Perhentian Paradise
Date:2010-3-14 15:04:20 Click:
Blessed with a ninety day visa and equipped with some snazzy new snorkeling equipment we entered Malaysia in search of paradise. After a brief stop over in Kota Bharu we zipped across the South China Sea to the smallest of the Perhentian Islands, Kecil.
This almost deserted island has several idyllic sandy coves, some only reachable by boat and others linked by long steamy jungle trails. We spent our first afternoon snorkeling around the island over spectacular coral reefs, occasionally crossing paths with huge turtles and four foot black tip reef sharks. The terrestrial animals were no less impressive, particularly the five foot long monitor lizards nonchalantly ambling around our bungalow.
So all was well, we had found paradise, the sun was setting and the smell of barbecue fish was luring us to the only restaurant on our secluded beach. Only then did we discover that the barbecue fish was in fact baby shark, of the endangered variety. A red mist settled over Jamie, who didn't rest until he had educated most of the restaurant in sustainable eating, explaining to several tourists and the owners how many species of sharks will be driven to extinction within the next 30 years and that they are not the 'Jawsesque' human flesh seeking machines everyone in the restaurant seemed to think they were. Mealtimes in Malaysia were going to be fun! The restaurant owner admitted he knew it was wrong to take sharks but he just couldn't resist the £6 tourists were willing to pay for one, after all, he said, "tourists love the taste of shark". Shark was removed from the specials board for the remainder of our ten day stay, so we declared a minor victory.
During one of our many snorkeling excursions I somehow managed to entangle my leg in some jellyfish tentacles, which gave a really nasty sting. Agonizingly painful and being a long way from civilisation, only one course of action was available to me. If you have seen 'that' episode of Friends you will know what Jamie had to do next. Not being as successful as TV makes it out to be we cracked on with the swim back to our hut. To add insult to injury we swam through a swarm of, let's call them, sea wasps. Hundreds of invisible bugs which stung us all over our face and body. The more we swam and struggled the worse this became, not unlike, I imagine rolling around naked in a field of stinging nettles. On the plus side though we managed to stumble across a large school of massive bumphead parrot fish which let us swim with them for hours, absolutely brilliant!
That evening a mammoth storm was brewing and feeling a little in the wars we opted for an early night. This wasn't to be. At 1AM the owner of the resort was banging on our door and ten minutes later we were fully dressed in hiking boots and waterproofs and heading out into the jungle in the pouring rain.
After making our way through the dark to another small beach we soon discovered what all the drama was about. Two large green turtles were making their way up the beach to lay their eggs, an amazing but rather time consuming process. Imagine digging a fifty centimeter pit using just your feet and filling it with one hundred or so ping pong balls from your rear end.
On the return leg one of the turtles got a little lost but luckily the resident hippy (who all evening had been killing us slowly wailing and strumming her guitar) decided to leap fully clothed into the sea and guide the turtle with gentle splashings of water, 'this way turtle child' she cooed, crazy hippies.
It turns out that turtle eggs fetch a whopping fifty pence each on the black market and as a result several nests are raided by the locals each week. Armed with this information we headed straight back to the remote beach as soon as the rain stopped to hide the nests, a gritty 6AM. About an hour later a couple of locals came ashore on a small speed boat looking for the turtle nests. Unfortunately these guys
were professionals and they soon located one of the nests using nothing more than a metal rod. So we intervened. Without any identification their story about working for the marine park didn't quite stack up so we took their mug shot and told them to come back when they could prove they were who they said they were (by the end of this trip we may start chaining ourselves to trees!!). The 'egg thieves' were soon on their way, only to return half an hour later with the local police officer as an escort. Oooops! Either we got the wrong guys or the local bill were in on it! The island bobby turned out to be a friendly guy and he kindly offered to take us to the turtle sanctuary to put our minds at rest. This turned into a brilliant day out which involved us doing most of the donkey work to relocate several nests. Sadly one nest had already been raided so we really had been too late to catch the real egg thieves.
After saving the world one turtle and one shark at a time we fully rested ourselves by taking a couple more lazy beach days and of course three more dives. Our final dive to Sugar Wreck was a great way to finish off what was supposed to be two weeks on the beach but had somehow turned into four! Rather begrudgingly we left our paradise and headed back to the mainland to discover the worlds oldest rainforest, Taman Negara.
