EmmaT

Ok, so this was the second to last stop of my travels and I was getting a bit sick of sight seeing, so I spent my 2 weeks in Bali mainly relaxing on the beach or at the pool, going out with friends, and learning to surf. I didn’t leave the resort town of Kuta for the whole 2 weeks. It was great. I staying in the town of Kuta which is on the west coast of Bali and is definitely one of the most popular/touristy places I have visited so far. There are lots of clubs and restaurants. including big names like the Hard Rock cafe. It was also completely packed with Australians as its so close to Oz. I stayed in a lovely hotel called Kedins. It was great location on the Poppies 1 ... read more

It was a good morning...a very good morning... the hotel not only had free breakfast..but they had baked beans on toast!!! Something I hadn't had for a very long time. It was a very nice start to the day...Unfortunately I then had to check out of the lovely hotel and move to the cheaper hostel. The hotel was included in the tour I was on, but now I was back to being on my own and the smaller budget. The hostel ( called the Fernloft) was lovely. Really cheap only £10 per night for shared/mixed dorm with locker. It also included hot showers and free toast..bonus. That evening I went with two German girls (from the tour) and 2 Americans (from the hostel ) to Raffles hotel to have a Singapore Sling cocktail. The Loft bar ... read more

I awoke at about 7am (after getting back at 5am) to go and queue (something brits do best) for a ticket to go up the Petronas towers. It was a free ticket but I had to queue for about 2 hours for it. They assign you to a time slot for your visit (we choose the last slot 6pm). There is only a limited amount of tickets assigned everyday. The shopping center below the towers was amazing. It was huge and contained lots of posh shops like Gucci, but also English shops like Topshop and Marks & Sparks. After queuing we went for breakfast, and I popped back to the hotel for a quick nap. I met all the girls later in the evening when we went up the towers. I then had an early night. ... read more

First we went up to the highest peak in the Cameron Highlands which was 6666feet high, but it was so misty we couldn’t see anything. On the way down we went for our “jungle trek” which was very short as it started to rain too much and the tour guide promptly guided us back to the jeep. We were then driven to the biggest tea processing factory and gift shop. The company is called Boh and owned most of the tea plantations in the area. I didn’t buy any tea here as it was actually cheaper at the local shop. Then we visited strawberry farm where we could pick our own strawberries. I ate so many while walking around I felt guilty and bought a box of there over-priced strawberries: the smallest box possible was still ... read more

Thursday 30th We took 2 mini-buses to Penang in Malaysia from Thailand, crossing the border at the UK governments un-recommended places to visit, but everything was fine and we didnt see any fighting. On the bus there the music was techno versions of all random songs including Mariah Carey, it was really funny. Penang is an island on the east coast of Malaysia and to get there you have to cross the longest bridge in Malaysia, it might as well have been called the longest traffic jam, it took us ages to cross. Once in Penang we stayed in a lovely old hotel (Cathey Hotel) which had wooden floors and really high ceilings. The pink and blue bathroom reminded me of my old bathroom before I replaced it. Cold showers again. In the evening we strolled ... read more