your ticket at the boat ticket offices on each island - other venues will sell them but often for far more rupiah.
You can also hire shuttles if the island hopping boat times don't suit - I saw a price Meno to Trawangan at the Meno ticket office: 170k.

WHEN TO GO
Best time is in dry season which runs roughly from the end of March into October. Peak season tends to coincide with the northern hemisphere summer holidays - so if you want to avoid crowds, July and August may not be best. There is a second peak around Christmas-New Year which suggests wet season isn't too bad here - the Gilis tend to be drier than mainland Lombok which in turn tends to be drier than Bali.
The earlier comments about lack of hotel and restaurant staff during the last few days of Ramadan and the following Idul Fittri may be worth taking into account - Ramadan is in July in 2012.

GETTING TO THE GILIS

Major places listed below. Labuhan Lombok is the arrival point for the big passenger/vehicle ferries from Sumbawa and further east. Most people arrive on big coaches which go right thru to Mataram.

FLYING - until October 2011 you can fly into Selaparang Airport in north Mataram from Bali (many flights), Java, Sumbawa, Flores and several other domestic locations. Check websites for Garuda, Lion Air, Merpati, Trans Nusa, Batavia Air. International flights come from Singapore and KL - Silk Air, Garuda, Merpati.
Travel time to Bangsal for the Gilis from Selaparang should be less than an hour - maybe 150k by airport taxi.

Some time in October the new Bandaraya International Airport in south Lombok will open and all flights, domestic and international, will transfer to there. This will add the best part of an hour to Bangsal (maybe more if the traffic in Mataram is bad) - I'm thinking 250k would be a reasonable taxi price but maybe one of you guys could give feedback on this.

FROM MAINLAND LOMBOK - Bangsal is the main departure point. From here you can catch a public ferry which is an oversized outrigger or similar for a minimal sum. Most of these run pretty regularly until around 1600-1630 although you may have to wait a while until there are sufficient passengers. Otherwise you can charter a boat at a greatly increased cost (to get some idea - Sept 2011 sign on Gili Meno public boat office offered public boat prices of 10k, charter to Bangsal 175k - 320k return).
Bangsal has a bad reputation for hassle. It is a bit hectic but no real problem if you are forewarned. It is only a 400m trip from the carpark where taxis and buses drop you, to the boat - easily walked if your luggage is not huge. Otherwise cidomos will take you but I have no idea what the going price is - I would not pay more than 5000 per person. Always agree on the price first or you will be asked a fortune.
Don't buy boat tickets off anyone in the carpark or on the way down the road, and stay away from the restaurant across the road from the carpark where they will try to sell you half of Gili Trawangan and a RTW ticket for $25 all up. For another $2 they will throw in a night with Miss Indonesia.
Don't believe their stories of no return tickets from the islands,/all the public boats have left/can't get sunscreen etc on the islands.
Go to the boat ticket office right on the beach to the left - a whitish building abt 20m from the water. Public boat and charter prices are listed on the wall.
Don't allow a porter to grab your heavy bag from the cidomo or from the boat on return until you fix a price - once again I would not pay more than 5000. Porters have been known to grab bags in/outside the ticket office when owners are not looking and load them onto a boat - the boat will not allow you on board until you pay some exhorbitant fee to the porter (everyone is into fleece the tourist). Porters will jump aboard boats from the islands and grab bags. I tell them NO. If you want YES - negotiate first.
Kids will also offer to wash your feet with bottles of water coming off the beach on return - I don't know what a fair price is here. One kid tried to wash my feet when I still had 30m of the beach to walk - must have thought I'm even dumber than I look.

AVOIDING BANGSAL
For or a start you can charter a boat from Senggigi, but a 2011 ballpark figure is 490k as posted for the reverse trip at Gili Meno. Fine for big groups. Unfortunately Perama no longer runs a boat on this route - I did it in 2004 for a very small sum - the trip has to be one of the more scenic I've experienced. The coast between Senggigi and Bangsal is awesome - lots of small beaches backed by towering hills.
Another alternative is to contact one of the dive outfits on the island - they send speedboats across to Teluk Nara just south of Bangsal for their customers, and most welcome extra paying passengers.
The good news is that a lot of the more upmarket hotels on the Gilis are also running fast transfers out of Teluk Nara - many even pick up at the airport.
Also a lot of the fast boats that link the Gilis with Bali start at Teluk Nara or nearby and are willing to take passengers on the first short hop across to the island.
Finally Google Blue Water Cruises who run daytrips from this region around the Gilis are willing to take transfers too.

FROM BALI
Because fares are pretty cheap, the afore-mentioned flights are a very popular way of doing this route, but it seems to me the most popular way of accessing the Gilis in recent years from Bali is by way of the FAST BOATS out of Padangbai on the central east coast (a fair slog from Kuta) or the Benoa and Sanur areas near Kuta. Every week another operator joins this trade - but Google Gili Cat, Island Getaway, Blue Water Express and Perama. Most tend to run aircon van shuttles from your south Bali accomm to join the boats - Perama uses its more rugged small buses, cheaper, less comfortable, little slower because the traffic is so bad, and linking many more departure points because of Perama's extensive network (although you will probably have to overnight in Ubud if starting from Lovina).
I notice one of Blue Water Express's options is a south Bali-Nusa Lembongan-Gilis trip. A neat way of doing two nice locations.
UPDATE - on my old Gilis page I had a good link to a multi fast-boat site but it dropped out: just found this new one - http://www.gili-fastboat.com/

In 2011 I used Perama's fast boat out of Padangbai. This boat is not as big as some, not all that comfortable (you can't see out the windows when seated in the cabin/people in the back row outside and up on top of the cabin got very wet on a moderately rough day), but the captain was sensible and throttled back in the conditions so no-one was sick or felt threatened. Consequently the trip took a bit over 2 hours instead of the hour+ advertised, but having had some horrendous rough-water fast boat trips in Thailand I did not mind the delay in the least. And at 350k ex Padangbai (or 400k out of Ubud where we started) Perama tends to be cheaper than most of the competition.

CHEAPEST OPTION FROM BALI is by big vehicle-carrying passenger ferries which leave Padangbai roughly hourly 24/7 and dock at Lembar, a kind of Sydney harbour without the buildings in Lombok’s south west. The trip takes 4 hours give or take. The cost in 2011 when we did the reverse was 36k. Note that I often stay a night or two in Padangbai after a slow ferry trip - otherwise the 2+ hours to most other places in Bali makes for a full day, particulary if you have done Gilis to Lembar beforehand (or Kuta Lombok to Lembar as we had). Padangabai is a real neat little town - check the INDEX for my page.

The 3 hours Lembar to Bangsal by local buses, changing in Mataram and maybe Senggigi, will cost about the same as the slow ferry. Note Lembar has also had bad press recently about incoming passengers duped into expensive local transport by waiting touts and porters.

You can avoid this by using one of the Indonesian transport shuttle companies which have signs up all over in Kuta, Sanur, Ubud etc . These can pick you up at your hotel in Bali and have you on the Gilis for very few dollars, using their shuttlebuses to Padangbai, the slow ferries and then their shuttlebuses from Lembar. Once again Perama is one to Google (actually there is a link a few lines down).
Unless you leave Kuta Bali really early, you will not make the last boat to the islands - but Senggigi is a nice place to spend the night with plenty of restaurants, lots of accom of all standards and some nightlife.

Finally Perama also normally has a slow-boat from Padangbai starting early afternoon and taking about 4 hours. This goes direct to the island and then on to Senggigi. The return trip goes direct Senggigi to Padangbai at 9am which is not so great because Gilis people have to catch the very early public boat to Bangsal and then Perama's shuttle to Senggigi.
I used this boat in 2009 both ways, but when I tried to book in 2011 the website said the boat was being refurbished. More likely it is being used as a substitute for their Komodo Tour boat which sank (no lives lost or bad injuries thankfully) late last wet season.

Gilis ahead - Trawangan Hill prominent. Actually just after I took this 2009 shot the boat's main motor blew up! All Perama boats have 2 motors so after a bit of mucking about we motored slowly into Trawangan some 30 minutes late. I travelled over 500km on Perama boats this May09 trip (Gilis and back plus Flores to Lombok) and that was the only trouble experienced. This is actually a pretty relaxed way to access the Gilis - and they feed you! The brekka on the return boat from Senggigi is welcomed by people who have left the Gilis at 7am. The boat has sand spread on a rear deck for sun-bathing and comfortable seats downstairs for shade lovers.

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If you are considering the Gilis perhaps you will be interested in:

KUTA LOMBOK

NUSA LEMBONGAN

BALI

PERAMA'S BUDGET CRUISE LOMBOK-KOMODO-LABUANGBAJO

BUDGET SERAYA AND KANAWA ISLANDS

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If you have any questions, please ask them in THE FORUM rather than below. I don't get a chance to check all threads daily, but unless I'm travelling I'll try to monitor THE FORUM regularly.

The Gilis are not a bad place to end the day - sunset behind low Meno (closest) and Trawangan (hill and headland at left) from Air

Cherating Beach

2011-08-16T21:57:00.019+10:00

(visited July 2011)

Cherating is not the nicest beach on the east coast of peninsula Malaysia, but Tanjung Inn is one of the more nicely laid out budget resorts.

Cherating has for a long time been a popular stop-off for travellers moving between the Tioman and Perhentian islands locations. In more recent years surfers and windsurfers have discovered that monsoon season, particularly the months Nov and Dec, provide pretty decent conditions for Malaysia. The more recent completion of an expressway which hits the coast about 30km south had brought KL within a 3 hour drive and had seen a boom in local weekenders and holiday-makers.
On my previous 1999 visit I enjoyed the special travellers' vibe Cherating has long been noted for. Strangely there were not many budget travellers this latest trip - more western families and couples, plus a few Malaysian holidaying families in this non weekend period. I arrived on a Monday and the place was very very quiet - a fellow guest told me the weekend was busy with Malaysian visitors.

Convenient location - about midway between Tioman and the Perhentians. Kuantan maybe 40km away has the closest airport (modified Google Earth image).

The coast kinks eastwards at Cherating which can be confusing. I've always thought the left road down from the coastal highway is the southern access road whereas in fact it is really the western. However I'll continue calling it the southern one and the right hand one the northern as per the general direction of the coastal highway. There are highway bus stops at/near the start of each access road.

Most of Cherating Beach's accommodation is on the U made by these access roads and the beachfront road.
On the northern access you have a number of mid-range places like Residence Inn, Cherating Bay Resort and Eastana Resort plus the funky budget joint The Shadow of the Moon.
Where the road turns left at the beach are some flashpacker places right on/next to the sand like Cherating Inn Beach View and Dayung Chalets (with the nicely positioned Duyong Restaurant adjacent).
Across the section parallel to the beach are lots of restaurants, shops etc with quite a few chalet places located behind, mostly on the inland side.
The southern access road has more budget/flashpacker places - some of those on the left boast riverside views.
The single road which leads of the bottom left of the U contains mostly more recent developments although Tanjung Inn was there in '99. On both sides of Tanjung are similar inexpensive joints but as you push further west you have some newish midrangers like Compleks Budaya and Cherating Bayview .
Unusually for a place like this I could see no banks or ATMs.

There are several beaches out of frame to the north with midrange or better places. Club Med Malaysia is one. In my research I noticed a budget place called Ruby's has set up on the same beach as Club Med. On my '99 visit I rode a bicycle the 4km or so up to this beach - it is pretty nice. Note the security goon on Club Med's gate wouldn't let me in to have a look around. Fair enough, I wouldn't let a reprobate like me in either.

The beach south of Cherating continues in a gentle sweep for about 10-15km and there are periodic midrange places along here. The highway closely parallels the coast so that these places are not difficult to access.

Cherating Beach is not fabulous. It suffers the low tide blues and the water is not the crystal clear stuff you get at Redang, Kapas, Perhentians, Tioman - maybe because the river drains into the sea about 800m behind camera.

The place looks better at high tide. Like a dummy I didn't take my camera exactly to the same position as the previous shot. This is taken in front of Tanjung Inn - there is a vacant block of about 30m to Tanjung's nicely landscaped grounds. Because of the kink in the coastline the sun rises behind the far headland - I live on an east coast and expect the sun to rise over the sea. Shot may look better if you click to expand.

This lifeguard tower suggests the joint gets a fair few weekend and public holiday visitors. No-one on duty here on a slow Monday (and dry season sea conditions typically benign) - I climbed the stairs in hope of a killer shot but found it was gated-off. This tower is in front of a car-park to the west of Tanjung Inn - there is a similar tower closer to town.

Want a flashpacker chalet literally right on the sand? Cherating Inn Beach View close to the eastern end of the beach can do it. I understand budget travellers may get a deal when things are slow.

Or how about an overwater chalet? These are the aircon family jobs at Tanjung Inn. This place has all its 15 or 20 chalets spaced around two ponds, backed by a spacious and carefully tended lawn area. Aircon family: rm200 in July 1011 - Aircon 2 person rm150, fan 3 person rm85, fan 2 person rm70. All with bathroom. Beach is maybe 150m away.

This is the view from the veranda of my 2 person fan chalet. Just after I took this shot a fairly big monitor lizard wandered across the grass and slid into the water. Monitors when they swim look like small crocs (some not so small), much to the delight of the kids sitting on the far veranda rails.
I returned from dinner one night and there was a lot of splashing going on in the pool. One of the staff was in there up to his waist hauling out overgrown water lillies etc. Strewth - that's a job I'd leave 'til next morning..

My room was spacious, clean but getting a bit worn around the edges, had wardrobe, a big comfy bed, no mozzie net but pretty good screens. Okay bathroom with good water supply but mirror was in main room which is not great for shaving. Very quiet area - plus my fan was a quiet one.
Breafast is included in the tariff - a pretty simple job of coffee/tea, toast and an egg dish served up in the reception area near the road. The coffee machine gives you a good variety. Staff are cheerful and obliging. The resort does not do other meals but there are several restaurants within 5 minutes walk.

I'd already stayed at Tanjung Inn my previous trip. I found the accommodation places in the U road area tended to have their chalets jambed together and many were pretty scruffy -they were heavily booked too so I grabbed one for the first night but took off next morning for something better. Tanjung's spacious grounds were a big contrast. I took an outside-bathroom bungalow at some ridiculously low price - these were not pond-side and no longer exist.

You can see Tanjung Inn's ponds and spacious grounds at left. Further left is the Intan Seafood Restaurant. This had nice food at budget prices and sold beer. To right is the Third Point Beach Bar although I think I have the place-marker in the wrong place - it should be in that beachside clearing under the half way mark of the scale line. It takes me about 30 minutes to do one of these maps so I aint changing it.
At the crossroads top of image is a cluster of shops including a 7/11 type joint and restaurants. Some accommodation places backing onto the river are located 0n both arms of the junction.

This is the Third Point Beach Bar, about 100-150m east of Tanjung Inn. This tends to be a magnet for travellers, couples, local beach boys with the lazy eyes etc each late afternoon - place plays some pretty good music, can do meals (expensive but seemed pretty substantial size-wise). Beers are the average rm12 which aint cheap.
"Point" in surfer terminology is a headland - I'm assuming this joint is named after some legendary wax-head's spot because the nearest headland is 600m away. Bet it packs a crowd in Nov-Dec prime surfing/windsurfing time.

This is the funky The Shadow of the Moon budget chalet joint on the eastern side of the northern access road from the highway - only 100-150m from the corner. Has attractive looking chalets built up the heavily wooded hillside and an atmospheric restaurant up high just out of frame to the right. Along with Tanjung Inn, seemed to be one of the few places over 50% on a Monday/Tuesday. But restaurant was not doing dinner - did have beer and good conversation.

I called in here for a meal in '99 and thought I'd stay next visit. However my borrowed Rough Guide made no mention of it when I was researching this latest trip so I assumed it had been bought out by one of the nearby mid-rangers. So I headed straight off the bus for Tanjung Inn.

This catch-your-own fishing place was immediately across the road from the southern highway bus stop - you can see it adjacent the NORTH symbol on the second map this page. Cherating also offers river mangrove trips and similar touristy stuff like viewing turtle egg-laying on adjacent beaches in the right season. Travel agents and most chalet places can arrange onward bus tickets and transfers/accommodation at the islands, Taman Negara national park etc.

GETTING THERE
Travellers from Tioman usually catch an express bus from Mersing to Kuantan and then a share taxi or local bus the 40-45km to Cherating. Fewer express buses go Mersing right thru to Kota Bharu allowing you to jump off at Cherating - you will not use about 40% of your fare but express buses are very inexpensive in Malaysia.

From the Perhentians you need to get up to the highway and grab an express bus from Kota Bharu to Kuantan (or Mersing) - plenty of small agents on the islands will be able to facilitate this for you.

From Redang and Kapas get an express bus from Kuala Terannganu bus station for Kuantan or Mersing/Johor Bahru. I came down to Cherating from Kapas: fortunately my bungalow was going to Kuala Terennganu the day before on a food run and got me an express bus ticket, meaning I could jump on the bus in Kapas' mainland pier town of Marang 20km the Cherating side of Kuala Terennganu. It seems you can't buy an express ticket in Marang itself these days.

The nearest airport to Cherating is Kuantan about 40-45km away. For budget travellers plenty of express buses run KL to Kuantan.

LEAVING CHERATING
If you are heading south you can jump on one of the express buses from Kota Bahru or Kuala Terenngaunu - but you will pay the full KB/KT to Kuantan or Mersing/Johor Bahru for a relatively small part of the journey. It is more cost effective to jump a local bus or share a taxi to Kuantan bus station.

Heading north you will only pay for an unused 40km or so if the bus starts in Kuantan, so simply jump on a northward heading express bus once you have booked a seat.

In both directions it is best to have a ticket - these buses can be heavily booked. There are several small travel agents in Cherating who can do this for a small premium - ask your accommodation; a lot of these agents will come to your place.

I took this shot on the local rattler from Cherating into Kuantan. Few passengers in Cherating/packed to the rafters well before Kuantan. Top speed 55kmh - stopped every 800m - took 2 hours+ to do the 40-45km. But local buses are a great experience.
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IF YOU ARE VISITING CHERATING YOU MAY ALSO BE INTERESTED IN THE PERHENTIAN ISLANDS, PULAU REDANG, PULAU KAPAS, TIOMAN ISLAND AND SIBU ISLAND - I HAVE SIMILAR PAGES ON THESE WHICH CAN BE ACCESSED VIA THE INDEX TOP RIGHT OF THIS PAGE.

