Pangkor Island.

I just spend a couple of days on Pangkor Island. Lovely little island, off the west coast of Malaysia. Tranquil little island with a few nice beaches.

Where is Pangkor Island.

Pangkor Island, or Pulau Pangkor as the locals call it is located off the west coast of Malaysia. It’s only  18 square kilometers and has roughly 25 000 inhabitants. It will become a tax free island from January 1st 2020, which will almost certainly boost the tourist industry on the island. There is already a fair bit of construction underway on the island.

How to get there.

You can take a ferry to Pangkor Island either from the town called Lumut. Or from the manmade island, Marina Island, which is connected to the mainland with a dike. I paid 14 Ringgitt for a return ride with the ferry from Lumut. And an additional 3 Ringgitt for my bicycle on the return journey. The ferries are small jetties. But they do take bicycle and even motorbikes on board, if you have one of those with you.

The little ferry I took to Pangkor.

The beaches on Pangkor Island.

Pangkor has a few beaches on Pangkor Island. Generally not too wide, but nice and clean. Pangkor is facing the Malacca Strait, which is one of the busiest place sin the world for commercial sea traffic. And this can cause problems on beaches, if they are not cleaned properly. But I was happily surprised to see how a large group of people tour the island every day to clean up trash from the beaches on Pangkor Island. This makes the place quite a bit more attractive to visit.

Narrow but nice beaches.

Accommodation on the island.

There are many types of accommodation on the island. Both resort style hotels, as well as smaller guest houses. I stayed in a smaller hotel in the main town called “Hotel the Island”. This was a nice small hotel that was very well run. Friendly reception staff. And a nice local bar next door. It was by no means fancy, but it did the job for me and I was very happy there.

Cycling around Pangkor Island.

I spend one morning cycling around Pangkor Island. The journey was really nice and quite easy, as the roads are very good on the island. Had a nice lunch stop at Teluk Dalam beach, about half way through my journey. And I also stopped at the cute little airport they have on the island. There are a few small watch towers placed around the island on scenic spots. They made really good stops for viewing the landscape as well as for a little rest. Some of the roads were quite steep. Just for a short stretch. In fact, one of the roads was insanely steep. The climb was not very long. But the descent was so steep, that I decided to walk the bike down the decent, as I thought it was too dangerous to cycle. Maybe it was just me who was a pussy. But I am no fan of steep descents, when I am cycling.But all in all, cycling around Pangkor Island was a very pleasant experience.

The roads on Pangkor are good for cycling.

Cycling around Pangkor Island.

Teluk Dalam was nice.

So if you are looking for a little tourist island that is developed. But not to the point where it receives international tourism yet. Then Pangkor could be a good choice. I quite liked this little island, with it’s combination of nice beaches and small ramshackle shacks here and there, next to nice beach resorts.

I made a stop at the cute little Pangkor Airport.