Hi all

So, there we sat squishing the golden sand between our toes and sipping our beers and generally feeling very proud of ourselves. It really is the most beautiful beach. Pure sand and warm turquoise waters. And as it was close to the end of the season the place was virtually deserted. A lot of the businesses had already packed up for the year (no-one stays on the island out of season) and the tourists seemed virtually non-existent (except for some loud Sweaty who told me in his best ‘Hoots Mon’ voice that I had the ‘most organised rucksack ah’ve ever seen. Did ye’re ma pack it fer ye?’ I just smiled politely and thought of the end of Braveheart when they hack Gibson up. Love that).

Eventually though Mand decided that she’d go find us a hotel and check her email and see if either Andy and Kimbers, or Laura had arrived yet. The choice of hotels was fairly limited (countable on one hand) so she booked us in to the Mohsin Chalets. We discovered much to our chagrin that Andy and Kimberley been in KL the same time we had. In fact they’d sent us a couple of emails and a couple of messages on here telling us they were in the Reggae Bar. It just so happens that we’d been planning on going for dinner at a revolving city view restaurant and then going to the Reggae Bar to get trashed afterwards. But we didn’t, deciding to make the most of our five star luxury. I’d also had a hankering to go online all evening and kept mentioning it to Mand, but never actually bothered. Must’ve been my telepathy gene kicking in again. Anyhow, such is life and as it turned out Laura was already on the island and staying in the same place we’d just booked in to. Sweet.

Not wanting to move again, we sat down in a beach bar and after another beer or two I needed the inevitable wee. In to the wooden mosquito filled shack round the back and as I finished relieving myself and opened the door I came face to face with a huge monitor lizard. I mean huge. f***er must’ve been eight feet long and quite honestly scared the bejesus out of me. He slowly turned and disappeared into the brush and I quickly turned and sprinted back into the bar. I asked the matey if it was his pet and he looked at me like I was from Mars and said no, there are loads of them around here. Great. The place is also populated with hundreds of young cats and kittens. Why are they all young you’re probably asking yourself (well probably not, but I’m going to tell you anyway). Because most of them aren’t pets. They just breed out of control. Then when everyone leaves at the end of the season the cats get left behind. And become a walking meal for the monitor lizards. A fact I took great delight in repeating to Mand every time I caught her stroking the incredibly cute kittens. Laugh? I nearly bought a round…

As we sat soaking up the rays, we got our second visitor of the day. And this one was something else. The guy from the bar comes out, puts a plate of meat/fish scraps down, whistles and clicks his fingers. About 10 seconds later a huge fish eagle comes swooping down, talons blazing, lands next to the food, and begins ripping it up. It was huge. And seriously impressive. As we sat watching it, the kitten who was sharing our seat wakes up and sees what’s going on and decides he wants some of the action. I have never seen a foot long cat stalk an eagle with a six foot wing span before and was pretty excited about what the outcome might be. My money was on the eagle grabbing the cheeky little s*** and carrying it home for it’s chicks to play with. After spending five minutes stalking his ‘prey’ the cat finally makes it’s move and comes very close to getting his stupid head swiped off. The eagle looked generally miffed that the cat had even dared to think it might get away with stealing his dinner. But the cat was not to be deterred and after gathering his thoughts decided to have another go. He carefully set about stalking him and after another five minutes made his move. And came even closer to getting his head swiped off again. The eagle, probably fearing for the cat’s sanity decided enough was enough and with a flap of it’s huge wings picked up the food and flew about ten yards away. Not to be deterred the cat then set about stalking the eagle across open ground. However after a couple of minutes of trying to work out the best route he gave a resigned shrug and rejoined us on our seat, looking all pleased with himself.

A few minutes later and Mand headed off to face down the lizards and use the toilet and it was then that we received out third and final visitor of the day. One which was as scary as the lizard (although the lizard was better looking…and had better breath) but much more welcome. There emerging through the heat haze, like a goddess from the heavens came Laura. After much shrieking and hugging (which woke the entire beach from it’s slumbersome repose) we sat down and began catching up. As the beach returned to it’s comatose state, Mand emerged and then the whole thing started again. The locals must have thought there’d been a murder. Cue lots of catching up, a few beers and some excellent food.

