Right - i am so sorry again for the lack of blogging. I'm in Broome right now and my laptop broke in Singapore so i've not been able to get my blogs back and upload them! I found the sweetest little I.T nerds who managed to fix it for me and didn't even charge me! Bought them a few drinks and the pleasure of my company for one night and they were over the moon!! HAHA!!

Right - here is my blog from our second trip to Perhentian Kecil!...

So… we decided to head back to Perhentian Kecil instead of Langkawi.We had crossed the border at Sungai Kolok so were already on the East coast of Malaysia and couldn't face the bus/boat/taxi journey over to the West!!!Plus - who wouldn't want to go back to that tiny little piece of paradise!!!

We got a taxi from the border to Kuala Besut and booked onto another speedboat after lots of hassle with ATM's.We were so happy to be back there but had asked to be dropped at Coral Beach as we had so much trouble getting a room on Long Beach last time.Well well well, we were in for a shock!!! Me and Nic searched the whole beach for somewhere with no luck.Everywhere was full.Then me and Ged went off to search Long Beach - bearing in mind it was getting dark by this time and everyone we spoke to was telling us the island was full and we'd have to sleep on the beach!!! Now I have absolutely no problem beach sleeping, there are far worse places I've slept throughout my travels!!!BUT… this is the island of mossies!!!Anyone who knows me will know if there's a mosquito around it'll seek me out so I was kinda getting worried!!!

It ended up me and Ged sinking a few Tigers whilst Sar and Nic went to check the ONE last place we hadn't (little shacks in between both beaches in the jungle interior) and we could not believe our luck when they said they had one private room and two beds in a dorm free!!We snapped them up and walked with our HUGE bags up the bloody steep hill towards Long Beach and we literally could not see a thing!!! We then realised why they sell torches in ALL the shops on Perhentian Kecil!!!Sar was leading and would shout 'LOG', 'STEP', 'PIPE'…. Whatever was coming up!!! FUNNY!!

So me and Nic were in the dorm… we put our bags in, showered, met a guy called Enrique (his real name was weird and he was from Norway but I just called him Enrique cause I couldn't remember it), then we all headed down to Long Beach for a few drinks out on the beach.It was an ok night, we attracted a load of strange travellers that night but it was good to hear their stories etc.Anyway, we all left for an early night as we'd had such a long journey (over 2 days from Koh Tao).Nic was out like a light but I stayed chatting to the people in the dorm for a while.I eventually drifted off but was suddenly awoken at around 6am by bloody Enrique shining his stupid little torch in my eyes, staring at me and humming a little tune!!! It was just a 'dur de dur dur dur' tune and I couldn't make out what it was but I was sooooo terrified… it was straight out of a horror film!!! I was shouting at him 'what are you doing, what the hell are you doing' and he just carried on for about 15 secs then laid himself back down with the torch still underneath him pointing at me!!! It scared me so much I had to get up, I just got in the shower and waited till 7 when we were getting up to search for another room anyway.He did mention he sleep walked/talked the night before but I thought nothing of it. Very strange man.That was my scariest dorm experience ever!!!!

So the next day we camped up in the reception of the Shari-La resort at 7.30am which we had set our hearts on as everywhere else seemed pretty roped and we didn't want another jungle rat/Enrique experience!!!

Nic stayed in there for about 3.5 hours whilst the rest of us searched ALL the accommodation on the island for other rooms.Eventually, Shari-La said they had a room for us and it all worked out!We ended up paying 350 ringitts for the room between the 4 of us (family room) which was much more than we had been used to but we felt like we deserved it!!!You should have seen the resort staff when they showed us our room!!! We screamed and shouted with so much excitement!! Even Ged!! Hahaha!! We had a huge balcony/veranda overlooking a lovely little bay, two HUGE comfy beds, air con, a tv, a huge bathroom and a seating area inside!! That kind of luxury was too much for us to take after our train journeys and stinkin hot bamboo huts!!!

We had such a good nights sleep that we all slept right through till 2pm the next day!!That's very late for us!

Breakfast was included in the price but wasn't really all that and seemed to send us to the toilet within a couple of hours which wasn't good!! We had to stick to the toast and pancakes and avoid the grey scrambled egg/noodles/fried chicken!!?? Oh yeah, and the VERY watery orange juice!!

That day we decided we should get out and do something with our time there so we decided to rent snorkels.Oh what a mistake.Should have definitely just booked on a snorkelling trip!!!We went out too late and by 4pm the tide had gone right out so we were kinda stranded in foot deep water trying to float over the sharp sharp coral back into the beach!It was never gonna happen!! So we changed tactics and swam out to the pier.Good idea at the time but the tide was too low and the gap between us and the pier was just that little bit too high!!!We would wait until a wave came and try to get up on the pier but it just didn't happen!In the end we had to drift in touching the rocks/dead coral at least as we could and got completely scratched up in the process.We also had a nice little audience on the beach laughing at us too!!!

We spent another day just on Long Beach, I'm still amazed at the beauty of this beach.Think it is definitely one of my favourites in all my travels!! J

Ok - as you all know, my main reason for researching and wanting to visit the Perhentian Islands was the diving.I was absolutely gutted that I didn't get around to it the first time we were there so I decided there was no time like the present - so bloody glad I did!!!

