June 8, 2004

This is it - our last full day on the Perhentians. Tomorrow we'll spend the afternoon packing up, and then we'll be going to bed early to catch the 8am boat back to the mainland on Thursday, to catch our flight back to Kuala Lumpur. We came here on the 27th May, looking for somewhere to have a rest and recharge our batteries, ready for our trip homewards after this coming weekend. We'd chosen it mainly based on our memories of the Perhentians from 11 years ago. Then the island was undeveloped, with just a few chalets dotted around, and few visitors. Now it is much busier, with big groups of Malaysians visiting for weekends and the school holidays , and more backpackers, drawn by the stories of good diving and snorkelling. Our first impression, when we arrived, was of a place that had been over-developed, with too much of the beachfront destroyed by unsympathetic development. But now we've been here longer we can appreciate it for what is good about it still - the jungle backing onto the chalets, the chalets looking straight onto a good beach, and low-level development. Although the first resort with a pool has just been finished, and there's a new 3-storey building going up, most of the resorts consist of wooden chalets and small restaurants. And it doesn't take a long walk to get a beach to yourself.

It may not be the same tropical paradise it was 11 years ago, but it is still a tropical paradise, and it will certainly seem like one in a week's time, when we're back in England, and wondering where all that traffic has come from! (And I still haven't had to put my shoes on all fortnight!)