While working on a travel writing assignment up in Malaysia‘s state of Melaka, I ventured outside of the vibrant Melaka City heritage area and one of the places I discovered was this strange little island called Pulau Besar which makes for a rather interesting Melaka day trip if you’re into offbeat areas and doing a little hiking. Here’s my Pulau Besar guide and tips on how to get there.
About Pulau Besar
Located 10km off the southeast coast of Melaka, Pulau Besar is an odd little island that’s mostly visited by domestic tourists today who go there to chill on the beach and camp out, pay pilgrimage at the few sacred tombs on the island or take a small hike.
A note that there is a Pulau Besar in Johor as well – this is a different island that’s a part of Melaka.
Melaka’s Pulau Besar was once slated for luxury tourism development and though those plans eventually fell through, you can still see the remains of the resorts and golf course that they were built in anticipation of many vacationers, but because there were conflicts with the religious groups because of the sacred graves around the island, things just never really took off.
I would recommend Pulau Besar for people who like being outdoors and exploring different sides of Melaka. Keep your expectations very low – the stuff here isn’t particularly wow or must-see, but it definitely made for an unusual day trip. Also, I ended up making some new friends who took me around to explore more of Melaka on my last day!
How to get to Pulau Besar
Pulau Besar is located offshore east of Melaka City in Merlimau. You need to first find your way to Anjung Batu Jetty about half an hour’s drive away from Melaka City, and then take a 15 minute ferry ride across the water.
Getting to Anjung Batu Jetty
By Driving: I took a Grab car from Melaka City which cost 40 RM. My driver was pretty nice and even made a short detour to the Portuguese Settlement for a quick look-see en route to the jetty.
I really lucked out on the way back because I met a really nice Malaysian-Singaporean couple on the ferry, and they were convinced there was no way I could call a Grab at the ferry terminal, so they gave me a lift in their private car back to the city.
My suggestion if you’re not planning to rent a car and drive yourself (there is a carpark at the jetty) is to get the contact info of the taxi/Grab who sent you to the terminal and make a private arrangement with them to pick you up at a fixed time and send you back.
By Bus: Panorama Bus 6A from Melaka Sentral Bus Station to Muar will pass by the bus stop for Anjung Batu Jetty but it only runs every two hours and it runs from Melaka Sentral (doesn’t pass through the main historical area). The bus stop itself is about 15 minutes walk away from the ferry terminal.
Getting to Pulau Besar
Public Ferry: Currently there are just 3 public ferry timings from Anjung Batu Jetty: 8am, 12pm, 5pm. There used to be more pre-COVID but this was the latest timetable that they had when I visited in Oct 2023. The return ferries from Pulau Besar are at 815am, 1215pm and 515pm – make sure you catch the 515pm ferry if you don’t intend to stay overnight. A round trip ticket costs 15 RM.
Chartered Speedboat: If you have a small group or just want the most flexibility, you can charter a private speedboat to fetch you back. The boat can take a maximum of 8 people and costs 120 RM.
Things to note: The usual public ferry is a larger boat, but when the tide is too low, the ferry gets grounded at Anjung Batu. Instead they will dispatch the speedboats instead which is what happened in my case where a couple of guys in the speedboats yelled out instructions (all in Malay), and everyone trooped over to the beach instead. Luckily there were some English speakers who were kind enough to tell me what was going on and I just followed everyone.
Things to do on Pulau Besar
Pulau Besar is not a very large island. I walked around most of the island in about 3 hours or so, and I’ll show you some of the things I saw along the way. I took an anti-clockwise stroll around the perimeter of most of the island.
Here’s my Google map of the island, though you may also want to use OpenStreetMaps in this case which seems to show clearer paths that you can walk.
Northeast: Jetty area
The jetty is located on the northeastern corner of the island. This stretch all along the east side of the island is where most of the activity takes place.
There is supposed to be a little museum and information centre about Pulau Besar around here, but it was closed even though I was on the island on a Saturday.
It looks like there are some beach activities – if you wanted to rent a kayak, you could give the numbers on the sign a call. Apparently recreation activities are by Redtma Adventure, so you could try dropping them a note as well if you’re really keen on having stuff to do on the island, but no guarantees from me…
East Coast: Tombs and Camping
There are some paved paths that lead you along the coast down the eastern side of the island. This evidently is where most people are as there are facilities built here, like benches, tables, playgrounds and even some nice boardwalks.
You can even find a handful of food stalls here if you need something to eat, along with toilets. A lot of people brought along their own picnics and food to eat along the beach as well.
There are several tombs just next to the beaches like that of Sultan Al Ariffin Syeikh Ismail, a distant relation of the prophet Muhammad and associated with the early spread of Islam in Malaysia.
Make sure you are modestly dressed around here even if you plan to swim or you could get into serious trouble for ‘indecent acts’ – heed the many signs reminding you of this nearby.
Southeast/Southwest: Coastal Views
Towards the southern end of the island, the beaches and crowds fall away and things start getting green again. I wanted to round the southern tip of the island, but there were some fallen branches in the way so I had to cut across the island to the west side and made my way up north from there.
Northwest: Abandoned resort
The west path along the coastal area mostly offers sea views. I did encounter a random wild boar but it was pretty far away from me. When there were diverging paths, I picked the path closer to the coast and kept walking.
Eventually, I came across a gate with a rather ominous sign:
This is apparently what’s left of Marina Resort that was built to have a Mediterranean feel but ultimately abandoned because of the pushback by those who felt the island should remain a sacred ground for pilgrimage instead of a luxury tourist playground.
You can walk around inside, overall it is pretty run down and paint is peeling all around. The pools of water are pretty green as well and while it’s supposedly abandoned, you can spot signs of clothes hung out on ledges and stuff so it seems like squatters have made some of the rooms home…
There is a private jetty here as well though there’s not much to see here.
I tried walking around to the front entrance of the resort and found myself on a path that led me to the first Nine holes of Pandanusa Golf Course – while also abandoned, it feels somewhat maintained as well as the grass is cut short.
Batu Belah
Ok I didn’t see this for myself, but this was what my new-found Melakan friends had come to Pulau Besar to see. Apparently somewhere between the Marina Resort jetty and the golf course is a staircase that leads to the top of the hill (Pulau Besar’s highest point) where you’ll find this weird 3m high rock with a split down the middle known as Batu Belah.
North: Actual working resorts?
Here’s the thing about Melaka’s Pulau Besar – lots of sites will tell you that you can stay there and you’ll find listings of Puteri Resort on various accommodation websites, though none of them seem to have availability.
While Marina Resort is clearly abandoned, I did stumble across a bunch of chalets along the northern end of the island (west of the Jetty area) that looked like they were inhabitable, alongside other buildings that looked like they were undergoing renovations.
So my answer on whether you can actually stay on Pulau Besar is I don’t know why you would want to because honestly there’s nothing on the island worth staying for. Yes you could have a coastal view but maybe because it was cloudy that day, but the view was nothing to shout about, and there are barely any facilities on the island so I wouldn’t stay there.
Check out Spectral Codex which has pretty good pix of Pulau Besar though they might be a bit outdated. It does give you a sense of what the island was like in previous years.
Have you been to Pulau Besar in Melaka? Let me know if I missed out on anything cool, or check out some other posts from places around Malaysia:
