Places In Malaysia: The Island of Pulau Besar

Basic Information

• Name: Pulau Besar
• Where: Melaka, Malaysia
• Cost: ~$3.50 per adult for ferry ticket
• More Information: Malaysia Traveler

Narrative

When I visited the Melaka area of Malaysia one of the places I was told to check out was the island of Pulau Besar.  The very small island is located 15 miles off the coast of Melaka:

My wife and I received directions from a friend and proceeded to drive over to the boat terminal early in the morning to catch a ferry to Pulau Besar.  Along the way to the boat terminal we spotted these wild monkeys hanging out along the side of the road:

It is common to see monkeys like this all over Malaysia:

After checking out the monkeys we continued to drive over to the boat terminal.  We found the boat terminal, parked and then walked up to the terminal.  At the terminal we took a good look at the boats in the harbor and they appeared to be in good shape:

At the terminal we paid about $3.50 per person for a ferry ticket.  Once on the ferry it was packed with people and was standing room only.  This was not and issue for my wife and I as we stood up and took pictures during the short boat ride.  For example here is a picture I took of a fishing shack located in the Straits of Melaka:

Here is a small island we saw on our way to Pulau Besar:

Here is the view looking back towards Melaka where the various resort towers could be seen in the distance:

It took less than 30 minutes to get to Pulau Besar where we disembarked near a resort that had a number of nice bungalows:

Considering how many people were on the ferry boat I expected the resort to be quite busy, but it appeared that most visitors to the island were day trippers like myself because there was hardly anyone at the resort.  In fact my wife and I hardly saw any employees walking around.  It was a pretty strange resort experience:

From the resort we walked over to the nearby beach to check it out:

Unlike the waters around Melaka that often appeared polluted the waters around Pulau Besar appeared blue and clean:

After checking out the beach we then decided to walk around the island following its network of trails:

Many of the trails were used to access the golf course on the island.  Like the resort we saw no one using the golf course.  The foliage around the island was quite nice with many of these fan palm trees:

There was also many bright and beautiful flowers to see:

As we circled around the island the jungle became more dense and less maintained compared to the areas around the golf course:

As we walked around we had to constantly battle mosquitoes.  We did not have any bug spray on us so the mosquitoes proved to be a consistent menace.  On the far side of the island we then came upon a strange sight which was an abandoned resort:

It looked like this resort was at one time quite nice, but considering how few people visit this island it is easy to understand why a resort of this size could not be sustained:

After wandering around the deserted resort we then walked back over to the functioning resort to get lunch.  We sat down in the restaurant area and it took a few minutes, but a server noticed there was actually a customer.  The very friendly server came over and took our order.  The food was actually quite good and during the entire time we ate lunch only one small family came in to eat:

Conclusion

After eating lunch my wife and I decided to take the ferry boat back over to Melaka mainly because of how bad the mosquitoes were.  This visit to Pulau Besar taught us to bring bug spray with us whenever walking through the jungle in Malaysia.  Overall my wife and I were pretty underwhelmed by Pulau Besar.  With all the other great things to do in the Melaka area I can understand why this island appeared to not be a very busy location.  However, for people looking for a very quite island getaway in the Melaka area this place is definitely it.