Redang!

Back and missing the sun, sand and sea sorely. The resort (Berjaya Beach) was a bit too resort-ish though, not really the demographic I was hoping for*, with ridiculously overpriced food (there aren't many options outside of the resort either). The accomodation itself was well worth it (imagine a maze of rustic wooden double-storey houses amidst gorgeous lush greenery that positively glow during the day's "golden hours"), and I'm a bit miffed about not having booked into the ocean-front rooms instead because the view must be breathtaking. The service staff are a bit slow but very friendly, and the resident spa was fantastic.

But the most important bit, the sea. The waters around Redang are plain amazing, the diving spectacular - at one point a black-tip reef shark approached the group and followed the guide for a short distance before disappearing into the blue/green. Incredible range of fish, nudibranches and corals, including these strange "caterpillar"-like creatures on some of the corals with transparent bodies and fluorescent yellow insides. Not many rays, although the bizarre devil-fish more than make up for it. Caveat lector: tonnes of jellyfish around the two best dive sites, preventing us from going in (well actually we did, got summarily stung and so we decided to abort the dive). The dive guide says that it's really unpredictable when they appear, so it's best to go for a long-ish diving trip to make sure you get to cover all the sites.

Gotta go back, but will probably base in the Perhentians where it's more backpacker-style. Wish diving wasn't so bloody expensive.

Oh and while Berjaya Air is really quite a fast and convenient no-frills service, note that they use the DeHavilland Dash 7 turboprops for which production ceased in 1988, i.e. they're at least 20 years old as of 2008. And the ones I was on didn't look too well maintained. Plus the windows have no covers, so if you brown easily like me, be prepared for an uneven tan. So it's quite a leap of faith getting on one of those. But since they cruise at a maximum of 17,000 feet, the view is awesome and may be well worth the risk.

(Yeah, didn't take too many photos.)

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* There were a lot of noisy and uncivilised packs of people from The Pore, but the resort is big enough to offer several ways of getting away from them. Aside from that, loads of young European couples on romantic summer getaways, and young expat families from the region. Solo travellers are definitely a minority, although that seems to make the service staff want to go out of their way to make sure you're doing fine. Which is rather nice.