They've Certified Us

I have to admit that the Perhentian Islands are hot, for many days found it completely impossible to do anything except sleep, sit on our porch and read, then eat at night. Sunbathing has not even been an option, I'm not a human crab stick like Ed and I can barely sit out in it. Don't get me wrong, this isn't a complaint, we've had a fantastic time here, for the first time since leaving work we've truly chilled out, relaxed and enjoyed being beach bums. However, the time of doing nothing had to come to an end and finally after talking about it so much we started our PADI open water course. Now Ed is one of life's natural born worriers, he literally screamed when a kitten walked past him the other night, so to do a course which involves breathing under water to depths of 18metres and add into the equation snakes, trigger fish (mean bastards with iron jaws), sting rays and sharks took some guts - and he certainly has one! I was absolutely shitting myself as well when we started out but I have to say that it is one of the best things we have ever done. The course is a mixture of skill based work - swapping breathing apparatus under water, flooding our masks etc - and actual diving. We've now done 4 water dives and have seen phenomenal things from turtles to stingrays - nemo's to puffer fish. In order to get our qualification we also had to take a written theory exam, of course this turned into a serious competition between the two of us. It pains me to the core to type this but with a very respectable result of 94% I was beaten by 2% by the smug twat sat next to me. I haven't heard the last of it since the exam and if I see that smirk one more time. Actually if you add all the mock test results up I would win but I'm not sinking to the childish level...... Anyway in three days we became fully qualified open water divers, given our card by our aptly named teacher Paddy. See below for some photos of our dive experience.

So apart from scuba diving we were also in Malaysia for the 50th anniversary of independence, when Britain handed the country back. Being a Muslim country not many Malays were drinking so we felt it was only respectful to drink for them. So we sat back with a chang beer (big mistake) and watched as people threw cups of petrol on a bonfire and fireworks were set off that didn't all quite make it in a skyward direction - health and safety was definitely not top of the list. Wayward fireworks always seem to act as a method of introduction, people suddenly feel the need to share their personal firework horror stories, such as one guy telling us his teacher was killed when a firework blew up in his face! We met many nice people that night and ended up, in the early hours, sat round the smoldering remains of a bonfire, pretending to be alpha males and hitting the charred logs with a spade to make them glow more. How the girls were impressed.

So that is it for the Perhentian Islands, we leave tomorrow for the Cameron Highlands - a place renowned for its vegetation and tea plantations - as a non tea drinker I simply cannot wait.