Island Paradise

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We took a speedboat out to Perhentian Kecil from the mainland-another bronco bucking ride! A girl I was travelling with and myself were the last 2 off the boat and the driver started yelling that we'd have to hurry and get off as he was easing close to a cement staircast out of the water up to the walkway. I had my backpacks on and managed to get my left leg up onto the staircase when he started drifting the boat away my right leg totally in the air! I wavered and nearly lost my balance and fell into the water but disaster was averted. We found a chalet on Long Beach which is a 10 minute jungle trek from the other side of the island and has the best swimming since the soft white sand extends out a long way into the water as well as along the shoreline.

A group of us from our last hostel in Kota Bharu all met up and did a snorkelling trip with 6 different stops. I saw a bluetail shark right off and a sea turtle later on. A guy from Holland was with us and he was planning on making a career change after the trip. He'd studied to be a criminologist but was planning on switching to growing and selling weed since he could make 80,000 Euro every 2 months (split between his friends and costs) and could use his studies to help get around the law. He said that though it's not illegal to buy and smoke it it's illegal to grow and sell. But the fines only total something like $10,000 Euro if you're caught plus a little community service so it's worth the risk. This guy was also the hottest man I'd every laid eyes upon (all other women in our group agree) so we all became a bit obsessed and referred to him as "God". It makes sense that he would be making money hand over fist illegally rather than working a 9 to 5-goes with the mystique.

That first day we also made friends with a group of young professionals who grew up in Kuala Lumpur together and were taking a vacation. I hung out with them off and on-mostly playing drinking games at night. It was fun to meet Malaysians around my age and see that we had a lot in common. Two of them work for Intel and one spent a month in Portland a few months ago and another is headed there in September for 6 months. The night we went out to the disco I was complaining about the injustice that ugly white guys could get with pretty Malaysian girls and one of the guys from KL said that his take on tourists was that there was a 90% chance that a girl was good-looking as long as she wasn't really fat 😊

Every day I had at least one mango lassi-the best I've ever had. So thick and creamy. At night around 7pm the restaurants would set up their BBQs and offer $5 BBQ lobster, squid, fish, and chicken with rice, fruit and salad. You picked an entree and then the dipping sauce to go with it. The lobster actually ended up being 3 babies but they were still delicious. My first night I had squid and was suprised to see it not in little circles but one big diamond-shaped piece. I hadn't realized that's the way it's supposed to be.

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Photos

Perhentians
Long Beach on Kecil

Perhentians
BBQ squid

Perhentians
Shoving off on snorkel trip