from the jungle to paradise

the night after i watched the spurs bolton game in the jungle (i couldnt believe it either) we set off at 8.30am for the Perhentian island of kecil which means small the other besar means large and also reffers to the size of the pockets you need to go there! so 2 coaches and a speed boat later...... ol and a small boat to take us to the shore from the big boat as there is no port and definately no airport we had to take off our shoes and carry our luggage through the water about 10 meters to the shore (that how remote this island is). we trekked down the beach in the heat sweating like crazy deciding on which ramshakle place to stay. they are all basically wooden huts and i decided to take the first one i looked at after being told that a pipe coming out of the wall for a shower, no electric in the day from about 6am onwards and chickens outside the hut that wake u up at 6am every morning was still prefferable to most other options. (the pic of the rotting hut is the reception of our "chalet".

the island was covered with jungle that contain some pretty massive spiders which quite pleasingly didnt visit us however we had plenty of gekos and frogs who decided to be our friends. the beach was the most beautiful and unspoilt i have ever seen (although the med is as i far as i have previously experienced) which had an eagle with a broken wing that just stood there observing the landscape. the water was so warm that on the first night i went swimming at about 11pm, i turned back towards the shore to see the stars that seemed so close i might bang my head on one and a series of flashing lights over the jungle sky that i thought at first was lightning but then realised there was definately no storm. i had chosen to swim next to a shack that had massive speakes which again was playin Bob Marley so aswell as the plethora of natural beauty that surrounded me it was also complemented by the mellow tones of "Stir it Up" playing in the background.

unlike the beaces i have visited previously this one was not overrun with tourist orientated gift shops and the other general rubbish that u find there was one bar and a couple of restaurants ( again all nothing more than shacks) so after the swim me karen a slovenian couple we met in the jungle and another english couple sat outside this bar listening to tunes and drinking bootleg rum (Stanley Morgan) that i had bought from some guy selling out of his boot on the mainland as it was a lot cheaper. they lit a huge fire on the beach and a guy was breathing fire around it, life just cant get any better than beach, rum, Bob Marley and most importantly good company.

the next day we went snorkelling with Vlado and Cissa (the slovenian couple) and swam with huge turtles, black tip sharks (they're vegitarian) and all sorts of other tropical fish including nemos. the only prob was that it was cloudy.............. or so i thought, i swam for a couple hours without a top and then decided to put one on like everyone else and i thought i had been accurate in assesing the power of the sun. that was until the next day where i realised my back, calves and arms were redder than red! my only comfort was that Vlados was worse. we spent the whole day on the other beach (Coral Beach) in the shade drinking lemon ice tea while the girls went snorkelling again. its not so bad today but ive used like a whole bottle of aloe vera stuff that i had intended to last me a while as u cant really buy that stuff everywhere and where u can its pretty expensive.......... ol well we live and learn.

despite our intense pain me and Vlado were able to find comfort in the statement made on the beach shacks menu that " bad day snorlelling still better than good day working" LOL

we left the island yeaterday and got a good price on a taxi to Penang so here we are, back to civilistaion. i had a shave for the first time in a week this morning as we have had no mirrors (in the jungle vanity does not exist) so that was refreshing.

anywho i'm off to see what Penang has to offer so spk soon MUCH LOVE

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