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Arived in Perhentian, on the smaller of the 2 islands (Kecil) last monday by speed boat which took half hour from the mainland, it was bloody quick and very windy (as u can tell by chris' face in the photo!). The island was pretty amazing, white sand and clear turquoise waters. We had to transfer from our speedboat about 100m off the shore into the smaller 'taxi' boats, bit tricky with heavy backpacks. We had an amazing time there, sunning it up on the beach all week, although towards the end of our 6 nights there, weather became a bit overcast due to some fires in indonesia or something, although the sun still broke through topping up the tan!
Met a mate and local barman called Zhyme on our 2nd night on the island, who we visited quite frequently after that! He was really cool, and gave us tips and info on Malaysia as well as being quite a funny dude - his laugh was so funny he had us in stitches the whole time. It was at his bar where we met loads of different travellers from all over the world. Our first random night we met a girl called Amber buying a bottle of vodka, we expressed our interest in how much it was (3 pound ish) and she then invited us over for a drink, which then led onto dinner with about 8 others. There was a Scottish guy, 2 spanish girls, 2 french - canadian's, an ozzie girl and a newzealand'er. We ended up sitting up till 4am with the newzealand'er Richard (who Chris spent the whole night calling Russell) after all the others had dwindled off to bed. He was telling us about shark cage diving and other cool stuff he had done on his travels. This was our first random evening out with people we had met, and definately not the last. a good start to the week.
A couple of days later we went on a snorkelling trip at different locations around both the islands. It was fantastic, we saw all sorts of marine life including two massive green turtles, which we swam above and followed until they had reached the depths and were no longer visible. We also saw the biggest jellyfish we have ever seen, we kept our distance!! We saw a real life nemo and hundreds of cool fish. The boatman was throwing bread into the water next to our heads and all the fish were surrounding us, they were so many you could feel them, awesome! We went to a secluded bay, where they preserve turtle eggs, and we saw some 1 day old newborns which were so small, as well as eggs still in incubation. For lunch we stopped at a fishing village with the other 4 people on our trip (all from Great Britain) although they had all been travelling for alot longer than us so when chatting about what we had been up to, it made us sound a little inexperienced compared to them! We listened intently and took away some handy tips for the rest of the trip. What a day, best snorkelling trip ever.
Friday night on the island there was a party at one of the resorts, Blue Roof, it was one of the locals birthday. We waited for Zhyme to finish work, whilst drinking at his bar, we ventured to the party at 1am along with Celine and Anthony, a french couple we had met that evening, and the locals from the restaurant next door - Aunty, Uncle and a few others, we didnt know any of their names! When you get there you have to take your shoes off and so we danced around in bare feet till 4am. The locals drank their monkey juice, whiskey and coke, while we settled for vodka and beers. We taught aunty and some of the others some new grooves, it was hilarious they would copy whatever dance we pulled off next. We taught them box box little box etc and they even danced through an arch we made, how funny. We didnt get that many photos too busy dancing, but hopefully Anthony and Celine will be sending us some soon.
We left Perhentian sunday morning to travel to Kota Bharu, to pick up the bus to Penang, on the west coast - another island connected by a 13km bridge. Unfortunately due to the bus times we were told we had to wait 12 hours until the bus left at 10pm so we left our rucksacks with them, and spent most of our time in a shopping mall, not very exciting! As well as writing emails home and venturing to Pizza Hut, there was nothing to do. The bus took 6 hours through the night, and we arrived at Butterworth at 4am, an industrial town which we thought you could get the 24 hour ferry to Penang - apparently not, next ferry wasn't until 6am! We had to settle for another rip-off taxi to take us to our hotel over the Penang Bridge to arrive at our hotel at 5 am absolutely shattered. Chris had also whacked his head on the tv monitor on the bus whilst getting off, and had a hefty egg sized lump by now! We have found since being in Malayasia the taxi drivers don't like Gem very much and will not talk to her in the taxi, they always say to Chris "where do you come from sir?" but we think that its maybe part of their culture? We've been in Penang 3 nights now, glad of amenities such as hot water, hot showers, laundry services, electricity, lights running 24/7 all in which we lacked on Perhentian. But we're not really loving Penang very much, pretty boring place, nothing to do nothing to see, beer too expensive - so we're leaving Friday to another island called Langkawi, 2 hours north by ferry. This island unlike Penang has a beach and beer is tax free whoop whoop, so expect more drunken photos soon.
Hope all is well back home, enjoying your messages and we miss you all very much.
P.S Anyone who wishes to donate to the globaltrotters travelling fund please do so, donantions can be sent via post, Australian address to follow soon. Kind regards and many thanks!!!!!!!!!!!
Bye Bye x x
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