We are now in beach heaven. It started on Pangkor Island (west coast of Malaysia) where we spent most of the day at Coral Beach. One of the nicest beaches on the island, it had beautiful sand with clear, calm water, and no crowds or vendors pestering you, making it an ideal place to relax. Coral Island was about 500 metres from shore and it was an easy swim out and back with a sand bottom that wasn't any deeper than 4-5 feet if you needed grounding along the way.
From Pangkor, a ferry back to the mainland and a 3 hour bus ride north, followed by another ferry delivered us to the island of Penang which has many lovely beaches as well (although a little more crowded). We are spending 3 nights on the NW part of the island in Batu Feringgi, a small seaside town. Our hostel is 30 metres from the beach so once again we have our own little piece of paradise to enjoy. Yesterday we ventured out to the Penang National Park and hiked almost 5 km along a rainforest trail to Monkey Beach, spotting monkeys, marine lizards, crabs and many bird species along the way. After some refreshments on the beach we chose to join several other people on a boat ride back to the park entrance rather than exhausting ourselves further on the hot and humid trail. Following some more beach time back by our hostel, we spent the evening at the nearby Holiday Inn (one of the nicest I have ever seen) in their lobby bar watching the final of the Australian Open tennis tournament which turned out to be a great match.
The Malaysian food has been fabulous. There are many choices and all have been very tasty.......curries, satays, rice dishes, seafood and even bbq corn on the cob dipped in a seasoned honey sauce.......and all very inexpensive. There are food markets and street vendors everwhere so you don't have to walk very far to find a good meal. The other interesting item is watching Muslim women in their beachwear which to us looks no different than their street clothes. While the men and very young children will enter the water with bathing suits on, the women and older girls (perhaps 10 and over) will either just wade into the water or fully immerse themselves with all of their clothes on including their head scarves....we weren't sure if they brought along a change of attire or if this was a clever way to maintain a cooler body temperature.
We did more beach strolling today and had a sunset dinner on the beach. Tomorrow we are heading into Georgetown (Penang's main city) to explore some historical sights. It will also put us close to the harbour where we will be taking a fast ferry on Wednesday morning all the way to the island of Langkawi, situated at the northwest point of Malaysia. We will spend several days there (more beaches) before crossing into Thailand.
Life is good.
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