5 May

We spent the morning either in the sea or tanning outside it. Strange thing in Thailand and Malaysia we found that one could lie in the sun for large parts of the day without burning, nothing like back home. Later we took the scooter for a spin around the island. It's much larger than we thought and exploring it with the motorcycle really added to the island experience. Driving around we stopped at the famous Chaweng beach. It's really a beautiful beach with long white stretches of sand, umbrellas for hire and resorts nestled in between palm trees. Nothing however when compared to the Perhentians.

We stopped at Lamai beach, the second most popular, eating our breakfast of dried banana's and yogurt's while sitting on the beach under the shade of a palm tree…heavenly. From here we walked through the stalls and then stopped at a Tesco's, which was huge almost like our hypermarket. Inside we wandered around and both bought some cheap clothing and food.

Returning to the resort we wandered down the beach with a Singha which we shared. Sitting down on a deserted stretch we watched as fire lanterns were sent into the air, some sort of flare, but it slowly ascends and stays burning for the longest of time before disappearing. The rest of the evening was spent on our porch listening to the waves crashing while we ate litchi's - the fresh fruit in Thailand are great!