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IF YOU SEE MISTAKES OR HAVE EXTRA INFORMATION, PLEASE POST IT BELOW. HOWEVER IF YOU HAVE A QUESTION PLEASE ASK IT ON THE SPECIAL FORUM PAGE WHICH CAN BE ACCESSED VIA THE INDEX. I SELDON VISIT INDIVIDUAL PLACE PAGES LIKE THIS BUT I TRY TO CHECK THE FORUM AS OFTEN AS POSSIBLE.

Bintan

2011-08-03T19:34:00.045+10:00

(visited June 2011)

Viewpoint outlook of part of the western most beach on the north coast of Bintan. Buildings belong to Mayong Sari resort, part of the Nirwana Gardens complex.

Bintan's major advantage is that it can be reached from Singapore by ferry in around 45 minutes. The northern beach area is very attractive with white sand and surprisingly clear water. But it is more or less a Singaporean enclave of midrange hotels/golf courses etc - there are no bargain Indo-style accommodation or associated activities.
These can be found on the east coast - but the beaches here are markedly inferior to the north.

This modified Google Earth image shows Bintan's location close to Singapore and adjacent Batam. Ferry access is from both Singapore and Johor Bahru in Malaysia. Bintan's two major piers are Bandar Bentan Telani for the northern International Resorts zone and at Tanjung Pinang, the island capital. Note I have called this Tanjung Bintan on the map - it is too hard to correct it I'm afraid.

I pinched this map from Wikipedia - the northern Singaporean dominated Bintan International Resorts area (locally called Lagoi) is clearly defined. Image expands by clicking.

Lady Tezza and I decided to experience both the northern tourist zone (at Nirwana Beach Club) and the more traditional east coast Trikora Beach area (at Agro Cabana).
We entered from Singapore via Bandar Bentan Telani pier just a few km south of Nirwana and left the island for Johor Bahru in Malaysia via the Tanjung Pinang (once again miss-named Tanjung Bintan on the map) pier a good hour from Agro. Van transit from Nirwana to Agro was about 90 minutes - Bintan is a pretty big island at 2400 sq.km.
The landscape is largely rolling hills covered by rainforest or palm-oil plantations. Population density is low - only about 200000 people live on the island - and it appears half of them in Tanjung Pinang which is a bustling little city and port. The northern Lagoi area seems largely devoid of local villages and industry. The occasional farming village is found along interior roads, fishing villages are scattered around the other coastlines and there is a bit of modern industry - an oil/gas terminal on the upper west coast etc.

NIRWANA BEACH CLUB

This place is also referred to as Beach Club Cabanas, Nirwana Cabanas, Nirwana Garden Cabanas, Nirwana Beach Club on various sites.

Beach Club is part of the greater 300+ ha Nirwana Gardens complex which also includes Nirwana Resort Hotel, Banyu Biru Villas edge of image at right, Mayong Sari resort on the beach below the N of Nirwana Beach Club and the flash Indra Maya Villas/Nirwana Villas on the hillside (lower)/adjacent the coast (upper) to Mayong Sari's left. A regular shuttle van connects all places and it is a pleasant stroll from A to B. I've place-marked some other locations referred to below.

Most of the Lagoi resorts are fairly expensive for budget travellers like yer humble servant, but Beach Club was offering a pretty reasonable deal on one of the major booking sites. Since all the other facilities of the Nirwana Gardens complex are open to Beach Club guests, we went for it. It doesn't hurt that Nirwana Gardens is only 10 minutes from the arrivals pier on the complex's free bus. The northern International Resorts area is about 25km across so some of the more eastern properties would be a fair drive.

Beach Club itself is a pretty nice place - the chalets are comfortable and well equipped, the beach itself is very attractive, the beach-club has a range of water-sports, the beachside restaurant is nicely positioned and the staff friendly and hard working. However there is one caveat - food/drinks pricing is at 4 star international resort levels - $Sing7 for a cup of tea once the 21% taxes were included (all prices are in Singaporean currency), $9 for a beer, $17 for a club sanga etc. Fortunately breakfast (usually an okay buffet except when there are not many guests) was included in the room price - and there was a food-hall at the Resort Centre complex high on the hill about 10 minutes walk away (or wait for the half-hourly shuttle), which had less expensive grub but still around twice the price of food halls in Singapore and not as good quality wise.

Beach Club has a couple of dozen chalets about 100m in from the sand. Many are located around this nice pond, others on the hillside behind - ours was in a clearing to right of image. The chalets are duplex style - the partition wall is thin but noise from the adjacent place seemed okay until a bunch of Singaporean high school kids moved in - note it was the loud mouth teacher who was the offender, the kids were pretty good.
The chalets are spacious, have aircon, a frig but no jug. The queen sized bed was okay. Rooms were serviced daily by an efficient staff. Mozzies seemed to be not a problem - this place obviously sprays the surrounding gardens and pond.

Some interesting wild-life in the Nirwana Gardens area - plenty of these monitors, birds, cute squirelly things.

Speaking of wild-life, there is a small zoo between Beach Club and Nirwana Resort Hotel - some crocs, raptors and vultures, a cobra, two pythons including one monster and some deer. The Outdoor Activities area south of the Resort Centre had elephants - either for a show or for rides.

THE BEACHES
This low tide shot with lots of wet sand does not show Beach Club's rather nice white sand beach to best advantage (you can see the far end of this beach at high tide in the opening shot) but it does prove there is lots of sand into the water at most tide levels. This is shot from a sunbathing platform in front of the Beach Activities Centre (paddle boards, kayaks, catamarans, jet-skis [not used the duration of our mid-week stay which didn't break my heart] even surf boards)- the restaurant is slightly behind camera to left and has a nice outlook. Some sun-lounges under the trees to left.

Less than 10 minutes walk from the point of the last shot gets you to the far end (from this perspective) of Nirwana Resort Hotel's/Banyu Villas' arguably even nicer beach - which continues for about 500m behind camera.
I took dip at low tide with my swimming goggles - I didn't have to go too far out to find swimmable water and there were small patches of coral and rock here, nothing particularly attractive - but a fish or three hanging around which were keeping some snorkellers entertained.

These signs reinforced some comments I'd read on Trip Advisor - however the beaches (and water) were pristine in our mid-June visit. But the prevailing winds at that time are south-easterlies, blowing off the shore at this northern coast - and also blowing any gunk from the hundreds of ships moored off Singapore away from Bintan. Between November and March the winds reverse - this is probably the time to keep your eyes open. There were similar signs re jellyfish - we saw none - most places' jellyfish to me seem to be more a wet season/just after wet season problem, maybe November into April/May here

Part of Nirwana Resort Hotel's fabulous pool - open to Beach Club guests and less than 10 minutes walk from our chalet. To left of camera is a series of smaller passages and pools - I swam a loop of the full complex and estimated the total distance at 250m. To right of camera is one of those horizon walls looking out over the beach and ocean. Quite a lot of sunlounges around the perimeter.
Because 95% of my travelling involves backpacker joints, I'm a sucker for pools like this.

This is part of the Outdoor Activities Area in the south of the complex, shot from the Resort Centre. Activities include horse riding, archery, shooting, table tennis, the afore-mentioned elephants. The tower in background is the take off platform for the trapeze high-wire flying fox that people were riding down to a landing area out of shot to right.
The Resort Centre had the Makan Makan food hall, ten-pin bowling, a small supermarket, a few memorabilia/clothing/gift type stores and an upstairs sports bar with terrace views over the activities area and distant north beach to the bay - the bar offered an all you can drink $S30. deal. Crikey.

The north beach was nothing to get excited about - yellow sand and given to the low tide blues of exposed sand/rock flats.
Nirwana Gardens also has a jogging track east of the main complex and offers snorkelling and dive trips. I noticed a map showing a golf course not too far east of the resort - Bintan has become a major golf destination for Singaporeans.

Nirwana complex has a good network of roads joining various areas, and most are paralleled by walking paths like this which dive off into the rainforest for a pleasant stroll. This track was only a few meters from the road and heads up the hill from our chalet to the Resort Centre. The roads themselves are mostly bordered by rainforest for an okay walk - not busy - mainly the half hourly shuttle bus plus golf buggy-driving service people/high rollers from the villas. There are electric bicycle/moped thingies for hire.

There must be a dozen places to eat throughout the complex - one that gains considerable praise on user-reviews is Kelong seafood restaurant in the south-west of the complex, less than 15 minutes walk from our chalet (the shuttle bus includes this on its route of course). Your tucker would be pretty fresh - the area between the pavilions has live fish pens.

GETTING THERE All the International Resort Zone places use the Bandar Bentan Telani pier which is only 10 minutes from the Nirwana Gardens properties. The resorts send free buses to meet the ferries. This pier gets two ferry arrivals from Tanah Merah pier in Singapore, just south of the airport.

The new airport should be open by now - this is situated a lot closer the International Resort Zone and will allow access from major Indonesian locations. Apparently the old Batam airport has been closed for some time - people flying in from other Indo locations used Batam airport.

International Resorts' ferry about to dock at Tanah Merah.

BINTAN AGRO CABANA/aka CABANA BEACH RESORT
For the second half of out Bintan stay we decided to head out of the special resort zone for the Trikora Beach area on the east coast. There are four sections of this beach and I'm not sure which one Agro Cabana is on - some of the reports say beach #1, the nicest of the four, but the beaches are numbered from the north and Agro is a fair way down the coast. Google Earth is a bit inconclusive here - the resolution is not sharp and it's kinda hard to determine where one beach ends and a new one starts. Similarly the road touches the coast and follows it for a while and then wanders inland for a bit - making it hard to determine if you have passed a headland or other coastal division. I have also gained the impression that each Trikora beach may be a greater area which includes a number of changes in direction and small obstructions. There were no motorcycles or bicycles for hire at Agro Cabana so I had to confine myself to a wander north for about 2km and a trip on Agro's free shuttle to a sister property about 10km south.

Although Singapore owned, Agro Cabana was more my idea of an Indonesian resort. Chalets were cheaper again than Nirwana Beach Club and the food prices were at typical Indonesian budget resort levels.

High tide shot of Agro Cabana - that's the over-water (at high tide at least) restaurant at left. On top are rooms, particularly family suites - some had pretty nice seafront balconies. At right behind the palms is a row of chalets of various sizes. To left of the restaurant is a line of motel type rooms. Out of shot to right of camera are a couple of small villas perched high on the rocks of a small headland.

When we arrived on a Wednesday we were one of two couples staying at the resort. But Friday night saw an influx of what appeared to be Indonesian and Singaporean guests lifting the place to maybe 80%. Even the karaoke got cranked up. Crikey! Actually it wasn't too bad. Noise wise at least - the singers were as bad as me.

This place gets the low tide blues - in the above shot water is lapping the retaining wall - at low tide there is bare sand in the vicinity of the camera - even further out in front of the restaurant.

The area immediately north of the restaurant at low tide. I estimated the tide went out a good 150m here. The guys were pretty conscientious picking up weed/flotsam etc. Structure in background is small floating fishing platform which can be towed out to sea. Horizon was dotted with dozens of bigger versions.

Interestingly guest reports from the sister resorts down the coast said they jumped the free shuttle up to Cabana for a better beach. Okay I checked the beaches at those joints and they are pretty ordinary. But so to is Agro Cabana's.

Some of the same area near high tide. I suppose if you arrived around at this time this would look pretty okay. Water clarity was not pristine, not cloudy.

Cabana guests had access to this pool in an associated villa property across the road. Looks sweet but needed a good clean midweek.

This is Chez Tezza at Agro Cabana. Chalets are duplex with good sound-proofing between. The room was spacious, had a quiet aircon, TV, jug, fridge, big comfy king-size bed. Spacious front patio with sea views.
White sand out front is not part of the beach - there is a retaining wall behind camera with the less white beach/water (depending on the tide) below.

Agro Cabana's airy restaurant is pretty good - okay food at typical Indo non-flash resort prices. 30k rupiah club sangas ($us3.50), 40k sweet and sour fish with rice, 35k large Bintang beer. No extra taxes on top of these menu prices.

The area between our chalet and the sea retaining wall was a nice place to spend time in the sun. The grounds at Agro cabana were nicely landscaped and carefully tended.

These guests were snorkelling around so I grabbed my mask in the hope of finding something interesting - alas, no good coral and few fish. Agro is not a snorkelling location although the resort offers a boat trip (I think it leaves from the sister Agro Beach Resort further south) to an offshore island which according to user-reviews has very good snorkelling, clear water and a white sand beach. It was a bit expensive - remember I'm a budget traveller.

AROUND AGRO CABANA
A few minutes north of Cabana is a small village - just a few houses and very small stores - there didn't seem to be a restaurant aimed at attracting Cabana guests. Above is the village pier - I thought there may be houses on it but when I checked the structures contained fishing equipment etc. This is shot from within the grounds of Cabana.

This rather nice looking resort was another 10 minutes walk north of the village - Prima Bintan Resort. Looked flashpacker standard - seemed deserted on a midweek day. Note typical low tide blues.

Cabana is one of 3 Agro properties - Agro Beach Resort and Yasin Bungalows are about 10/8km south by road. Agro runs a free shuttle several times a day between properties.

Lots of people are looking for an overwater bungalow - Yasin Bungalows can do this. Standard seems to start at backpacker level (the place gets best Indo budget accomm. on one of the backpacker booking sites) and go into lower midrange. I'm kicking myself I didn't find this place in my research. Note the beach is very ordinary here, and is again non-existent at high tide. No pool, but the two at Agro Beach Resort is a 20 minute walk down the road - or catch the shuttle. This is an image I pinched from the website - mine didn't show the overwater position to advantage. The above website has access to the other two Agro properties.

Agro Beach Resort is considerably bigger than the other two. This is the inner pool between the two hotel-wings (the beach-side one out of frame right) - there are also garden cabanas and a few rooms on one of the piers. This also is a website shot - note the lens used makes this pool and the beachside one look considerably longer than they really are. Once again the beach here is pretty ordinary.

GETTING THERE
The nearest pier to the Agro properties is one hour away in the capital, Tanjung Pinang. Ferries arrive from Tanah Merah in Singapore (1 hour plus) and Johor Bahru in Malaysia (3 hours) - plus other Riau Islands including neighbouring Batam. Agro run a free shuttle to/from this pier.
Agro will also pick up from the northern Bandar Bentan Telani pier for $S10 per passenger. This takes about 90 minutes. You see a lot of rainforest and palm oil plantations on this drive - not too much else.
One again - I understand Bintan's new airport is now open which will allow you to access more easily from more distant Indo locations.

IS BINTAN A GREAT DESTINATION?
I enjoyed seeing a new location but I was underwhelmed by the island. Of course my aversion to the high food prices in the Lagoi special tourist zone colours my judgement. More affluent visitors may feel this is no problem.
Certainly for Singapore residents, ease of access to a very nice beach area in the north is a big factor, although I personally would spend the extra time to get to the Tioman/Sibu island region in SE peninsula Malaysia .
At least the Singaporean visitors to Bintan no longer have to pay the Visa on Arrival which for most tourists is $us25. For budget travellers wanting a quick visit to Bintan this can be a turn-off, as could the less than pristine beaches on the reasonably priced east coast.
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Another shot of Nirwana Garden's longer beach at Nirwana Resort Hotel.

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IF YOU SEE MISTAKES OR HAVE EXTRA INFORMATION PLEASE POST BELOW. BUT IF YOU WANT TO ASK QUESTIONS, PLEASE USE THE FORUM WHICH CAN BE ACCESSED BY THE INDEX TOP RIGHT OF THIS PAGE - I DON'T CHECK INDIVIDUAL ISLAND PAGES OFTEN BUT I TRY TO VISIT THE FORUM MOST DAYS.

IF YOU VISIT THE ISLAND AND WANT TO WRITE A TRIP REPORT PLEASE CHECK THE READERS' TRIP REPORT SECTION.

IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN OTHER HOLIDAY ISLANDS CLOSE TO SINGAPORE PLEASE CHECK THE PAGES ON TIOMAN AND SIBU ISLANDS ACCESSED VIA THE INDEX.

Kapas Island

2011-07-17T21:50:00.001+10:00

Visited July 2011

The pier beach on Pulau Kapas - the northern third of the beach past the pier is hard to see in this shot. There are 3 resorts on this beach and it is possible to walk to all the other accommodation places within 15 minutes. However many of the island transport services out of Marang will drop you directly in front of your resort.

Kapas island is the nicest I have visited in years. It is compact but has 6 very attractive beaches which can be walked over a period of 25-30 mintues (plus another beach which needs boat/kayak access), very clear water, pretty good snorkelling, good sunsets and a surprisingly supply of accommodation with 8 flash packer/backpacker resorts (some of their chalets may go into the midrange) and one camping area. There are no roads, villages, motor vehicles or dogs. It is part of the Marine National Park and so coral and fish are pretty good. It is much easier to access than Redang, Perhentians, Tioman or Langkawi and is uncrowded except for weekends which extend from Thursday night to Sunday morning in this particular part of north-east Malaysia.

This modified Google image clearly shows the beaches, trekking tracks and the relatively compact size of the island. Note my miss-naming of nearby GEMIA ISLAND which has one midrange resort, Gems Island Resort. Note too that I have turned this image 90 degrees - north is to the left, not up.

LOCATION

Kapas is only 7 km from the mainland pier at Marang (not Merang which is the pier for Pulau Redang to the north) which is 17km south of Kuala Terengganu - you can fly into KT from KL. Kapas is part of the north-east’s marine national park which also includes Redang and the Perhentians.

BEACHES
(from the south)

Turtle Beach is the island’s southern most beach. I shot this from Kapas Turtle Valley Resort’s rather nice restaurant perched on the rocks at the western end. This beach has a different orientation to the others, facing more south than west and was picking up the cooling sea breeze better on my visit. The downside is that you will not get the sunsets.
The beach is not as nice as some on Kapas - the sand is not as fine as the best, there were a fair few small rocks on entry to the sea and the water offshore did not have particularly good coral although there was enough of this plus fish to keep snorkellers interested. However the much nicer southern end of the pier beach is a short steep climb over the headland steps to the north.
What you have at Turtle is exclusivity - the Dutch managed resort is the only one on the beach and has flashpacker into lower midrange chalets in the trees on the slope to left of shot. A friend staying there said the food was very good. The accommodation hand-out I got at Suria Link Transport at the Marang pier shows rm300 family and rm150 double chalets.

