I had the opportunity to visit Pulau Jerejak (yup, that island they sent prisoners to) and stayed at Jerejak Resort and Spa (www.jerejakresort.com).

The island is visible from the Penang bridge (its on the left side if you are coming from the mainland). According to history, the British made it a place to quarantine those suspected having TB. Later, the government used to place prisoners and political detainees till early 90s.

You can access the island from a jetty via the ferry that the resort operator provides. If you don’t plan to stay at the hotel, it costs RM12 per person. Unfortunately there’s no public transport to the jetty, thus it cost me RM26 from the airport to the jetty via taxi for a trip that took less that 20 minutes. As you can see from the photos, the resort is facing Agilent, Intel and Queensbay Mall, among others.

The island is about 80% still green. There are some tracks leading to the old prisons and other historical sites. The resort provides some guide on the activities available on-resort. The water’s not so clean… so the only option is the pool.

While I was there for 3 days, only saw about 10 other tourists. So you can say that this place is really, really peaceful. There’s a slow internet access, and no land transport other than the 3 Kancils the resort have to transport people to the chalets. They don’t even supply newspaper to the rooms. Very ideal for those couples (wives) who don’t want any distractions! Don’t worry guys, ESPN is available 🙂

You can be assured of a peaceful and quiet surrounding as long as you can get used to the planes taking off from the nearby Bayan Lepas Airport and also multitude of animal sounds – monkeys especially. Those little guys were scrapping at my door at just about midnight (probably trained to scare the tourists). Or what if it was not the monkeys, after all? They also played kabaddi on the roof early in the morning, so I didn’t need my alarm.

Facilities wise, the resort have chalets and rooms. There’s a few seminar rooms and the standard hall. The recreational activities are minimal, and there’s one convenience store. You have to take the food at the restaurant there. Food was OK. However, the workers are trainees from Indonesia, and I had problem communicating with them. Maybe its the slang or I spoke too fast. The have a sandy area for beach volleyball etc, but its dinner time for mosquitoes after 6.30pm, so be careful.

Some of the people take the ferry to Penang, do their shopping and return in the evening. Ferry is quite regular, about every two hours once.

The weather was gloomy and it rained at times, so I didn’t get to venture around a lot. Most of the pictures were taken around the jetty and beach side.

What really impressed me was the way the resort was built to spare the giant trees. The resort was sort of built around these trees. One of the trees had a width of about 1.5 metres!

By the way, the island is home to big-sized millipedes, as seen outside my chalet.

When its time to return, you need to book a taxi by informing the front desk. If not, you’ll be stranded once you reach the jetty on Penang Island.

All in all, a quiet and relaxing place.

Photos are available at Picasa