Perhentian Paradise

El: After our time in Teman Negara we were in serious need of relaxation, so we decided to go to a beautiful beach where we were fairly confident there would be NO leeches!  But first we had a long journey ahead of us on the jungle railway.  We took a very bumpy bus journey to Jerantut (think coke from my can flying everywhere) and then made our way to the jungle railway to catch our train.

Kris: The railway station was not exactly central station, more like an extra long bus stand.  We booked our 1pm train ticket at 1oam and guess what? Yes our train was delayed by 3 hours! In this time we were able to make some mates though.  An Irish lad and a French guy (who we knew as Irish lad and French guy for the entire journey).  We stocked up on supplies for the 7 hour journey to the north but still ended up running dry! The jungle railway was not all the 'lonely planet' cracked it up to be.  However, we did end up spending a while teaching some English and learning some malaysian to some very clever local kids.

El: Yes unfortunately we were so tired there is a chance we may have slept through some of the best scenery!  Oh dear.  Anyway we finally arrived in Kota Bharu at midnight and fortunately Neil (Irish lad) had a arranged for a guy to come and pick us up and take us to the Ideal Guesthouse.  Ideal my foot!  It was horrible. But luckily by the time we had been for an xxl plate of rice with Neil and Michael (French guy), we only had to sleep there for 3 hours before we got up to get the boat to Perhentian Kecil.

Kris: The speedboat to the island was good fun, like a hairdryer to the face, the speed of the boat left us quite windswept.  The scenery this time was ace!  A gorgeous sunrise over the island.  We jumped off the speedboat and on to a little fishing boat for the last 100 metres of the journey for 2 rm per person, haha typical.  The beech was beautiful, soft white sand sinking from the jungle into crystal clear water.  Paradise!  We noticed a few Vodka bottles getting cleaned up by some locals.  Maybe this was a bit of a party island.  We then headed for our recommended place, Mohsin.

El: It was a little expensive on the island but we realised that it cost pretty much the same to have a private room as a dorm, so we had our own little beach hut! Unfortunately this later became infested with cockroaches much to our horror, but nevertheless it was our home for the next 10 days.  We spent our first few days getting a tan (no factor 50 this time).  It was lovely and every evening we watched a different film at Mohsin Restaurant (Rumours), some were good, some were awful!  Then before we knew it it was June 4th, Kris' 23rd birthday!

Kris: Yup come midnight the party started on the beach.  It was pretty cool having a birthday with a bunch of strangers, there was some REAL characters, all with their own crazy stories.  Anyway it was a great birthday.  Sat under a clear night sky, star gazing on a desert island is always going to be a good way to spend it!  The fun didn't stop there. I had a big balloon on my door with a litle sign made by Elly, a home made card and also cards from home.  I got a cool underwater disposable camera too to take pics of fish.  The biggest surprise came at dinner when Elly had the movie stopped and got the whole restaraunt to sing happy birthday.  Haha i was a tad bit embarrassed.

El: Yeah being on a desert island left me wishing i had prepared in advance for Kris' birthday as there were only a couple of huts, posing as shops, and not a single birthday card on the whole island.  By this time we had also bumped into Doug several times, a common occurence for the coming weeks.  We had booked a 4 day Open Water scuba diving course to start on the 7th and when that day finally arrived we were really excited, and also i was a little nervous!

Kris: A little nervous?  Kriiiiis what if my ears burst?  But Kriiiiis what if my lungs explode?!  You dont think we will get eaten by sharks do you?! KRRIIISS!!!

El: Lol actually i wasn't worried about sharks, but lung overexpansion did have me a little freaked out!  Our instructor, Warda from the Netherlands, was fantastic!

Kris: Yeah she was pretty good!  Her job is ace though, live on a desert island and dive everyday, i can understand why she enjoys her job and is therefore good at it.  On our first day we got to breathe underwater for the first time!  WOW!  Pretty cool, we practiced a few skills and then went straight into an actual dive!  Great!  Our first day and we are swimming with Nemo! In fact about 100 Nemo, we swam to 9 metres which is pretty cool!  Already i was hooked well and truly!  I felt bad for Elly though.  When diving you need to equalise your ears, like popping them in a plane, due to the underwater pressure.  If you struggle with this you are left in agony.

