A five hour plus trip on the public bus from Kuala Besut, the town nearest the Perhentian Islands, to Cherating where we'll be spending the next couple of nights. Marni is sleeping on my shoulder and is the only woman on the bus not wearing a muslim headscarf. The bus is cheap and comfortable (except that the enthusiastic airconditioning has been set to 'arctic') but not particularly easy for travellers / non-Malaysians to use - all info in Malay etc.
Away from the tourist areas, the Muslim conservatism of the East Coast is very apparent. We got speaking to a Chinese Malaysian guy, who mentioned that they don't get a lot of tourists travelling along the East Coast. There certainly aren't any others on our bus or to be seen along the route.
We're planning to spend our last couple of nights in Malaysia in Cherating, a town on the coast about 5 hours by bus from Singapore. According to the (usually reliable) Lonely Planet it's a relaxed travellers village - but it's unlikely to be as nice as Perhentian... we'll see.
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