Little notes (not necessarily in chronological order) that I can recollect..
(1) The journey was long.
A good 10 hours bus ride brought us from Singapore to Lumut (in Perak) bus terminal, where a ferry jetty is just beside. It was a night bus, and we were supposed to sleep during the journey so that we can reach our destination in the morning feeling fresh. Erm.. So.. The long bus ride was quite manageable.
From the jetty at Lumut, we had to take another 25 min +/- ferry ride to Pulau Pangkor.
We landed on the little island around 0800h on 11/12/07, filled with anticipations. :o)
(2) We set off knowing the weather forecast was like
for all the days we were supposed to be there. Sianz right?!
But … wahaha …
Amazingly, we have fair weather whenever we need it during the entire trip.
E.g. It poured once when we were sleeping.
It only rained when we just got into shelter, or after our scheduled activities, or when we were in a bus or a taxi, or…
Even when we were canoeing or snorkeling, the sun went hiding behind huge clouds.
As if the weather was planned around our activities, and not our activities were plan around the weather.
I can only feel very thankful. :o)
(3) The island is infested with hornbills. Ha.. I mean we can see pretty big hornbills (not mynas, not doves hor) flying around the coastline day-in-day-out.
(4) Interestingly, all taxis on the island are vans. To be more precise, they use candy-pink vans as taxis. What’s candy-pink? Let’s see it, to understand it.
A ride from one point to another almost always cost us RM10 (for a group size of 1 to 4), unless the journey is unusually long or we demanded a longer non-standard route for some reasons.
A driver shared with us that in this peak session, he can easily accumulate more than RM20000 in earning. Not kidding, the number of zeros is correct.
(5) The beaches are generally fine, but not fantastic.
They are better than what we have at East Coast or Sentosa or just anywhere we have here locally. But .. still not too fantastic.
The picture shows the best public beach – Coral Bay at Teluk Nipah.
I stress the phrase “public beach” here. There are some better private beaches – beaches only accessible by guests of some classier and pricier resorts.
Anyway, some public beaches around the area may be better (more beautiful) than Coral Bay, but they may not be that accessible or they are just not that suitable for swimming or water play as we wish no trouble over deep waters.
I understand better that even the venue may not be super fantastic, the good company can still make the experience really great and memorable.
(6) There are many fishes in the waters. You will understand when you bring bread along during snorkeling.
I chose to place some bread right in front of my face (my face being under water) and saw many fishes (big and small) dashed towards me for the bread and bit off pieces of bread just before my eyes. I think the sight was rather awesome. The bigger fishes we saw were only about a feet long but some can be quite colourful.
During the feeding frenzy, some couldn’t differentiate the bread from my pale-wrinkled-and-water-soaked fingers. But no worries, their bites were very mild. Haha..
I took the opportunity to sayang them (the fishes) also. :P
Oh, snorkeling usually cost about RM20 for as long as you like! But.. erm… the suggested site is really too crowded and too small.
I think the better and more affordable snorkeling sites not too far away from us would be Krabi, Phuket or the islands off the eastern coast of West Malaysia. Haiz.. Sad thing that the eastern coasts of Malaysia are having serious floods now. Let’s wish the people there will be able to cope well and they can all return home safely soon.
(7) It may be appropriate to also share some random scenes captured to give you a better feel of the island.
One of the streets at Pangkor Town. And this is during so-called peak season? There is even a branch of Maybank on the island. I think I also saw a shop selling 4D. Many shops sell fish products. There is a fishing village on the island itself. In fact almost the entire eastern coast of the island dominates with the fishing trade.
This is the main entrance of one of the few Chinese temples around the island. Ha.. Why is the donald duck there? Is this where the east meets the west?
The eastern coastline is filled with this kind of housing (on tilts). This is a fishing village after all. This is one end of a long stretch of such housing. Further in, we saw many bigger boats parking just beside such houses.
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This is only part 1, but I have already shared all the photos that I had taken. Haha... I was a little lazy to snap when I noticed WK was doing most of the snapping. From part 2 onwards, I think I shall be using WK's photos accordingly.
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