As I went through the pictures of my lovely liveaboard trip aboard The Dolphin Queen in Similan and Surin Islands in March 2017, I was trying to figure out the next dive trip.
I managed to persuade my friend Anish to join me on this trip to complete his Advanced Open Water course. We were debating Perhentian or Redang in Malaysia, when another friend in KL mentioned the island of Tenggol, which is near Redang but off the beaten track and a relatively undiscovered dive destination on Peninsular Malaysia.
Despite having lived in Malaysia, I had never heard of Tenggol but the pictures and the description seemed awesome. A pristine island with just three resorts lined up on a beach seemed like a slice of tropical paradise.
The island did not disappoint – this is the shot I took on arriving and it was exactly like a picture postcard.
Getting to Tenggol
The journey started with a flight from Chennai to Kuala Lumpur on Air Asia which was fairly comfortable since I paid for an exit row seat.
Speaking of Airports, I would think that Chennai Airport ranks as the worst major airport in India with hardly any facilities or charging points or even decent restaurants. So if you ever decide to transit anywhere in India – avoid Chennai.
We landed in KL around mid day and after a ride on the fast but expensive KLIA Ekspress and a taxi ride reached the massive Mid Valley City to catch up with a few old advertising colleagues at Kayu Nasi Kandar and stuffed myself silly over Roti Canai, Roti Pisang, Roti Boom and the delicious Roti Murtabak Ayam and of course my favourite cups of Teh Tarik – Oh how I miss this Malaysian comfort food.
Another teksi ride to Terminal Bersepadu Selatan (TBS) – the main bus terminal in Kuala Lumpur and we were ready for a night bus to Dungun in Kuala Terengganu – A 6 hour bus ride on a rather comfortable Transnasional Bus – leaving KL at 11 pm and reaching Dungun at 4 pm (though we reached slightly early).
Incidentally, if you want to proceed directly to TBS from the airport – Take the KLIA Transit (not the KLIA Ekspres) and get down at Bandar Tasik Selatan station from where you can just walk across to TBS to catch your bus. There are fairly decent facilities and a good food hall to grab a bite before you start your journey.
Alternatively, you can drive down from KL to Dungun if you have your own car and leave the car parked at the jetty at Dungun.
Dungun is a fairly small town and since our ferry to Tenggol was not till 8 am – we had almost 3 hours to kill and nowhere to go except sit at the roadside – Thankfully a friendly local told us about a 24 hour McDonald’s which was a ten minute walk from the bus stop. We plonked ourselves there, freshened up and enjoyed a McDonald’s breakfast and some desperately needed coffee.
At 7 am – we headed to the jetty by a Teksi – Each of the three resorts on Tenggol uses a different part of the jetty and you must check with your resort about which part you use. Since we were diving with Discovery Divers – we went to the appropriate part of the jetty and waited with a group of 10-12 other divers who were also making the trip to Tenggol for a short weekend.
The Resort & Some Important Watch-Outs
A quick ferry ride and we were in The Tenggol Discovery Divers resort, which is fairly basic but clean and comfortable.
The rooms are in two rows – The sea facing rooms in front row and the slightly more basic rooms at the back row. Since the sea facing rooms were packed with the group which had arrived with us. Anish & I had taken adjacent basic rooms which were quite clean, comfortable and air-conditioned but had a slightly old-fashioned bed.
In addition to the rooms – there is a restaurant and food area and a couple of hammocks near the water which are very comfortable for passing the time between dives or afterwards in the evening just listening to the rhythm of the sea. But please ensure you use bug repellant cream since there are sandflies which can leave you with a bite which can irritate you for weeks as I discovered.
There is no alcohol at the Discovery Divers resort but the other two resorts next door viz. The Tenggol Island Beach Resort and Tenggol Coral Beach Resort which are more upmarket and modern and one would assume correspondingly more expensive. We used to walk across to the Coral Beach Resort for a beer in the evening.
Discovery Divers normally expects an advance payment but in this case since it is difficult to transfer money abroad from India and they do not accept card payment or PayPal transfers – we had to pay in cash on the island.
There are no shops or ATMs on the island so please ensure you are fully stocked up before you leave KL because Dungun is also completely closed when you arrive and there will be no shops open before you need to head to the resort.
The internet reception is pretty much non-existent on the resort and you may get limited cellphone reception on the beach but that is about it. Do not expect signal in your room at all times since the phone connection is also pretty sporadic.
The beach is lovely but infested with sandflies, I was bitten badly on my arm and chest and it took almost a month for the bites to stop itching. So please ensure you have insect repellant before you spend time on the beach.
The Diving
One of the things you will notice is the clarity of the water around the resort. It is glass like and you can see the corals even close to the beach.
The first dive of the trip was on a site called Rajawali Reef and it was fairly average and as is typical of my first dive during the trip – I ended up finishing the dive in 40 minutes or so. On my first dive for some strange reason, I always run out of air quickly.
Thankfully there wasn’t much to see except a Titan Triggerfish, a turtle and nudibranchs.
As i was about the discover – Tenggol is really rich in macro stuff like nudibranchs and ghost pipefish. So for macro lovers – it is pretty much a must visit – There were dives on which we spotted upwards of 10 -15 nudibranches . The Phyllida Varicosa was the most numerous but there were plenty of other types as well including the Blue Dragons.
