Last relaxing day on Besar Island

Wednesday, 1 August 2012

Every now and then, the freedom to wake up without an alarm is welcomed. Today was the day. Anders and I rolled over around 9:30am to find Alan missing from his bed. I found a little note that he went to use the internet. He was trying to sort out his next travel leg in Japan. Since Alan was occupied, we decided to stay lazy rolling around in bed talking about our new apartment until 10:30. Around then, we knew we should get our move on.

We had lunch at Flora Bay Restaurant. It was simple and satisfying. I ordered fried tofu that was stuffed with fresh salads, Anders and Alan had chicken. Our little bunny friend also came to say hello. I couldn't resist not touching him anymore. I petted him, but as domesticated he seemed, he didn't want to be pet. He reminded me of Jasper. I miss my little fur ball :(

The plan today was to take the long Jungle Trek to the Perhentian Island Resort. It's a more upscale hotel with supposedly a nicer beach. The lonely planet said the walk will take one hour, to be safe, we checked it with the dive center. He said it was only 20 mins on flat soil and the beach has some decent snorkeling areas. We were a bit skeptical with the time discrepancies and the comment about the track being flat after last night's hike. We had nothing else to do besides giving it a try. We already had a plan to walk one way and boat the other.

Back at our room, we collected all things (including big straw mats to lay on the beach). We then went out to seek for the other jungle trek, which starts on the side of Awana Dive Center.

The beginning of the trek was through long grass. I was not too happy. The grass brushing on my legs made me very itchy. At least it was flat. Ten mins into the walk, we started to bet how long it took. Alan said 25mins. I said 40 mins. I'm glad Alan was right. The remaining 15 mins of trekking was through a real forest with lizards, birds, and lots of ants. We had a good time amusing each other through interesting conversations and slapping each other asses with the bamboo mats. The walk wasn't too bad, and was definitely worth it to arrive at the "resort" looking beach. It was much cleaner and better maintained than our beach. The beach itself was also a lot wider.

Jumping in the water was our first mission when we arrived. We were hot sweaty messes. The water was extremely clean, and it had a sandy bottom throughout. Flora bay had corals and rocks in patches with these black territorial fish protecting it. The tide was also higher, so less shallow than Flora Bay.

It was about 1pm, time for snorkeling. We went to the resort's dive center to rent snorkel masks. They had a strange comment saying we couldn't rent them until 2:30 pm because they have a snorkeling trip at 2pm, and don't know how many masks they needed. We didn't want to wait, so we started to search around. A boat man stopped us and said he had three he could rent to us. A bit skeptical, but our desire to go out was stronger, we took his offer of 10 rm a mask. This side of the island seems to not allow flippers, so there were none to rent. I rented a life vest for 5 rm, partially because I'm scared of drowning and mainly because we wanted the boats to spot us from miles away.

My main goal was to see another turtle, which is by far the coolest marine life I've spotted so far. As we were swimming out, a boat and a group of tourist were nearby the area we were told there were turtles. They were all gathered in one spot looking down. There must be a turtle there! Unfortunately by the time we swam up there, they left and we had to go searching for the turtle ourselves. That's not an easy task, as there's unusually only one or two around. It's much easier to spot with a boat since from the boat, one can spot a dark oval shadow in the water. After trying for a while, we got lucky and another tour boat came and found one. This turtle was huge and he swam up an down to breathe. It was so cool to be so close to him. I didn't want to leave, but the boys did. So I left too. Bye bye turtle.

We headed towards a rocky coast. Alan dashed in front of Anders and I. Anders was a bit nervous about me drifting away, even though I had a life vest on! It was very sweet of him to swim by my side. After a while, the water got rough and dark. Anders started to feel uncomfortable, so he went back to shore while I continued swimming with Alan. The coral wasn't fantastic there, but we saw some huge fish and lots of nemo. Some of the nemos were big and others were itty bitty. On the way back to the beach, we saw a big shark (1m long).

It took some time for us to find Anders back at the beach. He went off snorkeling himself somewhere else. Alan eventually spotted him, commenting he is the whitest guy walking down the beach with red shorts :-x. He is also slowly becoming the fattest. After greeting us, he went to buy us some ice cream. Alan decided to go of for another snorkel trip, but we were both "done" with snorkeling. He made it sound like we missed a lot. He spotted a sting ray and an eel swimming. The coral formation was also very cool. Meanwhile back at the beach, Anders was turning into a fat red lobster and couldn't stop sweating. Constant teardrops of sweat was rolling down his forehead. He eventually had to walk up and down the beach to cool down from the ocean's breeze.

When Alan came back, we all went to the Perhentian Island Resort restaurant to cool down with a drink prior to trekking through the jungle. This was definitely a more upscale place. Everything was at least double the price. This didn't stop Alan and Anders from having coke and ice cream. Alan had a double scoop for all the hard wok swimming. Anders had a single scoop, although he really shouldn't have had any more since he had one just an hour ago. I had a ginger ice tea.

On the walk back we saw some cute monkeys eating leaves off a tree. They were really cute, although we were a bit nervous to get too close in case they attacked. There was a baby and he was a reddish color, meanwhile the adults were black. We stood there, or I stood there, staring at them for a while before we said farewell.

The trek back wasn't too bad. We saw some monkeys high up in the trees and some huge bullet ants. We were all really content with the day. Nice and relaxing. Exactly what we needed. Well, we needed a bit more. We relaxed for a few more hours in our AC room when we returned to the resort. Alan took some time to finish booking his first nights and flights for Japan. Tomorrow we are going our separate ways. Anders and I will head to Penang, and Alan to Tokyo.

Around 9ish, we headed out for some dinner. We ate our last meal together at Bayu Dive Center. Nothing fancy, but good enough to fill our bellies. Back at the resort we popped open some beers and played card games. We had a bit too much fun as the guests next door had to knock on the wall to remind us to keep our voices down. At 2am, we concluded it was a good closure to the evening...and the travel trip...and Alan lost all the games. Hee hee hee.