IBEA Island

Eva Raye
3 days ago
2 min read

IBEA Weekend 3/4!

Every semester, we have a designated IBEA weekend. The previous ones have been to the Black Forest in Germany and North Myrtle Beach in the U.S. This semester, the ESSEC students organized an epic weekend trip to Pulau Besar Island in Malaysia.

The experience was so amazing that I still have a hard time understanding how they secured such an incredible vacation spot for us. It literally felt like we had an entire island and resort to ourselves. That's why we nicknamed it IBEA Island.

On Friday, March 27th, we took a bus from Johor Bahru, Malaysia (right across the border from Singapore) to Mersing, Malaysia. From there, we took a small boat out to the island where we would be staying.

Before meeting up with the whole group, two of my friends and I arrived a little early, and I got a Thai massage. It was incredible.

The name of the resort was Bayu Lestari Island Resort. As soon as we arrived, they welcomed us with fresh coconut water served straight from actual coconuts, which I had never had before. We stayed in cute little cabins, and there was a common area overlooking the water where all of our meals were served.

The workers were so kind, and we were literally the only guests on the island. Just us and the staff. It was insane.

Part of me genuinely felt like we were on a TV show or something. A group of 35 international students gets dropped off on a private island...it almost felt too surreal to be real.

The staff spoke English, although not fluently, and by the end of the weekend they were even out there partying with us at night while we blasted music from our giant speaker. It was wild how relaxed everything was. They let us stay up as late as we wanted, be as loud as we wanted, and they even let us set off fireworks both nights!

On the second day, they took us out on a boat to go island hopping and snorkeling. The rest of the weekend was spent tanning, swimming, relaxing in hammocks, reading, dancing to music, and eating amazing food.

It was one of those weekends where there wasn't much of an itinerary and that's what made it so special. We could just enjoy being together in such a beautiful place without worrying about anything.

It was absolutely incredible.