Hey everyone. Just a quick post to let you all know I am still alive! The internet connection here is very ropey, so I am not sure when I will be able to get my photos up.. I have about a months worth... so keep watching!
I left Phi Phi a couple of weeks ago to spend 3 or 4 days in the Perhentian Islands. I had finally had enough of the constant rain in Phi Phi. All day and all night long. I still had a lot of fun there, but my tan was fading fast.
I figured a few days in the Islands here, then travel through Malaysia to get down to Singapore for my flight to Australia on October the 2nd.
Well, over 2 weeks on, and I am still here and probably will be for another week!
I have fallen in love with the Perhentians. The weather is amazing, the people are super friendly, the diving is great as is the wakeboarding and I am really getting the hang of Poi (fire dancing)
The trip down here from Phi Phi was a bit of a mission. I had to to get a boat to Krabi, then a bus to the Malaysian border, walk over the border crossing and then find a taxi to Kuala Besut. I arrived here at about 1am and the first boat in the morning was at 7am, so we slept on the hard floor of the local travel agent! There were about 7 of us who all met on the bus down from Phi Phi.
At 7am we got the boat over to the Perhentian Islands. I heard that Long Beach on Small Island (Kecil) was the best place to go and also the Irish girls (Jamie, Suzie and Claire) were there already.
The place was super busy when I arrived and rooms are very hard to come by, so I made sure I was on the first boat.
I booked into the first cheap room I could find to make sure I had somewhere to stay and then took a walk along the beach. The girls were staying in Panarama, but they were full up so I kept walking.
At the very opposite end of the beach I found Moonlight Guesthouse, which also had a dive shop attached to it. After checking out the room and the divemasters I decided to move here. I was only going to be here a few days to do my Advanced diving course, so paying a bit more for my room wasn’t a problem.
The first day I booked my Advanced Open Water PADI diving course to start the next day, then met the girls and went to Turtle beach for some well needed sunbathing. After being in the rain for a week my tan really needed some work.
Unfortunately I didn’t account for the strength of the sun, the lack of sun cream and my diminished tolerance after a week out of it. Yep.. I burnt. Quite badly! My forehead turned into leather and I was in agony. Of course I couldn’t dive the next day as my head would not take the mask and my back wouldn’t take a BCD, so I decided to stay a few more days and start the course a couple of days late.
After a couple of days in the shade and evenings in Palm Tree Café, rather drunk I was fit and ready again. The girls left the day I started my diving, which was fine as I had that to keep me entertained, and I was actually looking forward to a few days just on my own with my book. After so long partying almost constantly it would be nice to chill, not drink, read a book or 2 and take it easy. There was a group of people in the guesthouse that I knew were there and I could hook up with at any time, so I wouldn’t get bored by not meeting people.
My Advanced course went fine.. I did the Deep Dive, Navigation , PPB (Peak Performance Buoyancy, Underwater Naturalist (not naturist!) adventure dives and after that was a Advanced diver! Yay. The course was a lot of fun and my instructor was fantastic. Cheers Dee!
Since then I have dived pretty much every day and now I am up to about 30 dives. Not bad since I started only a couple of months ago.
Evenings have been pretty chilled. A bit of dinner, then a couple of beers at the beach bar. No real heavy nights out (although we are planning one tonight). I have had a couple of Poker nights with the diving chaps and have even been playing a lot of scrabble in the days.
The people in my guesthouse are all so friendly that I really feel like a local now... apart from not having a job!
I have spent a good hour or more each day practicing my Poi as well and have got quite a few moves down. I am happy with Corkscrews, 3 and 4 beat weaves, butterflies and a bunch of others. I am definitely going to try fire at least once before I leave the island! So I might be bald the next time you see me!
I have also tried my hand at wakeboarding, which I have been wanting to do for a long time now. It wasn’t as bad as I thought and got up on my third attempt, which is apparently pretty good, especially since the sea was quite choppy at the time.
So, that is about all my life has been over the last couple of weeks. I am trying my hardest to upload the few photos I have taken from the last few weeks, but internet is not something that this place does best... so it has been a bit of a mission. Hopefully I’ll have better look when I try again in a day or so.
Hope you are all well... and feel free to drop me an email to let me know what is going on back home. I need lots of gossip!
Speak soon..