Advertisement
Published: October 2nd 2007
Edit Blog Post
Day 187 (28.09.07)
After little to no sleep on the bus we arrived to a deserted bus station in the middle of nowhere - about 4:30 in the morning. Catching a taxi we eventually arrived at the pier where our boat was to leave from and the welcome sight of civilisation and our fellow passengers for the 7am boat to the island.
There was no chance of catching some winks on the half hour boat trip as the small boat we were on sped and bumped its way towards the smaller of the two Parhentian islands (we had heard that the accomodation was cheaper on this one) - a pretty exciting ride!
Once we'd found a small hut to call home for the next few days and got over the difference in prices in Malaysia (a similar hut in Laos was about 6 times cheaper) we decided to catch up on some sleep while the electricity was still working and we could enjoy the benefits of the fan.
Feeling slightly refreshed we went for a dip in the sea to wake ourselves up fully. The weather was hot and sunny and the sea clear and for once
deep enough to actually swim in!
We wandered across the island to Coral Bay to see what we could see, like the bear in the song. On the way across we saw several large montior lizards enjoying the sunshine - superb! Satisfied that our beach was nicer (!) we wandered back and spent the rest of the afternoon lazing on the beach.
Day 188 (29.09.07)
Not much to report from today which is just what we planned for our time here! The day was a little overcast as monsoon is on the way but we spent the day on the beach reading and swimming and the evening having a nice meal and watching a film where we are staying.
As we sat on the balcony of our bungalow we looked up to see a very large monitor lizard making its way across the path. This guy or gal was around 4 feet long - we watched it for a few minutes before it disappeared into the bushes.
Whilst the islands are very pretty its not quite what we expected here. The small island is neither developed or undeveloped. You can see that a few years
ago it was probably a quiet little beach paradise but now that the demand has increased they don't seem to know how to develop it and look after it. It doesn't seem to know what it wants to be.
Day 189 (30.09.07)
The Parhentians are in a National Marine Park and so today we booked a snorkelling trip which guarantees turtle and shark sightings (we nearly booked a dive but are saving our cash for diving in Borneo - so addictive this diving lark!).
We headed out in a small boat and visited four sites across the day. The first stop was the turtle stop. We saw 2 turtles, one of which was huge and both of which had a couple of large suckerfish on them hitching a ride. It was fantastic to watch them swimming and feeding from the bottom. The highlight of this stop was when the big turtle made its way slowly to the surface, coming up between the two of us about 1m away - amazing. Chrissie has never been very good at diving down below the surface on snorkelling trips (due to her inbuilt buyancy!) so Mark gave her a bit of
a lesson and dragged her down with him so that we were able to swim with the turtle face to face. By the end of the day she was able to make her way down below the surface fully unaided and was very pleased with her new skills!
On the next stop our guide got in and led us around to help us to spot sharks circling beneath us. The visability here was not great but we did see several small reef sharks swimming along the seabed.
We stopped at another spot where the coral was beautiful and we saw lots of fish including a massive fish (someone told us it may have been a 'groper'? - not sure!)
After a spot of lunch at the fishermans village we headed to our last stop of the day where we saw a huge array of fish including another of the massive 'gropers' and lots and lots of little nemos (clownfish) ducking in and out of the anemones. They entertained us for a good hour or so until we eventually made our way to meet the rest of the group on a fantastic white sand beach - very quiet
and very pretty. This made us realise that we'd probably have had more of the experience we wanted by staying on the larger island and paying a little more for our accomodation. Oh well, we'll have to come back! It had been a great day's snorkelling.
Day 190 (01.10.07)
We spent our last day on the island doing nothing! Another lazy day on the beach, a walk over to Coral Bay again and a lazy dinner with a film. Lovely!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.081s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 12; qc: 25; dbt: 0.0609s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Mum and Dad H
non-member comment
Hi little son and daughter in law Sorry we missed both your attempts to phone us, we were away in Woolacombe for a few days, sod,s law. Glad to hear you are fine, we had a lovely few days in a static caravan with S and P having one next door. We shared the cooking and had some fantastic meals. The weather was great and we played golf 3 times. We beat the Aussies 12-10 and thoroughly deserved it yesterday so you can hold your head up high and taunt the Aussies when you get there. Also France beat the favourites New Zealand 20-18. Two fantastic quarter final games. Guess what though the semi is the night of H and D's big birthday bash!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What do I do???? Also Glos smashed Leicester away 30-17 so I don't know what the atmosphere in your sister's house is like. all the best Lots of love Dad