Perhentian - Day 1

Arrived early morning at the jetty. Had to wait for about 2-3 hours for the earliest boat to the island. So, we had something to eat while waiting. Ordered a rice noodle soup for myself. The soup was sweet. Yes, sweet! But other than that it's ok. Told Bryan I have a feeling that his stir fried noodles will turn up sweet too. And HAHA, indeed! Sweet stir fried noodle. I guess it's just the taste of the people at the east coast.

The earliest boat to the island was 7am. So we took the earliest boat rather than waiting for the 8am boat that my sister recommended. Once arrived, we chilled a bit with Harn Yoke, talk for a little because she's on duty and the boss was around.

The we decided that maybe we should take a nap before we start the day. After about 2 hours nap, we woke and had lunch with sister. The banana shake was good. There's a snorkelling trip at 2pm but we decided to just chill for the day and do the snorkelling trip the next day. After lunch, we chilled by the beach and went out snorkelling on our own. Nothing much to see except for dead corals and few unattractive fishes. Half way, got this stinging feeling on the hands and body. And Bryan started to swim for the shore because he thinks those are jellyfish. I wasn't too looking forward to swim back to the shore but the stinging got worse and I felt some on the face. So, I started swimming faster in case those stings disfigure me.

By the time we swim back to the shore and chill for a little, Harn Yoke was off duty. Now, I don't remember what we did. Orh yea. We walked over to Long Beach because we told HY that the beach over here is not that impressive. So, she brought us to Long Beach because they have cleaner and bigger beach over there. Better for swim because the shore on our side actually got quite a bit of dead corals and therefore not too nice to walk on.

The walk to Long Beach almost killed me. Wasn't too long a walk. Just 10 minutes or so, but it was going up hill for almost half the journey. Thank god the later half was going down hill. Beach was big and clean. Met Lydia and a French couple there. Went into the water for a bit but too bad it was quite choppy and therefore the clearity was not good. Was almost dark when we went to visit Alan (HY's ex-colleague) who just opened a roti canai stall at Long Beach.

It was very cold because we did not bring along a towel to dry ourselves and it was very windy and looks like a thunder storm was approaching. But we still chilled at the stall for a bit. Alan is a nice, friendly Malay man. With 2 sons previously working with him on the island. Alan is good with guitar and even did some modifications on his guitar.

It was dark when we walked back. Luckily we had Uncle Rem with us because we did not have any torch light. Would be impossible to walk back without a torch. We were going to have dinner with a few of sister's foreign friends. One of them's cooking roast chicken. They have these cooking session once a week which I think it's rather nice as you get tired of outside food.

So, we went back to the room for a shower and joined them at the dinner which was conveniently just right next door. At the dinner, we have Tip & Shirley (the owner of the place we have dinner at which is also a dive shop and sells beer; then we have Melanie (which we met in the morning with Dave & Vicky) and hubby Will; Dave, Remy (HY's boy-friend) and Louise (I think) who is Shirley's visiting sister. Orh, Lydia was there too.

The food was ok.

Sat for a while watching the English vs. dunno which country game and call it a nite at around midnight.