a happening island

Just within a month from the Sipadan trip, I was heading to another island for a long weekend breakaway. It's not a diving trip, I went there with a bunch of colleagues which also looking to take a break from the routine work life. The destination, Redang Island.

The trip is somehow different from what I had previously on Perhentian or Sipadan. It's not free and easy anymore, as travel to Redang Island often goes by package, which means, within the package, you will have your accommodation, meals, activities, transport inlcuded. Hence, this time, we would need to take a 10hrs bus ride to Kuala Terrenganu (KT), departing from Putra Bus Station. The bus always schedules to start at late night, about 10pm; so that when it reaches it destination it will be early morning, and passengers can take a good rest over the long journey.

We reached Kuala Terrenganu at about 6am, and first thing, we headed to the washroom to clean ourselves up. After that we headed to some local food stall to have some light snack while waiting for the land transport to fetch us to the Jetty, the land transport is part of the arrangement from the package that we took. The journey from KT bus station to jetty took us about 40mins. Unlike Sipadan and Perhentian, the boat that we took was larger and more comfortable.

Once we reached Redang, we checked in to the resort and immediately we were briefed on the activities that we were going to have on the island, which include 3 snorkeling trips starting on that afternoon itself. Since we reached there at 10am and there's still time before we could have our lunch. We decided to have a swim and tried out the snorkeling gears that provided by the resort. Though Redang is already a well-developed island with all kind of facilities, but they do a good job in keeping their beach and water clean. We swam for about and hour or so, and we headed to took our lunch. After the lunch, we were arranged to our first snorkeling trip. I was shocked when I saw there were 3 boats heading to the same site from our resort alone. I couldn't imagine how crowded the place will be when all the resorts send 3 boats of people for snorkeling.

As expected, by the time we reached there, we already saw another few boats from other resorts approaching. Before we went into water, there's a simple briefing on what we need to do, what we can't do, bla bla bla. After all the talking was done, we all jumped into the water and started to look for fishes. A few of my colleagues were first timer on this activities and they found quite excited. For me, it was just a normal underwater sight seeing activities and not much things could attract me; until I reached a spot that I found a few real big fishes - a triggerfish, a moray eel and a grouper. I couldn't help myself to follow the triggerfish around although we are often advised not to go near them as they have real sharp teeth and will be very aggressive if someone approaches them. After I swam along with the triggerfish for about 5mins, all of the sudden, the crowd started to move towards this spot. Apparently, the guide lead them to the spot so that they could have a look at these big fishes. The place became so packed that I merely got kicked from some strangers, so I decided to left the spot. The trip lasted for about an hour and that finished off the first day activity.

Good thing about taking package is that meals are all arranged so we don't have to run around to look for food. Since there's no activity after dinner, we decided to went for karaoke. The resort itself has some facilities, eg. karaoke, pool, swimming pool, even a pub by the beach side. And that night, we were haunted by the song that Mikegas so obsessed in, we named it the 'lala' song. And he even put it as his ring-tone when he's back from the island. After the K-session, we called the day off and prepared for the 2nd day activities.

2nd day activities included 2 snorkeling trip, 1 after breakfast, the other 1 after lunch. The first trip was rather exciting, because we were arranged to snorkel on the marine park; a lot of fishes, and they are expecting tourists like us to feed them with bread. And yes, I saw a lot of tourists already prepared some bread, not to feed them, but to attract the fishes to them. Ok, then headed out to the site, again crowded. Well, it is a place with a lot of fishes, but it's rather disappointing that those were just small fishes. After the that, we headed back to the island to have our lunch and waited for the last snorkeling trip. However, due to the tiredness, CC, MD, and Angelynn decided to skip the activity and relax on the beach. So, me, Kev, Mikegas and Nic headed for the last trip and had a boring snorkeling and came back to the beach. We had some light food (tea time arranged) and hang out on the beach. Near evening, Mikegas once again asked me to go snorkel with him on our own, since I had nothing much to do, so I just tagged along. This trip is really so unexpected that we could spot some jellyfish and also a small white-tip shark.

On that night itself, we had a very special event, to help Mikegas propose to Nic. It was a chaos preparation as the wind kept blowing off the candle that we tried to light on. Anyhow, it was a successful event; and after that we headed to have some drinks by the beach. There are plenty of pubs and lounges attached to each of the resort. To be honest, it is quite happening along the beach; but I feel it lacks of the peacefulness of the nature.

There was pretty nothing much left in the last day, we just packed and took the boat back to KT as our bus is scheduled on noon time and of cause, another long bus ride back to KL. Redang is rather a happening island as compared to the other islands in east coast. It is a good place for family trip or a bunch of friends for holiday. If you are looking for a peaceful break, I will not suggest Redang, Perhentian will be a better place for you.