Kecil – First Day in the Perhentian Islands, Malaysia

When we finally arrived to Kecil, we were very excited but it was quite an adventure getting here. Not because this place is necessarily hard to get to. But we had left Russia roughly 35 hours before arriving here and we had jumped from 2 airplanes, 2 taxis, 2 buses and 1 speedboat to get here… it was clearly beach time! Time to find a place to stay and finally drop these bags! Luckily for us, we were arriving to the Perhentian Islands at the end of the off-season and not only did most places have available rooms but they had multiple price points to choose from (if you wanted beach front) and some would even make a deal on a room.

The Perhentian Islands are made up of two islands, Kecil and Besar. In Malaysian, these simply mean big (Besar) and small (Kecil). Knowing that I wanted less crowds, I chose to stay on the smaller Kecil island and this island has two main beach areas, Coral Bay and Long Beach. Since we chose to stay on the island of Kecil on the Coral Bay beach side, there aren’t many places around to choose from so we ended up going by every place on Coral Bay beach and checking out the rooms. And this is something I’d recommend everyone to do before ever deciding you’ll stay somewhere whether you’re on Kecil or not… Check out your room first, then the bathroom and then any ‘extras’ you may get like WiFi, breakfast, etc. so you can make a clean comparison to other places. Pictures online can be deceiving so I always make it a habit of checking out a place first before booking unless I know places will be sold out.

Staying at the Shari-La Resort on Kecil Island. The place was amazing as was the price at that time…

After scouting out what seemed around 7-8 places, we ended up choosing the ‘most expensive’ place to stay on the island – Shari-La Resort. Why did we go with this? Well, there is no question we were on a backpacker budget but there were three of us so the cost came down a bit plus, these rooms were discounted more than half of what they normally charge during peak season for beach goers to Kecil. So in addition to getting a really nice beach bungalow with its own bathroom, we were getting free WiFi, an amazing (and free) breakfast buffet, and access to their tours which ran right from their hotel for both Perhentian Islands, Kecil and Besar. They also had many more amenities available for guests though WiFi and an egg omelet in the morning was all I needed. Enough about the place for now, I’ll write more in a separate post….

Kecil – Coral Bay Beach

These are the two Perhentian Islands – We stayed on Coral Bay Beach on the left side of Kecil Island

I’d like to spend some more time discussing Kecil… the Coral Bay beach as well as the rest of the island. Unlike some islands you may find in Thailand and other places, the island of Kecil is only accessible on foot so there are no roads to speed around on. For me, this was just one of the reasons I wanted to come here. No traffic, no road noise, just a remote place to spend some days (or weeks) on the beach! It is possible to get around on the island though if you want to take a water taxi. Most people do this when they want to access different beaches or go snorkeling at different locations around the two islands. For the time I spent on Kecil, I saw no reason to do this since you can walk from Coral Bay Beach to Long Beach as they are connected at the interior of the island and its only a 5-10 minute walk along a pathway. If you’re lucky, you might get to see a large monitor lizard on the way. The first time I came up on one was hilarious as it had me jump back clear off the trail. They are ridiculously huge though harmless… (unless you mess with them)

Anyway, should you decide to take a water taxi, they’ll cost you about 10RM each way. We did take a boat around the islands while here but only as part of a snorkeling trip. More on this soon. For now, just know that Kecil is a very relaxed place to spend a few days and the water is amazingly clear and warm. We swam on both sides of the island and the Long Beach side is named so for good reason. It’s the more popular beach as it has the longest stretch of sandy beach on the island and a pier to walk out on but can also be the most crowded which may not be what you’re looking for when you come here. Since we were here during the tail end of the touristy season, there weren’t more than 30 people on the entire beach. There are some great rocks off on the sides too which you can climb and lay out on. And of course there are plenty of places to stay though I’ve heard they can fill up pretty quick by mid morning during the peak months so its best to get in from the mainland first thing in the morning and find a place. As mentioned above, Coral Bay has places as well and may have more availability since its generally less crowded on that side of the island. Had I known it wouldn’t be as busy when we arrived I may well have stayed on Long Beach since the swimming and beach is better on that side but I loved the place we stayed at Shari-La Resort and it backs up to the trail that connects the two beaches so you couldn’t have asked for more convenience. And for the weather, you couldn’t have asked for anything better as well… Stay tuned for more…

Does it get any better than this??

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