Hello again everybody, tis me, control freak Kat back again! Can I just add a little word in my defence? lee asked me to take over the blog because what he had written had taken ages to get to his standard of perfection and he was worried we would miss dinner if I didn't continue...honest. That's not to say that I didn't jump in the chair super quick though!

Anyways, we are at an airport hotel in Kl and there is a time limit on the computer, at the bottom of the screen there is an ominous clock which is counting down to when it will boot me off so I feel the need to type quickly, therefore I doubt that this will improve my typing skills, if there are spelling mistakes then I apologise, I will spellcheck later when I am on a PC which doesn't make me feel like I am an in a very short episode of '24'!

So after our snorkelling trip and my unfortunate flashing incident we felt that it would be safer to spend our last full day in Tioman chilling out on the beach and at the pool to make sure that we were well rested for our final leg of the journey to Hong Kong. Despite the whole day lazing around the animal exploits which we witnessed made for fantastic viewing, meaning that we felt somewhat as if we were part of a documentary on National Geographic. Now national Geographic (or Nat Geo as it is snappily called in Asia!) has been one of the few things we have watched when we have had a television in our rooms. One of the best programmes is something called 'Monkey Thieves' which follows bands of monkey gangs (total bandits that they are) around a town in India. It makes for chucklesome watching, seeing the crafty little scamps steal everything from kid's lunch boxes to fruit from market stalls has me enthralled and Lee especially enjoys pointing out the similarities between the mischievous little beings and myself. Little did we know that we were about to get a live show! We had seen the monkeys about and around the hotel along with a whole myriad of animals, cats, bats, lizards and said monkeys. We had left for breakfast on Saturday morning and about halfway there I realised I had forgotten the camera which has mostly been welded in my hand, I decided not to go back for it after all we were only going for breakfast - famous last words! I was wandering along the front of the breakfast restaurant, which is a huge veranda open on 3 sides. Lee started hissing something at me and trying to attract my attention when I looked up and saw not 1m in front of me a bold gang of monkeys (a few older ones and the cutest baby ones!) They were sat on the railing outside the restaurant and as I was exclaiming about how cute they were and weren't they ever so close to the breakfast buffet behind me when I heard a shout, a crash of pots and then felt something whistle past my left ear. The monkey gang had been busted, what Lee had been trying to get me to notice was the little fella sat bold as brass on one of the tables, gleefully chomping on a chicken sausage. The staff had copped them and chased them off, but the little tykes were never far away. At the top of the veranda between the first roof and the second it is covered with an elaborate lattice work. All through breakfast I was on high alert waiting for the return of the plucky monkey crew and whilst they didn't venture down again, we saw their small furry faces and hunting eyes peering through the gaps in the lattice on a regular basis! I was ultimately bummed we didn't have the camera to catch the little tinkers in action!

Our second brush with the wildlife of the island came as we were swimming in the pool, taking a short break from the salty sea water. We had decided to get out when Lee suddenly swam off to the furthest end of the pool rather than using the stairs right near our sunbeds and started circumnavigating a very long route back to our sunbeds, I shrugged this off, he's a funny chap at times and does odd things, however as I heaved myself out of the pool I saw the reason for such strange actions on the boys behalf! Wandering shyly across the poolside was a 3ft monitor lizard who was attracting quite a crowd and seemed a little self-conscious. Earlier that morning we had seen a similar sized lizard being cruelly harassed by a weedy looking blackbird. The bird, which was about the size of one of the lizards paws was cawing at it and dancing around with its wings out, we expected the much larger lizard to put it in its place but instead it scuttled off under one of the bungalows and the bird flew off obviously feeling like a big man! The lizard by the pool seemed very reluctant to be the star of all the camera flashes (apart from our I'd not brought the darn thing again - no Michael Attenborough me!) He went directly to a bush to hide, problem was as much as he tried to curl himself up at the bottom of that skinny bush, he was too darn big, and his head and tail popped out conspicuously from each end. Lee had settled in his lounger by then as I watched the lizard who was about 4m away. Once the lizard recognized that this bush was little more than set dressing for all the holiday snaps, he was starring in he decided to forge out for better cover, his route....directly towards my sunbed. I warned Lee who cowered in his lounger behind his book until the lizard veered away and hefted himself over a large rock to disappear once more into oblivion.

Darn, that big clock has ticked its way down so fast and I have run out of time with more to write! I'll post this for now and continue when I get to Hong Kong, not much of a cliff hanger ending but it will have to do!

Big hugs and to be continued....

Love Kat & Lee