El: Yes unfortunately my bad ears were a reoccurring problem, to the point where i was asked whether i thought it was a good idea to continue.  I casually said "whats the worst that could happen?" Warda replied "Your eardrums could burst and you could go deaf".  Ohhhh no!  But i carried on and, being the lovely person she was, Warda got her boyfriend to come on our second dive so i could go down and equalise at my own pace and Kris could race ahead.

Kris: I didn't mind waiting around but i certainly enjoyed spending more time on the coral.  This dive i took the camera down with me, the pictures dont really tell the story, in fact i dont think anything other than actually diving does it justice.  We saw loads of cool stuff on the third dive too including a big, blue spotted stingray which Elly identified as a car windshield.

El: Yeah, I was thinking what a shame people were littering the reef! It took me a while to realise what it actually was. I almost lost Kris' camera too.  The strap came loose and it started to float to the surface, so I had to swipe my hand at it and fortunately i caught it.  Before our final dive we had to take an exam which we HAD to pass.  Gulp!  Fortunatley we both passed with flying colours, although Kris' 92 percent looked pretty measley next to my 96 per cent!

Kris: Yes, okay, fair enough you beat me.  Big deal i can scuba dive, YEAH! this has been the highlight so far for me.  You think you are going to Asia for the culture, people, temples and food etc.  But honestly if i had to pick one thing over everything else it would be diving!

El: We had one more dive still to do, and this one really had me worried because we had to do a controlled emergency swimming ascent (CESA) where you have to swim to the surface quickly with no air.  Because i had been suffering from reverse block (where air gets trapped in your ears as it expands during ascent causing pain) I was not sure whether it would be a good idea for my ear drums.  But without completing it i was only qualified to dive to 12m rather than 18m, so when i managed to finally do it i was like "YEEAAAYYYYY!!!"  Anyway i have now been advised to have my ears checked before doing anymore dives.  So thats it for me and scuba diving for the time being sadly.

Kris: Yeah i feel quite bad for you...Really i do.  But we did get a free snorkelling trip and a few little goodies including, for some strange reason, a couple XXL t shirts!  We did see some cool stuff including turtles and El even saw a shark so it ended being ok but quite boring compared to diving

El: Hello?!  Boring?! I saw a shark, TWICE!!!

Kris: Okay, okay well i am now doing my advanced so you can keep your sharks!  i did two more dives, these are towards an advanced open water course.  The first one was to the Perhentians best dive site, Temple of the sea!  i had to do something called fish ID which entails drawing and making notes on fish underwater and then, using the data collected, identifying them against databases and fish books.  It was not that geeky, in fact it was good fun but my drawings were awful.  In the afternoon i went and dived at an old shipwreck.  MINT!!! This was amazing, not only did i see the ship but also loads of cool marine life including...SHARKS! well one shark asleep... The highlight was definitely swimming in and around the wreck, it was pretty scary too!  you can only see a couple metres in front of you so it feels really dark and you have to be really careful and watch where you are swimming.  Anyway like i said i have the bug and hope to dive more on our travels as its so cheap!

El: Yeah thaks for the sensitivity Kris "It was the best day of my life!"  Although he did have the decency to offer to wait until i had better ears to dive again.  Obviously i didn't have to try hard to talk him out of that one!  Anyway i spent that day lying on the beach in the rain feeling a small amount of jealousy.

Kris: Okay, sorry i wont go on too much in the future.  That night we ended up spending the evening, as usual, in Mohsin restaraunt watching a film with Doug.  We kinda knew that it wouldn't be the last time we would see him as our paths would inevitably cross on our way to the full moon party.  We sat talking diving and sipping on a gorgeous Mars shake.

El: So delicious!!  Before we knew it though it was time to leave and we were on a speedboat at the crack of dawn trying to sort out a bus to Pennang.  Not as simple as it sounds!  A whole 14 hours later we were at the bus station ready to leave for Penang.

Kris: Final thoughts - Perhentians is definitely the best place i have visited so far, when the weather is nice it is deffo paradise.  But regardless of the weather the underwater world is always amazing, WHAT A PLACE!

El: Yeah it was great. Had a fantastic time here.