Sea creatures

Other than the cool sea breeze, golden sands, coconut trees and secluded beaches the islands off the east coat of peninsula Malaysia are famous for diving. The water is so clear that if feels like you are swimming in a fresh water pool.

Because of this, I have spent most of today face down in the water wearing a mask and swimming with the fish.

Because of this, I now look like a half burnt slice of toast with my back half being red and my front half looking like it belongs to an albino.

When I saw my first shark it was quite exciting, till I realized that it was really small and really close to me, rather than really big and really far away. I have been surrounded by thousands of multicoloured fish and swam above huge coral reefs watching the weird fish filled city below. The best part was getting to swim with turtles, they sit and eat at the bottom of the water and you wait above for them to come up for air, when they begin to surface you can dive down and then slowly swim side by side till they reach the surface. They are pretty big creatures and it was amazing to swim with them so close. We had a briefing before we went to swim with them and it consisted of this "Do not ride the turtles, they do not like it", it was stating the obvious, but still some idiots in my group looked a little let down that they would not get to manhandle a giant sea creature.

Two nights ago I had a confirmed sighting of a large rodent in our cabin. It shot past me and scrambled under the door, I made the decision not to tell anyone else about the sighting because there was nothing we could do about it. This was a good plan till last night it decided to pop round for another visit and everyone saw it make a mad dash across our bags and out of the door. Jen said she kept thinking about it throughout the night, I had a dream that it crawled into my mouth.

We made some new friends who came with us for this part of the journey but they have now gone onwards on their own adventures. Krisitine has gone back to Hong Kong and the Irish Pharmacist has gone to go hiking in the jungles. We will likely adopt some new people on the next leg of our trip though, it seems to be a habit!

We are having an amazing time here in our little hut so decided to stay here for a couple of extra days. I am currently sitting in the beachside cafe looking out to sea. Jen has just gone on a diving trip and today I am going to swim and read and then do some sunbathing (just the front half though).

I have updated the map showing the next leg of our journey, we have made the decision to fly back to Kuala Lumpur and then up to Chang Mai in Thailand. We are doing this because we have decided to leave South Thailand till the end of the trip as we need to return there for our flights back to Hong Kong anyway. We also have heard amazing things about Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam so want to start that part as soon as possible.

Pictures are really hard to upload here but will try to add some when I return to mainland Malaysia. The resort we are staying at has a pet monkey that they rescued as a baby. It launched itself onto my shoulders and scared the hell out of me, which explains the photo below.

bx