Pier Beach South. This shot shows only the southern-most corner - PBS is a long stretch of sand, best appreciated from the shot top of page. In this corner Captain Long House resort (the former Light House) is located. This seemed to be the funkiest place on the island with good music from the restaurant bar and some interesting architecture, graphics and motifs. I understand it has a dorm. Some locals pitched tents behind the beach to left of shot on the weekend. Rm60 fan, rm30 dorm.
Closer to the pier is the very big Kapas Island Resort with aircon chalets at 200, 180 and 160 plus fan at 130. This joint has a tiny pool (would be okay for kids/learner divers) and an associated dive school. It had a horde of locals at the weekend but has so many chalets it looked deserted at other times. It also has a small store.
The very steep stairway across to Turtle Beach starts around that coconut palm far right in the above shot..
There are scraps of fringing coral and some coral bommies plus a fair few fish out along the headland to right of shot but I snorkelled right around the headland to Turtle Beach and wasn't whelmed.

Pier Beach North - this smaller section of beach north of the pier is not as wide ocean to trees as the south side but has the same crystal clear water. There is one resort here, Pak Ya Seaview (your guide-book may have the old Beauty Island Resort), a pretty sweet-looking budget joint with newish A-frames just behind the beach. This place was packed on the weekend but had only about two guests before that (then again only about 8 chalets). Suria Link's price list says rm90 for a fan chalet but my friend from Turtle also stayed here and managed to bargain one for rm60 mid-week. She said the food was very good here too.
Note the stairway in far background which leads to a short walkway to the next beach north. There was a bunch of local weekenders snorkelling this section, but it was similar to the headland area at the south end. I get the impression Asian snorkellers (and a lot of western tourists) are happy if they have fish to check out - don't sweat the coral or lack of. I shot this from the pier which also attracts a good range of fish - a couple of local visitors were fishing here. In a marine national park? Crikey.

For want of its correct name, I'll call this Beach #4 - less than 10 minutes walk north of the pier. This is a good one - probably the most popular beach both midweek and at the weekend. Very nice sand, clear water which is not too shallow low tide, and 3 resorts: Kapas Beach Chalet (KBC) which despite not looking as cool as Captain Long House had the most traveller types hanging around mid week - and lots of locals weekend (plus a hamburger stand on the beach with rm5 whoppers - delicious! rm3 standard - who says the dollar-burger has gone?) Chalets rm70/60/40 plus a rm 15dorm - well duh, maybe those prices explain the travellers.
Makcik Gemok Beach Resort - rm150 family aircon, 120 double aircon, 80/40 fan.
Kapas Coral Beach Resort - this place seemed to be largely under reconstruction in July 2011 with some nice looking flashpacker/lower midrange chalets being put in. So my Suria Link's prices may be misleading. But when/if you call in Suria will maybe have an updated list.
Snorkelling at this beach is similar to the pier beaches, but much better stuff is maybe 10 minutes walk away off Camping Beach.
If you click to expand this shot you can see Qimis beach to the north, inlcuding the small headland (high tide) island, which has good snorkelling right off its sea-ward end.

Qimi's Beach - I climbed to the top of that headland/island I mentioned last shot to get this pic. Hey, beach looks pretty nice but in fact is probably least best (but not poor) on Kapas - and I don't think I'm talking from ignorance on account I stayed here at Qimi Chalet. Beach gets skinny at high tide yet suffers the low tide blues with shallow water containing lots of rocks, dead lumps of coral. But the best beach on the island is 1 minute to the left. Almost all the beach is in this shot - you can see the walkway stairs from Beach #4 far right and the low rocks between here and Camping Beach to the north start immediately left of pic.
Qimi Chalet is under those big trees behind the boats and up the steep hillside to the right - if you click to expand you can maybe see some of the restaurant tables on the beach under the trees. Chalets rm300 for an aircon family - 130/100/80 for fan. More info down page. Snorkelling very ordinary in the area in shot but quite good coral/fish off the end of the headland/island behind camera, maybe a 70m swim off the beach.

Camping Beach - arguably the best beach on the island. I'm calling it this for want of its real name - in fact the Harmony camp site (rm10 per person rm15 tent rental) is in a flat tree shaded area behind those rocks far right, and has its sign and entrance at the far northen end of the previous beach, Qimi's. I noticed a local had also pitched a tent up the far left end on the beach under the trees on the weekend. This is a sweet beach - lovely sand which continues into the water low tide, lots of shade in back under the trees, no resorts, very clear water and quite good coral and fish in a lateral line maybe 40m off the central beach and extending south towards the camera. Most guests at Qimi Chalet spent long periods of time here and it was also popular with people from other resorts. Hell you could stroll up here from the most distant resort, Kapas Turtle Valley, under 25 minutes and from the pier in less than 15.

Another shot of Camping Beach from near the far northern end looking back at the island/headland which separates it from Qimi Beach.

North Beach. Reached from Camping Beach by a rather steep set of stairs and a short walkway. Many would argue this is as nice as Camping Beach. No resorts or camping areas. Very similar sand and water. Probably the best snorkelling on the island about 40-50m off the beach, with good coral varieties and fish - look for the snorkelling trip boats from adjacent Gemia Island, Marang and Kuala Terennganu - or if it is quiet mid-week, their mooring buoys. Note this isn't really the northern-most beach - there is a similar strip of sand around the far headland. But there is no walkway and I found it too deep to wade at low tide. Didn't think to grab one of Qimi's sea-kayaks. Duh!

TREKKING
Two jungle tracks lead to a small inlet on the rugged west coast. The southern track starts near the top of the Turtle Bay/Pier Beach stairs. The northern one starts at the end of the pier and goes inland along side the solar electricity farm, then winds its way to the right and dives into the bush behind the most inland of Kapas Island Resort's many bungalows. Because both tracks lead to the same cove, I did them as a loop - maybe 90 minutes.

The northern track, 950m to the cove/ - This is pretty easy effort wise. From the entry point into the jungle it rises over a small saddle with no real tough climbs and then gradually drops along this water course to the western cove. Good jungle along here. It does get a bit technical in that you have to criss-cross the creek about 10 times - National Parks have put up a good quality guide rope the full length of both tracks to show the way.

The west coast bay. The northern track accesses by way of that gully in back - if you click to expand you may be able to see debris blocking the mouth which came from a big land-slip high on the right, probably in the monsoon season.
The 1250m southern track to near Turtle Beach starts out of picture near that log at left - look for the guide rope. The first 10 minutes is an incredibly steep haul up the side of the hill - I'm pretty fit and it gave me a real good work-out. The track then tends to dip, climb and wind thru less dense but still okay jungle.
A couple of trekkers coming the other way went for a dip in the cove. The water looked nice and clear - according to the guidebooks there is a bit of coral here too. I was feeling lazy and gave it a miss.

SNORKELLING
To recap what I wrote under beaches: the best snorkelling is probably off North Beach. It is also quite good off Camping Beach and the end of the headland/island at the north end of Qimi's Beach. And it may be okay in and around the western trekkers' cove.
How good? Well I thought it was a slight step down from the Perhentians and Tioman in the same period, which were a step down again from the best at Pulau Redang (in the National Park HQ snorkelling area). But better than anything I saw in the Surin Islands earlier in 2011 - supposedly the site of Thailand's best coral. The Surins were very very ordinary - coral bleaching has really knocked them around.

WHICH BEACH?
I don't think it matters. Just chose the resort you like the look of because you can so easily walk to any of the other beaches.

WHEN TO GO
East coast peninsula Malaysia has a pretty full on monsoon season which tends to run from around October into Februaray. Rose at Qimi Chalet told me her place is the only accommodation which stays open in the wet season. She said the island gets plenty of sunshine in this rainier period but December is normally the worst month. She said Suria Link and the other boat services stop running and so guest should contact the resort to organise a boat.

ALCOHOL
I did not check all resorts but I know you can buy a beer at Kapas Beach Chalet and Kapas Coral Beach Resort. Rose at Qimi Chalet sold me a can (not cheap at rm14) but I think this was surplus to a supply she brought in for a regular guest.
I'm not sure about spirits and other alcohol. I was happy with my 1L bottle of Ballentine's scotch from the duty free at Singapore's budget terminal - great company when leaning up against a rock on the sand at sunset.

QIMI CHALET
I chose Qimi partly because I liked the reviews on Trip Advisor, and partly because I found an email adress - qimichalet@yahoo.com - which Rose answered promptly promising me she would reserve a bungalow for me without the need for telegraphic transfer of deposit or full payment which so many Malaysian places want - my bank is not interested in telegraphic transfers to Malaysia (or at least it makes them very difficult).

Qimi's reception and bad weather dining area is built under two big boab type trees - there are Bali style bale sitting platforms, a tree-house sitting platform, hammocks strung between trees etc. This is the view looking from the veranda of my "Bamboo" chalet.

Zooming in slightly towards the beach shows some diners enjoying a sunset snack.

You don't get to eat too much closer to the water most places - in fact I had an earlier breakfast than these people and the water was lapping the legs of my table - a full moon king tide coinciding with early breakfast at the time of my visit. The two big trees offer sun shelter to the dining tables well into the afternoon.

Qimi's throws on some side at dinner and puts cute placemarks on each table coinciding with the name of your bungalow. That's my "Bamboo" placemark with my "Bamboo" bungalow in background - the smaller one with the washing out front.

My Bamboo chalet was not constructed of bamboo but of that dark stained wood favoured by Malaysian resorts. It was identical to the Tembescu chalet Rose gave me first night when I showed up one day earlier than I booked - except it was 80% the size (makes sense at 80% the price - rm80 reduced to 70 for single occupancy: water is scarce here plus the solar generated electricity is very expensive and single occupancy uses less), in better condition and nearer the beach.
It was just big enough for 2 people and gear, clean, comfy double bed with good net, good lights, towel and toilet paper supplied, good fan, water pressure pretty poor. Quiet at night. Value-wise in comparison to places I saw on other islands, maybe not fantastic - but I'd pay more to stay on Kapas. Not to mention Rose's cooking is really good and the resort is pretty nice.

Prices in the restaurant were very reasonable - one of the most expensive dishes was the claypot seafood noodles at 11rm which was sublime. Service was quick and friendly. The resort's laptop is available gratis for guest email.

Qimi Chalet has a small number of bungalows but a good range. I loved these hillside treehouses to the south of the restaurant. The bigger right-hand one was the most expensive aircon family place from what I can gather. The other 3 or 4 treehouses were fan jobs - I'm aiming for one of the latter when I bring Lady Tezza to see the island.

GETTING THERE
The mainland pier town is MARANG (not Merang) which is only 7km away from Kapas and 17km from the regional center of KUALA TERENGGANU. The latter has an airport with regular Malaysian Air and Air Asia flights from KL - don't know about JB or Singapore. The airport is the other side of town so airport taxis may cost more than the rm25 taxi price I paid from KT bus station - I thought this a fair price and so didn't bargain. Local buses also run from KT's bus station - look for buses going to Dungun and ask which others go thru Marang - get off at the main bus stop just past the main road traffic lights, walk back to the lights and turn right down the hill, right again to the pier - 400m from the traffic lights.
If coming from the south on one of the big express buses that run route 3 from KL, Kuantan, Cherating, Mersing (Tioman Island) or Johor Bahru ask to be put off near the traffic lights.

If you are island-hopping down the coast and coming from Pulau Redang's mainland pier of Merang (a few of Redang's resort ferries go to Kuala Terengganu) the cheapest option would be to use one of the very inexpensive bus transfers that link with the ferries into KT bus station. I think a private driver (I didn't find any taxis waiting at Merang pier - the resort bus set-up is pretty well organised) direct Merang-Marang would be around rm60-80 at 2011 prices.

See my Perhentians page for inexpensive Kuala Besut pier (Perhentians) to Kuala Terengganu transport. I read somewhere a taxi direct Besut-Marang would be around rm150.

BTW, the Agro Bank just south of the traffic lights on the main road does not change money and the ATM will not pay out or regurgitate non-local cards (don't ask me how I know this). If you need cash, turn inland at the lights, walk 400m and on the left is a bank whose ATM works with main foreign cards. The bank does not change money - you need to go to Kuala Terennganu.

At the pier is about half a dozen island transport companies. Standard price is rm40 return using speedboats although one outfit has a bigger ferry which runs to the main pier and Pulau Gemia for rm15 each way. Qimi recommends Suria Link which like most will deliver to individual beaches - it has boats running out at 0900 - 1100 - 1300 - 1500 and 1700.

PULAU GEMIA

The small island of Pulau Gemia is a short distance north of Kapas. The resort here, Gems Island Resort, is midrange and looks to be one of those places where your room balcony is over the water. Quite a few kayakers were cruising across and checking out Kapas' northern beaches. A French guy told me the snorkelling is quite good around Gemia and mid-channel.

End of the day shot at Qimi Chalet for end of report.

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If you visit Kapas you might also be interested in the nearby islands of Redang and the Perhentians which you can access via the INDEX link top right of page.

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NOTE - IF YOU SEE ANY MISTAKES OR HAVE EXRA INFORMATION PLEASE POST THEM BELOW. IF YOU HAVE A QUESTION PLEASE ASK IT ON THE FORUM PAGE ACCCESSED VIA THE INDEX WHICH I CHECK MOST DAYS - I DON'T VISIT THESE INDIVIDUAL ISLAND PAGES VERY OFTEN.
IF YOU VISIT THE ISLANDS AND WANT TO UPDATE US CHECK OUT THE READERS' TRIP REPORT SECTION VIA THE INDEX.

Perhentian Islands.

2011-07-12T15:23:00.088+10:00

Last visited late June/early July 2011

Dad and daughter prepare to check the fish-feeding frenzy at Turtle Bay - Perhentian Besar.

Long the backpackers' haven, the Perhentians are now becoming a must-do for a fuller range of travellers. Makes sense - the attractions are user-wide: everyone is looking for white sand beaches, clear water, good snorkelling and nice scenery. And problems of the past like higher than normal crime seem to have been eradicated by some heavy policing - and in July 2011 the usual high season overcrowding was not apparent. Recession in the northern hemisphere may not be all bad.

LOCATION
One of a number of attractive island sites in far north-east peninsula Malaysia. Kota Bharu is the nearest airport although Kuala Terengganu is a good one to fly out of if you also visit Pulau Redang and Pulau Kapas after the Perhentians. Kuala Besut is the main mainland pier for the Perhentians. Scale - it's 150km from the Kota Bharu placemark to the Puala Kapas placemark.

MAP
One of the best comes from the efficient De Penarik Beach Travel & Tour booking website. Looks like they got help from the Marine Park Department.

WHICH ISLAND?
The BIG ISLAND (Besar) has:
- better snorkelling off the beach
- more higher range accommodation
- arguably the best beach
- camping sites
The SMALL ISLAND (Kecil) has:
- a better travellers' scene
-more budget accommodation
- better trekking
- more chance to get away from the busy scene

But the islands are so close it's easy to choose a resort on either and jump across to the other to check the scene - water taxi price between the Long Beach on Kecil and the pier at Perhentian Island Resort was only rm10 in July 2011.

Alternatively, why not do as I did in both my July 1999 and July 2011 visits and split your stay between resorts on both islands? You are moving to a new island and resort, but it only takes 5 minutes and minimal expense.

PERHENTIAN BESAR.

The 2 jungle tracks are shown by yellow placemarks. Good snorkelling is found at the white arrows. Some of the 20+ resorts are in BOLD PRINT - red Placemarks. Scale - it is 3.6km between the Turtle Bay and Shark Point place-mark arrows.

BESAR BEACHES

The west coast beaches
(from the south)

The southern most beach has no resorts. Snorkelling seemed popular both off the beach and from boats at the far end.

Taken from the same rocks as the previous shot, Teluk beach is next one north. This is where the steep jungle track from the south coast's busier Flora Bay hits the east coast. Teluk is the site of the Teluk Ke Ke camp site. There is one closed-down resort behind this beach.

Abdul's beach is separated from Teluk by stairs and a short walkway. A longish pier from which this shot was taken halves the beach with Abdul's situated on this southern section. The pier did not exist on my '99 visit and has detracted from the beach's appeal, but this is still a pretty nice area. Okay snorkelling around those patches of coral in shot but not comparable to the other side of the pier. Actually I'm pretty sure Abdul's has moved location and was at the north end of the beach in '99. Abdul's is a lot flasher too - but still has some budget bungalows along with a big bunch of flashpacker standard places.

Same beach north of Abdul's pier: the beach is probably even nicer and the snorkelling is some of the better stuff I have seen off the beach in Malaysia or Thailand in the last few years with some pretty good coral varieties and fishies. No shortage of fish hanging around the pier either. Some nice resorts along here - check De Panarak's map up page. At the far end it becomes difficult to continue moving northwards - the 200m walk-way I used in '99 over an extended rocky section seems to have fallen or been swallowed by the jungle. I think at low tide you could wade around the rocks but the tides did not suit my visit this time.

Mama's beach is immediately north of that difficult to pass rock section and is the poorest on the island - non existent at high tide but given to untidy tidal flats with broken coral and sharpish rocks when the water goes out. No matter, the best beach on the island is a little over 10 minutes walk away. I stayed at Mama's in '99, not thru choice but because it was the only place I could get into in those crowded days with fewer resorts and no forward booking. Not a bad place.

Mama's skinny beach widens about 100m north into what I call Coral Resort's southern beach. In fact it looks a lot nicer here than reality - mainly because it has the same low tide blues as Mama's. In 99 that small creek crossing the beach mid-way along (click to expand shot) was dire with pollution. It was considerably improved this visit.
Coral Resort has a second beach around the other side of that far headland - seen in the next shot.

Coral Resort's northern beach. This is a nice little area with deep enough water at all tides and some interesting snorkelling around the rocks. The sand is a bit coarse with broken coral. No worries, the best beach on the island is less than 5 minutes up those stairs to the left.

Best beach on the island - in front of the Perhentian Island Resort. This is shot from the walkway between Coral Resort and PIR. If you click to expand you can better see the walkway bottom right and part of this bay's pier bottom left. Because the pier is at the end of the bay it does not detract from the appearance as much as say Abdul's.