The Mohsin Chalets are a bunch of well, chalets set in the mountain on Kecil and are absolutely lovely. Although there’s no electric city between noon and 6 pm. The staff are absolutely fantastic, the food is splendid and we had a whale of a time there. They show a video every night, and then stay open until the last person leaves (usually about 6 am). Absolute quality. And as it was one of the few places left open, it was rammed most nights. By the end of our stay, Mand and Laura were picking what video we’d be watching and what music the dj was playing at their parties. One of the guys had the driest sense of humour I’ve ever come across and absolutely resolutely refused to get stressed about anything. Even when the restaurant was so full people couldn’t get tables and he was one of only two waiters and the other one couldn’t speak English. It was firkin hilarious. He just meandered on through it all and kept everyone sweet while they waited three hours plus for a sandwich. He just used to come and sit and chat with us, even if he had loads of people waiting for food. The funniest moment with him was when as he was clearing our plates away one night, Mand just looked at him and said with a deadpan expression and in a really loud voice ‘That was s***!’. The shrug he gave her and the small smile that accompanied it just summed up his whole attitude. Quality. Incidentally, the food was absolutely fantastic. Fresh caught fish, fried or barbecued was order of the day most nights. Blue marlin is the nicest fish I’ve ever had, and Kingfish comes a close second. One of the other guys who works there is a guy called Matt. More on him in the next postcard but him and the others worked all day every day, and made our stay as memorable as it gets.

It just so happened that our second night there was a Friday night and Mohsin were throwing a party. After the movie, they just move all the tables back against the balconies and a dj tries to make your ears bleed. He opened up with the following: ‘Good evening ladies. Just thought I’d tell you to keep a close eye on your bags and to not walk home on your own. Relax and have a good night.’ Hmmm, way to go at relaxing everyone. We got absolutely trashed on vodka buckets and danced the night away. Now the buckets here come as a bucket of ice, a bottle of spirit and a couple of cans of mixer. Half way through our second bucket of ice, Laura noticed that her drink smelt of fish. In fact it turns out that all our drinks smelt of fish, we’d just never noticed. After some investigation we discovered it was actually the ice that smelt. So we hooked it out of our drinks and drank them anyway (hey, waste not want not). Mmmm – loving that slightly fishy tasting vodka and lemonade. After a few, Mand and Laura started practising their dance routines the highlight of which was when Laura poked Mand in the eye during a proper Bee Gees moment. A moment I also caught on camera. Lovely. This was also the night I started smoking again. Well, come on. Smoking’s cool. Everyone knows it. To be fair I only had one but it was the beginning of the end.

I ended up chatting to a bunch of Dutch guys who introduced me to the local hooch which is called ‘monkey juice’. It’s a bit like a sweet whiskey and it gets you absolutely twatted. So much so that I can’t actually remember what it was that I was talking to them about. Woo hoo. Top reporting. Let’s just say that one of the girl Dutchies had dishonourable intentions towards me, and Mand got really pissed off when she apologised to her. Strange creatures, women. A bit later on, Mand announced she was leaving and I had a right go at her along the lines of ‘What you going home for, it’s well early.’ The withering look she gave me as she told me it was 5 am could have stopped a rhino rutting. Not to be put off, I returned to my equally drunken Dutchie mate (who was by now the only one of them left) and we decided to get another bottle of monkey juice. However, something happened on my way to the bar and I’m still not entirely sure what. All I remember is being escorted down the steps by Matt (so as I didn’t fall – or so he said when I asked him) as I drunkenly slurred at a couple of locals. No matter what Mand says I was definitely not escorted off the premises. Definitely.

Our next drunken escapade occurred a couple of days later. By this time, Andy and Kimbers had joined us and we’d hooked up with a couple of blokes from Bournemouth called Dave and Matt. They were travelling for a few months and Matt was doing his PADI Open Water course. Dave already had his and spent some of his time trying, without success, to teach Laura how to throw a Frisbee. It was painful to watch as she flailed her arms whilst letting go of it at random times, occasionally getting it somewhere in the vicinity of Dave. They were top blokes and one evening the six of us headed out along the beach to find somewhere to have dinner and get drunk. The first place didn’t have hardly any food left. The second place didn’t have any food left. The third place didn’t serve alcohol. We eventually settled on this option and Mand and Kimbers went off to get booze from next door. I was getting a bit drunk by now and decided this was the perfect time to open up two of my favourite debates.

