An overnight bus got us from KL to the Perhentian Islands a few days ago. We pulled up to Long Beach in our water taxi early in the morning and wandered the beach looking for a hostel – we decided after KL, we’d just go with the flow and try not to book anything in advance, see where the wind blew us. So we ended up at the “Moonlight Chalet.” We checked out their cheap dorm rooms, but the dorm was just a room with a few cots, no electricity, and one guy laying entangled in a bug net, who quite possibly could have been dead… so instead we settled for a private room with a double bed. We still didn’t have electricity, but it was better to poop in the hole in the floor in the dark alone than with roommates.

We met an American couple at Moonlight – Steven and Brianna – who have been traveling for a while in Southeast Asia. On our first day we lounged on the beach all day, taking breaks from our naps to swim in the warm, crystal clear blue water. On our second day, we met up with Steven and Brianna to go snorkeling at five different snorkel spots – we swam with little sharks, giant sea turtles, heaps of Nemos, and jumped a few meters into the ocean from an abandoned light house. On our way back from the snorkeling trip, we had the best dinner of grilled red snapper (it still had its eyes, fins, and teeth), found our friend Jon from KL, and drank some orangutan rum by the bonfire on the beach.

Coral beach

A couple nights in the Perhentians was enough. There were beautiful beaches, but it was so quiet and tiny – I could stand at my hostel and literally see the entire island. So after two nights, we decided to cut our time in Malaysia a bit short. Yesterday we left the Perhentians with Steven and Brianna – a ferry, taxi, scooter, two 4 hour bus rides, and tuk tuk later… we found ourselves in Krabi Town. Welcome to Thailand!