Had an amazing time in the Perhentian Islands. Met a lovely couple on the boat over - Harte and Esme from Cork, so it was nice to start meeting people and travelling around.

It was also great to get off land and out of cities to the coast! The Islands themselves are really beautiful, we went to the smaller island, Perhentian Kecil, and it was like a mini slice of paradise. Small enough that you could walk through the jungle and around the island, with fantastic sunsets, gorgeous white sand beaches, palm trees, beach shacks as bars, candles lighting the ocean at night...the lot! It was however crazily hot... well over 40 degrees and the most intense sun either of us had ever felt so we spent most of the time escaping it in the shade!

We did get out on a great little boat trip, on a tiny little wooden motorised canoe around the islands and the ocean. Its a fantastic area for diving and snorkelling, and we saw everything from reef sharks to GIANT turtles which we could swin after with our snorkels on. Incredible creatures and a heavenly day out! We got to stop off at a few other beaches around the various islands, and to meet some more people...including two Russians who were quite hilarious, but also quite burnt (they had never heard of suncream until we showed them what it was. Not good!).

The island was full of mad creatures, including some of the largest lizards we had seen, I don´t think they were kimodo dragons (don´t laugh at me if i have spelt that wrong) but they were a good few metres long and very scared of us humans! So we had a really great time there and it was a fantastic first experience of all the beutiful coastline and islands we were about to see!