Pulau Perhentian

What can I say, we haven't done much in last couple of days but read lots of books on the beach. We just love the feeling of the beach without sand flies. We have even done some diving in between the books. Diving here is not as good as it was on Tioman, but the beach is fantastic.

The island has a backpacking feel to it and as a result we have meet loads of fantastic people with many new traveling suggestions. We have been deciding for last couple of days what to do next - doing it in 30C sea (34C in the evening) doesn't call for a rush decision. Looks like we will stay here for another day or two then head north into Thailand.

We have even managed to come across a new shark species (for us) -the bamboo shark. Happy days.

The only down side is that the island doesn't have 24/7 electricity, so the rooms have no electric outlet, no fridge, no A/C. Well its not cold for sure, but it also means that the beer is not ice cold.

Click here for some more pictures about hard life in Perhentian islands.

The Hammock

We are finally back from Pulau Tioman and we got what we came for - good diving (not spectacular, but really, really nice) with lots of sea and sun time. Got sun burnt couple of times, but hey, we knew it was going to happen.

We also brought lots of good luck with us. On our first day diving here we had a nice encounter with manta ray - first one they saw in last 2 years. We even have the picture to prove it.

But most of all we are staring to slow down. And not plan. Well sort of. Nives almost flipped yesterday when ferry didn't show up - not being on schedule. To nowhere really, but still schedule. Few drinks resolved that problem. Being on the small island with nothing to do helps. We are flying through our book collection - already needed to exchange 3 books. We didn't even notice that there is no Internet on the island - well there is 30kbs connection for the whole island - absolutely not usable!

Food was really good - Malay, Indian, Chinese, European (there was a pizza!) and bbq! Rice is almost always on the menu (when not, it's noodles), and we are starting to miss bread and Irish butter.

All that duty free beer is starting to show on Dejan's belly so we decided that it is time to go north into more Muslim dominant areas where such over indulgence will not happen.

To have a look at some more of our Tioman pictures click here.

The only Tioman minus are the sand flies in all of the sandy beaches. This things itch for weeks after the bite (and we mean weeks, Nives is a living example). We changed the town on Tioman from nice one with sandy beach to one with rocky beach in hope of less sand flies. In the end it was back to long trousers in evenings :(

Today we spent whole day in Mersing in the port bar (Free WiFI) and are leaving on overnight bus (10 hours) north to catch the ferry to Perhenthian islands.

So it's back to radio silence for another week or so (see how we like it up there) until we are back on the main land.

On the road to Pulau Tioman

Well, what can we say, except - "We LOVE Malaysia". Right now we are sitting in the harbour in the little port village and we have a free WiFi! Just unbelievable!

We are back to backpacker roots now. Just finished a night bus drive from KL. Feel tired, but excited that we made it. Already contemplating that if we have to cover larger distances we will fly. Ryanair, we officially hate you for making us wimps. Obviously backpacking at 35 is a little bit different than at 20. Plan is to lower the standards as we go. Only, we haven't decided where the rock bottom is :)))

The Pelican has landed

We arrived in Kuala Lumpur in much better shape than expected. The long plane flights were not fully booked and swift action on the Jug family side assured 4 seats for each of us - we slept like rich babies in the first class (now, we are Guessing about first class here).

Spent 3 days (and nights) doing nothing special, just getting used to living without time constraints (Nives still has some issues here, but she is actively working on it). KL is just perfect for this. It has all the infrastructure we are used to from Europe (Free wireless Internet almost everywhere), but it also has all the Asian charm and vibe. Food is just amazing - you can choose from Malay, Indian (Dejan got his share of chapatis and rotis) to Chinese (we didn't overdo it this time). Shamefully, we had some bread today - lasted only 3 days on rice. But it was goood :)). Life is good and cheap over here. Everything is about 20% of Irish prices the only exception is beer which is about the same price. Not that it's stopping us...


We have been here before so there was no panic to do the tourist trail (Nives did try, but few beers solved the problem pretty fast). We even went to cinema, which we never do on Holidays. Come to it, we never do it at home either. It was really good. Only funny thing is that here you dress up to go to the movies - much colder then outside. Very proud of ourselves that we are still appreciating the heat and the sun (not very much of it, mostly cloudy due to the monsoon). We got some really pitiful looks from locals today when we looked for spot in the sun and stayed there. Thankfully we moved soon enough, before they called 911. We really are staring to relax and slow down...


We have decided (after 3 days) that we have enough of the city life (read eating, sleeping and shopping) and that it is time to hit the beach. We will take a night bus to east coast of Malaysia. Our first stop will be Palau Tioman, which is listed among the 10 most beautifully islands in the world. Diving there is not bad either - no pelagic expected, but a bit of nice and relaxed floating.

Jet-lag is still killing us. Couldn't leave the hotel before noon so far, but bright and cheery at midnight. Hopefully tonight's bus drive will resolve that problem.

Preperations

We thought it will be easy, walk in the park. Last 5 days at home were supposed to be total relaxation with nothing to do. Ugh, how wrong we where!

It took over 80 TODO items (we tracked everything on the PC with proper version control - how pathetic is that?), 20 washing machine cycles and a good measure of fantastic parties (thanks all again!) in between before we could say "Let’s GO". Well it was only 1 hour before leaving home that we finally managed to get all our stuff up to the attic. Yeah, yeah, the same old "I really didn't think I have so many clothes" didn't help, but we made it anyway. Well to be honest, it was all the sailing and technical equipment that took most of our time. Even the Irish summer took pity on us and it didn't rain for almost the whole day, so we could dry the sails.

We left our home (Greystones) at 3:30AM so tired that we were actually looking forward to spending a day and a half on the planes / airports.