Perhentian Paradise

After the journey from hell the night day before we decided to tackle things early and left for the early boat to the Perhentian Islands at 8am. Travel in style we thought as the man in his old 80's Merc pulled up - it was great until the monsoon rains came and the water came straight through the dashboard onto my feet!!

Good thing we set off early, as we arrived (after dropping two other groups off) at Kecil Island, Long Beach at 10.45am - it was smoking hot and our heavy backpacks are tough to drive on beach sand! We found Panorama Chalets and they were by far the best budget option on the beach - nice shaded bungalows (we went for the cheep fan option) and they included dinner (not bad as we had BBQ Blue Marlin most evenings) and got to meet a bunch of great people there.

People say that these islands are a lot more beautiful than Thailand, but we felt they were much the same. Only difference is the water is a lot greener and the snorkeling is AMAZING. We did a day trip snorkeling around the islands and the list of fish etc that we saw is endless. Highlights were definitely the rays, turtles and reef sharks. Not so cool were these little jelly-fish (not poisonous) that are completely clear - look a bit like ice blocks - and I squeaked each time I bumped into one and must have made a very entertaining noise through my snorkel when I swam through a whole school of them!
Pictures of snorkeling will follow - a Belgian couple on our trip had an underwater video and camera and they are sending us some pics from the trip.


Local dive shop

On the subject of wildlife, we also had a resident barking gecko that owned our porch light in the evenings. He was about 30cm long and made quite a racket - scared me a little really. Then we had the monitor lizards - I only saw a little one, but Simon saw the big daddies (no picture unfortunately)


Barky the Gekko - looks bigger in real life!

Highlight of the trip for the Everton fan was that the restaurant showed the Everton v Derby game (he waited up until 10pm for it) and was the only lonely soul in the place when it finished (except for poor Jon - who he MADE watch it with him!)

Coral Bay is a 10min jungle walk across the island and well worth a mention. We spent an afternoon there and it was amazingly remote. This was the day that I didn't say one word all day - I read a whole book instead and Simon was very pleased when I finished it.


Coral Bay - just us and a coconut!