Another epic journey, but at least this one went pretty smoothly, just 10 hours and we nearly died on several occasions with our MAD mini van driver, who overtook anything and everyone, even when there was a extra large and fast lorry coming the other way, even Stu was holding on! But we arrived up high in the mountains around 9pm, checked into our home stay, which was very basic but fine for a nights sleep, well i say a night, it was about 5hours. We had a VERY early wake up call 3.30am to leave for the volcano at 4am, [View Full Entry]

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We caught another train, the trains here are so easy and cheap to travel around. We had booked our hotel before leaving the last place, so they were there waiting for us. We didnt andventure far, just relaxed and booked a morning trip to Borobudur Temple, which is about an hour away by minivan. We had a wake up call around 4.30am, with toast and scrambled egg, not good at that time. We arrived at the temple as the sun was coming up, but it was quite cloudy but the temperature was lovely, so much cooler than if we had come [View Full Entry]

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We arrived in Jakarta around 8pm by Lion Air, the flight was good, we only wanted to stay here for a quick stop then leave the next day for Panandaran by the Sea. We caught the train (Posh class with aircon and a snack) for about 2pounds, took us 4hrs to get there and the views onthe way were lovely, really high up in the mountains, looking down on rice fields and villages. We caught a local bus the rest of the way and met a really nice local lady who owned a hotel called Komodo Island Hotel, so we agreed [View Full Entry]

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We took the high speed ferry from Penang across to Sumarta, it should of taken 4hrs but 6hrs later and lots of very ill people we arrived, the sea was really rocky, one minute you can see just the sky to one side of the boat then just the waves. We caught a mini van to the Capital City of Medan, now these mini vans are something else, they would be scrap in the UK, there is more filler than body work, most have spoilers onthe back, Bob Marley painted all over them and no doors. But we arrived eventually, again [View Full Entry]

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We left BL for Lake Toba, we caught a mini van and this should of seated 12 people including the driver but instead we had 16 people crammed in, it was so uncomfortable! we sat next to 2 young local girls, one spoke good english which was good for us later on, we had to stop at the top of the mountain(1982m) as there was a rock fall the road, it was cleared after a while and the bus driver went crazy down the windy roads, overtaking lorries, and the road wasnt that wide, i was glad when we got to [View Full Entry]

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We left Medan in the morning for BL for some jungle action, we caught a local bus, this bus was funny, again it should of been scrap but it got us there, we even had chickens on the bus. The heavens opened when we arrived, walked to our guesthouse(bungalows) called Garden Inn, and it was lovely, bunaglows made of wood, quite open around the edges (always makes me nervous)massive rooms with our own balcony overlooking the river and lush jungle. In the morning we see our first Oran-utan, 2 of them walking along the river to the feeding platform, it was [View Full Entry]

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It proved hard getting a bus ticket to Penang after the celebrations in KL, as they had a bank holiday, we asked several operaters on the street and all said the buses were fully booked, but we eventually found a desk in the sweaty bus station that had seats left for 0830 the next day. Took around 4hrs to get there, crossed over the 13km Penang bridge(longest in Asia), we arrived and it looked abit like Benidorm, huge high rises but once we drove in to the city called GeorgeTown it was quite nice, small Chinese Shop houses, Chinatown and Little [View Full Entry]

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We arrived in Melaka late afternoon from Singapore, we had left Dan in Singapore, as his heading to OZ that evening. Melaka is an old town, with lots of Chinese town houses, our first impressions were this place is strange and we plan to stay here 3nights, but after walking around and seeing the place we really enjoyed it. It had recently been awarded a World Heritage Site Award. Our first meal here was a Satay Fondue, a large tin was placed inthe centre of the table, over a heater and you choose your meats, fish and veg on sticks and [View Full Entry]

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We arrived in KL early afternoon and found our guesthouse, looked old and damp from the outside and it wasnt much better inthe room, as you will see by the pictures i took, but apart from that the location was excellant and the people that ran the place were nice. We visited Chinatown, Little India and the Colonial Quarters and lots of shopping malls to cool off. We went to the Petronas Towers, state owned Oil Company and has 88 floors(452m High) as a visitor you can only get to the Skybridge which is onthe 41st/42nd floor. The ticket system (800 [View Full Entry]

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We had a bit of a nightmare trip to Singapore... We left Taman Negara around 8am by boat, we caught a local bus to the train station, there were no seats in any class left for the next 2 days.... now this town there is nothing there, so we walked to the bus station and the only way to get to Singapore from here (Jerantut) is by bus to KL (Kuala Lumpar) which takes 3 hrs, then if there is an available bus to Singapore which takes approx 5hrs..... this was our only choice, so off we go, our 3hrs ends [View Full Entry]

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