This almost deserted island has several idyllic sandy coves, some only reachable by boat and others linked by long steamy jungle trails. We spent our first afternoon snorkeling around the island over spectacular coral reefs, occasionally crossing paths with huge turtles and four foot black tip reef sharks. The terrestrial animals were no less impressive, particularly the five foot long monitor lizards nonchalantly ambling around our bungalow.
So all was well, we had found paradise, the sun was setting and the smell of barbecue fish was luring us to the only restaurant on our secluded beach. Only then did we discover that the barbecue fish was in fact baby shark, of the endangered variety. A red mist settled over Jamie, who didn't rest until he had educated most of the restaurant in sustainable eating, explaining to several tourists and the owners how many species of sharks will be driven to extinction within the next 30 years and that they are not the 'Jawsesque' human flesh seeking machines everyone in the restaurant seemed to think they were. Mealtimes in Malaysia were going to be fun! The restaurant owner admitted he knew it was wrong to take sharks but he just couldn't resist the £6 tourists were willing to pay for one, after all, he said, "tourists love the taste of shark". Shark was removed from the specials board for the remainder of our ten day stay, so we declared a minor victory.
During one of our many snorkeling excursions I somehow managed to entangle my leg in some jellyfish tentacles, which gave a really nasty sting. Agonizingly painful and being a long way from civilisation, only one course of action was available to me. If you have seen 'that' episode of Friends you will know what Jamie had to do next. Not being as successful as TV makes it out to be we cracked on with the swim back to our hut. To add insult to injury we swam through a swarm of, let's call them, sea wasps. Hundreds of invisible bugs which stung us all over our face and body. The more we swam and struggled the worse this became, not unlike, I imagine rolling around naked in a field of stinging nettles. On the plus side though we managed to stumble across a large school of massive bumphead parrot fish which let us swim with them for hours, absolutely brilliant!
That evening a mammoth storm was brewing and feeling a little in the wars we opted for an early night. This wasn't to be. At 1AM the owner of the resort was banging on our door and ten minutes later we were fully dressed in hiking boots and waterproofs and heading out into the jungle in the pouring rain.
After making our way through the dark to another small beach we soon discovered what all the drama was about. Two large green turtles were making their way up the beach to lay their eggs, an amazing but rather time consuming process. Imagine digging a fifty centimeter pit using just your feet and filling it with one hundred or so ping pong balls from your rear end.
On the return leg one of the turtles got a little lost but luckily the resident hippy (who all evening had been killing us slowly wailing and strumming her guitar) decided to leap fully clothed into the sea and guide the turtle with gentle splashings of water, 'this way turtle child' she cooed, crazy hippies.
It turns out that turtle eggs fetch a whopping fifty pence each on the black market and as a result several nests are raided by the locals each week. Armed with this information we headed straight back to the remote beach as soon as the rain stopped to hide the nests, a gritty 6AM. About an hour later a couple of locals came ashore on a small speed boat looking for the turtle nests. Unfortunately these guys
were professionals and they soon located one of the nests using nothing more than a metal rod. So we intervened. Without any identification their story about working for the marine park didn't quite stack up so we took their mug shot and told them to come back when they could prove they were who they said they were (by the end of this trip we may start chaining ourselves to trees!!). The 'egg thieves' were soon on their way, only to return half an hour later with the local police officer as an escort. Oooops! Either we got the wrong guys or the local bill were in on it! The island bobby turned out to be a friendly guy and he kindly offered to take us to the turtle sanctuary to put our minds at rest. This turned into a brilliant day out which involved us doing most of the donkey work to relocate several nests. Sadly one nest had already been raided so we really had been too late to catch the real egg thieves.After saving the world one turtle and one shark at a time we fully rested ourselves by taking a couple more lazy beach days and of course three more dives. Our final dive to Sugar Wreck was a great way to finish off what was supposed to be two weeks on the beach but had somehow turned into four! Rather begrudgingly we left our paradise and headed back to the mainland to discover the worlds oldest rainforest, Taman Negara.
