Hi everyone,

Not much to report from the last few days as they've been spent lying on a beach or on a bus!!

After we left Penang, we got the night-bus over to a small town on the east coast of Malaysia called Jerteh, from where we got a cab down to the port town of Kuala Besut.A 3 hour wait and a lot of ringgit later we found ourselves on a speedboat, headed for the Perinthian Islands.There are two islands that make up the Perinthians, Kecil and Besar ('small' and 'big' in Malay - original!).In actual fact they probably should have been named rich and poor since all the posh resorts are on one and all the shacks with no electricity on the other - naturally we were headed for the shacks!!!

A 30 minute boat ride later and we arrived at long beach and found a lovely 'shack' (actually more of a beach hut) on the hill overlooking the bay.Apart from the lack of electricity during the day (read LACK OF FAN/AC) it was great for us, and we spent the next two days lazing around on the beach eating lots of noodles and inevitably getting far too sunburned (again).

After a couple of very relaxed days on the beach we took the boat back to the mainland, (while getting onto which, Martin caused the death-by-drowning of my prized torch phone!) and we had a really great dinner of deep fried prawns and rice/noodles before boarding another overnight bus to KL.A couple of hours of looking for the right bus station in the very early hours in Kuala Lumpur and we caught another bus to Melaka on the south-west coast of Malaysia.We've only got a day here but it looks like there's lots to do so we'll be out sight-seeing with the rest of the Chinese tourists that seem in abundance here!! Off to Singapore in the morning for a couple of days then Borneo on Monday! Will keep you updated.

Love Katie and Martin