The second dive of the day was on Tanjung Api which was also pretty average before heading back to the resort for some much-needed rest and sleep.
We started the day at the spectacularly beautiful dive site called Tokong Burung or Bird Temple – A tiny island with a lighthouse and a ton of birds wheeling around. It was stunningly beautiful even on the surface.
The dive site has strong currents and we had to make a negative entry. I had a bit of trouble descending and almost felt like I was going to be dashed on the rocks given the surf and surge but quickly managed to make my way down by swimming hard.
The site was great with a lot of reef fish, some large yellow fin tuna came by to keep us company alongside groups of trevallies and a couple of turtles.
The other two dives were on a site called Tokong Timur (East Temple) – We spotted a lot of groupers, a large bumphead parrotfish (and I spotted bumpheads on almost every dive after this), stingrays, flatworms and nudibranchs.
Unfortunately – the large group of divers who had come over for the long weekend – were far more interested in playing around in the water than really enjoying the underwater world and would typically run out of air within 35 min or so and it was incredibly frustrating with them jostling to take a look at everything, playing around and in some cases not being mindful of the coral in spite of the instructors asking them to be careful.
Thankfully, they were gone at the end of the second day and we could enjoy the remaining days of our trip in peace.
On the third day – It was just me and my friend and two other divers. Since my friend was doing his AOW course, I was diving with the other two divers and thankfully we had similar air consumption patterns and interests and I really enjoyed the dives.
The first one was a spectacular drift on a site called Moonraker – tons and tons of nudibranchs and groupers. At one time, I was trying to take a picture of a beautiful blue velvet nudibranch in the current when I looked up and saw that I was pretty much all alone, since visibility wasn’t the best and all of a sudden – there were three black tip reef sharks around me – just the silhouettes streaking by and it was just awesome. Unfortunately – they were too fast to take pictures and in the videos you have to really squint to make out their sleek silhouettes. Thankfully I saw the bubbles of my dive buddies just before I thought I must head to surface.
This was pretty much the best dive of the trip.
We visited two more sites during the course of the day – Pasir Tenggara and Tanjung Gemuk which were also quite nice. The Bumpheads and the Groupers and the stingrays kept showing up.
We finished the day and after a bath and some tea stopped at Coral Island Beach Resort for a couple of well-needed beers and enjoyed the spectacular sunset.
The next morning we bid good-bye to our friends with a mandatory Tenggol Discovery Divers picture.
Since on the last day it was just me and Anish – we did the first dive on the House Wreck viz. M V Sawadee which was a small wreck lying at about 30 metres. It was just off the beach and which is when I realised the steep drop off at Tenggol.
It was a fairly short dive but we did manage to see some lovely robust ghost pipefish – unfortunately my Go Pro was not up to the task of photographing them but I did capture a good shot of a blue velvet nudibranch.
At the end of the dive, I decided to swim across to the island instead of taking the boat and it was a nice half hour swim.
My last dive on Tenggol was on another point on the house reef called Turtle Point. It was a fairly shallow dive and there wasn’t much to see on the reef but i was attacked by several rather aggressive reef fish. I had opted out of wearing my wetsuit at Tenggol given the heat and had to keep fending off these tiny devils.
We ended the evening with another beer at the Coral Island resort and spent the evening lying on the beach and enjoying some music and just watching the cloudy skies .
The next morning – It was time to head home and begin the journey back to KL.
The ferry dropped us off at a jetty very close to the Dungun Bus Stop by 10 am and we boarded a Sani Express bus to KL and reached Terminal Bersepadu Selatan by 4.30 pm.
I met up with another friend at Mikey’s New York Pizza in Bangsar – which in my view is the best place in KL for pizza before heading back to the airport for my flight to Chennai.
The Trip Cost
The Air Asia flight from Chennai to Kuala Lumpur was about US$ 250/Rs. 16000 (with 20 kg baggage and exit row seat)
KLIA Ekspres Ticket from KLIA/KLIA2 to Bandar Tasik Selatan is under US$2 (Rs. 120) one way
Bus Tickets to Dungun are just over US$10/Rs. 700 one way
10 Dives over the 5D/4N trip with equipment rental, accommodation and meals came to approx US$ 550/Rs. 35,000 with tips add about US$ 50/Rs. 3500
If you are willing to rough it out a bit more (cut the baggage to bare minimum, take any seat, share a room, take a bus from the airport in KL) you could save another US$ 100/150.
Final Impressions
The good part was the fact that the island is really a break from civilisation and I enjoyed the ability to shut out emails and Whatsapp messages for 4-5 days and just be with my Kindle and my music collection.
The resort room was comfortable, the food is good but a bit monotonous and if I had a longer trip, I would have been really craving for something else but the 4 day duration was perfect.
The dive masters and dive guides are professional and courteous and absolutely no complaints there. I do feel that there were too few dive guides on the first couple of day and they could have done a better job of sorting experienced and inexperienced divers and separating the groups so that we were not in each others’ face all the time.
However, the diving during my trip was just about so-so but guess that is the way the cookie crumbles. My friend who recommended Tenggol had a spectacular experience and even spotted a whale shark or two. But I understand that there are no guarantees in diving and I quite enjoy macro as much as the big stuff, so spotting nudibranchs makes me happy as well as spotting sharks.
The big question is did I regret my trip – The answer is a definitely not – It was nice enough but would I visit Tenggol again and the answer remains a definite no.
overland&undersea 