Perhentian Islands, Paradise

11 July 2010

The Perhentian Islands are as advertised. The white sand beaches, turquoise water, verdant forests, and diverse marine life provide a relaxed and stimulating atmosphere. We have spent the last few days here exploring offshore coral reefs, learning to scuba dive, walking along the beach, searching out the monitor lizard that frequents the area near our beach hut, and shooing geckos out of our bed. Enough said.

Despite this rigorous schedule, we find the time to eat delicious and spicy Malaysian food and read on the beach. We are staying at Mama’s Chalet’s on Perhentian Besar, home to the worst bathrooms but a large selection of excellent Malay dishes that we are slowing working our way though as this week ebbs on. The most notable dish to date was a mango curry that Nick ate for dinner on Saturday night. This dish was the perfect combination of sweet, spicy, and savory. It would have been plate licking material, if that type of behavior was culturally acceptable.

While we are not eating or disagreeing about which day of the week it is (somehow we have already managed to lose track of time), we are learning to scuba dive. This is a very rewarding process that is difficult and amazing at the same time. We spent about four hours today learning to control our movement while submerged and breathing bottled air. I really enjoyed sitting on the bottom of the ocean and found it very relaxing. However, it made Nick a little uneasy, being a land animal who prefers alpine air to compressed air. We have spent the majority of the time so far learning safety skills and procedures, which our instructor insists that he has never used in all of his years as a diver. Tomorrow, we will make our first “real” dive and hope to have some exciting sightings to report. However, judging from the off shore snorkeling so far, this should be no problem. In addition to reef fish (we found Nemo), we have seen black tipped reef sharks (harmless but about 3 feet long), sting rays, squid, and lots of coral.

We have four more days here before we move on to Taman Negara National Park for some jungle action. By then our blood pressure should be dangerously low.