Another shot of the beach at PIR. Lovely fine sand, very clear water deep enough at all tides except against the far headland. Note this beach is not exclusive to the resort. You can easily access as far away as Mama's and several guests from my Flora Bay (south island) resort took the 25 minute jungle track to spend time on this beach. The best way to access from the Abdul's precinct would be by water taxi. You could also get there from the lower east coast beaches by taking both jungle tracks (see modified Google image up page) but I'd say you'd be looking at an hour's trek.

Turtle Beach is the only west coast Besar beach you cannot access on foot. But it is popular with beach fans who get a water taxi to drop them off for a few hours. Similar sand and water to PIR and some okay snorkelling off the rocks to the north-west - better close to the rocks than out where the snorkelling-trip boats park.

South coast beaches.

Flora Bay is the longest beach on the island. Unfortunately it suffers quite badly its full length from the low tide blues with very shallow water a long way from the beach at low tide. The falling tide exposes large expanses of mostly sand flats but broken rocks appear some distance behind camera past Arwana Resort's pier. Pretty appealing nevertheless back in '99, it now has perhaps a few too many resorts.
Snorkelling off the beach is very ordinary but Shark Point is at the far end of that distant headland - a 350m swim from the beach (don't ask me how I know) is a very popular spot with the daytrip snorkelling boats because of pretty good coral, fish including some bigger ones and plenty of harmless reef sharks.

Bubble's Beach on its own little bay on the eastern side of the south coast is another that can only be reached by water taxi - unless you are staying at Bubble's Dive Resort, a rather attractive flash-packer/mid range joint behind the trees at the far end of the beach - which was one of the few resorts I saw which looked to be running near capacity. This is a pretty good beach with nice sand although not as fine as say PIR's, clear water, deep enough water at low tide and pretty good snorkelling off the beach. Some effective shade from beachside trees most of the day.

TREKKING ON BESAR
Flora Bay to Perhentian Island Resort/Mama's This is a reasonably easy walk with only a few steepish slopes and can be done in flip-flops or other light footwear although better shoes are always a good idea. This track in '99 used to leave about mid-beach at Flora Bay but now there is a much clearer and signposted entrance on the western side of Arwana Resort near the litttle mosque. The first 10 minutes behind the beach is a bit hot but once you hit the jungle area there is plenty of shade. After another 10 minutes of mostly not too steep climbing over a low saddle you reach a downgrade where the track splits - for PIR's lovely beach (5 minutes) take the right branch which dives downhill to some squarish metal water towers and then past some of PIR's cheaper A-frame hillside bungalows to emerge beachside near the pier.
To get to Mama's take the left branch which then loops left slightly uphill and continues past the back of Coral Resort to descend to the rear of the very last huts on the southern end of Mama's - 10 minutes from the junction. By the condition of the track, few people use this section - it is much nicer taking the coastal route between PIR and Mama's.

This is about the roughest section of the track to Mama's - I think it was put in as an access track for the water pipelines which run between an artesian water plant behind Flora Bay beach and Perhentian Kecil village (it looks like the pipeline goes along the seabed between the two islands).

Flora Bay to the southern eastern beaches
Go to the far western end of Flora bay and look for the concrete roadette which runs from there to the water plant behind a lot of the Bay's accommodation. About 50m from the beach end of the concrete you will see a sign JUNGLE TREKKING to the left.
This is a real tough one - super steep for 10 minutes on each side and with lots of rocks and tree roots which make flimsy footwear a no-no. Very good jungle though. Near the Teluk Beach the track splits but any one of about 4 branches will get you to the sand. This track is a good workout but the beaches at each end are well worth it.

ARWANA RESORT
This is a midrange place at the far eastern end of Flora Bay. I decided to stay here because it also has a dorm - the combination of a dorm, a fabulous pool and a nice comfy lobby with lots of chairs and fans where you can sit around into the night and read etc is pretty appealing after several weeks of backpacking. The fact that it could be pre-paid in aussie dollars on Agoda added to the appeal.
Arwana has Eco Resort in its full title but I could see very little eco about the place - no solar panels, wind turbines or even recycling bins. One poster about preserving soft corals. Unlike a lot of Perhentian accommodation you can buy a beer here. Not sure about wine/spirits/cocktails.

Arwana from its pier. Note the beach here is not great - virtually non-existent at high tide yet the boat left of shot was sitting on sand at lowest tide. However the sand widens at high tide about 70m to left of camera, although the low-tide blues still prevailed. Big pool behind lobby/restaurant area in shot is surrounded by 3 storey modern blocks of rooms and there are some rather nice beachfront chalets to left of camera. Dorm area is to the far right behind other accommodation.
Food by way of buffets - most guests are on packages. I wasn't but still found the 18rm brekky pretty good value (egg tragics note, no egg station). I can hoover enough down at a buffet brekky to make lunch superfluous. A couple of very good value beach restaurants within 150m to left of camera for other meals which at Arwana were less value than brekky - more like 35rm.

Part of Awana's lovely pool. Nice water fall to right, pool big enough to make lap-swimming a non-tedious way of burning off buffet calories. Sun lounges neat for swanking it out with a bottle of duty free whisky from Singapore's great budget terminal while checking out the mid-range heart-breakers. Such ladies don't suffer the Macca's/Krispy Kreme lateral expansion to the extent of post Y2000 backpacker babes.

The dorm area is in a shady area between Arwana's eastern most modern wing and the eastern headland of Flora Bay. I think this may have been put in to attract divers to the dive school, but I found I was the only western guest and they gave me a 2 double bunk room all to myself. Lots of locals in other rooms but as far as I could work out, nearly all seemed to be staff.
My room big, clean, comfy, quiet - my only complaint was the outside bathroom needed a good clean-up which I asked for twice to no avail.
Value? Well my $aud18/rm55 a night could have gotten me a reasonable fan chalet at nearby budget joints - but they didn't have the great pool or comfy lobby. And by this stage of the trip I'd stayed at plenty of budget chalets. Viva la change.

PERHENTIAN KECIL.

Interestingly the small island isn't that much smaller than the big one. As a matter of fact, if lengthy trekking is your thing this island is much better. Fewer beaches to choose from - but there are some nice ones, including a few great get-away-from-it choices.

I modified this Google Earth image to show some of the main features on Kecil. Note the SW trekking track was somewhat discontinuous at the time of my visit - July2011.

KECIL BEACHES

West coast beaches

Kecil's famous Long Beach. Old Perhentian hands will bemoan the development - if you click the shot to expand you will see the 2 storey concrete constructions mid beach and the mega pier at the far northern end. Those beach umbrellas/mats are a bit European too - but really there is not too much shade at this beach and at rm10/day - rm2/hour they are not bad value. Anyway there is still plenty of bare sand to lay a towel or sarong. Note the relative lack of people at 2pm on a fine day at the very end of June.
I think the Malaysians could take a hint from busy Thai island beaches and organise their boats into dedicated and more compact buoyed-off areas.
Note the wind-turbines high on the hill in the background - the path to D'Lagoon goes past these.

This is the section of coast behind camera in the previous shot - ie just south of Long Beach. I noticed on my 1999 visit that at low tide this area developed into a series of small sandy coves for a good 400m - ideal for sunning. The tides were wrong to show these on my latest visit - but this area was quite popular with snorkellers above quarter tide - there is some coral starting someway off the rocks and plenty of fish in the sandy area.

I thought the northern end of Long Beach was far more attractive - nicer cleaner sand, fewer boats/people/umbrellas - although the water was shallower off the beach as the tide dropped. A real good old time beach bar restaurant, The Pit Stop, at left of image.

Dave Elliot sent this fabulous shot of Long Beach back in 1994. You can see why some old-timers get so upset about development. My 1999 visit saw the beach more developed, but closer to this shot than my 2011 pic 3 up-page.

D'Lagoon has the only other west coast Kecil beach (well, the village has a beach but it isn't too touristy). D'Lagoon is way up the northern end of the island. The bay in front used to have really good snorkelling but had sadly deteriorated this last visit - the best stuff was close to the rocks immediately right of camera. Beach doesn't suffer too much from low tide problems and has sand out into the water at such times. Note there are 2 usually deserted east coast beaches, Turtle (10 minutes walk) and Adam and Eve (20m) accessed from D'Lagoon - great for sunsets or just some seclusion. D'Lagoon's biggest negative for some will be its isolation - a pretty strenuous 1 hour+ trek from Long Beach or a water taxi each excursion.

D'Lagoon Resort seemed to have the highest concentration of budget travellers of all the accommodation I saw. This is shot from the restaurant behind beach - a pretty relaxed place to hang out. Note that apart from budget and flashpacker chalets D'Lagoon also has a dorm.

East coast beaches
(from the north)

Kecil's Turtle Beach - a very short flatish jungle track walk from D'Lagoon on the adjacent west coast. If you click shot to expand you can better see a fair bit of rock and broken coral on the beach, the shallowness of the water off-shore in this mid-tide pic, and how clear the water is. Killer sunsets.

Next south is Adam and Eve Beach - longer, better sand which extends into the water and deeper water off the beach. This is reached by a signposted short side-track off the main trekking track between the wind generators (sign post after about 20 minutes) and D'Lagoon (15min) - don't be tempted to take the two unposted side-tracks closer to D'Lagoon if coming from that end.

Midway down the east coast, Coral Bay is Perhentian Kecil's second most popular beach. Pretty nice sand, clear water and a big range of accommodation - extending to the rocks in far background and behind camera (this is shot from Senja Bay Resort's restaurant which is at the southern end of the beach).
Biggest negative is the low tide blues - it gets pretty shallow a fair way from the beach at low tide. However no unattractive rocks or mud flats are exposed.
Snorkelling in 2011 was not mind blowing - there were some interesting patches of coral in the buoyed-off swimming enclosure a fair way off the beach to left of camera but a lot of dead and broken stuff closer in. Plenty of fish to keep piscene fans happy.

Coral Bay and Long Beach are quite close - connected by this well paved 10 minute path with moderate slopes (it was a much more interesting jungle track in 1999). Building activity at each beach end had made the start/end a bit confusing, but look for signs at the far northern end of Coral Bay near the pier and near the southern end of Long Beach. Taking just about any track inland at the latter will get you onto this path. Note you still need a torch at night.
Inevitably building has started to extend itself along this track and being off-beach there are some nice bargains for newish places. One joint, Tropicana towards the top of the saddle had dorm rooms for rm15 (that's about $us5) and pretty nice individual fan rooms at rm40 (late June 2011). Next visit I wouldn't be surprised to find accommodation and restaurants the full length of this path.

Mira Bay is 25 minutes south of Coral Bay along the surprising good coastal walking track. This place is very appealing - nice sand which extends quite a distance into the water, no apparent low tide blues and one budget resort - click to expand to see some of their chalets more clearly. I'm penciling this one in next visit - it is less isolated than D'Lagoon with Coral Bay and Long Beach restaurants and bars an easy 25 and 35 minute shaded jungle-by-the-sea walk away. Note about one third of the beach is hidden by the rock/headland on the right of shot - but this is still a compact beach.

Petani/Impiani Beach is another 10 minutes further south along the track. Technically this is not east coast but on Kecil's south coast. It may well be the nicest beach on Kecil - quite long (those rocks on the sand in far background are actually only a little past mid-beach, and divide Petani beach from Impiani) - lovely water and no low-tide problems, sand maybe not as white as some but real clean and going a long way out into the water before rocks/coral take over.
Arguably you are more isolated from the action of Coral and Long Beaches, but the coastal track continutes 10-15 minutes to the village where there are plenty of shops and restaurants, and this beach is getting pretty close to the south-east and southern beaches of Besar for not too expensive taxi boat trips. Petani Beach resort close to camera is budget/flashpacker standard - the new Impiani (see below) when it opens seems destined to be more upmarket.

All the old bungalows at Impiani had been pulled down and these rather nice looking jobs seemed about 70% complete. Big race for high season completion probably - this was shot in the last days of June which suggests they are a bit behind.

TREKKING ON KECIL
Walkers on the small island can get a real good workout - a lot of it thru pretty attractive jungle areas.
The Northern Track
This leaves the Long Beach-Coral Beach track pretty close to Long Beach (look for the electricity lines to the wind generators). The first half hour is mainly a steady climb up to the generators - a narrow jungle path in some areas, a heavily eroded vehicle track in others and a better surfaced vehicle track towards the top. Slopes are mainly moderate but there are a few short steep pinches.

The wind turbines, sadly not in operation the whole time I was on the Perhentians despite nice wind. However the compound also has a big area of solar panels (foreground) and judging by the hum from the nearby transformers, they were working well.

Note the track to D'Lagoon continues along the fence behind camera from where it starts dropping very steeply down a widish vehicle road. There is also a very nice observation platform of which you can just see part at left of shot - this has good views of the north of the island but sadly not to the south. There is a fantastic stairway which runs from this platform way down to the sea on the upper left coast - don't be tempted to take this as a short-cut to D'Lagoon. See next pix for detail.

After 10 minutes walk down the very steep road you will see a D'Lagoon signposted track leading into the jungle to the right - this winds and drops (no super steep slopes) for another 30 minutes to the resort.

Pretty impressive set of steps from wind turbines to sea on western side. Click to see observation platform up near wind generators and how sea end of the pier has fallen victim to monsoon season sea wave attack.
Go down these steps by all means if you fancy a swim in crystal clear water as one couple were doing when I visited, but don't think like me that it looks only a 15 minute rock-hop across to D'Lagoon behind camera. I don't know why I do this - as a former point-break surfer, I hate rock-hopping.

The trouble with rock-hopping is that unseen transverse gutters from the sea can cause you to climb up/inland - which happened twice along this route. I started the rock-hop off the first flat section of walkway from the water way down there - notice I am now up a fair bit closer to top of stair level. If this wasn't a good enough work-out, I then came to a patch of inpenetrable jungle undergrowth at the top of the second gutter - if there is one thing I hate more than rock-hopping it's bush-bashing - trip roots, thorns, red ants pouring down my shirt etc. Anyway, what looked like 15 minutes turned into a 90 minute saga.

The South-East Coastal Track
This runs all the way from Coral Bay around to the village in the south-west of the island. Maybe an hour in total for a good walker. It is a real nice jaunt - shaded by jungle most of the way but with the sea adjacent and some nice beaches along the way, very good surface, handrails on the few sections of stairs, surprisingly flat for the first section to Mira Beach, not too much worse from there to Petani/Impiani beach, a few steeper but not heartbreaking sections the next 10-15 minutes to the village.
To get to the start, push past the chalets on the rocks immediately south of Coral Bay's beach.

Part of the south-east track. Note water pipeline which runs all the way from a well just behind Turtle Beach in the far north-east of Kecil to the village in the far south-west.
This section of the village just north of the pier has a lot of eats stands to cater for snorkel trip boats which pull in for lunch. There is a strip of restaurants and shops out of pic to the right. The village is quite big and has a sizable school and interestingly, a block of flash looking new town houses yet to be occupied just behind the pier - don't tell me Johor Bahru's rich are investing in island condos. There is a fair strip of sand to the south - a bit daggy with old unused boats and fishing industry junk, but no doubt it could be cleaned up for the new inhabitants.

Village to Long Beach Track
I wasn't aware of this (De Panarik's and guide books' maps don't show it) but my taxi boat driver from the village to Long Beach pointed out an exposed new section thru the trees close to the village which looked very similar to the south-east track.
However this does not make it right thru yet - I went looking at the Long Beach end and all I could find was a small, very rough and steep track along the power lines heading towards the village from where they cross the Coral Bay-Long Beach track. I gave up after 10 minutes - I had done the two other Kecil tracks just before and was in no mood to go slogging up some steep rough jungle path.
A local business owner said yes, you could get all the way to the village, the new track will extend itself along this this way but at the time of my visit (late June 2011) a recent land-slip had made progress along the narrow track additionally difficult.
UPDATE LATE JULY 2011 - mudshark82 who is currently in the Perhentians sent me this info about the village to Long Beach trek: There are certainly some rough parts to trek but there is a big blue pipeline running through the jungle, I followed that for a bit as it had a rough footpath alongside it. Then I got to a point with a tough uphill climb where several trees had been cut down. At this point I was slightly concerned that if I had to go back the way I came I wouldn't make it down on my feet.
Once I reached the top of the clearing I followed a path made by a truck or construction vehicle, my guess, at least 2 years ago. Although tricky at parts this eventually led me to The rear of Rock Garden (?).
think this trek would be much more difficult going the opposite way, but not impossible. There are a handful of points where I had options of different routes I could take and I went with what looked best.
This is one for the adventurer!

SENJA BAY RESORT
When I shifted across to Kecil from Besar I stayed at Senja Bay Resort. I chose this because I wanted to base myself at Coral Bay this trip (I stayed on Long Beach in '99) and because Senja is one of the few non expensive places on the island you can pre-book direct via their website by credit card - most joints want an electronic transfer into their bank account which my Aussie bank is not interested in - btw I later found De Panarik's website an excellent way of booking these north east islands by credit card - I used that for Puala Redang).

I got me a big fan/hot water room with breakfast for 100rm a night. This room was probably a bit overpriced, but was certainly spacious and clean and had a great view. The breakfast was basic - 3 bits of toast and jam plus unlimited tea/coffee but for 3rm you could get a plate of eggs (or other stuff off the menu at various prices) to supplement is. The alternative included Asian breakfast looked more filling. Other meals in the big panoramic restaurant overlooking the bay and beach were very good value and pretty tasty. The restaurant showed movies at night. No booze but the adjacent internet place sells this.
Senja service was pretty slick and cheerful. Note they will only service your room if you ask.

Senja Bay - at the far southern end of Coral Bay's beach. The restaurant is the bigger building 4th from right, the internet joint the blue roof place far left. My chalet is unseen on the 4th level way up in the trees. If you click to expand you will be able to see the small A frame chalets directly behind the sand on the left - at 100rm you are definitely paying for position. There are more expensive aircon chalets for the flashpackers and low midrangers on the lower hill levels. Beach pretty nice here, some sun lounges under trees which give shade for much of the day. Real nice sunsets. Note there are some nicely positioned budget travellers' resorts along the rocks for about 150m right of shot.

Another Dave Elliot shot - this time from '02. No Senja and few other places. Okay, Coral Bay is now pretty much built out - but you can get similar to the above in 2011 a half hour's walk south at Mira and Petani/Impiani.

