Last Labour’s Day weekend, we had a 5 days, nothing except diving trip to Pulau Perhentian. Dived at Pulau Redang and Pulau Dayang/Aur last year, so I thought Perhentian was worth a visit for a budget local diving trip (Tioman’s next).
There are actually 2 routes that people from KL/PJ use to get to Kuala Besut, the gateway to Pulau Perhentian.
KL/PJ – Bentong – Cherating – Kerteh – Dungun – Kuala Terengganu – Kuala Besut
Total Distance : About 560km
This is probably the preferred route to Kuala Besut as the road conditions are much better, especially the KL/PJ – Cherating stretch using the East Coast Expressway. From there onwards, it’s a 300km+ scenic drive along the coastal road up north to Kuala Besut.
The usual time take for this route is about 8 hours, depending on the number of stops and the traffic on that day.
I chose a shorter and much faster route.
KL/PJ – Bentong – Raub – Kuala Lipis – Gua Musang – Kuala Krai – Pasir Puteh – Kuala Besut
Total Distance : About 460km
Started my journey after the Barcelona – Chelsea Champions League Semifinal match around 5am. Drove to Bentong using Karak Highway.
From there onwards, it was a 380km drive on trunk roads until we reach Kuala Besut.
It was still early in the morning, so there wasn’t much traffic from Bentong to Raub. However, this did not mean that we could speed. Even the sun was already up at this time, I could hardly see the car in front at certain stretches of the road.
That’s normal for a road where oil palm trees are on both sides of it.
From Raub onwards to Kuala Lipis, somehow, my GPS brought me to drive through an oil palm plantation. I think it must be a shortcut.
There was a police checkpoint at the entrance and exit of the plantation. There were many pot holes along the 25km stretch of the 2 lane tarmac road. To make driving even more difficult, the road was narrow, full of bends, uphills and downhills.
Definitely not a good driving experience.
From Kuala Lipis onwards, it was a smooth, scenic driving to Gua Musang. The stretch where we were nearing Gua Musang was simply beautiful. There were hills of rocks almost a hundred meters high, caves and tree covered hills.
Kuala Lipis - Gua Musang highway (Road 8)
The stretch from Gua Musang onwards to Kuala Besut was smooth driving. Nothing much to see.
Just drive, drive and drive.
All in all, it took me 6 hours of driving from PJ to Kuala Besut, with 30 minutes of resting time in between.
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