Crowded Beach Time on Pangkor Island

“Gorgeous stretches of beach and hardly any people…the perfect place to hop over to if you’re after some isolated, low-key relaxation.”

That’s what we were expecting, thanks to our four year old guide book, when we arrived on Pangkor Island. It couldn’t have been farther from the truth.

The gorgeous stretch of beach was overshadowed by a long line of grey concrete shops selling the same crap t-shirts: I love Pangkor and Pangkor Hard Rock Café, despite there not being a Hard Rock Café within a 100 mile radius. The narrow stretch of sand remaining was cluttered with jet skis, banana boats, kayaks and an assortment of inflatables for thrill seeking Malaysian tourists.

And by gosh there were a lot of Malaysian tourists. Huge families bathing in the ocean fully clothed, screaming as they were dragged around on big inflatable doughnuts, speeding towards to beach on jet skis almost killing nearby swimmers.

At first glance we were a little disappointed with this supposedly isolated island, we’d unknowingly arrived not only during school holidays, but also on the weekend of a national public holiday.

Once we learned to look beyond the plastic bottles, polystyrene take-away food trays and abandoned flip flops that littered the beautiful white sand, it really was a beautiful island with clear turquoise waters and magnificent wildlife.

Hornbill at our hotel.

What we learned from the bus loads of Chinese tourists in Bangkok remains true for the majority of Asian tourists: they like crowds, safety in numbers. This meant that whilst the main beach near our hotel was shoulder to shoulder with Malaysians, the other nearby beaches were relatively quiet and we enjoyed some peaceful afternoons in the sun.

We were even able to wade out to our own little paradise, Coral Island, about 200m from the shore, which was nice until a speed boat deposited a boat load of screeching children and their parents alongside us.

Although it wasn’t the isolated retreat we envisioned, Pangkor made for a nice stop over on our way back south to Kuala Lumpur, giving us a couple of days to top up our tans before meeting my parents.

Ric wading out to Coral Island

How To Get To…

Pangkor: We travelled from George Town to Pangkor in one day, first taking the passenger ferry over to the mainland, then a bus to Lumut, and then a thirty minute ferry over to Pangkor.

We Stayed At…

Nipah Villas: we had a small but pleasant room in the back corner of the resort, hot shower, TV and wifi for 55 ringit (£11/$14).