View from my high balcony at Senja Resort. Coral in front of resort pretty ordinary except for a few patches way out near sunbathing platforms. Plenty of fish. Very shallow a fair way off shore at low tide. Apparently snorkelling and diving out around those islands are pretty good. Senja has a dive outfit. Steps up to my chalet a good fitness workout - solidly constructed and well lit at night.

GENERAL INFO

SNORKELLING IN THE PERHENTIANS

Looking for turtles in the channel between the two islands. Successful too - I waited until the guys saw one and then jumped in.
We followed two separate ones for a several minutes each over a period of about 20 minutes. One was quite big and when I dived down (the water is only about 4m deep here with a mainly sandy bottom) I noticed he/she had two sucker fish attached to the underside. This big one chose our period of observation as a time to swim to the surface for one of the infrequent intakes of air, which gave the surface snorkellers an extra thrill.

I was impressed by the coral and fish at the Perhentians, much better than anything I have seen in Thailand in the past year, and second only in Malaysia to the national park HQ snorkelling zone at Pulau Redang.
Best Perhentian snorkelling off the beach I saw was on the northern side of Abdul's pier on Besar, followed by that island's Bubble's beach. I don't really count Shark Point as off the beach unless you are a ratbag like me and want to do a 350m swim without fins each way - but when I got out there were well over a dozen snorkelling trip boats and a couple of dive boats. I saw 5 reef sharks and some nice coral in the 20 minutes or so I stayed in the good zone. There seemed to be a greater number of bigger fish in this area too. Note very poor broken/dead coral and very shallow water even mid tide closer the beach in this headland zone.

Kecil's D'Lagoon which was impressive in '99 has sadly deteriorated. Stick close to the right side rocks about 40m out for the best stuff.

The best way to experience snorkelling at the Perhentians is to take one of the plentiful snorkelling day trips which typically visit 5 or 6 sites over a period of 3 hours or so for a reasonable 30 to 40rm (June/July 2011). Most resorts and a lot of travel desks and bar/restaurants can lay these on.
The snorkelling trip I took this visit was operated by Arwana Resort on Besar - unlike most, it does 3 sites and hopes you will sign up for the afternoon or next day's trip for another 3 sites. We visited Turtle Bay, went turtle-spotting mid-channel off Abdul's pier and then put in at the pier to check the stuff both sides.

I also swam out to check coral/fish off the beach at Coral Bay and D'lagoon on Kecil and Shark Point and Bubble's on Besar.

I saw people engrossed in snorkelling at several other spots not known for good coral - but there always seem to be plenty of fish around, and for many people these seem the more interesting attraction.

Multi-tasking off Bubble's Beach - looks like dad wanted to go snorkelling, mum wanted him to mind the toddler. So dad had junior strapped to his back complete with neat sun-hat. Kid seemed perfectly happy to check the above-water scene and assist with the kicking while dad scoped out the coral and fish.
This is a bit different from my darlin' Anna who around the same age insisted on a set of swimming goggles and would cling to my shoulders as I headed for the bottom. She could last for 30 seconds or so before she let go and shot to the surface for the big breath. Then when I surfaced she would abuse me for going too deep. Daughters.

Less discerning people don't care if the coral isn't great. As long as the water is super clear and there is enough fish around they are happy - as this lady near Adam and Eve beach seemed to be for an extended time.

BOOZE
Quite a few resorts don't sell alcohol. However there are some beach bars plus enough restaurants and other resorts which do that you will not lack for a drink these days at the Perhentians.

GETTING AROUND
You can access most beaches on the same island by walking track. However sometimes these are indirect time-consumers or a real steep slog, so in such cases and for swapping islands it's real neat that the water taxis seem plentiful and reasonably priced.

Taxi price boards like this are all around the island. (except the village) - prices are pretty good (although note they are for one person - I'm not sure if it doubles for two etc or is open to negotiation: two people don't consume twice the fuel or time as one), less than half those at Tioman for the same distances.
Naturally prices to particular places will vary according to what beach you are on - this board was at Flora Bay on the south side of Perhentian Besar.

CAMPING
Both camp sites I saw were on the big island - Besar. But Thai locals seem to pitch their tents anywhere so probably you could do the same for one of the quieter beaches on Kecil.

Dining area of the Teluk Ke Ke camp site at the southern west of Besar. Lots of space behind in a shaded area for tents. Nice beach here and adjacent - see shots up page.

These tents were pitched at the eastern-most resort on Flora Beach - Everfresh. Note the very steep jungle track across to the other side of the island starts just inland from these tents.

CRIME AND CROWDING
Recent traveller forums have had bad press about high crime levels in the Perhentians. An island business operator said things were very bad until the season before last - and despite what local apologists said, much of the stealing and drug taking was done by island dwellers, not blow-ins from the mainland.
After sustained complaints by island business interests and victims, mainland police did multi raids involving dozens of cops and sustained every day for over a week. They were pretty heavy handed and hauled away any non-tourist who was found in possession of large sums of foreign currency, passports etc or had cameras and other consumer items they could not produce receipts for. End of problem.

This sign just outside D'Lagoon resort is probably a carry-over from the bad old days. However it's pretty good advice at any time, anywhere. I'm always reluctant to let my bag out of site when swimming at Bondi Beach in Australia.

High season crowding has also been a feature of recent past years with travel forums advising people to book ahead. Not so my visit - all accommdation seemed to have plenty of spare capacity with maybe the exception of Bubble's Dive Resort. But perhaps the very end of June is a bit early in the season? I doubt it - the forum's say any time from the start of June to early September usually sees overcrowding. I reckon the northern hemisphere financial crisis has a lot to answer for - if people and governments spend beyond their means there has to be some downside.
There will be more than some - I'm writing this in mid July 2011. I reckon the Euro as we know it will not exist within a year.
UPDATE LATE JULY 2011 - maybe I spoke a bit too soon. mudshark82 who is currently in the Perhentians tells me things have picked up with visitor numbers and there are very few vacancies at Long Beach and Coral Bay.
What a difference 3 weeks can make. I still reckon the Euro zone as it is now is a goner.

RUBBISH MANAGEMENT
Looks like the Marine National Park which administers most of the Perhentian Islands has instituted a back to the mainland trash system to avoid unsightly/unhealthy island land-fills. I saw a similar boat at Pulau Kapas which is also within the Marine National Park.

GETTING THERE
Many people fly into nearby Kota Bharu from where airport taxis can take you direct to Kuala Besut, the mainlnand pier for the Perhentians for a reasonable sum. There are booking agents at the airport can organise transport including boat tickets and book you accommodation.

Most people entering from Thailand via Sungai Kolok (Golok) make their way to Kota Bharu and then catch a taxi or bus to Kuala Besut. Kota guest houses can organise taxis or minibuses for travellers. SP Bumi also run a bus direct to Kuala Besut from the bus station.
I reckon a better way from the border is a direct taxi to the pier - particularly if you can share the cost with other travellers. The direct route cuts across the inveted L shape border-Kota Bharu-pier route - and avoids Kota's traffic.

From the south on express buses from KL, Johor Bahru, Mersing, Cherating and Kuantan ask the conductor to let you off at the junction on route 3 for the side road to Kuala Besut from where waiting taxis will take you the 15km to the pier. There is also a local bus takes this road but it runs infrequently.
It is also possible to catch local buses from as far south as Kuantan direct to the pier but this would involve at least 4 changes, condiderable time gaps and the buses can get super crowded and very very slow.

SP Bumi run a local bus from Kuala Terengganu bus station to the pier about every 2 hours.

I came up from Merang, the pier for Puala Redang. This is 20km off route 3 and no public buses run along this first part so I grabbed a private transport guy (there were no taxis at the pier) who took me the one hour tip for rm80 which I thought was reasonable value.

The pier at Kuala Besut is quite close to the main road bridge across the estuary. There is an arcade with a bunch of tour operators leading to the pier and a heap more on the street adjacent. Any of these can sell you boat tickets (and arrange accommodation if you have not booked) - each place seems to run its own speedboat and these seem to depart fairly regularly for the half hour run. Tickets cost 35rm one way/70 return. If you have a return ticket just let your accommodation know the day before you depart - it doesn't matter whose boat you end up on as long as you can give them your return stub to cash in.

GETTING AWAY
Accommodation places, restaurants and travel desks on the island have a wealth of information about onward transport from Kuala Besut. They can organise pretty standard stuff like KL or Kota Bharu but can also get you to Taman Negara, into Thailand, the west coast of peninsula Malaysia etc.
BTW on my 99 visit I managed to make the late morning bus out of the Thailand border town of Sungai Kolok to Bangkok by taking the first ferry out of the Perhentians and a shared taxi direct to the border - this bus goes up the east coast of southern Thailand and I jumped out on the outskirts of Surathani in time to get down to the town pier on the river for the night ferry to Phangan.
I noticed this latest visit a Thai rail timetable at Senja Resort which showed a late morning train out of Sungai Kolok to Bangkok which would also allow you to make the southern Gulf island night ferries by exiting the train at the station west of Surathani.

If you want to catch a taxi or local bus from Kuala Besut's pier, turn right out of the pier's arcade and walk about 100m to the parking area. I caught a local SP Bumi bus here (it doesn't wait but comes down the pier road and does a U-turn in the parking area) to Kota Terengganu for Puala Kapas - 2.2 hours to cover maybe 120km but only about 10rm.

Local fishing boat about stock up on supplies by putting in at the village pier on Kecil.

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If you are thinking of visiting the Perhentians you might also be interested in nearby PULAU KAPAS, the nicest island I have visited in years and the even closer PULAU REDANG, which is not exactly shabby.
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NOTE - IF YOU SEE ANY MISTAKES OR HAVE EXRA INFORMATION PLEASE POST THEM BELOW. IF YOU HAVE A QUESTION PLEASE ASK IT ON THE FORUM PAGE ACCCESSED VIA THE INDEX WHICH I CHECK MOST DAYS - I DON'T VISIT THESE INDIVIDUAL ISLAND PAGES VERY OFTEN.
IF YOU VISIT THE ISLANDS AND WANT TO UPDATE US CHECK OUT THE READERS' TRIP REPORT SECTION VIA THE INDEX.

Ko Phra Thong

2011-04-11T20:36:00.036+10:00

Most of Ko Phra Thong's west coast is similar to this section near Golden Buddha Beach Resort.

Ko Phra Thong is one of the least developed islands in Thailand from both the domestic and tourist point of view. When I visited in March 11 there was one high end beach villa place, two budget bungalow joints with another soon to open, and a village homestay operation. Domestic activity seemed mainly confined to a couple of fishing villages. I only saw one small agricultural operation. This is the place to go for those wanting to get right away from it all.

Phra Thong is a reasonable size at around 100 sq miles and is mainly sand deposits in the west and extensive mangroves in the east. Similar Ko Kho Khao is directly south and the mountainous and rainforested national park island of Ko Ra is just north. These can best be thought of as the northern Phang Nga province islands, although they are a hell of a long way from Phang Nga town - modified Google Earth image.

Mainland base for Phra Thong is Kuraburi on the coastal highway, better known as the base for the Surin islands. Most boat transport to Phra Thong leaves from the mangrove pier shown, although some also depart Kuraburi pier further north.

Area map from Andaman Island Hopping shows regional roads but not those on Phra Thong itself. More detail will come from expanding the image (click) and an even bigger image by clicking the link. Interestingly, Takua Pa is called Talaat Khao on this map.

More detail of Ko Phra Thong. Ban Phra Tong in the north east is known locally as Ta Pae Yoi.
There is a small village at the southern pier called Thung Dap.

The west coast of Phra Thong is 95% a lengthy beach similar to the opening shot. About 70% from the south end the beach is broken by a small attractive sandy bay - the tourist accommodation (apart from Lions' Village homestay) is clustered both sides of this bay.
There are only three villages. The biggest and main entry point to the island is what the tourist webpages call Baan Phra Thong (local name is Ta Pae Yoi). Baan Lions in the north was rebuilt post tsunami by the Lions Club international with help from the Swiss government. There is a small village at the southern pier called Thung Dap.
Roads are narrow concrete tracks just wide enough for a 4 wheeled vehicle (although I saw only one, connected with a road maintenance gang) - yellow on the image. Plus narrow unpaved tracks, often sandy - white on image.
That red line at bottom shows scale - 5km long.

This is an oblique Google Earth image from the north of the small bay area and its immediate surroundings I modified it to show location of the resorts and the island's dive centre. High end Golden Buddha at top - budget resorts below. The Beach Bar mentioned later is roughly where the O of NO NAME is on the image.
Oblique shots tend to bring out high areas - you can see how flat Phra Tong is.
Those ridge/swale lines actually indicate small parallel dunes, mostly covered in savanna type scrub. Each line indicates where the coastline was some time in the very distant past.

THE BEACHES.

North Beach.

This is the view north from where the path from the budget bungalows hits the beach. It's about 4km to the north west corner of the island which you can see if you expand the image (click). Those mountains belong to Ko Ra, the next island north.

This beach is okay only - a fair bit of flotsam and jetsam on the beach when I visited, tends to get shallow left of camera low tide. Much nicer beach areas a short walk behind the camera.

But not immediately behind:
Swinging 180 degrees shows this view - nice enough but not oh wow. Far right is part of one of two small offshore islets off this section of beach. I'm told snorkelling and diving is okay around these and people hire kayaks from BLUE GURU DIVE to check them out. The top section of this beach before the small headland to the next bay (about 60% across shot) gets lots of exposed not so yellow-white sand at low tide. Knob 75% right is Hornbill Hill from where the shot top of page was taken. Hornbill is actually at the SOUTH (far) end of the next bay to this (see below), maybe 20 minutes walk from camera. Nice walk.

Next Bay

A flat track across the small headland shows this - the southern end of the bay which interupts the east coast beach.

This has got to be the prime beachfront on the island, nice sand, deep water low tide in this southern section (and in the central part, most of which is out of shot and not in the next one). Come back in the future and there will be a flash resort. Maybe not too soon - Ko Kho Khao immediately south has 20 km of mainly undeveloped attractive beach. And much easier transfers from the mainland. Plus rumours of an upcoming airport on the site of the WW2 Japanese landing strip.

This is the northern end of the bay - the sand continues right up to Hornbill Hill at right. Heaps of water at high tide as in this shot, but I noticed low tide exposed lots of sand (not dirty) against most of the beach in pic. Golden Buddha Resort is behind the right half of the trees in shot - associated Blue Guru Diving has a beach location about 65% across shot.

Blue Guru Diving's beachfront dive shop. Although associated with Golden Buddha Resort, this outfit can also arrange accommodation at one of the cheaper options such as Mr Chuoi's or the Lion's Village homestay. It can also do this for non divers. As a matter of fact Blue Guru's website KO PHRA THONG is probably the best all round website on the island and is not confined to diving activities. Besides being such a laid back location, this outfit has the advantage of closest dive operation to the world class Surin islands and Richelieu Rock. I wandered past here one afternoon, the boat was gone and a sign said: GONE TO EXPLORE NEW LOCATIONS.

South Beach

This is a very simlar shot to the one top of page, snapped from the same viewpoint on Hornbill Hill. The beachhouses of Golden Buddha Resort are behind the trees for about the first 500m, and the beach itself stretches approx 10km down to the south-west corner of the island. As far as I could tell there is nothing apart from a few fishermens' huts behind the trees along this stretch.

Hornbill Hill, which must be the highest point on all Phra Thong, is actually part of Golden Buddha Resort. They have built a short steep walkway up to this viewpoint with rope assists. There is a small picnic shelter up top. To right of image is a small section of rocks in the water I thought would be worth a snorkel, but visibility was very poor. A turtle conservation scheme guy told me it was pretty clear the day before - it had rained hard during the night and a creek empties into the bay just to the north of this headland.
When I took this shot there was a group of 5 westerners staring intently at the water. I thought maybe they were into some sort of Buddhist meditation but it turned out they were volunteers for the conservation scheme doing a turtle count. These people were staying at Lions Village homestay and motorcycling/bicycling out the 7km or so to do 4 hour spotting shifts.

Golden Buddha Resort is a pretty interesting operation. It consists of 25 privately owned beach houses in a very large garden compound (often 50m or more between houses) which the resort leases out to holidayers. These are not cheap and don't have aircon. There is no pool. But each is different, and are built to a high standard. And definitely have exclusivity and serenity of location when compared to say the similar Railay Beach Club.

OTHER ACCOMMODATION

Mr Chuoi's
When I was doing research on accommodation the only budget beach place on the island I could find was run by Mr Chuoi (say Chewy). You can book his joint thru Blue Guru Diving's website, but I got super-helpful Am of TOM AND AM TOUR in Kuraburi who arranged my Surins transfers to ring him, book a bungalow and arrange the cheapest possible transport. The latter was important because I really couldn't afford the 1000+ each way my research had suggested.

Chez tezza - Mr Chuoi has a dozen of these Moken-style bungalows strung away from the beach track on the northern side opposite his restaurant. Each must be 25 m apart so it is quite a haul to the restaurant if you are in #12. But super quiet. Prices 500b and 300b in March '11.

I went for a 500 one. Very spacious - there was a king size bed and room for another double if needed. Clean, in good condition, bed-pillow-net okay, some simple furniture, big bathroom with western toilet flushed by bucket, good shower and bidet. No basin or toilet paper but towel supplied. No electricity (Mr Chuoi supplies a very good battery powered lamp) and no door lock but provision to fit your own. The main differences in the 300 bungalows appeared to be the fact they were older and did not have the simple interior/front veranda furniture.

Mr Chuoi's restaurant is located adjacent the beach track about 250m from the beach itself.

Divers from Blue Guru told me this place has the best inexpensive food on the island. Besides the divers, the restaurant also attracted guests from Golden Buddha, Lions' Village homestay and some locals from the main village. I'm no gourmet but I certainly couldn't complain about taste, quantity or service. Prices were pretty good, maybe 10-20% higher than average budget bungalow restaurants.
ph 084-8559886, 087-8984636

Mr Chuoi is a bit of a character, cheerful and obliging. I took this from his motorcycle-side car on the way from the pier.

Phratong Nature Beach Resort.
This is a new place open less than a year when I visited, but already having had one name change from Phratong Seaview. Perhaps because being immediately on the ocean side of Mr Chuoi's it's still 150m from the sea which is hidden by casuarina trees and scrub - so no seaview. Nevertheless it is run by a lovely guy and his family, and the bungalows are definitely a step up from Mr Chuoi's. One diver staying there said the food was excellent too.

