Exploring Pulua Perhentian Kecil: The Trek Around the Island (Day 7)

The next morning, we got up early and just sat on the porch taking in the scenery.

My sister sat in a chair, while I swung back and forth in my hammock.

We just relaxed for the first part of the day and watched people enjoy the amazing beach. Around the middle of the day, we decided to set out on a journey. At first, we planned to just trek across the narrow part of the island, over to Coral Bay on the West side. We were told that this could be accomplished in about 15 or 20 minutes via this path:

The jungle got thicker and the lizards got bigger and bigger. On the other side, things were very quiet and relaxed. We stopped for a very fresh fruit smoothie and relaxed for a few minutes. At this point, my sister made up her mind that we were going to trek around the island heading south, all the way back around to Long Beach.

At first this seemed like it would be a relaxed walk along a well-beaten path. We followed this until we found this completely deserted beach:

So we stopped to swim and relax a bit before continuing on our very, very long journey back to out shanty.

When we got back on the path, things started to get a little more difficult. The jungle began to thicken up a bit and the path would disappear from time to time or jump up and down huge hills.

Even the creatures started getting bigger and bigger. Like this giant ant that we saw.

Soon after that we ran into a monitor lizard that was easily over six feet long and a good 90 lbs. However, I did not want to chase him into the brush to get a picture, especially because I didn't want to get anywhere near his tail. However, a little further down the path we ran into this guy:

He was at least five feet long, probably more and at least a good 75 lbs. We got a good pic and kept our distance. We found this place, which looked somewhat deserted, but had naturally beautiful wildlife all around it.

Apparently, we had reached Petani Beach, which is a very secluded place to stay that likely costs a bit more than the places at Coral Bay and Long Beach.

It was a very quiet and laid back part of the island and was home to the marine park. we decided that we would have to rent some snorkel gear at some point and return to further explore. The water was beautiful and warm.

We continued on, but the path got more treacherous. It was going up and down steep hills, but someone had installed a line to hold onto, which was somewhat helpful. Eventually, we came upon the Fisherman Village.

This was the home to all of the locals that actually lived on the island and weren't just running the guesthouses and restaurants. There was a small village with many children playing, a police dept. (which apparently was never actually open), and some local eateries. We stopped and tried to get some food, but it was not very tourist friendly (e.g., no English).

Nevertheless, the people were very friendly and seemed intrigued to see us exploring their village. One young girl (maybe four or five years old) came and asked me my name in English. I then asked her name and she told me "Reta". She then asked her mother how to say "how are you?" in English and then asked. She was very excited to interact in English.

We continued on, not wanting to get stuck in the dark along the trail. While walking, the jungle canopy opened up and the trees started to look like this:

We made it back to our shanty and found that we had some new friends living on the beam that ran across the ceiling of our temporary home.

We headed out for some dinner in hopes that we might find something more appetizing. We ordered the vegetable Tom Yum soup, which was nice and hot.

They were also very spicy, so my sister ordered some rice to even it out. I thought it was just right though. I ordered the Malay fish curry:

This was very good, but had more of a tea or herbal taste to it. The broth was very light, but the flavor was all there. It was very spicy, flavorful and delicious. The fish was extremely tender and very good...just different. We then walked up and down the beach just taking in the evening. There were tons of cats on the island for some reason, but this one was special:

It looked like the crab was winning. We continued back and stopped at one of the "bars" on the beach. I wish I would've gotten a photo of these, but they only set them up after dark and there were no lights, so it was very difficult to get a good one. Basically they were very low tables in the sand with four bamboo mats around them that you could sit on. People would sit on their mats in the sand and could buy very expensive pints of vodka or beer from the bar. We just sat and listened to the Jack Johnson cd that they kept playing, which was amazingly fitting for the environment. We were pretty beat though, so we headed back to the bungalow and called it a day.