Sharks, Eels, Rays, and the World's Smallest Chicken

I just got back from my week-long break from school and work and Penang. Asa, Andrew, William, Keith, Erin, and I all went to the East coast of Malaysia for a little over a week. We started on the island of Perhentian in the South China Sea. We took the overnight bus and then a ferry and reached the island early on Saturday (the 26th) morning. This place is gorgeous. There is literally nothing there except for beach, jungle, huts, hammocks and volleyball nets. No roads, no bikes, no cars...only soft white sand and clear water and sunshine. We stayed in small huts on the beach and ate in cafes on the beach. There were about 5 hotels on our stretch, each with their own restaurant that served fresh seafood and fresh squeezed juice and delicious shakes. We only had electricity dusk until dawn and no cell phone reception. So basically, it was a wonderful break from the ouside world, which seemed to cease to exist during our six day stay.

I spent a lot of Saturday in a hammock, reading and sleeping and enjoy my surroundings. We went snorkeling in the late afternoon and saw lots of fish and coral and a huge sea turtle. Sunday we started scuba diving class and continued through Wednesday. Erin, Asa and I had Steffan as our instructor. He is from Germany and has been living in Saudi Arabia where he says the diving is amazing. He was a great instructor and it was nice to have such a small group and lots of personal attention. The diving was great! We had 20 meter visibility and saw so much sea life: butterfly fish, angel fish of various colors, eels (I saw one swimming outside of its hole!), stingrays (big ones and small spotted ones), small bamboo sharks, squid, pufferfish (not puffed), boxfish (my favorite because they have corners!), Nemos, humpheads (those are huge), sea urchins, sea cucumbers, triggerfish (they are also big and have teeth and will attack and bite chunks of skin out if you get too close to their nests...scary), and many many others. There is so much life down there and it is so colorful. We went on a fun dive Thursday morning, as certified scuba divers, and had a video made. I will attempt to post it somewhere so you can all see. I LOVE diving and look forward to going more and more this year. I am certified to go to 18 meters!

We did our fun dive on Thursday morning, hiked around the island in the afternoon, had a goodbye dinner, and left Friday morning. We spent a bit of time in the little village by the jetty on the mainland and saw lots of goats and children climbing palm trees. Then we went to Kota Bharu which is the capital of the state of Kelantan, right on the Thai border. We spent the afternoon wandering around and went to the Thai festival which had Thai food and a giant market. In the evening we had dinner and went to the night market which was huge but not that exciting. Saturday morning we went to a bird singing competition and heard lots of birds sing. Then we went to another competition of the world's smallest and most beautiful chicken. It was hilarious. They had all these tiny tiny chickens there that were well groomed and judged on their tininess, beauty, and behavior. The competition was very serious. Two judges would sit at a table and a tiny chicken would be placed on it. The judges would watch this chicken for a minute and judge it. It was very hard for us to contain our laughter. Pictures will definitely be posted on kodakgallery soon!

Then we took a bus and went to a waterfall which was nice and relaxing. We left Saturday night on the overnight bus and got to Penang at 5am Sunday. Now I am back at work, but tan and refreshed, and looking forward to more scuba and travels.