Rather attractive restaurant. About 10 bungalows, smaller than Mr Chuoi's but not squeezy and with electricity and hot water (the latter so rare in any budget bungalow) for 600. I think Mr Chuoi has some good competition here. www.phratongnaturebeach.com ph +66 884515531

No Name

This brand new joint was just short of opening when I called by in March '11. Pretty nice position alongside this little lagoon behind the beach. The restaurant is maybe 50m closer the beach and is genuine sea-view.

I call it No Name because when I talked to the owner he said he hadn't decided yet. Bungalows will be 800b and are maybe a step up again from Nature Beach although I didn't ask about hot water. I haven't any contact info but maybe Blue Guru Diving's website may get some when the place is operating.

Lions' Village Homestay

The village built post-tsunami by Lion's Club International.

Locals run a homestay here. The turtle conservation volunteers were using it during my stay, as were Tyler and Aimee - students of Blue Guru. They told me their room was comfortable, the people lovely and food options good - although they were real fans of the grub at Mr Chuoi's.
Note the living areas are elevated to give some protection if another disaster occurs. Blue Guru Diving's website has more info.
About one third of the new houses are empty. Apparently the take up was less than expected - some people stayed on the mainland and others moved to the main village where the local head teacher has a nice new very solid looking 3 storey building - the highest structure on the island. He refuses to staff the brand new smaller school at Lions' Village.
There is a small inlet a short distance from the village which acts as a harbour for village longtails. The longish North Beach is not too far away with several marked walking tracks to access off the main road.

AROUND THE ISLAND

I hired one of Mr Chuoi's motorbikes and checked the island out. At least I checked all the paved roads which I found are nearly 100% confined to the north half of the island.

Cut down 80s Honda a real bitzer. Mr Chuoi calls it his FORMULA ONE. Front brakes only, 4 speed shift with auto clutch, ignition wired permanently on, just kick it over - to stop engine there are 2 wires with ends exposed; touch them together and the engine dies. There was a newer better bike but it was almost out of gas. Formula One was so light it went like a rocket and used virtually no gas. All the locals giggled and pointed when I rode by.

Landscape in shot is typical of more western parts of the island. There are more trees in eastern areas. Virtually no agriculture in the northern part of the island as far as I could see - one small farm seemed to be growing fruit. However my public ferry back to the mainland had a fair few bags full of nuts going to wholesalers in Kuraburi.
Road is typical of the paved tracks - picture is shot mid-island and this road turned into a sandy track about 500m behind bike. I'm no motorcyling expert so I gave that a miss. When I was turning around some locals went by on a trailer towed by a small tractor - ideal for the soft sandy conditions. I later noticed Formula One had knobbly tyres, just the thing for soft sand. Mr Chuoi who is a bit of a bike enthusiast probably uses it as his sand track fanger.

This is the main village. It's a pleasant enough place, spread along the shore in the island's north east with a few shops and restaurants. Fishing seems the main activity. Houses must have been rebuilt since the tsunami yet there seemed to be no attempt to elevate them. But the people do have that nice new concrete 3 storey school for refuge. I guess they are relying on the siren system on the tsunami alert towers working properly. Or that there will be no repeat.

The Beach Bar. This is only 50m south of where the track from Mr Chuoi's and the other budget bungalows hits the beach.

The bar tends to attract a good crowd around sunset (which at this time of year was behind islands in background) - that's dive student Tyler from Canada (here studying for an exam) and his wife Aimee, plus French dive-instructor Marion. We were later joined by other dive students and Todd, an Aussie-Kiwi who runs a charter catamaran doing daytrips mainly for Golden Buddha holidayers. In background are some guests from Golden Buddha.

Junior guest from Golden Buddha knows all about relaxing island holidays.

The Beach Bar is run by a young affable local P.Nu. Beer prices are pretty reasonable, a bit cheaper than Mr Chuoi's. This guy can put on a good feed too - on my last night about 8 of us had a banquet-style meal with excellent bbq fish and a fair few other plates for 180 each. Some older villagers took a nearby table for a meal (must be good - this is a fair haul from the village) - Mr Chuoi wandered down later and had a beer with them.

GETTING THERE

Blue Guru's website talks of chartering a longtail which costs 1700 to Golden Buddha and 1400 to Lions' Village. Mr Chuoi later told me a longtail charter to the main village would cost 1000 from the mangrove "pier". This is fine if there are other passengers to split the fare but too much for me alone. I wanted to get out there pretty late in the afternoon, so Mr Chuoi suggested to Am at Kuraburi who was doing the talking for me that I take the banana boat which he would organise to pick me up at the southern "pier" for 400.

The southern pier aint no pier at all - just a small mangrove inlet where you step off the bank into your transport. That's the banana boat being poled in to pick me up. This baby is just big enough for one passenger - has a small longtail motor but is real hotrod - banking thru narrow mangrove corners at 60kmh like one of those Florida swamp racers and fanging across open bay at 80! Ride a bit hard on the bum in the small chop out there. Took about 15 minutes to reach island. Mr Chuoi waiting at main village pier to take me to resort at no extra cost.

I'm glad I got Am to organise this - I would have difficulty in explaining which pier I wanted to a motorcyle taxi guy and getting a good price. Am called one over and negotiated 70 baht (people told me they paid up to 200 to get to the main Kuraburi pier for the Surins which is a bit closer to town - although the booking agencies in town will take you for free in a pickup as part of their Surins transport package).
The taxi guy dropped me at a house near the pier where lovely local ladies made me a cup of coffee. The banana boat guy arrived in a pickup after 10 minutes, jawed with the ladies for 5 and then took me down to the inlet about 3 minutes walk away. None of these people had a word of English, which matches my Thai language skill. But as usual, things worked well.

The public longtail on the return trip.

On return Mr Chuoi told me I could get right back to town for 300 total if I was prepared to leave the resort at 7am. Suited me - I wanted to make Khao Sok with a fair bit of daylight left. I ended up on this public longtail which left the main village at around 0730 with about half a dozen women and kids and a load of bagged nuts. We went back to the same southern mangrove "pier" where a songthaew was waiting to take us into town. Along the way it picked up more passengers and nuts, went to a wholesaler in Kuraburi who weighed the nuts and payed out, and then dropped me off at the bus station.
Now like a dummy I didn't ask what time this boat returned to the island. Maybe there is no set time. I didn't see anything about this boat in my research prior the trip.
UPDATE - Chris who runs Blue Guru emailed me that this boat's timing depends on high tide. I assume that is high tide at the mainland mangrove "pier" - the town pier on the island would not have this problem. Now high tide comes roughly an hour later each day so no strict timetable can be given. Because the boat has to get in and out it is probably timed to arrive an hour or two before peak tide and leave the same gap after. Chris told me it got too hard to co-ordinate this plus transport from town with incoming people which is why his website now only quotes the 1400/1700 job. He also told me he hopes Baan Lions will organise a direct cheap public boat from the mainland sometime soon.

Public longtail begins to move into mainland mangrove inlets from the open bay.

KURABURI

Kuraburi is the mainland base town for the Surins and islands like Ko Phra Thong and Ko Raya - it's about an hour by bus north of Takua Pa and 2 hours south of Ranong. Distance between the two white arrows is 750m.

The town is a strung along the main highway with a main street shopping area about one half the length of Khao Lak's main centre. It's a pretty quiet place with good variety of stores, a couple of 711s, one bank with ATM, several trip booking places and a few places to stay. There is a night food market runs just right of the L for TOM AND AM TRAVEL.

Accommodation.
If heading from south to north, one option would be to ride thru the shopping street on the main road and as soon as you reach the bridge at the far end check the two bungalow places on the inland side (the further of the two you have to go down a 200m track from the road). I stayed in the further one last month, forget its name - it's associated with Tom and Am Travel who have a shopfront left side heading north in the middle of town opposite the road into the bus station, and also a desk at the bus station. It had basic rooms with bathroom for 300 asked - I got 250. Very quiet.
A guy tenting next to me in the Surins stayed at the joint the other side of the bridge - said real nice bungalow for 400 odd including basic breakfast.
If you get out at the bus station the first of these places is little more than 5 minutes walk.

There are some other places back behind businesses in the central town - I remember a sign showing bungalows in back near Barracuda Dive's shop. Barracuda also has a desk at the bus station. BTW there is a mum and pop trip booking agent on left side of the lane leading down from the bus station - seemed to have good contacts but poor English.

If you want flashpacker-lower midrange accommodation look for the signs alongside the main road about 8-10km south of town in twisty hilly jungle country for Kuraburi Green View Resort. If on a bus, ask the conductor/driver to stop the bus when there. They are very reliable.

I also copied this info when doing research for my trip - I don't know who the poster was:
In Kura Bury there is a very good place to stay my husband and I have stayed there several times Boon Piya resort,
179-180 M1 T Kura is on the main road in Kura Buri tel 01-7525457 . It is very simple but very clean with you own shower and loo , little bungalows and the owner Panich who runs it is a very nice man . It is used to be about 800 bath the night and there is a nice place next door for breakfast in the morning.
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If you see mistakes or have extra information, please fire them in below. If you have questions, please ask them on THE FORUM which I check most days. I only visit individual island pages occasionally.
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IF YOU VISIT THE PHRATONG YOU MIGHT BE INTERESTED IN NEARBY LOCATIONS LIKE KO KHO KHAO, PHAYAM, LITTLE KO CHANG, KHAO LAK, KHAO SOK, PHUKET AND THE SURINS - PAGES ON EACH CAN BE ACCESSED THRU THE INDEX

Coral Island

2011-04-09T21:50:00.029+10:00

Main beach at Coral Island - Long Beach.

Coral Island is one of Phuket’s fringing islets and popular daytrip locations. It also has a lower-midrange place Coral Island Resort which is not a bad place to spend a couple of days at the start or end of an Andaman trip.

Location is only 10km SSE of Phuket's Chalong pier.

The beaches are on the north coast, connected by a rainforest track just above the rocks. There are no roads or villages.

Oblique Google Earth image showing the island from the north west. Might be worth clicking the image to expand - shows the reef dop-off for both beaches well.

Long Beach is about 900M in length. The north end here tends to be quietest although not manicured as fastidiously as other sections.

Daytrippers mainly congregate in the central area where it can get pretty crowded (a bit early in the day for crowds in this shot). Swimmers/snorkellers have a large buoyed enclosure that separates them from the speedboats and longtails. Daytrip operators have 2 restaurants/beach clubs here - food and drink prices seem similar to the resort, not budget.

The south end is the resort area. Sign tells daytrippers this is a private area. No boats. Some nice old-style canvas beach chairs along here plus plenty of shade most of the day under the casuarina trees. White sand. Water is clear, gets a bit shallow at low tide but not too bad. Some stones exposed at far north end at lowest tide but not unattractive. Coral Island is supposed to be an okay snorkelling location but I swam out to the reef drop-off, about 100m at high tide and didn’t find anything impressive. May be better around the headland rocks.

Coral Island Resort's premium bungalows are these beachfront ones. There are two rows of similar but cheaper ones in the garden area behind - spacing a bit tight.

My room was in a block of 4 in the garden area. Cheapest option, it was still pretty okay - large, clean, aircon, hw, frig, jug - no tv which I didn’t miss a bit. Very quiet resort at night.

The outlook from my balcony thru the garden towards the pool wasn’t shabby. Pool-bungalows area much more nicely landscaped than reception-restaurant region northward beachside which seems a bit sparsely planted and sandy.

Restaurant-reception area - not short of trees but ground-cover a bit scraggy.

The beachfront restaurant has a nice outlook towards one of Phuket’s other fringing islands (left) and Phuket’s Cape Panwa (background). Inclusive buffet breakfast was okay without being sensational - prices for other meals more midrange than budget - I ate these meals at a beach restaurant-bar further north.

This is shot from deck of that northern restaurant-bar. Prices maybe 25% higher than typical island budget restaurant but not too bad and good savings on other options. Once again, this end of the beach is the one if you want to avoid the crowds. That’s Phuket in background - it’s one biiiig island.

Pool area pretty nice, never crowded - well away from daytrippers. Frequent visits by hot topless Russian babe guests meant distracted investigative reporting. But I persevered for your sake, dear readers.

If you take a track starting above the rocks just behind the camera in the shot top of page you will come after a 10 minute fairly flat walk thru nice rainforest to Banana Beach. This is considerably smaller than Long Beach but not as short as the camera suggests. Banana tends to attract a fair few daytrippers too (this is shot real early before most arrive), mainly the longtail charter groups. But the beach never appeared crowded. Water tends to be deeper low tide. Snokelling on drop-off appeared no better. Nice restaurant in trees left of those guys.

AS GOOD AS RAYA/RACHA?
Ko Raya is another Phuket fringing island further south of Coral Island. I prefer it - the main beach is gorgeous with more-interesting snorkelling off the sand, the island is bigger with more bays/paths, there is increased variety of accommodation - one very high end joint, 2 other midrangers and 3 budget places and quite a few budget restaurants. It is one of the Phuket area's premium diving sites and there are dive-outfits on the island. A disadvantage is that the trip takes about twice as long (but is no more expensive on the speedboats) which is not fun on a rough day.

GETTING THERE
Coral Island Resort has its own speedboat shuttle which will take you there and back for 1000 including transfer from Phuket accommodation. Unfortunately the resort did not answer my 2 emails (I booked thru one of the online multi-accommodation websites - not the resort’s website) so I had to make a motorocyle taxi trip from Phuket town down to the pier at CHALONG and get a ride out and back on a daytrip boat. You can charter a long tail for much the same money but only one-way and this could be a rough, slow, wet trip on a bumpy day. It only makes sense baht-wise for a group of people. I think if you are daytripping and want the longtail to wait the price is more like 1500+.

Bustle at daytrip piers is always good value. This is the outside of Nikorn Speedboat at Chalong. Big time haggler Tezza managed to cut price from 1000 to 900. Boats depart about 0900 - leave island around 1500. Trip takes around 20 minutes in calmer conditions.

Back at Chalong. Boats only use pier at low tide when beach approach is too shallow - climb up from boat to pier a bit of a hassle and it's a pretty looong pier.

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If you are visiting Coral Island you may be interested in:
- similar Ko Raya/Racha
- and of course Phuket itself
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If you see mistakes or have extra info, please post it below. If you have questions, please post them in THE FORUM, accessed via the INDEX page. I don't get to check individual island pages all that often.

Kho Surin

2011-04-04T18:33:00.052+10:00

This is one 0f those places where bringing your own hammock is a real good idea.

Ko Surin is one of the north Andaman islands between Phuket and Ranong - the area is north of the Similans, Khao Lak and Takua Pa. The mainland base is about one hour north of Takua Pa in the town of Kuraburi.

I pinched this map off Bolesav's Trip Report elsewhere on this site - image Thaiforest Booking

Modified Google Earth image of same - might be worth clicking to enlarge.

A bit more detail of the main visitor areas - definitely needs clicking.

Check-in is at the National Park office at the mainland pier about 17km WNW of Kuraburi town. If you have not booked your bungalow online you can do it here. You can't book tents or tent spaces online. For campers the main concern of the NP people here seems to be checking your transport ticket (and I guess making sure there are tent vacancies at busy times) - you pay your 400baht NP fee (5 days) along with camping fees when leaving the island.

If you have booked with one of the travel agents in town you will get free transport down to the pier. Tom and Am Tour (email: tom_am01@hotmail.com) which has a counter at the bus stop (closed when I arrived on a Sunday, as was the other counter of Barracuda Diving) and whose main street office can be seen as you walk down the short access road from the bus station, went a step or two further - picked me up from my accommodation and provided a simple breakfast at their office. Their cut seems to come from selling you a boat ticket - although I also stayed at their riverside bungalows nearby - 300b instantly dropped to 250 when I jokingly asked if 300 came with dancing girls. Bungalows not flash - worth about 250 by North Andaman standards although you would pay twice this in central-south Andaman. Located at north end of shopping strip just across the main road river bridge - short walk to all services. 7/11 24h store in service station next door (not noisy - bungalows are set 250m back from road) but non alcohol! Another 7/11 selling booze is 5 minutes walk away in central main street, but won't sell this before 5pm in the afternoon - local law strictly observed.
Kuraburi has several other traveller type places plus the more midrange Greenview Resort about 10km south of town in real scenic countryside close to the highway. I think Greenview arranges Surin transport thru Barracuda Diving.

Arriving at the Surins. Speedboats moor beside one of those floating piers - but campers going to area #2 (as we all were) are loaded into longtails which move alongside speedboats.

The websites will tell you the choice is between slowboats and speedboats from the mainland, but such had been the decrease in visitors since the coral bleaching episode began that the slow boats were only running on weekends in March '11.
I'm not whelmed by speedboats, having suffered some horrifically rough and wet trips, but fortunately conditions both across and back were pretty calm. Trip takes maybe 50-60 minutes - highlights are Ko Ra, a mountainous island with good beaches close to the coast (and only one eco resort which I didn't have time to visit this trip) and Richelieu Rock, a submerged reef about 75% into the journey with around 10 dive-boats (most live-aboard) moored above what is supposed to be the best diving in Thailand.

Approaching the back-beach at camping area #2 - longtail trip takes maybe 10 minutes and is included in the price of your speedboat ticket. From the back-beach it's a flat 250m walk thru the rainforest across the isthmus to the camp area and better beach at Ao Mai Ngam.

Ao Mai Ngam is a pretty nice beach - good enough to make my list of Thailand's best beaches. Maybe 500m long, book-ended by mountainous headlands, clear water, white sand, lots of nice tree shade in back of the beach, plenty of sand left at full high tide. Campers got a kick one morning with a small (approx 300cm) shark cruising slowly at high tide close to the beach. It took off like a rocket when a gung ho dude decided to do a Steve Irwin and grab the little thing.
Unlike the arrivals beaches in area#1 and back beach at this area#2, it is possible to do reasonably good snorkelling from the beach - although any decent coral is a fair way out. Mai Ngam does suffer from the low tide blues, but clean sand rather than ugly rock is exposed and swimming is still possible by wading out another 50m. Negatives include cheek-by-jowel tents under the beachfront trees for maybe 40% its length, but you could argue they are partly hidden by the trees and less intrusive than a bungalow joint or two.

