Following our instructions we meet a Chinese man who runs a "Kodak" shop and get a taxi to Kuala Besut. The taxi driver was obviously a fan of touring car racing (and Luc Bessons film Taxi) and liked to practice his high speed bumper to bumper driving skills. We arrive at the port safe but slightly disturbed. After that ride a taxi boat to the Perhentian islands sounded pleasant. This taxi boat has some serious acceleration and it's a struggle to stop flying to the back of the boat. For a vessel which can carry about 15 people comfortably the overkill of two Yamaha V6 200s stuck on the stern provides a similar adrenaline rush to the taxi ride there. It would appear Malaysians have a need for speed!

We arrive on Pulau Perhentian Kelic, via another taxi which picks us up in the harbour and ferries us to the beach. The beach is fairly small and the number of buildings we can see is less than the number of fingers and toes Helena has. Our accommodation is set back from the beach, up a slight rise situated under the welcoming shade of the forest. The Bintang View chalets have good views of the sea peeking through the trees.

That evening we chill out in our chalet and get familiar with the local Geckos. These guys make a racket once it has gone dark. Waking to hear "geck-o" very loud from somewhere about 1 foot from your head is quite alarming at first.

The next day we're up early and plan to walk around the island. We take a cable maintenance track from Long Beach to Perhentian Village. Along the way we catch a couple of monitor lizards up to something in the bushes. Having seen one already we weren't too alarmed until we saw the size of these guys. Obviously our previous meetings were with little tiddlers because these were a good 4/5ft in length. Luckily there were more scared of Helena than we were of them and they soon left. We continued to the village and saw the local school kids going to school and made our way to the secluded resort/beach at Pasir Pentari and stop for lunch. This beach was maybe 150m long with perfect turquoise waters and probably only 15 people there to enjoy it. We reach Coral Bay after passing some derelict rundown chalets which are for sale. This part of the island is very narrow and the path from Coral Bay back to Long Beach only takes 10 minutes.

That night we meet Gordon the gecko. This cute, green and red spotted rascal is a resident in our chalet and quite a bit bigger than the geckos we'd already seen. At dusk he leaves the chalet interior and goes hunting. He appears to be the culprit for waking us the night before but we can't work out why he makes so much noise?

The next day we're on a snorkelling trip around the islands. Amazing waters and see some fairly big black tip reef sharks straight away. Other highlights are a humphead parrotfish, turtle, nemos and a juvenile indian pompano. The clams here are huge and there also lots of sea cucumbers too.

Comparing these islands to Koh Tao we agree that the pleasantly under-developed Perhentians are more beautiful but predominantly the people on Koh Tao are more welcoming and friendly. Also the mosquitoes on the Perhentians are viscious and seem to like biting me which isn't on.

With our homework complete we arrive at the Matahari dive shop ready for our first adventure dive on a wreck. The wreck is fairly recent and called the Sugar Wreck. The cargo ship was predictably carrying sugar and is 90m longs which sank during the year 2000 monsoon season. The wreck is lying on its side with cargo cranes and cargo holds to swim into. Being new to diving we expected to be looked after a little bit. How wrong could we be. None of the predive checks were done and there was no predive brief/discussion. The instructor sorted out our buddy teams about 5m under the water. It was a complete contrast to what we'd experienced on Koh Tao. The wreck itself was cool and highlights were giant puffer fish, shoals of barracuda, batfish and a large scorpion fish. Our dive was over in about 30mins though. Much sooner than we expected. The instructor had weighted us both a lot less than we'd previously had and this we believe contributed to the extra effort we had to put in and thus use more than necessary oxygen. A disappointing end to what should have been an amazing morning. Back at the dive shop I quiz the instructor about various aspects of the dive and essentially we're told it's all our fault. Can't tell you how frustrated I felt about it. So if you're off there and fancy some diving don't dive with Matahari.

Once back at our chalet Finola the Irish owner of Bintang View tells us we are past are check-out time on the 18th and need to get packed and out as the next guest is paid and due. We are incredibly confused as we think that it is the 17th and we should be checking out the following day and so this means we have also missed our boat and bus off the island to the Cameron highlands. After showing Finola Helena's watch and mobile phone displaying a date of the 17th Finola agrees that she must have got the dates wrong and had already done that once this week. So to improve a what was a frustating day we treated ourselves to a lovely set Malaysian dinner at Ewan's who was one of two locals we met on the island who seemed to have an energetic nature and great smile.

Whilst waiting for our boat off the islands early the next morning we watched small (1.5-2ft) black tip reef sharks in the shallows.

Andy + Helena

Croc watch = 0