PULAU PERHENTIAN KECIL, MALAYSIA

Chris and I hadn't worked out all the details of how we would get to the Perhentian Islands today, but it turned out to be a lot easier than I had anticipated: After taking an early morning flight from KL to Kota Bharu, we were waiting at baggage claim when we met a really nice French guy named Matthew, who as it turns out was going to the Perhentians for the weekend with his girlfriend. They had already arranged for a taxi to Kuala Besut (where the boats to the islands leave from, about an hour away), and a boat to the Perhentians, so Chris and I just shared the ride with them and took the same boat, which worked out great for everyone! They got off at the "big island," Perhentian Besar, while we were dropped off at Long Beach, on the "small island" just across from it, Perhentian Kecil. I had expected to be traveling for most of the day, but less than three hours after leaving KL, we found ourselves on a tropical island, on a beautiful crescent of white sand, surrounded by aquamarine water. Nice.

Our next mission was to find accomodation, which we weren't able to arrange before we left. There are about a dozen combination restaurants/bars/dive shops/bungalows strung out along Long Beach, but many of them were full because of the local school holidays. After asking around for a bit, we finally found a place to stay at Panorama Chalets (for "chalet" read: shack). After checking in, we then walked to Spice Divers, recommended by one of the dive shop guys on Gili Trawangan, about doing some diving while we're here. Of course we somehow found ourselves signed up to do a dive trip with them tomorrow morning....

Since we still had a good bit of the afternoon left, Chris and I did some snorkeling off the south end of the beach, a rocky point with a some patches of coral growing on the boulders. The visibility wasn't that great, and there weren't too many fish, but I did see a barracuda, a big porcupine fish, and a blacktip reef shark.

People met today:

• Matthew from France, who's been working in Kuala Lumpur for three months (he recently signed a two-year contract with his company). He and his girlfriend have been getting out of the city whenever they can and taking weekend trips to various places in Asia.
• Ben, who's not actually a person, but Long Beach's "pet" sea eagle. Apparently he can't fly, so he just hops around on the sand and perches on tables and chairs at one of the seaside restaurants. He looks pretty healthy, so I guess people feed him, although I haven't actually seen that. Anyway, every day he's on the beach all day and all night, all alone, looking dignified but perhaps a little lonely. Poor guy.