They do pack them in, but Mai Ngam is nowhere near as congested as the camping beach in the arrivals area. Coral bleaching crisis saw way fewer visitors (an expat March regular told me a third of normal week-day March visitors) so that I managed a beachfront tent - far right of shot. Tents here went back several rows - futher along the beach they were beachfront only.

Tents front left are National Park "small" versions - 300b a night although I paid 180b single. My tent was pretty good - sufficient room for two people and gear although not quite high enough to stand in, and very waterproof - it poured on two nights. The larger 450-300 NP tents looked maybe 20% bigger. National Park provides bedding for 60b a night - a very thin sleeping mat which is actually a yoga mat, a good sleeping bag which is unnecessary and a small pillow. I found the mat so thin I hired two sets of bedding. Still a bit thin on the padding although combined pillow thickness became just right.
Quite a few people including my neighbours had brought their own tents and bedding.
Very close proximity of neighbours may worry some people, but I found my French neighbours friendly and helpful. Not so some of their countrymen who decided they were the camp gendarmes and acted in a rude, arrogant manner which unfortunately confirmed the stereotype of their nationality. "We stay here 4 weeks for the past 5 years!" Whoa - tres impressive!!! Move over Moken, we got a new mob claiming traditional ownership.

Layout of Ao Mai Ngam National Park Canteen/Administration area right and camping area left. Camping area has been extended further to the left - there are now 10 sub-zones and each can take at least 25 tents, not the 3 the image suggests. Back zones virtually empty when I visited but apparently NP can haul up extra tents in busy times quickly. To its credit NP keeps the area very clean of leaf litter etc and the toilets and showers were always presentable. With crowds down I never had to wait at these. They and routes to them were lit 24 hours. This image from Ko Surin Diving expands nicely when clicked.

These tents were at the front of a back zone behind my beachfront one. Nicely decorated - the dwellers seemed to be permanent locals, but I couldn't work out if they were NP workers or transport company staff. Worryingly, one dude seemed to play music all night - it was going 3am one night, 5am the next (I picked up a bug and had to make sleep-time wc runs: btw I am not blaming the terrible NP restaurant food, I think I picked this up on the mainland) - music was the dire Thai love song stuff, not too loud but not soft either. The lapping of the wavelets covered this noise from my tent but I would hate to be in his zone which could happen when things were busy.

National Park restaurant. Big open sided joint near beachfront with more alfresco seating outside. Which created mass migration when sudden storm hit.

Food absolutely dire. I'm on record saying I've never not enjoyed Thai food - even that stuff in highway food stalls been stewing for 5 years which you down when the bus stops for 15 minutes tastes good to me, but the NP restaurant grub was terrible - tasteless, greasy, relatively expensive and limited in choice ("no beef, no squid only chicken!"). I got so dismayed with the ultra-greasy offerings I opted for a fruit plate ("only pineapple!") and two boiled eggs for my last 3 meals. Couple this with tardy, surly and rude counter service. Hey and NP restaurants no longer serve alcohol.
Boss lady Am back at the travel agency in Kuraburi did tell me to raid a 7/11 and take as much food as possible plus coffee/tea. Well I took coffee but not much food. I did smuggle in a bottle of rum.

BTW I've found NP restaurant food at Tarutao, Khao Lak, Khao Sok and Adang tasty and cheap. Why so bad and expensive here? I got the impression the place's cachet as the prime snorkelling island in Thailand has bred complacency - the crowds come anyway and are a captive market. NP staff in the reception area were pretty slack and surly too.
BTW Boleslav who stayed at the area #1 - the arrivals beach area - in the bungalows says in the Trip Reports section that the food was pretty good in the canteen there. I had one meal there - it was a step up, but not that great. Maybe NP Surins has a new caterer.

Positives: Free fresh cold water and boiling water were available on that table mid-restaurant in shot. Table service was quick and the boys kept the place tidy. Bread was availably at 5b a slice and a toasting rack was set up outside at breakfast with comp jam. The ordering area had a very limited range of noodle-cups, snacks, juices and soft drinks for a bit of variety. If the women could stop yaking to serve you.

THE ARRIVALS BEACH

This is the beach at the arrivals pier - pretty small, not that attractive (I saw no-one swimming). Visitors information shack at the inland end of the pier and this area's National Park restaurant just behind those trees in back of beach at left. Short track leads away from camera to bungalow-tent area on the nice back beach.

Ao Chong Kaad, the back bungalow/camping beach in the arrivals area was pretty nice, but not a touch on Mgai Ngam. A sign behind camera said DANGER - NO SWIMMING HERE. So naturally I had to see why. There was a pretty good tidal current ripping thru (this beach is on the narrowish passage between North Surin and South Surin) which at the time was carting a fair bit of natural junk like lumps of jelly-like stuff, twigs etc. Note no problems with currents mid beach or further from camera. The Nature Track between the arrivals area and the Mai Ngam area starts from the far end of the beach - there was a nice small patch of sheltered sand about 3 minutes into the track probably also accessible from this beach at lower tide levels. About half way along the track is a beach similar to the one in shot which is the Thai Navy Surins Base site.

The tent area behind the beach is way more congested. They seemed to have crammed about the same number of tents into a quarter of the area of Mai Ngam - and because it's so confined, they don't bother taking tents down when it's not busy. As far as I could see there were only one or two tents occupied here on a weekday March '11. It seems that in unbusy times, unless you ask for this area you are automatically taken to the much more attractive Mai Ngam site.

The National Park Bungalows are mainly located on steep slopes behind the beach. As far as I could see these 2000baht ones mainly had very limited sea and beach views thru the heavy tree canopy. The 3000 baht ones in a separate area were better in this respect.

I have to say that 2000baht for a bungalow without aircon is an ask (the 3000 ones do have this and looked to be able to house families easily) - I stayed in similar NP bungalows in the south Andaman not too long ago for a third these prices.
An English couple I talked to on the return speedboat said yep - value not great even at the 1400 they paid online for the 2000 jobbies. Now I have checked the NP website - can see no mention of 1400 and the guy in the Book-In section near the pier quoted me 2000. But there is another website people wishing to book from overseas can use - perhaps it has managed to screw a decent discount out of NP in these quiet coral bleaching times. Booking from overseas on the official NP website is real hard because they want your deposit paid into any branch a nominated Thai bank or a regional NP Office within 36 hours or similar. The other website can do this - for a fee - which makes that 1400 even better value if this is how it was done.
Bolesav has some pix of the 2000 bungalows' exterior/interior in the TRIP REPORT section Surins page.

Map of arrivals area - the floating pier is not shown but is roughly where "Island" is printed bottom right. Once again the area has been expanded - this shows only one row of 2000 bungalows at 19 instead of two. 6 tent symbols for at least 150 tents. Click to expand.

SNORKELLING
I didn't go to the Surins to snorkel. For a start I knew that even in best times the coral/fish are roughly equal to an area I have snorkelled extensively in good times -the Similans - maybe a bit better, maybe a bit worse, but close. That is, some of the best in Thailand but not mind-blowing compared to world's best. And secondly I knew the well publicised coral bleaching of late 2010 into 2011 had badly affected the situation.
How badly? Well one LP Thorntree poster was claiming all the coral was dead - hur hur hur, dude's been popping the hyperbole pills - not even close. But yep, there was a hell of a lot of dead coral although strangely I saw very little of the startlingly white bleached coral. Maybe we have passed first phase. Less coral equals fewer fish - there were some about but hardly exciting although people on my snorkelling trip did see a few harmless black-tip reef sharks at Ko Rae (and one turtle).
I gotta say the afternoon snorkelling trip was underwhelming - water was too deep for good visibility by surface snorkellers and for easy dives to the bottom by blokes like me done our ears in from too much lobster-chasing etc in days past. And the boat guys seemed to have no English or even hand directions for where the good stuff was once the longtail was moored. In all, the stuff I saw was maybe 5th rate by world standards and I had no desire to do next morning's snorkel trip to other areas (if they can't show you at least one good area in the afternoon it suggests they don't have much better on the other trip).
But hey, when I discussed all the above with the English couple from the bungalows they said hold on, they were still very impressed - beats the North Sea hands down. Good point.

Ao Mai Ngam is good in that you can snorkel normally okay stuff off the beach - not possible in the Arrivals Area or at the accommodation beaches in the Similans as far as I know.

Stuff close to the beach was pretty dead but out there where the boats are moored is the reef drop-off and it seemed as good to me there, particularly to the left, as at my snorkelling trip locations. It is a hell of a long way out to this zone but at low tide you can wade most of the way.
A bloke told me it was also good near a small beach around a tiny headland to the right of the boats (not the big far headland you can see top right) but I swam no fins, no snorkel way out to the mooring zone drop-off at high tide and I was blowed if I was going to swim another 500m to this beach area.

DIVING
I didn't see any evidence of dive outfits located on the islands. Heaps of daytrip and overnight diveboats work over the area from Khao Lak, Phuket, Kuraburi and more local islands like Ko Kho Khao and Ko Phra Thong.
At the time of writing authorities had closed two Surins area dive sites because of the bleaching crisis but there's a heap of others.

THE NATURE TRAIL
This joins the Arrivals area 1 to Area 2 starting from the far north end of Ao Chong Kaad and arriving at the southern end of the back beach across from Ao Mai Ngam in Area 2 - see the second Google Earth image above. A leisurely walk one way took me about 50 minutes. It is relatively flat with with no sustained killer slopes, sticking fairly close to just above the rock platform. When you come to the Navy beach, go directly out onto the sand and walk to the very far end where the track moves up into the bush again. There is pretty nice rainforest and sea glimpses along the track plus the usual NP educational panels about flora/fauna/landscape etc, in the usual poor condition.

The educational panels weren't the only things in poor repair. At least 4 wooden stairways or bridges along the way were in similar disrepair and looked like they had been that way for some time. What does NP do with our 400baht entry fees?

Aint gonna fix this one real quick. Looked to have come down last wet season - I'm wondering if more slumped in the unusually heavy rains which caused unseasonal flooding in southern Thailand in late March/early July 2011 just after I left.

Note the lack of any other walking tracks in the Surins. Any other island of similar size would have some to more distant beaches, viewpoints etc.

THE MOKEN VILLAGE
The only other attraction at the Surins is a visit to the Moken (sea gypsy) "traditional village" on the south island.
Now I know I should do this for you guys if I'm going to publish a SURINS page - but I gave the visit a miss. First I'm not real big on cultural stuff. Second, Am back in Kuraburi told me the Moken have traditional things like colour big-screen TVs these days. Third I was under the impression that true Moken are nomadic - never stay in one place long enough to build more than make-shitft dwellings. Not the south-sea island type bungalows I saw from the speedboat as we passed on arrival.

UNDERWHELMED.
Some of you dudes may have correctly read between the lines to realise I was less than gruntled about the Surins. I'm not blaming the coral. But the cost of accessing the place, the high National Park fees, the discomfort of their joke for a sleeping mattress, the dire dire dire not-cheap food, the disrepair of some facilities, the rudeness and slackness of restaurant counter and NP book-in staff, the overpriced bungalows, and the lack of walking tracks to other beaches or any viewpoints left me less than whelmed.People see overhead photos of the landscape like the one above from the National Parks website and get blown away, yet the Surins can't hold a candle to Phi Phi Ley, Phang Nga Bay or Railay in the landscape stakes. I reckon its comparable to Ko Tao - not shabby but not oh-wow! from ground/sea level.
Don't get me wrong, I didn't dislike the place. But high price of access had stopped my visiting it until after about two dozen other islands - which is fitting because that's about where I rate it. Most of those other places I regret leaving after my too short visits (forced by trying to fit too many places into the 3 weeks that family commitments confine me to each LOS visit) but after 3 days on the Surins I wasn't upset be heading elsewhere. I'll be back, but not some time soon - partly to check the coral when it recovers but mainly to see if National Parks has lifted its game, particularly with the food.

UPDATE JAN 2012 - Mark Vetare who has several trip reports in that section of the blog contacted me with the following:
"Back from 35 days on Surin. Coral bleak, fish not much better. Reef very broken exposing lobster and octopus. Morays all gone, even starfish.
Highlights: 3 eagle ray in formation, turtles and a bumphead parrot as well as 3 octopus and lobsters."
Mark says things were very quiet on the island and promises a Surins Trip Report with some pix whan he gets the chance, but he is more or less on the road constantly (lucky man). I will put up a link here when it comes in.

GOOD AS THE SIMILANS?
I dunno because I have never stayed on the Similans. I've seen all Similan islands, many of the snorkel sites and called in at both accommodation sites on Poseidon's live-aboard snorkelling trip but that was completely different and 3 of the best days I've spent in Thailand. I'm going to try to do 3 nights at the Similan National Park camp site #1 some time soon. Camp site #2 would be unfair - Donald Duck Bay's beach blows Mai Ngam out of the water. And just about any other beach in Thailand.

WHEN TO GO
National Parks shuts down in the wet season. The website below will give the dates of closing/opening. Thais have a thing for island national parks on weekends and public holidays so if arriving then you may find bungalows booked out and all tent spaces taken. At least in times of healthy coral.

GETTING THERE
From what I can gather, National Parks does not run boats. These are left to the travel agents and dive outfits in Kuraburi who can sell you a ticket and shuttle you to the pier. These people combine customers to get a full boat in slower times.
You could go to the pier independently but there is no guarantee there will be seats left - and a motorcycle taxi may charge you the 200 I heard a traveller quote (a fairer price is the 70 I paid to an equal-distance more southern Kuraburi “pier” for Ko Phratong - organised by the helpful Am - March 2011).
From memory the Surins speedboat and pier shuttle cost me 1650 return. The boats leave around 0900-0930 and take about an hour (speedboats). My return speedboat and shuttle van got me back to Kuraburi town about 1515. Time enough to make the bank which closes 1600 but has ATMs outside other times.

FROM PHUKET, KHAO LAK, RANONG and CHUMPON - regular buses to Kuraburi run between Phuket and Ranong - roughly hourly. Some continue on to Chumpon for KO TAO. Phuket is about 3.5 hours Lak 1.7 Ranong 2 and Chumpon 4.

Note if you are coming from KO PHAYAM or LITTLE KO CHANG there is a SURINS ISLAND TRIP boat which does 2 day snorkelling tours, staying in NP tents overnight.
This boat will also take you down one way. Cost seems high at 2000 but you get to do all the first day activities including snorkelling some spots along the way and meals. I don’t know if your first night's NP and tent costs are included. It’s the only way you can leave Phayam and Chang and be on the Surins the same day, unless you are prepared to charter your own boat from Kuraburi which will cost you way more than 2000.
Thia boat tends to moor in Buffalo Bay Phayam and there are posters up around both islands advertising it. Major problem - it may not be departing the same day you want to leave.

Not too that quite a few Surins trips originate out of KHAO LAK - accommodation places and travel agents organise boat tickets and pier shuttles. Simply means starting an hour or so earlier than from Kuraburi.

FROM BANGKOK - some but not all Bangkok-Phuket buses run thru Kuraburi via Ranong. There could also be separate Bangkok to Takua Pa buses but these may go along the Surathani-Takua Pa road (route 401) rather than via Rangong and Kuraburi. Anyway, the ticket offices at Bangkok's southern bus terminal will put you on the right bus.
I think you would be looking at something around 11 hours to Kuraburi. For people wanting to jump straight off the bus and onto transport to the Surins I reckon an overnight bus starting before 2100 would do the job.
Even though the turn-off to the pier is aboout 6km on the Ranong/Bangkol side of Kuraburi town I’d go right into town and hoof it to one of the travel agents at/near the bus stop. They actually run the boats and put on transport to the pier.

FROM TAKUA PA - all the above buses will do the one hour trip, but there are also local rattlers which maybe take a bit longer.

FROM SAMUI/PHANGAN and KHAO SOK. Jump on a route 401 bus at Surathani bus station and jump off at Takua Pa. Then take one of the buses above.

FROM KRABI and PHANG NGA- there are a few daily buses Krabi to Kuraburi and more Krabi to Takua Pa. As far as I know these all pass thru Phang Nga bus station, but I have also seen Phang Nga to Takua Pa rattlers.

KURABURI

Kuraburi is the mainland base town for the Surins and islands like Ko Phra Thong and Ko Raya - it's about an hour by bus north of Takua Pa and 2 hours south of Ranong. Distance between the two white arrows is 750m.

The town is a strung along the main highway with a main street shopping area about one half the length of Khao Lak's main centre. It's a pretty quiet place with good variety of stores, a couple of 711s, one bank with ATM, several trip booking places and a few places to stay. There is a night food market runs just right of the L for TOM AND AM TRAVEL.

Accommodation
If heading from south to north, one option would be to ride thru the shopping street on the main road and as soon as you reach the bridge at the far end check the two bungalow places on the inland side (the further of the two you have to go down a 200m track from the road). I stayed in the further one last month, forget its name - it's associated with Tom and Am Travel who have a shopfront left side heading north in the middle of town opposite the road into the bus station, and also a desk at the bus station. It had basic rooms with bathroom for 300 asked - I got 250. Very quiet.
A guy tenting next to me in the Surins stayed at the joint the other side of the bridge - said real nice bungalow for 400 odd including basic breakfast.
If you get out at the bus station the first of these places is little more than 5 minutes walk.

There are some other places back behind businesses in the central town - I remember a sign showing bungalows in back near Barracuda Dive's shop. Barracuda also has a desk at the bus station. BTW there is a mum and pop trip booking agent on left side of the lane leading down from the bus station - seemed to have good contacts but poor English.

If you want flashpacker-lower midrange accommodation look for the signs alongside the main road about 8-10km south of town in twisty hilly jungle country for Kuraburi Green View Resort. If on a bus, ask the conductor/driver to stop the bus when there. They are very reliable.

I also copied this info when doing research for my trip - I don't know who the poster was:
In Kura Bury there is a very good place to stay my husband and I have stayed there several times Boon Piya resort,
179-180 M1 T Kura is on the main road in Kura Buri tel 01-7525457 . It is very simple but very clean with you own shower and loo , little bungalows and the owner Panich who runs it is a very nice man . It is used to be about 800 bath the night and there is a nice place next door for breakfast in the morning.

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Boleslav has an account of a Surins visit when the coral was good in the TRIP REPORT SECTION here which includes staying at the bungalows, a critique of snorkelling spots in good times and some underwater shots like the one below.

