Pulau Kapas

View of Pulau Gemia from Pulau Kapas. The coral between the two islands is teaming with fish.

Our 4th long weekend between our Christmas break and the start of the March break just ended. Maureen and I thought we should spend some time exploring Malaysia and so we loaded up the car and headed off after school on Friday to the east coast of Malaysia. After school, means after we finished coaching our basketball and soccer teams and so we left about 5:00. Travel is always an adventure and the 4 hour trip ended up taking us about 7 hours. Getting lost has become an expected part of the journey and adds to the experience(at least that's what I say to myself as I try to calm the rage). The roads really are quite good here and North America could really learn a thing or two from the rest stops they have. These tend to be spread out every 40 or so kilometers with every second one providing the full meal deal. They will have large clean washrooms, snack stands, small restaurants, gas stations, and pretty well everything else a weary traveler might need. The one thing that does not work so is well is that the restaurants all serve exactly the same local menu. The only exception to this is that the rest stops closer to KL tend to have a few of the palaces of grease, like McDonalds or Burger King. We got take away coffees at one point. I remembered to have a mug with me but Maureen didn't. Her take away cup was a plastic bag with a straw.
Pulau Kapas is about 3 km off the mainland about midway up the east side of peninsular Malaysia. We stayed the night at a small market town called Marang and took a speed boat over to the island in the morning. The island is only about 2 km across and only has a half dozen small 'resorts' on it. The word resort is loosely used here. They are mainly backpacker type places with pretty basic accommodation. We managed to find an exception to this, a nice little secluded place run a Dutch couple. They have room for about 20 guests in their various chalets. The place has its own little private bay and the chalets are situated on the cusp of the jungle and beach. The woman, Sylvie, is a fantastic cook and we managed to relax and eat very well for our two days here. It was a great place to unwind after report card writing. We read, snorkeled, ate, kayaked around a bit and read some more.


This shows the restaurant and dining area of Turtle Valley Kapas, the resort we stayed at.


We paddled one of the kayaks around the island and rested on this rather nice beach and did some snorkeling.





We wondered around a bit looking for secluded beaches. They weren't hard to find even on a long weekend.



Boats just biding their time in the bay.



Al at the climbing wall at Camp 5, Asia's largest climbing facility. Getting old sucks though because after going twice I've tendinitis in my elbow so bad I need to lay off for a bit.