Perhentian Islands
A quick, 30-minute speedboat ride brought us to Long Beach on Perhentian Kecil, one of the most beautiful beaches we've been to so far. The water was crystal, and a beautiful aquamarine colour was reflecting off the white sand bottom. Utterly inviting considering the constantly rising humidity and heat of the morning sun. We half jumped, half fell off the boat unloading our heavy backpacks onto the beach.
It was evident Mark had very little sleep on our overnight bus. He was looking and feeling a little bit grumpy. Instead of both of us walking up and down the beach, I left him with our bags in a posh cafe to enjoy a nice iced coffee, whilst I went in search of a decent room. I ran off, hoping to beat off a number of backpackers all carrying their bags. Haha… Although, I think Mark was having the last laugh there.
By the time I entered the sixth guesthouse on the beach, it was plainly obvious our budget would get us only a little fan room smelling of mould and damp. Clearly dustpan and brush had not been discovered on these islands. Every room I entered was covered in dust, hair and other things I have no desire to remember. I asked one guy showing me around when the room will be ready and he said it was ready now!?! No, surely it was not!! Not whilst there was a huge party of ants in the bathroom and large hairball blocking the dirty sink. Yuck! In the end we ended up tripling the budget and sort of turning a blind eye to the distinct lack of cleanliness to get a reasonable room with a/c. Well, at least this one did not smell too much of mould when the a/c was on.
The beach here is fantastic and we spent the first couple of days just chilling out and working on the tan. Mark still had a bit of a cold lingering so we decided to wait a few days for the world class diving we'd heard so much about. Instead, we checked out the handful of restaurants - nothing much to write about, as we everything we had was inferior to Langkawi and much more expensive. However, the beach bar scene was rather lively, considering alcohol is not widely sold and is rather expensive.
A few days in, we headed off to Turtle Bay Divers. As well as being recommended by a fellow traveller, they had the advantage of having a sign outside advertising dive lessons in Turkish, with a lovely little Turkish flag by its side. How amazing to find my fellow countrymen all the way out here. I found out they had two Turkish dive instructors, and although we did not dive with them, they kept me entertained with their wonderful humour and hilarious private jokes - obviously all in Turkish just for our pleasure. All I can say is it's good only Turks speak Turkish :-). They also introduced us to the strange 'Monkey Juice' widely sold in the beach bars. This rather strange local brew, called Orangutan, is some sort of industrial alcohol flavoured with vanilla. Doesn't sound so appertising does it? It was actually ok with some ginger ale.
The diving was truly amazing and so very reasonable. At around £15 per dive, it was probably the cheapest we've seen. It's not worth counting the number of wonderful things we saw, but most importantly Mark spotted a couple of bamboo sharks mating. One had the other in it's jaw, just holding gently whilst doing the deed - I suppose they lack the upper limbs required for a romantic embrace... It was such a shame our camera had fried in Koh Tao, as it would have been an amazing site to film. The Chinese couple diving with us did capture it, I think; however, they seemed a little clueless as to what was going on.
A few minutes after the shark erotica there was a huge bang just behind me that made all the fish retract into the coral. Our divemaster thought there might have been a boat accident. At 23m underwater that was rather unlikely, and also the huge flood of bubbles escaping just behind my head was a good sign something had gone wrong with my air. Luckily, Mark, my buddy and knight in shining armour, was there within seconds, offering me his spare mouthpiece. Thank you darling; you just saved my life! We gently ascended, arm in arm, whilst my tank completely emptied itself. It was a good emergency ascent and great to know all that knowledge was still there somewhere. Arriving safely on the surface we discovered one of the low pressure hoses had burst. The equipment looked brand new, so it's hard to say what caused it - just luck I suppose... Unfortunately I had to sit out of the rest of the dive on the boat. Once we were back at base, the chinese divers asked why we had abandoned the dive half way through?! How unobservant can you be?… Well maybe they were totally clueless, and not just regarding the sharks. That was my shortest ever recorded dive at 12 minutes. Later that day I had my longest dive, 89 minutes at 14m - just enjoying some lovely shallow coral. Came up with 50 bar as well :-).
Unfortunately there are no ATMs on this island. The fast depletion of our cash resources and the fact that we have a flight to Bali in a couple of days means we have to leave. I wish we could have had two more days here. I would have done many more dives and enjoyed a few more evenings on the Monkey Juice…
