Perhentian Islands

Other than having most of my valuable possession nicked I absolutely loved the Perhentian islands. Quite surprising because I'm rubbish at sunbathing so a little island shouldn't agree with me. The snorkelling around the islands is fantastic, on one day I hired a canoe and paddled from bay to bay adding lots of ticks to my eye-spy fishies book. On another day I went on an organised trip and saw black tip reef sharks, turtles and clown fish.

As with anywhere the people can make or break a place and I was lucky enough to make some new friends and bump in to some old ones - a couple called Adam and Jen who I knew I recognised and they knew they recognised me but we couldn't work out why. After much deliberation Jen worked out that we'd stayed in the same hostel in Queenstown three months earlier and had chatted over dinner one night. There are a lot of these coincidences in travellerville, one of the strangest was two seperate people, both of whom I had met in Indonesia who had met each other in Malaysia and were now together! Another happy and welcome coincidence was seeing two of my favourite people who I had spent a few nights in Borneo with step off a boat. The reason I like them so much is that a) we can talk in Partridge, Peep show and Baseketball quotes and b) they dislike the same people I do for the same reasons. I've come to the conclusion that it is often more important to have dislikes in common than likes. Their names are Will and Carmel but their surnames are better; together they sound like a bad T.V detective series: Garlick and Digweed.

So lots of good nights had, one dressed as a lady, shaving my beard in to a handlebar moustache. And lots of good food, including the best steak I have ever eaten cooked by a chef who has worked in some of the top London restaurants who now travels the world setting up small places for a few months, making them hugely successful then moving on.

I've got a lot of time for the Perhentian islands.