Paradise.......
So our bus from Kuala Lumpur arrived in Kuala Besut, on the north east coat of Malaysia, at about 6.30am on Wednesday and we were instantly taken to the dock to catch a boat. Pete and I had no cash left so the guy that sold boat tickets drove us to a cash machine to get some. We bought tickets and jumped on board our boat which held about 10 of us. Pete and I were last on so we were at the front. It was a really bumpy journey that lasted about 30 minutes and just as the sun was coming up, about 7.40 in the morning, we arrived at the smaller of the two islands. This is where we were staying. It looked incredible. Just like paradise. Water clearer than anything we had seen previously. It's what I imagine Koh Phi Phi was like about 10-15 years ago. One main beach. Few hostels, couple of dive shops and no more than 10/12 restaurants and bars.
We were looking for cheap accommodation and had heard that a place called Moonlight was cheap. We turned up, the hostel was run by a ladyboy called Didi and we managed to get a bed each in a 7 bed dorm for £3 a night. We thought great deal but maybe we should have seen the room first. One light and one fan that worked. It was like a sauna. The toilet had a distinct smell of urine. I think they cleaned them once a year (with piss). We also found out that there were mice/rats there too. Oh well. We only had two nights so thought we may a well give it a chance.
We got changed and headed straight to the beach to relax and top up our tan. It was boiling. More than 30 degrees and not much breeze. I decided to not bother with sun cream because I wanted a better tan. Spent about half the day in the sun and half in the sea. It was a nice relaxing change. This was the first full day we had spent on the beach in 6 weeks.
That night we headed out for some drinks with our dorm mates. The local drink was monkey juice. This was a vanilla rum which went really well with coke. We went to a bar that was having a party because two dive masters had qualified. They had some drinking challenges and a massive bonfire that ran from the top of the beach to the bottom. It was a really fun night. The bar didn't have a toilet so if you needed to go, you had a choice, jungle or sea?We started talking to some other people. One was an Irish girl call Robyn. As we were walking back she pointed out a bungalow with the light on and door open. She told me it was Janes room (I had no idea who Jane was) and that we should "hide until she gets backs". This seemed like a great idea at the time so we snuck in and turned the light off. After about 5 minutes the door opened and a French guy walked in. Oops. I think we got the wrong room. I'm just glad at 4.30am he saw the funny side of it. So after this we headed to bed with big plans for the next day, snorkelling and fishing.
We got up the next day at about 11 and headed straight for the sea to cool down. This day of snorkelling and fishing actually became sit on the beach. The only difference from the day before was that I burnt really bad the first day so sat under an umbrella all day. (It's ok though because it has now turned to tan). So chilling on the beach and a pretty similar night out except I managed to stay out of random rooms.
Today we got up and checked out by 11. I chilled in the shade at our hostel whilst Pete sunbathed until our boat at 4 this afternoon. We bumped into John, an American we had met a couple of days earlier. He told us how at about 4am he went for a swim and when he got back his clothes were gone. There he was, still in just his boxers.
We got the boat back to the mainland and are now on a bus to Singapore for about 12 hours. We have 24 hours there and then head to Australia.
Hope your all good
Josh x