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Published: October 17th 2008
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We arrived in Kuala Lumpur airport feeling a mixture of excitement and a little regret. Excitement due to arriving in a new country, (yet again, i know) and regret at leaving the part of SE Asia where we have spent almost 3 months. Regret passes away at touch down as we fly into KL airport and begin to wonder how different this country will be in comparison to the 'cheap cheap' part of Asia we have spent so much time. The 45 minute bus ride into the city was already very different to what we had become accustomed to due to the paved motorway and traffic staying on the correct side of the road with no beeping horns. As we drew nearer to the city and began to witness the sky scrapers we began to fully realise how different it was. There has been a tonne of foreign investment in the capital over the past few years which explains the abundance of large corporate buildings. After a look in the old Lonely Planet to see where the cheap places to stay were, we took a taxi to Chinatown and found some accommodation which was supposedly bed bug free but after discovering
a few mysterious bites on Helen's leg the next morning, we wern't too sure.
Chinatown is the place where backpackers congregate in this expensive city due to the relatively cheap accommodation and cheaper food. It is 'market-central' containing every 'designer' handbag possible alongside all those souvenirs one desperately needs. A wander down the market and a visit or two to the cheap food stalls was perhaps resonant of our days in the cheaper countries we've visited but not quite the same. We drifted away from our backpacker-ness in this city as we developed an awareness of how scrubberish (our word) we looked amongst the expensive suited people walking the streets of KL. I think, if we walked into Louis Vuitton we may have been turned away. This prompted me to buy a new pair of jeans and shoes (my old shoes were falling apart and my other trousers had holes in, so that's my excuse.) A couple of days in KL and one small laptop purchase later (maybe i can't justify that one) we hit the road for the Perhenthian islands on an overnight bus in just enough time for the credit card to recover slightly. The islands are
located on the eastern Peninsula of Malaysia and are renowned for their diving opportunities. We stayed on an island called Perhenthian Kecil and the swaying palm trees, white sandy beaches and translucent blue water make a perfect stop for a relaxing few days and a great place to pursue some inexpensive diving. Arriving on the island was like being taken back to the part of South East Asia we left and made us realise how KL isn't really an example of what the rest of Malaysia is like. Staying in a back-to-basic bungalow with electricity only available at certain times in a mosquito net reminded us of our stay in bungalows in Thailand or Laos.
While on Perentian Kecil, i decided to complete my Advanced diving PADI qualification so i now have that under my belt for the rest of my travels. It means i can dive to 30m instead of 18m and i can do dives such as wreck diving and night diving which, sometimes you cannot do on the basic open water qualification. Ever since i learned how to dive in Honduras 4 years ago, nothing has really compared to the marine life you find out there
when comparing it to Egypt and Vietnam. However, the Perenthians are certainly a contender as we saw so much marine life and most of the time the visibility was very good. One of the dives we did was a wreck dive called 'Sugar wreck' which had very bad visibility beause of the time of year but we still managed to see a whole lot of marine life. The wreck sunk about 8 years ago and some suspect it was due to insurance fraud. Rather like the temples that become part of naure in cambodia with trees growing into the rock crevices, the ship has become part of the sea as all types of marine life claim it for their own. There was even an air pocket inside the wreck as you fin through the shadowy cabins where you can take out your regulator and have a conversation. This was 8m under water. Other dives we did included a dawn dive where we woke up in the early hours of the morning and rather groggily climbed onto a boat to get to a dive site called 'Temple of the sea.' Motoring along with the stars above you and the phosphorescence beneath
you, springing off the stern as the boat glides through the water helped to wake us up alongside the adrenalin we felt knowing we were going to dive 18m below sea level in the dark (with torches.) It became light quite quickly and by the time we surfaced it was sunrise. We saw such an abundance of marine life including rays, turtles, one of which was 3 legged turtle (appearantly she had been run over by a boat) and black tipped reef sharks (one of which swam in our direction and veered off a few metres away.) Consulting the fish book as you do after each dive to note what you've seen, i read the description on these sharks, 'usually not dangerous.' Comforting.
After spending a good amount of time and a fair amount of money on the island it was, regretfully, time to leave as we had to make it down to Singapore in time to spend a couple of days there before our flight to Australia. After a long wait for our bus and an invite to celebrate Ramadam with a muslim family by this lovely girl, we set off for Singapore on an overnight bus. During
Ramadam Muslim families can't eat or drink (even water) all day until the call to prayer around 7pm. It was a little surreal walking through the market watching everyone with food on their table but not touching it until 7pm. It was lucky we ordered after 7 or we may have tucked in without realising! Anyway, off to Singapore...
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