Calm beaches
Pasir Bogak and Teluk Nipah.
ogwen — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Michael — Public domain · Arne Müseler — CC BY-SA 3.0 de
A quiet green island off the Perak coast, about eighteen square kilometres in size and three and a half kilometres from the mainland, home to some ten thousand Malay and Chinese fishing folk. It was once a refuge for fishermen, traders and pirates, and off its shores in 1874 the Pangkor Treaty was signed, opening the door to British intervention in the Malay states. Visitors come for its calm beaches, such as Pasir Bogak, Teluk Nipah and Teluk Ketapang, for swimming and easy snorkelling, for fishing villages with jetties crowded with boats, and for the dried fish sold everywhere. The island is also known for the hornbills that flap around some of its hotels and villages. It has historic and religious sights too, above all the remains of a seventeenth-century Dutch fort and the Fu Lin Kong Chinese temple on the hillside. The easiest way around is by the island's famous pink taxis or a rented motorbike. Ferries from Lumut take about half an hour to three quarters of an hour, and Lumut is about an hour and a half's drive from Ipoh. The island deserves a night, but a single day is enough for a quick look around.
Pasir Bogak and Teluk Nipah.
Regular visitors to villages and hotels.
Jetties, boats and dried fish.
Off Lumut on the Perak coast, about an hour and a half's drive from Ipoh plus a short ferry
By the pink taxis waiting at the jetty at roughly fixed fares, or on a rented motorbike or bicycle. The ring road round the island is short, so most of its sights can be seen in half a day.