S19EP42 | MALAYSIA | PENANG National Park | Turtle Beach | Long Beach Cafe

Situated on the Northeast tip of Penang Island, Penang National Park is a fun and free day or half-day activity for any nature lover. The Park can be reached by local public bus from most of the island for very affordable rates. If you are a few people or pressed for time, taking a Grab Taxi is another feasible alternative. There are various hiking routes within the park which are thankfully mostly shaded by the lush green forest. Some of the routes are in need of a bit of maintenance, but if you are a regular hiker you won’t find them strenuous at all. You can also reach many of the park attractions by boat, which can be arranged at the park entrance or negotiated with the boatmen directly. We walked from the main entrance towards Pantai Keracut Beach. The trail took us about 1.5 hours including a few photo and video stops along the way!

There is often a debate regarding Pantai Keracut Beach vs Monkey Beach. Visiting both beaches will, of course, allow you to make up your own mind, but in the meantime, we will give you our opinion of our visit which was in the middle of July 2019.

Pantai Keracut Beach is a lovely wide and sandy beach with some tall trees along the sand edge providing much-needed shade (although you will want something to sit on as the trees also deposit very prickly small cones). The beach is definitely quieter and more relaxed than Monkey Beach, but swimming is unfortunately not allowed! The beach has a fairly steep drop-off into the water and the waves clearly dump along this shoreline. Keep in mind that there are no vendors at Pantai Keracut Beach so be sure to pack your own drinks and snacks. If you just want to sit and relax in the beauty of nature, then this is a good spot for you.

While you are at Pantai Keracut Beach, you should definitely visit the Pantai Keracut Turtle Sanctuary. Don’t have too high expectations, the Sanctuary is very small with only a few tanks. It is, however, free to enter and if you are lucky, there will be baby turtles which were by far the highlight of our visit. From here we made arrangements to hop aboard one of the boats heading towards Monkey Beach. There were plenty of boats and the fee was very negotiable so we were glad we had not made prior arrangements at the park entrance.

So, how does Monkey Beach compare to Pantai Keracut Beach? Well to be honest after some of the reviews that we had read, we expected Monkey beach to be packed and overrun by monkeys - this was not the case! Yes, the beach is a lot busier than Pantai Keracut Beach, but the one big advantage is that you can swim at Monkey Beach! The water quality is not fantastic, but it is no worse than Batu Ferringhi or any other beach around Penang Island. The beach is narrow but quite long so you should easily find a spot that suits you. There are a few vendors selling snacks and renting sun loungers. I am sure that if you wave your snacks around or leave them lying around the monkeys will be on you in a flash, but we did not notice them really bothering anyone. From Monkey Beach we took a boat back to the park entrance where we hopped on a bus to Batu Ferringhi. If you are a keen hiker, you will definitely want to spend more time exploring some of the other trails of the park.

ABOUT US:
Hi! We're Andre & Lisa! Nomads and experienced budget travellers.
Married for 11 years. Travelling together for 15 years. Current full-time travellers and nomads.
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