The first one is becoming something of a stickler for me and never ceases to cause arguments. I love it. So here goes. Every icon of the twentieth century was a smoker. James Dean, Madonna, Marlon Brando, Winston Churchill. Kurt Cobain. The list is endless. The argument this night centred around Muhammed Ali. Icon? Or draft dodging, glove doctoring, rope loosening coward? I reckon you can guess which side my loyalties lie on this one. I’m not saying he wasn’t a gifted fighter. But I’d win all my fights if Don King was fixing them for me. Elvis? I’m sure he was a smoker before he died, fat and bloated on his toilet seat. Jesse Owens? Is he really an icon? Mother Theresa? 20 Bensons a day I reckon. Stressful job this Saintliness. I love the arguments that come out of this little belter. For a start, what the f*** IS an icon? It’s fantastic, and before long turned everyone into thunder talking experts on every famous person ever. Fantastico.

The second argument that night (and to be fair most nights when I get drunk and feel the need) was politics. All of it. I f***in love it. Thatcher? Hero of her time (although not an icon) Blair? (definitely not an icon) Tory as it gets. Tory? Becoming a kind of hybrid Labour and Liberal. The war in Iraq. Communism v capitalism. Everyone was at it. At one point (we were back at Mohsin by now) we joined a table with the guy who was running the first bar we went in, an Aussie and a guy we kept calling French dude (he actually turned out to be Dutch and thought we were hilarious for keep calling him French dude – we all actually thought he was French). The Aussie guy was priceless. For some reason he didn’t like it when I told him he had two party system and was living in a country that wasn’t even his. And that he should give it back to the people who actually own it. He also thought he was irresistible to women (apparently all Aussie blokes do) and when we challenged him on this he readily accepted. His mission was to leave the table and come back within five minutes with a girl. A real one. That wasn’t Mand, Kimbers or Laura. Or bring back a monkey juice bucket. As we loudly counted down the last 30 seconds he arrived back at the table with a girl. Mandy. Back to the bar sunshine…

The only other night we got really trashed there was the following Friday night. Alas, Dave and Matt had since departed, but we were joined by a couple who lived in (but definitely didn’t come from) Southampton called Kat and Scott who me and Mand had met diving, the divemaster himself who was called Shayne, the trainee divemaster who was called Kate and very briefly by a couple of dodgy English birds. We got absolutely smashed once again, with me reliving my Open Water experience from earlier in the day and ripping it out of Shayne (Diving? It’s not exactly an adrenaline sport is it? In fact I think it’s a bit gay). Shayne for his part is a pretty cool bloke who has a thing for the ladies (although we didn’t actually see him score in the whole ten days we were there). Then it happened. I went into debate mode again. This went on for absolutely ages. Hours even. At one point me, Andy and Kat were all furiously shouting at each other, red in the face – the works, about the war in Iraq. So much so that the others shuffled their chairs away. It was brilliant. Eventually though, Kat came up with a point I had no answer for so I decided it was time to go for a dance. That doesn’t mean I lost. Ok? I was just a bit drunk.

When I got to the dancefloor I was proper leapt upon by yet another amorous Dutchie. This girl was huge. And her mass of big curly hair did nothing to improve her looks. She could’ve thrown me over her shoulder and still been able to fight off a stegosaurus. You know when you’re talking to someone in a club and you have to get close to hear? And you just know that they’re going to try and kiss you at any moment? I was seriously scared. So I used the classic move of positioning my head right next to her ear where she couldn’t get to me. When she asked if I was here with anyone and I told her I was with Mand (who was stood with Kimbers laughing and pointing at me – just so you know) she kind of stood back. And I swear I felt stubble brush my face. No s***. But it could have just been the goose pimples of fear on my own face.

Kat decided enough was enough (Scott had already left) and staggered off to bed. Only to come back a couple of minutes later holding a bottle of water and carry on dancing, with the explanation that she just couldn’t leave. Top drawer. Much dancing later and I found myself drinking monkey juice straight from the bottle while talking absolute rubbish to some local guy who couldn’t understand a word I was saying. We’d already lost Kat, Andy and Kimbers and Laura had taken over the dj booth once again so me and Mand decided it was time for our beddybyes. The sun was already up and it was with serious surprise that we realised it was half six in the morning. Laura on the other hand didn’t get in til eight, having cooked herself breakfast in their kitchen and helped them clean up. One of the Mohsin guys walked her home but she absolutely swears nothing happened. We don’t believe her…

That’s about it for the drinking side of the Perhentian Islands. I’ll put the diving and snorkelling and general beachy stuff on another postcard. Oh yeah, and I’ll not mention the two ridiculously poor England performances I was forced to sit through while I was there. Sometimes even an idyllic setting doesn’t help with the trauma of watching 11 of the best professional footballers our fair land has to offer, perform like they’ve never met before and are just turning out for a Sunday League game. Piss poor is too kind. Ah well.

Laters all

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