Let us get one thing off our chest straight away, Perhentian Kecil has the worst value accommodation in our 3 years of travelling and the most expensive internet but conversely it had some of the best snorkelling we have done and some of the best beaches/cleanest water we have seen. Our flight from Hong Kong got us to Kuala Lumpur’s Cheap Charlie Terminal at around midnight and our flight to Kota Bharu was at 7:30am so we roughed it and spent the night at the airport. We didn’t really get much sleep as the only seats available (it seems everyone and [View Full Entry]

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A side note for those wondering about the blog title...as Sandakan is where we flew into, we just couldn’t resist a reference to the Clint Eastwood films from the ‘80’s featuring Clyde the Orang-utan...and yes it does show our age! So we were up and at ‘em at 5am so we could get another extortionate taxi to Kota Kinabalu airport...we decided on the 45 minute flight versus the 6 hour bus journey as it ended up being the same price. Well that and because we had heard the road was very winding so with Donna’s tendency to get travel sick we [View Full Entry]

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Our arrival into Borneo didn’t go exactly as we had planned...our flight was delayed because the incoming flight was late in arriving (yep, that’s usually how it works isn’t it?!) but we didn’t have to worry because we had booked into a hostel in Kota Kinabalu which offered an airport pick up...or so we thought! The airport pick up didn’t arrive though and after an hour of waiting and talking to a girl at the hostel with the quietest voice on the quietest telephone line ever and drawing a complete blank, we got a taxi into town. Our first observation about [View Full Entry]

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Our day started off well in Cebu city with our Maccie D’s breakfast and hot chocolate - we have thoroughly learnt our lesson about drinking coffee on travel days - it makes us need the toilet constantly!! It then turned a little bit hectic as we scrambled to find a taxi to take us to the airport who would actually turn on the metre and then when we were at the airport none of the cash machines were working for us to get a bit of ‘safety money’ out! After a mad dash and looking hot, bothered and slightly sweaty we [View Full Entry]

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This blog is rather late, seeing as we have been back in Asia for a month...but better late than never! So the time had come to switch to the other side of the UK to go to Neil’s parents in the North East which involved a nice drive over the Pennines and North Yorkshire moors; it also included a stop for lunch in a typically British country town, Kirkby Stephen. The thing that struck us the most about the drive was the diversity of the landscape - hills, mountains, fields and the unique hedgerows which don’t seem to make an appearance [View Full Entry]

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Our flights to the UK had been booked since November 2008, for our very brief visit to the UK to attend Neil’s big brother’s wedding (congratulations Darren and Vicki!). As we hadn’t been back to our home country for 2 years and 7 months we would undoubtedly find it a very interesting and possibly strange experience - so the next couple of blogs are about our experiences in the UK. Before heading to the UK we decided on some beach time in Malaysia and spent a fantastic 5 days lazing before our long flight back to the UK, the longest we [View Full Entry]

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It was that time of the year again - Donna’s birthday and she chose Sabang in Palawan as the place she would like to be to celebrate. So we got a flight to Puerto Princesa and decided to make it the same day to Sabang...problem is that the flights land at 9:30am and the jeepney doesn’t leave until 12noon (well sometime after, it depends on how the driver is feeling!) so cue Donna and Neil hanging around for a jeepney to leave for 3 hours! Our time in Sabang didn’t start so well with the jeepney ride as the jeepney helper [View Full Entry]

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Instead of taking a rip-off rickshaw we opted to walk to the bus station for our 2 hour local bus journey to Mamallapuram. After asking at 6 buses and kept getting pointed to the next one along we finally found the right bus and proceeded to settle into some seats. As it was a local bus there wasn’t any room for bags so Donna put her big rucksack on the seat next to her...big mistake! The conductor on a power trip (aren’t they all?) came up, gestured at the bag and said ‘what’s this?’ Controlling the urge to be sarcastic the [View Full Entry]

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We hopped on a local train for the short 40 minute journey to Thiruvananthapuram (better know as Trivandrum - and more easily pronounced) where our train to the state of Tamil Nadu would depart from. We were extremely lucky that we arrived at the opposite platform to where our train would depart from and we only had to wait another hour to board the train. Sitting on the platform, again Neil had a strange Indian guy talking to him - this time about the bible...that went down well and as soon as we could get on the train we scarpered! Again [View Full Entry]

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Excited to be travelling by bus again (ha!), Stacey and Ross and ourselves boarded the public non air-con bus to take us further south in Kerala to Varkala - well Kallum Ballam to be exact. The conductor was a little to eager to help us get off the bus and we ended up standing for the last 20 minutes of the journey. Of course there was the obligatory scrum to get into our seats...we really hate it when this happens, people don’t even give you a chance to get out of your seat and they are literally climbing on top of [View Full Entry]

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