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Some web sites that provide info on the Surin islands:
SURINS ISLANDS COM
SURINS ISLANDS DIVE SITES
KURABURI GREENVIEW RESORT
NATIONAL PARKS WEBSITE

If you see mistakes or have extra information, please fire them in below. If you have questions, please ask them on THE FORUM which I check most days. I only visit individual island pages occasionally.
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IF YOU VISIT THE SURINS YOU MIGHT BE INTERESTED IN NEARBY LOCATIONS LIKE KO KHO KHAO, KO PHRA THONG, PHAYAM, LITTLE KO CHANG, KHAO LAK, KHAO SOK, PHUKET - PAGES ON EACH CAN BE ACCESSED THRU THE INDEX

KHAO SOK

2011-03-25T20:53:00.058+11:00

Last visited March 2011

Part of Lake Rajjaphapa (Rechapbrapho/Cheow Law) from the Lake-Trip viewpoint.

Okay, we aren't talking beaches here. But there are plenty of spectacular islands - with karst limestone cliffs climbing 200m from the water.
But the main reasons I did this page are - the location is a natural for travellers moving between the Andaman and southern Gulf islands - the area is among the most asked-for on travel websites - and this place is one of the most enjoyable I've visited in my travels and one I hadn't been to in 0ver 10 years, hence the lack of a page until now.

The main park HQ, walking trails and bungalow area is about one hour by bus from Takua Pa to the west and maybe 2.5 from Surathani in the east. Travellers' minibuses also come across from the Krabi area.
The popular lake trips start at the dam area about one hour east and it takes another hour to cruise across to the raft houses and jungle-cave walk area (modified Google Earth image).

MAIN PARK HQ-BUNGALOWS-WALKING TRAILS AREA

When you arrive at the bus stop on route 401 (the bus-conductor will make sure you know) there will be some touts from various bungalow operations waiting to show you pix of their places. This is great if you are unbooked like me - because they can provide free transport the 1 to 2km down to the accommodation. If booked into a place a songthaew makes fairly regular trips from the bus stop. The travellers' minibuses tend to drop you (and pick up again) at the bungalows.

I went with the guy from Khao Sok Evergreen House because the other tout waiting was from Jungle Huts where I stayed first trip - I like to try new places. Above is my "tree house" - like most tree houses I've seen in Thailand this is built on stilts up under the canopy of a tree - not on the tree itself. Shaded for all but about 3 hours in the afternoon which becomes prime clothes-drying time - if the thunderstorm doesn't set in which it did each afternoon I was there. Bungalow with bathroom cost 300 lowered to 250 because of single occupancy. Good condition but basically a box on stilts with comfy bed and good net.

Evergreen House is a pretty sweet operation. It is quite close to the park boundary but some distance down tracks to the right as you approach Park HQ. Only 3 tree houses and 3 normal bungalows in a spacious garden setting. Very friendly hosts Gai and Noi. Laid back restaurant showing advantage of mainland setting and plenty of competition with good food at the lower end of budget restaurant prices. Small supermarket, internet and swimming hole maybe 3 minutes walk away.
ph 0066 77395144 - www.evergreenhouse2007.net - email khoasokevergreen@yahoo.com

"Main street" runs down from the bus stop to the park HQ. Lots of traveller-orientated businesses along here - trip booking agents, minimarkets (one front left has an ATM), restaurants, bars and some accommodation places. Surprisingly uncrowded in this shot (people had told me Khao Sok is much busier than the 90s. Surprising until Gai told me it was Full Moon Party day on Phangan - he had 12 guests the previous day but only me at time of pix. Most of the accommodation is on laneways off to the left of this street - tracks are in much better condition than days past - many are paved.

One of the biggest changes from my first trip was the number of new accommodation places and how existing places had expanded and upgraded. This is a new section at Jungle Huts which has an interconnecting elevated walkway to the new elevated restaurant. The place still has cheaper old-style bungalows and tree-houses but they were a bit neater than when I stayed last century. Jungle Huts was known for its entertainingly eccentric restaurant staff - these guys would be pushing early-mid 30s now, may be different.

The above bungalows are 800 on the website at time of writing but Jungle Huts does not offer aircon on environmental grounds. Plenty of similar places with aircon (note it gets quite cool towards sunrise - the only place in the south I've needed a full blanket - but late afternoons can be warm and steamy) One joint even had a neat looking pool. Misty Mountain Resort or similar.

Of course you don't need a resort-type pool if you stay at the oft-praised Art's River View Lodge (or several other places along the river). Outsiders are welcome to swim but it would be good politics to order a drink or snack at the elevated restaurant behind camera.

The nearest swimming spot to my bungalow was about 3 minutes away at Bamboo House. The pool extends maybe 30m to right of frame. I shot this from adjacent Bamboo Bar which is a cool place to be stuck when the afternoon storm breaks. Keep those Changs coming ………..

GETTING THERE

Details will be clearer if you click image to expand.
Minibus operations to and from Sok cover plenty of areas these days. Note a lot of the above services involve a change to ferries, bigger coaches, trains or even another minibus at centres like Surathani, Krabi, Trang, maybe Hat Yai and Chumpon.
Note that your bungalow can arrange these tickets just as well as the trip-booking agents.

ROUTE 401 BUSES - around 10 services a day run hourly between Surathani and Takua Pa (from where most go on to Phuket via Khao Lak). It took me about an hour to come up from Takua Pa and I think Surathani is around 2.5. These buses pass by the railway station some distance out of Surathani town itself. Note that not all Surathani-Phuket buses go via highway 401 - some go via the southern route thru Phang Nga town so check at the bus station for a Khao Sok bus.

THE PARK WALKS

The entrance to the park is a short walk from most bungalows. Here you pay your 200 entry fee for 24 hours (March 2011 cost). Check the LAKE TRIP section for how you might be able to make this extend for the best part of two days.
Very close to the entrance is an exhibition-educational Visitors' Center where you can pick up good maps of the main walks, a park restaurant, a nice picnic area alongside the stream, national park bungalows/camping area and a rather swish youth hostel where a bunch of grade school kids were having a great time.

This is a copy of the hand-out map from National Park Visitors' Center (sic if yer not a Yank) - I've added a bit of info. Click to expand image for detail.

The two main tracks are well signposted and don’t need a guide for daylight exploration. Combined they are just a little too long for the average trekker to cover in a day. Because I did most of the more popular western walk in '97 before a heavy storm forced retreat, I started on the northern walk this latest trip.

THE NORTHERN WALK
This track starts up a fairly steep section of stairs behind the park restaurant.

This is a true rainforest track, much more so than the early stages of the western walk. Narrow, steep (much more so than the focal length of my elcheapo Cannon suggests in this shot), lots of leaf litter, a horde of leeches despite it not yet raining (but pretty damp from yesterday’s rain).

Leeches - don't freak out. These little devils are not poisonous like ticks - as a matter of fact some medicos say the anticoagulant they inject to thin your blood is good if you have blood pressure problems (or something like that). Face it, leeches are still used in modern hospitals for a variety of treatments. Main problem is that the anticoagulant makes the puncture-mark bleeding harder to stop (good old pressure works eventually) and the punctures can be itchy which leads to infection from scratching.
Leech socks which are impervious canvas or plasticticised, going up to just under knee-level are most effective. Got a shot of some down page in the LAKE TRIP section. Leeches mainly lurk in the wet leaf litter and lower vegetation and leap onto lower legs, feet - they can actually burrow through less impervious socks, trousers, even some shoe types (a wild leech before it becomes blood-endgorged is quite a skinny streamlined dude) - although this takes time and if you are checking every 100m like me you will get them long before they do the dracula bit. I find wearing shorts makes spotting them much easier than in longer trousers. I have an idea liberal applications of insect repellent may discourage them too.
When you finish your trek, check your torso too. I have had a few here in the Australian bush.

About 50 minutes up the northern track it splits - the western part goes across this bridge and then climbs steeply to San Yang Roi. Trouble is the bridge was barricaded with ACTIVITY PROHIBITED IN THIS AREA signs. Of course I had to see why - the bridge was in poor repair with circumferentially-enhanced types in risk of busting thru. And a fallen tree partially blocked the steep set of stairs starting on the other side. Both problems looked at least a year old - what does National Parks do with our 200baht entry fees? Hint - read above about the snazzy youth hostel.

After 5 minutes of steep stair-climbing the across-bridge track meanders thru some dense high forest before coming to a circular switchback around a huge emergent tree in an area which must be virtually directly above the river. Must be because I could hear it way down there - couldn’t see anything but immediate trees from an area the notes hint is a viewpoint.

Back down on the main northern track I moved another 10 minutes on to a nice natural pool which would be great for swimming. Past here the path deteriorated sadly - narrow, steep, muddy, unclear with lots of false leads and no indicator marks on trees or signs, meaning frequent backtracking - after 15 minutes I figured I was making less than 1km in an hour which meant that the final destination Sip-et-Chan Waterfall was something like 6 hours return to that point. This would give me no time to recheck the main western track before nightfall, so I turned back towards Park HQ.

THE WESTERN TRACK
Although longer, this is way easier and busier and than the northern track (I only saw 2 other trekkers in over 3 hours on the latter, dozens on the western route). There is also more to see with 7 pools or “waterfalls” along here.

The first 2km or so is a wide path with a few relatively easy slopes. Past this it narrows to a proper rainforest walking track - quite narrow with some steepish climbs and drops - but does not become difficult in normal conditions. On my first visit at the turn of the century I had to turn back at shortly after reaching the final falls at #7 because a deluge turned the track into a mud stream with thousands of leeches. I remember it became quite slippery in parts but despite this I made the 7.5km back to HQ in 2 hours.

At the 3km mark a short side-track leads down to this attractive pool at Wang Yao. Deliciously cool water saw quite a few people swimming behind camera. A guide here was telling his small group the water is usually very clear in dry season - recent days had been quite wet.

Thai “waterfalls” are often a short drop over a few rocks as in background. Note rainfall starting. Later at my bungalow it absolutely poured, just as hard as when I first visited - I’m glad I turned back when I did this latest trip.
Some of the other falls along this track are a bit more impressive - but we aint talking Niagara folks. I remember the pool at #6 and the pool and falls at #7 were quite nice when I called in the previous trip. Note the side-track out of #7 was pretty indisctinct back then - maybe it has improved.

OTHER BUNGALOW-HQ AREA ACTIVITIES.
Elephant rides, guided treks to distant waterfalls and viewpoints for overnight camping, river inner-tube rides/ kayaking, flower tours and guided animal spotting treks are offered at the bungalows, tour booking offices and park visitors’ centre. Some of these would involve transport to more distant locations - this is one big national park.
Guided animal spotting is most successful as night treks - Khao Sok is famous for wild elephants, deer, tigers, leopards and tapirs but all I’ve seen on day trips are a few birds and bulk leeches. Plus a few crashing sounds in the undergrowh. I gotta admit night safaris are not my thing - I’d much rather be tucked in tight with Blow-Up Britney than charging around the boondocks with a flashlight.

THE LAKE TRIP
I did the Lake Trip in ‘97 but did not have the time to stay overnight on the raft houses where daytrips call in for lunch. I was determined to stay a night this trip. The extra 1000baht (2400 v 1400) gets a surprisingly comfy floating bungalow, 3 excellent meals and some extra activities on the second day including a trek to a wonderful viewpoint which I thought nearly as good as first day’s cave walk. Plus the exclusivity and serenity of a night on the lake.

Starting point - the Lake Park HQ/Visitors' Center about one hour north of main HQ-bungalow area - around 50km further along 401 to Ban Takun and then another 8km or so down a side road to the north. The Visitor's Center has the usual educational stuff, toilets, shops, restaurant.

At the small building to the right you will pay another 200 baht entry fee - unless you delay your previous day's entry into the main HQ area's walking tracks until say 10.30am as Gai from Evergreen House advised me, in which case your arrival at the lake should be before the 24 hours is up - and you will be waved thru on presentation of your previous day's ticket (time of entry the previous day is stamped on it). In this way I got 3 days in the park areas for 200 - they don't check your ticket on exit from the lake.

The gang - only 7 of us staying overnight - plus another 5 with a different operator. However there were another 20+ daytrippers at the raft-houses having lunch before their cave trip.
Bloke on the tiller is our guide "Mr Big", an excellent source of information and good humour.

It's 26km across the lake to Ton Tuoy raft-houses. Plenty of spectacular scenery along the way so the longtail didn't hurry - took about an hour.

The raft houses. Restaurant area is larger buildings slightly right of centre. Guest accommodation left, worker accommodation right.

Chez Tezza at the raft houses. Basic box with 2 double mattresses and a good net. My mattress and pillow pretty comfortable. Magic waking up with the moonlit lake framed by the window. Couples got their own place of course - the two single girls in our group were asked to share - I was the only single bloke so got a place all to myself. Well me and Britzer.

Bungalows (here from rear) have outside bathrooms - this is a shot from the second, higher bathroom block which has better facilities (but still a bit decrepit) than the first - about half as high on the same pathway. Make sure you carry a torch - path is lit until generator quits in the early hours, but not lit well in sections.

Sam from our trip sent me this shot of the raft houses (image uncle_sam)

THE CAVE TRIP
Starting immediately after luch, this must be the highlight of any Khao Sok trip. It's the second time I've done it, but that did not diminish enjoyment at all.
The first section involves a short longtail ride further up the lake branch the raft houses are located. We have extra passengers including other overnighters and some of the daytrippers.

Out of the boat and about a 30 minute walk to the cave. This involves numerous shallow river crossings - good sandals or hiking boots are probably best here - I wore joggers which were okay but soggy of course - flip-flop sandals aka thongs/jandals in Aust/NZ are a no no. Mr Big went bare foot - not a good idea unless you have been doing this all your life.

Click to enlarge to check the plastic leech-socks the second dude heading towards camera above has. He was the first of a big group coming away from the cave - looked to be an up-market daytrip group from Phuket, Phang Nga or Khao Lak. You can even come from Krabi on daytrips. Phuket and Krabi would be around 7 hours return vehicle time alone - too far for me.

Cave entry - as you can see, quite narrow. In fact the first 15 minutes of the 40 minute trip is confined to the narrow creek section. Here you are wading constantly - at one stage it is too deep to wade so non-swimmers should avoid although I found I could haul myslelf along this short section using hands on rocks both sides without swimming. Claustrophobics should also avoid. The guides carry a wet pack for cameras and valuables in this section. Each trekker is given an effective head-band light.
Note this section floods after heavy rain - a flash- flood some years ago saw several people lost. Guides are very safety-conscious (Mr Big and friends had to haul victims out of the cave) - will not enter if conditions seem risky. There is a trekking by-pass for such times.

Sam shot Corrine modelling headband flashlight.

After 15 minutes or so the cave widens and most progress is not thru water. Cameras are handed out but my crap Canon's flash failed 2 seconds after the warranty expired and so I have no shots of the limestone formations (not mind-blowing like some caves), bats and spiders. But I'm hoping some of my fellow travellers will email some shots.

Okay, Anette from Germany sent me this cave shot.

And Sam from England this one of a bat colony......

---plus this of hundreds of spiders nesting on the walls.

The cave exit (much bigger than the entrance) doesn't need a flash although the 3 seconds or so the lens was open saw some camera shake.

Sam's flashlight does a much better job of this area.

The track splits here soon after cave exit. The daytrippers take the right branch which gets them to a waiting longtail closer to the park HQ - the overnighters take the other which eventually goes back to the original mooring point close to the raft-houses. Both routes involve about a one hour trek thru very good rainforest - true to its name because by this stage it was raining. There are about 10 creek crossings along the way.

Mr Big had a very good eye and spotted this small fringe-back lizard lurking in the bush.

Still raining back at the raft-houses. Excellent time for a swim. Image from Sam.

Near DINNER TIME! Dinner was done on a multi-plate share system. I thought the food was very very good for quantity, taste and variety. There seemed to be unlimited free bottles of water on the tables. Coffee and tea were comp and beer, soft drinks and juices could be purchased.

SPOT-LIGHTING
After dinner we took off on a one hour lake cruise to see if we could spot any animals or birds. Not greatly successful - an owl, a couple of eagles and one hornbill. But it sure was nice out there cruising the lake in the moonlight/spotlight.

NEXT DAY
First view in the morning - glassed-off lake and misty mountains. I just had to do a lengthy swim to wake me up (water surprisingly warm despite Mr Big reporting a 30m depth) - several other guests took the comp kayaks.

7am saw a one hour pre breakfast animal spotting tour - once again several birds of prey, a half dozen monkeys crashing around high in the trees and ------
This happy camper - a bigger monkey feeding his/her face in the grass alongside the lake. Didn't seem overly impressed with Mr Big's monkey calls.

THE VIEWPOINT TREK
Around 9am we packed up our gear and headed across lake 30 minutes to the start of the viewpoint trek. The actual viewpoint isn't at the highest point in the shot thank God, but on a ridge in the vicinity of the yellow arrow head. Still took over 3 hours return.

I'd class the overall walk up through excellent rainforest as a real good workout for a person of average fitness - they will require quite a few stops. For fit people there are no killer slopes, but this last 15 minute stretch was good value to get the pulse rate up. Once again my camera's focal lenght de-exaggerates the steepness. Rocks very sharp here - Mr Big bare-footed as everywhere else. Unfortunately you do not get a view until the very top - but it is worth it as the shot top of page shows.

Sam's shot from the viewpoint.

Mr Big missed this dude on the way down, but eagle-eyed Sam holding it didn't.

Once back in the boat, we headed for the Lake HQ. I have an idea some trips squeeze in a waterfall visit and a swim, but a storm was threatening so we made for shelter.

I modified this Google Earth image to show approx positions - the cave is perhaps a little to the right of my place-marker.

GETTING TO THE LAKE INDEPENDENTLY.
Get the route 401 bus to drop you off in the fairly big town of Ban Takun. Mention "lake" to the conductor. This town is around the 53-54km markers from Surathani. Mr Big told me there are motorcycle taxis the 8km or so to park HQ. You can charter longtails here - but the 26km out to the raft-houses would not be cheap - ditto for a lake cruise. Of course shared between friends it may be fine.
Note I saw at least 2 other raft house operations but they seemed closed mid March 2011.
If coming from Krabi, the cross-mountain route hits 401 much closer to Ban Takun than the main Park HQ-bungalow area. You could bail-out of the minibus and wait for a passing bus or motorcyle-taxi. The latter might be scarce away from town.

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