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Published: September 25th 2007
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We got the night bus at 9:00pm from Penang and arrived at Kota Baharu at 5:00am where we had to wait 2 hours to get a boat across to the Islands. The Perhentian islands consist of two islands Besar (meaning big island) and Kecil (meaning small island). We headed by speed boat to the big island, which took half an hour compared to getting a slow boat which takes an hour and a half. We really enjoyed this, even though we hadn't managed to get much sleep due to some very annoying people on our bus!
As we pulled up to the beach the sea was absolutely stunning, it was a beautiful turquoise colour and it was so clear you could see the bottom, it definitely looked like paradise (thanks Louise for recommending it!) We were the only people to get off at the big island as most people head to the smaller one as it is meant to be a lot more livelier. After arriving at our bungalow, having a sleep and a shower and swapping bungalows (to a smaller cheaper one) we went for a wonder. It was the nicest sea we had seen, the place was really
friendly and it had a lovely relaxed feel to it. The beach consisted off different bungalows and lots of different dive resorts.
We spent four days on the big island which was mostly spent on the beach, reading, snorkelling and I ate lots of fish and seafood cooked on the BBQ yum yum! We had read that there wasn't really alcohol on the island and although you could get hold of it it was not widely available. Therefore we had a nice few days of detoxing which was good, as anyone who has been travelling will know that somehow you end up drinking everyday! (We had actually brought two bottles of vodka with us though, just in case).
We went snorkelling on our own and saw lots of different fish (including nemo!) sharks and coral. Mark was was going to do some diving but cut all his feet on some coral getting into to the sea. (I thought it would be me who was the accident prone one, but I've never known anything like it, it's like one thing after another!)
We decided to spend some time on the smaller island so headed over to long beach
by boat. The bungalow where we were staying had the biggest balcony ever and the people who ran it were so friendly. They would always talk to us as they passed when we were sat on the balcony. In Thailand and Malaysia cats have really short tails and the guy explained that they don't cut them off they are just like that over here and that Western cats have really long tails, interesting fact!
One night we came back to our bungalow to find a couple of residents had moved in. We're not too sure what they were exactly but they definitely belonged to the reptile family and in my opinion were on the large side (these were not just those small gecko things!) Mark managed to track down a broom and waved it about a bit. After an hour of him trying to chase one of these things round (my job was to hold the door open) it scowled and showed it's teeth and tounge and then fell in the bin and we managed to get rid of it. We couldn't find the other one so thought that maybe there had only been one (we had had a
few drinks). We found it the next day down the side of the bed near were Mark had had his head all night!
We chilled out on the balcony, went to some of the bars on the beach and watched films in our bungalow restaurant and did lots more reading on the beach. One day we went on a snorkelling trip with a group of other people. The guy on the boat thought it would be funny that when you were in the water surrounded by fish to throw bread at them so the fish nipped all around you. I think at one point I was slightly hysterical! One place where we went to was called turtle bay as we were looking for turtles the boat guy saw someone snorkelling who said that they had found a turtle and then the whole boat jumped off the boat and surrounded the turtle. You can get really close to them as they have to swim up to the surface for air.
We stopped for lunch in the fishing village which was a very bazaar place. As we were tucking into our lunch we were surrounded by goats and there was
a lady chopping up a chicken which had just been killed, I'm glad I had the vegetable noodles! Mark and I asked for milk in our coffee (they drink it over here with really sweet condensed milk) after he had put two dollops in Mark had lots of ants floating around in his! On the way back to the boat Mark tripped over a rope that was attached to a boat and got a really bad rope burn on his foot, I knew that first aid kit would come in handy!!!
The last place we snorkelled the sea was really choppy so was quite scary as you kept getting pulled towards the rocks and coral by the current. We decided to head back to the boat but our driver had disappeared, he eventually appeared and managed to snorkel back to the boat with a lit cigarette in his hand. As we were heading back the driver suddenly swore, when we asked what the matter was he informed us that we had ran out of petrol. Luckily we managed to make it back to shore safely.
We had a really relaxed time here and were sad to leave....... but
a hot shower here we come!
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