Day 90-92 Perhentian Islands

We got picked up at 5am and were on a minibus for about 5 hours.

Then we got on a stare-death-in-the-face (but somewhat fun) speedboat, where your bum and ribs took a blow every time the boat crashed against the water.

25 minutes later.. we were at the small island of the Perhentian islands (there's a big and a small).  

It didn't take us long to realise we'd landed on a little drop of paradise.

The islands are good for snorkelling, which is one of our big things for Malaysia. It was pricey to get here (about £30) but we decided we couldn't really miss it out.

It was a nightmare to find accommodation. The weekend we chose to come was a Malaysian holiday (just our luck) so most places were booked up or too expensive.    

We wanted to camp but in the end we found a little chalet on Long Beach for the same price. We just had to squish three in a two bed 'room'.

The electricity was only on from 7pm until 7am. So we had to make the most of the fan whilst we could! 

We walked over to the other side of the small island for some snorkelling, which was brilliant!

We even saw a little shark..not kidding!

We saw so many amazing fish. We did have a waterproof phone bag that you can take underwater pictures with but it chose not to work for us. Doh!

After watching a lovely sunset, we walked back over to our side on Long Beach.

On our second day, we trekked for about 40 minutes. We planned to get to Teluk Kerma beach but it was unclear of how to get there. 

We found this beautiful viewpoint on the way..

And then, we found our own private beach.

We were literally the only people on there for hours, aside from two women who were lost.

We snorkelled and saw some amazing fish.

You didn't have to ventur much further than the rocks before you were fairly deep.

Then me and Marie saw a shark. Which we guessed was around 6ft.

A little something like this..

That will be the last time I swim or snorkel anywhere that is remotely deep at all. 

I stayed calm at first until it passed but when it sunk in, I started to panic.     

When you're snorkelling you're breathing tube sometimes gets a little bit of water inside, but if you breathe out fast you can pretty much clear it.

Because I was panicking and breathing heavily, my tube just kept filling up, so I just took it off and started to swim.     

I mentioned a few posts back I'm not the greatest swimmer. And with the possibility of a shark still being underneath or behind me, I wasn't exactly very Tom Daley-esque.

Jack was on land and shouted "you okay Soph"

To which I replied "no, I'm drowning. "

He did ask if I wanted help but I stubbornly (stupidly) spluttered "no".

Eventually, I made it back. Marie came back shortly after in a much smoother fashion.

The walk to the beach was unbareably hot and slightly scary because steep gravel hills made it slippy. But the walk back was much nicer.      

By this time though, we'd ran out of water so we were pretty desperate to get back.

When we returned to Long Beach,  I had a text off mum asking us to call or Skype her.

We found a cafe with wifi, downed lots of cold water and waited.

Mum Skyped to tell us the sad news that our oldest dog, Meg, had sadly been put down.

She was pretty old and this has been showing for years but her health had sadly been deteriorating fastly in the past week.

We were all upset and this week was hard for us being away from everyone.

But the Perhentian Islands were the best place to be at such a time, if ever there was one.     

We ate along the beach and were the last ones standing/sitting when it started raining.

We started the next day off with a cheap but very tasty breakfast.. for about 80p. You could get chicken or fish and both were lovely!

Then, with this being our last beach day of the trip, we wanted to make the most.

Marie and me started off at Long Beach (where we were staying). It's a huge stretch of beautiful clear water and white sand.

People don't really snorkle here but it's perfect to relax and read on.

In the afternoon, we went over to Romantic Beach. It's great for snorkelling here as it's really rocky.. (I went in for about 2 minutes, for fear of death-by-shark)

And we put hammocks up that our uncle and step aunty bought us :-)      

.. (this took many attempts)

To end our stay on paradise, we ate at a place called Paramount. For afters Marie had the best fruit salad yet and Jack and me had delicious chocolate and orange milkshakes as a treat (for Meg of course)..

And they undercharged us ..... YES!   

The next morning, Marie said her usual "that was the worst sleep ever", then at 7.30am, we were on our way.     

      

Next stop.. Kuala Lumpa!