The next morning I rushed hot-foot (and hot everything else, it was that warm) to the bus station, arriving just in time to wait another hour for the late departure of my bus to Kota Bharu. Still, every cloud has a silver lining and this delay gave me the chance to get to know two other frustrated passengers, Neil & Marianne from England. They have been travelling for over a year and ironically enough Neil was also made redundant from Powergen - although we worked in different areas of that vast socioeconomic megalith of a company and so our paths had never crossed.

The ride to Kota Bharu (once it got underway) was splendid: we crossed Southeast Asia's longest bridge linking Penang to the mainland and then made our way through some spectacular mountain scenery, complete with steep winding roads that made our bus wheeze and shudder. But for the most part I was asleep; I reckon they must have put something in the aircon because I wasn't the only comatose passenger.

Kota Bharu is the main gateway for travel to the Perhentian islands, but in itself it isn't much to look at. I hooked up with Neil & Marianne to find some accommodation, and we ended up in a chilled-out traveller hostel, the main selling point of which was that it serves beer, a rarity on this side of the Malaysian peninsula - not that it made any difference to me, of course, still being on my dry month.

The next day we took a taxi to a port a few hours south, and thence a boat to Perhentian Kecil, the smaller of the two islands. What can I say? 'Tropical paradise' just about covers it: the ocean was achingly turquoise, and the sand was that shade of yellow that always puts me in mind of the stone-ground flour on the underside of a freshly-baked quality pizza. The waving palm trees and the other lush vegetation provided a soothing backdrop to the wooden huts and chalets we stayed in. The blistering heat was only slightly tempered by the frothing waves, because after midday the sea was hotter than some outdoor jacuzzis I have known.

Once on the island and installed in accommodation, I made a beeline for the dive shop that had been recommended to me a few weeks before. It was good to be back in the water, and there were plenty of beasties to swim with too! The visibility wasn't great; like Koh Pha Ngan, the waters around the Perhentians are affected by the waxing and waning of the moon and we were fast approaching full moon. But I had a lot of fun, saw some new stuff (bamboo sharks) and met some interesting people.

In the evening Neil & Marianne had the pleasure of introducing me to a Dutch couple they had met previously in Australia and who they happened to see in our restaurant. Rolof & Susanne have been travelling for quite a while, and they are both lovely. They took our banter and returned it with aplomb; one of Rolof's winning catchphrases in the face of our Englishness was "If it ain't Dutch, it ain't much". A few minutes later I had the pleasure of introducing Neil, Marianne, Rolof & Susanne to Nathan & Jo, who were sat at the next table!

The seven of us got into the island spirit (should that be spirits?) in a big way that night, as I had the great pleasure of reintroducing myself to alcohol after fully 31 days of abstemiousness. In this I was aided & abetted by the beachside bar we were in, which conveniently cleared away most of its tables and gave everyone room to boogie at around midnight, and the ready availability of "vodka" blended most handsomely with diet coke.

The passing of time became an abstract notion over the following days. All that remains in my memory is a blur of sweltering heat, relaxed company, a procession of wildlife through my room (geckos, squirrels, salamanders, monitor lizards), delicious meals, and thumping beats (from the music at night and from inside my head the morning after). The food highlight for me had to be the barbied barracuda with satay sauce. The music highlight was without doubt the local DJ who in the middle of Michael Jackson's 'Black Or White' shouted over the mic "Brown is better!"

Inevitably, the time came to leave this idyll. And I hadn't even got over to the other island yet! Oh well, perhaps next time. If I do come again, it'll have to be soon, because the sense of Paradise Almost Lost was inescapable. Although only recently blessed with 24-hour electricity and a mobile phone mast, I am sure it won't be long before there are roads, satellite dishes, high-rise hotels and hordes of package tourists. And the unbelievably good prices for diving (I thought Thailand was good value, but Malaysia is insane!) will skyrocket over the next couple of seasons. So get there quick!

The journey back to Kota Bharu was uneventful, if you ignore my nearly being drowned and all my stuff sunk in the speedboat from the beach out to the big boat. Neil, Marianne & I went back to Ideal Traveller Hotel, and Nathan & Jo stayed elsewhere. We met up for a beer in the evening to bid farewell to Neil & Marianne (next stop for them was Thailand) and booked a taxi to take us to the railway station at some god-awful hour of the following morning.

Georgetown is simply delightful. For some reason, I feel comfortable here. Perhaps it's the architecture in the centre of town (which is British-Colonial for the most part) and the fact that it's all on a human scale - you know, hardly any high-rise buildings, just two-storey terraces and villas. Perhaps it's the weather: hot hot hot but with refreshing thunderstorms in the evening to clear the air.

Perhaps it's the food: I have been making the most of the large south Indian community here by sampling several dosa places and generally eating tasty curry off banana leaves with my fingers (thanks Frankie for that quick lesson you gave me a few months ago on how they eat in Sri Lanka!); and the Chinese community here has also many culinary delights to offer (I'm thinking dim sum and loads of rice dishes).

It has been lovely to meet up with Jo & Nathan (and Jo's dad) here too. For me it's always good not only to experience something nice, but also to be able to share it with someone there and then. No doubt some of you will be put in mind of my incessant chattering in cinemas - but I'm trying to shut up more these days, honest!

The most delightful thing I've seen in Georgetown is the mansion of Cheong Fat Tze, a marvel of fin-de-siecle Colonial style blended perfectly with traditional Chinese feng-shui-focussed techniques. And the best thing about the tour was the tour itself: rarely if ever have I had such an entertaining and knowledgeable guide as the little Penang-Chinese woman who showed us round! She combined cheesy humour with encyclopaedic knowledge and delivered both in that wonderful sing-song Malaysian English accent that puts the stress not on the last word but on the last syllable of the last word: simply exquisite.

The other sights and sounds of Georgetown are many and varied: there are mosques, churches, spice markets, hindu temples, buddhist temples, hordes of schoolkids, museums, a fort, coffee houses, parks, splendid mansions, street vendors, taxi drivers, minibuses, hotels, building sites, trishaw riders, sewers gurgling, fans whirring, the prismatic cascade of energies given off unconsciously by humans going about their daily business. Maybe I've been on a beach too long!

I had a fantastic blind massage here too. It was strangely completely different from the blind massage in Chiang Mai for four reasons: 1) I was rubbed down with aromatic oil; 2) it was a guy doing the rubbing; 3) I was butt naked; and 4) he spoke excellent English. So, after the initial "this is very weird, I'm lying in the nude in front of some bloke" moment, we had a good old chat about massage, being blind in Malaysia, and where it hurt most (he spent some time reorganising the tendons behind my knees, which took some hours to get less tender, but I hope that means it was for the better). All for just 30 ringgit for an hour!

My last evening in Georgetown was dedicated to things Indian: roti chanai bread and curry for dinner; an evening stroll past mosques and hindu temples; and then truly the worst ever Bollywood movie for after-dinner entertainment (I mean, there were only four dance numbers in the whole 3 hour film!).