The Perhentian Islands are a tropical paradise situated off the north-east coast of Malaysia. I headed there on my own for a week of sunshine and swimming. There are two main islands: Perhentian Kecil and Perhentian Besar. I had read that Kecil was popular with backpackers whereas Besar was aimed at couples and families. As I am travelling solo, I decided to get the boat to Kecil. My speed boat left the mainland at 7 am, so during the journey I could watch the sun rise over the islands.

The islands are tiny, with limited accommodation. In peak season, people run from the boats to the hostels in order to secure themselves somewhere to stay for the night. If you don’t get there first, you may well be disapponted. Luckily this is now the end of the season so there were plenty of beds to go around, but you still can’t book in advance. I wondered along the beach in the early morning and looked at a few places before deciding that the Tropicana Inn was by far the best value for money. Not only did they offer free wi-fi, but they also had electricity for 24 hours a day – a rarity here where most places only use their generator for 4 hours per day. Tropicana is at the top of the hill between Long Beach and Coral bay, meaning the two main beaches were a couple of minutes in either direction. The island is overrun with monitor lizards, which liked to sunbathe outside our room in the mornings.

I was given a bed in an 8 person dorm, but there was only me and a Polish couple in it. The three of us spent the rest of the afternoon on the beach and swimming in the turquiose water. They got incredibly sunburnt and were out of action for the next day!

On the second day I signed up for a snorkelling trip to see sharks, turtles and fish. It was amazing!! By the time I got back there was a German girl, Tessa in my room and the couple had left. For the rest of the week Tessa and I stayed in the room, and were joined by Steffi and Flo (also German). Next to us were Andy (German), Freddie (Korean) and Marcus (Scottish).

Over the rest of the week we all hung out and had an amazing time. We all snorkelled again and this time as well as seeing turtles, we saw a lot of black tipped reef sharks. There were thousands of fish and beautiful coral in each place we swam. Our boat driver was a 16 year old boy who was up for partying, and he tried to convince us to jump off the top of the lighthouse into the sea. I went up to the first platform and jumped in, whilst Marcus headed ridiculously high up to the top.

We all spent the week eating delicious dinners in the restaurants on the beach. For £3 they had a barbecue with fish of your choice, rice, salad, potato, cake and fruit. My favourite was the lobster! After dinner we spent time at the beach bars. We discovered that Andy really, really wants a pet jellyfish, Freddie likes to eat sea cucumbers and Marcus went to school with a lot of my friends from home.

On the final day, Tessa and I decided to learn to scuba dive. We started at the beach with just a bit of water over our head, while we learnt to breathe and found out some of the safety aspects, like what to do if you run out of air. For the first couple of minutes it felt really strange, almost like I couldn’t get enough air, but after that I loved it. When the instructor decided we were ready we then headed out to the open water. We dived for around half an hour, and got to 10.5 m, where the water temperature was 29 degrees! We saw lots of fish and there were also hundreds of (non-stinging) jelly fish. They were beautiful, and looked like suspended lights everywhere we looked. Apparently Tessa and I still subconciously swim around them, even though they don’t hurt, much to the instructors amusement. If any of you are thinking of learning to dive then this island is one of the cheapest places to do it, the water is as warm as a bath and the fish are beautiful. I can’t reccomend Ombak Divers enough. The only problem I had with diving is that I wanted to smile all of the time, but every time you smile water gets into your mask. Apparently diving is much better suited to the grumpy people!!!

In the afternoon, Tessa and I joined Andy and Flo on a hike round the island to some of the quieter beaches. We spent most of the time in the sea and had a few jellyfish fights! We tried to find a baby one for Andy to take home, but I’m not sure the aeroplanes allow that. While we were discussing ridiculous pets, a man walked along the beach with his pet weasel – the timing could not have been more perfect.

All too soon it was time to go back to the hostel and pack, ready to leave the island the following morning.

The next morning I was sad to go, and could have happily stayed for much longer. However the next adventure was waiting. When I got to the mainland my phone was full of panicked messages and emails. A few days before, the internet and phones on the island had broken so I hadn’t been in contact with anyone. I was happily swimming in the sea, whilst everyone else thought I had disappeared or been abducted. Once I reassured people I was OK, I got on the bus to the Cameron Highlands. Oops!