Most of you know, I was a little put off scuba diving because of my experience on the Ningaloo reef last year.I decided I wanted to do a refresher to get my skills back up to scratch.Nic decided she wanted to do an intro to diving thing and was able to come on the same boat.It was sooooo helpful - we went through all my skills again including the mask skills which I hated last time but went fine this time.Then we just went off for a dive!!! It was really amazing to feel confident diving again and I enjoyed it sooo much!! We didn't see that many interesting fish on this dive but we saw a huge lion fish which was cool.We also drifted right into a whole load of jelly fish before we descended which was NOT good for me.The stings are still hurting me now but I did have a bad reaction to jelly fish stings in koh tao in 2008 so I will have to get to a chemist asap - none on the perhentian islands, they don't even have cars!!! Love it!!! Anyway - so this dive - with Panorama Dive - really restored my confidence - especially our instructor Sarah.So I decided to do what I actually went there to do - a wreck dive!!!

Now I'm on to today!!!This morning I got up at 7.30 to get have an early breakfast and get to Panorama on Long Beach for 8.30.We got our equipment ready and then sat down for our briefing.I have decided to work towards my Advanced Diving Certificate and so I did the Adventure Wreck Dive which will count as one of my 5 dives towards my Advanced Certificate (the 2 compulsory ones are a deep dive - 30 meters, and a navigation dive).The dive site was called Sugar Wreck.The boat was sunk around 20 years ago and they are not sure if it was sunk intentionally as an insurance scam but this is suspected as apparently it crashed on some coral but there are no reefs around it!It is out in the middle of nowhere!The ship is on its side and you can swim in and out of all the different compartments etc… sooooo exciting!!!

We got out to the site and I was felling a little panic but the other 6 people on the dive were lovely so we just chatted on the boat over.Then all of a sudden we were there and I was in the water all geared up ready to go down.I cannot explain the feeling when I took my first look down and could make out the vague outline of a huge (80 meter long) ship right down at the bottom of the sea!!! And I was about to go down and explore it!!!! J As we descended, everything became clearer and the sheer size of the ship was just mind boggling!!!We went down to 19 meters and swam in and out of the masts, right inside the captin's cabin and swam the whole length of the boat just exploring and taking it all in.It was pretty scary getting under and around the smaller doorways/passages as there were sea urchins and trigger fish which can be very territorial and are known to give you a warning nip if they feel threatened, and worse if you don't move away!!I had to get my buoyancy under control but felt that I did this really well on this dive so I am feeling much more confident.I was really controlling my breathing and felt very aware of everything around me.You can easily just follow your instructor and miss things but I feel that I really made the most of this dive, taking the magnitude of the ship in.The fish were UNBELIEVABLE!!! I saw a HUGE jelly fish, schools of barracuda, lion fish, puffa fish and even bamboo sharks lurking around the bottom of the ship!!!A truly memorable experience and such an amazing rush!! I'm still on a high now sitting on a night train to KL in prep for our flight to Singapore tomorrow!!!

When I got back from the dive we all sat around and talked about what we saw and the dive masters pointed things out and told us what things were.I got my certificate stamped then dashed to Shari-La for a final shower before our boat/taxi/night train/coach/flight/shuttle journey to Singapore!!!

We had been trying to meet up with Anna didn't realise we were staying in the same resort as each other!!! Sar and Anna bumped into each other and we all went for a nice catch up and lunch together.Was SO lovely to catch up as it's been SO many years!!! Just such a shame we didn't get to meet up earlier!Me and Sar loved catching up with her and me, Sar and Anna have agreed to make a reunion happen when we're all back in the UK!!!Anna & Danny - hope you're still enjoying laid back life on the Perhentians!!! Give that Eltham geezer a kick from us!!! Hope you have no more cockroach incidents and keep us posted on your news on FB!!!Some FB tagging to come!! J xxx

So we got back to Kuala Besut on the speedboat and met our mate called 'Brother' that we had arranged our taxi/train ride with before we set off for the islands.He has to be the funniest and nicest Malaysian man I've met!! He had the gruffest/harshest voice I've ever heard and talked non stop!!! He was probably aged about 50 and on our ride to INSERT (one hour) he told us all about his 2 wives and 7 children.His current wife is 26 and his eldest child is 23!!! Apparently in Malaysia it is ok for a man to have up to 4 wives if he has enough money!! He showed us his house and told us he has four that he rents out.We also found out that a nice, big house in Malaysia would set you back about 10,000 pounds!!!He was explaining how all Malaysians have a cow that they let roam the roads and eat the grass, and they all know where their home is so they venture back at the end of the day!!!He loved Thai food and took us so the best restaurant!!Nic couldn't really enjoy it as she doesn't eat any thai/Malaysian food, but me Sar and Ged had THE best Tom Yum ever!!! He ate with us and they brought fruit and an egg dish too and we all just shared food whilst he gave us his funny little stories!! I wont forget this man… a real one in a million in Malaysia!!!I think he's Thai at heart J.He drove so nice and slowly compared to the other crazy malaysians and he explained some of the road signs which apparently meant 'drive carefully, your family is waiting at home for you'.How sweet!! They should do that in the UK, that would make people think twice before speeding.

Anyway - so we had dinner and he dropped us at the train station and I'm now on one of the cleanest trains I've ever experienced!!!Just shacked up with my curtains drawn trying to catch up with my blog action!!!

I'll post this when I get to Singapore tomorrow but hope you've all enjoyed the stories and I'm sure there are plenty more to come!!!

Missing you all and a massive HAPPY 90th BIRTHDAY to my grandma.Missed my family so so so much this week especially as I should have been there to help you all celebrate.You mean the world to me.

Hope life is all good back home.

Hugs xxx

I'll write more about our Singapore/Perth/Broome antics in the next blog but i'm on my way to my new waitressing job at the Mangrove where both Sar, and Ged have jobs too!!! Ged on the bar and me and Sar waitressing!

Must dash - but it's SOOO good being back here! Looked round ahouse the other day and put a deposit down so just waiting to hear if they've accepted! fingers crossed!

Love to you all! xxx