Lang Tengah Island - Overview and tips

LOCATION
Lang Tengah Island is located in between Pulau Perhentian and Pulau Redang.


ACCOMMODATION
Since Lang Tengah is really small compare with Redang and Perhentian because there is no village (meaning no hospital, school, police, shops etc), currently there are only 4 resorts on the island.

Listed are the 4 in the order of their proximity with the government built jetty:-

1) LANG TENGAH RESORT - great for budget travellers.

Contact them for actual price as the prices listed in their website are just a general guide.. I managed to get RM269 per person (tirple sharing) for 3D2N include meals, snorkelling, jungle trek and boat transfer. Exclude bus transfer to airport/bus station and rental of snorkelling gears.
http://www.redanglangresort.com.my/intro.asp

2) SARI PASIFICA - the best for high budget - but mostly targetted to Italians or foreigners.

I was told that the furnishings in the rooms are so opulent that you cannot differentiate the wash basin from the toilet bowl (the toilet bowl was that luxurious it seems!)
http://www.saripacifica.com/index

3) LANG SARI (formerly known as Blue Coral Island Resort) - the website is really nice but in reality, quite run down as at March 2012.

It used to be the best resort as it still have the longest stretch of beach in Lang Tengah but since the new management took over with no effort of upkeep and maintenance it has fallen into disrepair with alleged 2 staffs only on the resort.
http://langsari.com/v3/index.php

4) D'COCONUT LAGOON - the best for mid range budget
It consists of EAST and WEST wing but apparently the East wing is better just like how for nature, you need to go to East Malaysia. It's a resort with 2 swimming pool in case the beach dont strike your fancy.
http://www.dcoconutlagoon.com/index.asp 

My thoughts on LANG TENGAH ISLAND

- less mat sallehs here but plenty of tourists from China.

- less malay but still I see some

- not much animals on the island - they claim to have no venomous or poisonous animal - only monitor lizard or iguana.. not much geckos too now as apparently geckos weighing 350gm above can cure HIV so they can fetch up to RM100,000-00 each!! A bit of bats and 4 - 5 keluang (which is a bigger version of bat)

- best place to buy souvenir (t-shirt or key chain) is Lang Tengah Resort as price is more reasonable.

- a fresh coconut is sold for RM6 and beer is RM10, stout is RM12 in Lang Tengah Resort souvenir shop (open from 8am - 11pm)

- a must to get full meal and board as there are no independent restaurants on the island...

- wear long sleeve for the snorkelling as it can get very very hot.

- must have bread for snorkelling as then you can get really up close with the fishes

- it's good to be friendly with the staffs as they meet different people every 3 days... so initially they are not that instructive. But if you get to know them, they'll tell you more about the island and it's secret places.

- you can go turtle watching on Turtle Bay (when there is no moon) and there's a special place to watch the blue sands (on nights with full moon only) but you need to jungle trek and rock climb in the middle of the night for both activities.

- there is monsoon season in Malaysia's east coast.. so plan your trip well!

I met plenty of people (staffs and tourists) and asked them on their preference on islands and gist of their answers:-

Lang Tengah vs Tioman - beach wise, Lang Tengah is better but in terms of mountains, scenery, flora and fauna - Tioman is better

Lang Tengah vs Perhentian - different crowd as Lang Tengah is really isolated

Lang Tengah vs Redang - Laguna Resort Redang if you can afford the price is the best of all these 3 islands as staff and hotel is really good.

But for me, just paying RM269 I have no complains about Lang Tengah as the quality of the sea and beach are fantastic!!

GETTING THERE

Getting there is through Kuala Terengganu and NOT Kota Bahru.


TRAIN

Therefore going by TRAIN is out of the question as the station Tanah Merah is really far from Merang Jetty.

BUS

From Kuala Lumpur you can choose the day or night bus from Putra bus station (near PWTC) cost about RM40 (one way). Journey is about 7 hours and the last bus is 1030pm so you'll reach Kuala Terengganu about 6 or 7 am really early.


Recommended bus companies:-
A) SANI EXPRESS (originate from Kuala Terengganu) but buses are all double decker
http://202.190.123.247/online/Main/Main.asp?pageID=002

B) Konsortium Transnasional Berhad
https://www.ticket4u.com.my/


PLANE
Air Asia, Firefly and MAS flies from KL to KT.

However return from KT to KL is really inconvenient with Air Asia as they only have 2 flights per day (morning and night) so Firefly is better albeit more expensive (cos they serve drinks and a piece of cake PLUS 20kg baggage allowance - but major plus point, it lands in Subang so you can save the taxi fare from LCCT)


SELF DRIVE
Then you can just park you car near the jetty and pay like about RM30 for someone to look after your car.