Shark Week!

After spending a few days sweating like crazy in the tropical rainforest, we figured it was time to head back to a beach. This time we ventured to the northeastern peak of Malaysia for the Perhentian Islands. The two major islands are Perhentian Besar (Big Perhentian) and Perhentian Kecil (Small Perhentian). We choose Kecil for the younger crowd and beach parties. With only a short jungle path linking the East and West beaches, there were no lack of places to soak up the sun as it crossed over the island everyday.

The only problem with enjoying beers on the beach in Malaysia is that they are not cheap. Being a muslim country, it's sometimes hard to even find beers at restaurants and quickie marts. Fourtantly, for all the islands visitors we had the famous Orangutan, aka Monkey Juice, on hand for cheap. A tasty bottle of vanilla rum for the same price as two beers. Just be careful, while this goes down easily with Coke, it packs a punch and before you know it your stumbling back to your place. (Not that I would know from experience.)

We loved this island so much that we ended up staying for a whole week, despite the fact that our place had the five most disgusting outside toilets and showers I have ever used in my life. While most days we just relaxed on the beach, we also went on a snorkle adventure where we saw a turtle, and a black tip reef shark. Although the highlight had to be when a school of fish was following me taking tiny bites all over my body to eat my peeling skin. Fish bites hurt! Our last night we were treated to a lovely lighting storm which lit up the entire night sky.