The Perhentian Islands were amazing! We stayed on the smaller of the two islands because it's more popular with backpackers. The larger island attracts people with more money, honeymooners, etc! At first we weren't sure we were going to like it there because when we were trying to find accommodation the owners weren't exactly friendly, that was until we met Didi. This was a man going through a sex change; he was so over the top with his expressions and hand gestures and walked around as though he was permanently strutting his stuff down the cat walk! After we'd checked into our very basic hut we went onto the beach to have some breakfast. It was at this point that alarm bells starting ringing as other people staying at 'Moonlight' talked amongst themselves about the rats in their room. We chose to ignore this until bedtime when we starting hearing funny noises coming from the top of our bed, right by our heads. Christie was fast asleep as she'd taken a sleeping tablet after seeing a huge spider in our room (she'd been bitten by one in Vietnam and didn't think she'd sleep naturally!). We managed to ignore it for a while until Jen demanded we got out of bed because there was a rat eating through her rucksack trying to get to the peanut bar she'd stupidly left in there! I spent the longest 5 minutes telling her it was fine and that the rat would go away any minute now...I was petrified at the thought of standing on it! Eventually we made a run for it and as I turned on the light Jen grabbed the conveniently placed broom as our weapon. After letting our blood pressure return back to normal we looked to see if the rat had hidden back behind the bed, which it hadn't, instead we found a very large ghecko. This was far too much excitement for our first night so we decided that we needed to leave the room and have a drink to calm our nerves. I took a photo of the ghecko so we could just double check with the locals it wasn't a highly posionous version, while Jen came to terms with the hole in her rucksack and having to throw away the remainder of her peanut bar; Christie was out for the count, none the wiser! The excitement didn't end there...the next evening Jen came down to tell me that while I was in the shower she had seen a rat run across our room, something I later got to see for myself. We did a lot of girly screaming and jumping on the bed as we watched this evil little rat scurrying around the room and out onto the balcony. Enough was enough, it was time to move accommodation!! This actually worked out for the best as the second hut we moved into had a much better atmosphere, a free evening meal and most importantly, not a rat in sight. That night we went for some drinks at the makeshift bar on the beach called Buffalo Bar. We got talking to a couple of groups of lads and planned to go on a snorkelling trip the next day. We woke up a little 'tired' but had one of our best experiences so far. We got to swim with giant sea turtles, reef sharks and the most gorgeous coloured fish you've ever seen; the colours were so amazing they didn't look real. We had such a fun day, just wished we'd taken an underwater camera! The Perhentian Islands were so beautiful and relaxing it was difficult for us to leave. It was very basic there, no cars, no cashpoints and only a few restaurants; just a short strip of beautifully clear blue sea. After 8 days we decided we had to move on. We said goodbye to Christie who was heading to the Grand Prix in Singapore as we left for Taman Negara; time for a bit of exercise after a week of eating lots of BBQ's and drinking too much 'Monkey Juice'..rum and coke!