Sihanouk Ville is so great! It's covered in Copacabana-rivalling beaches and surrounded by awesome islands. The snorkeling wasn't up to much because of recent storms - and no whale sharks here unfortunately. But if this isn't paradise then what is? 25c beer, 'happy' pizza and shakes everywhere. Beautifully comfortable seats on the beach which you can sleep on all night for free; mid-30s heat with low humidity, huge gekos, and the friendliest of the friendlist people in the world. Laura made a new best friend of a little girl who sells fruits and makes bracelets on the beach, and we both ended up surrounded by children who forgot they were supposed to be selling us things and spent hours just playing. What an ideal place! Then the sickness came.... Doxycycline malaria tablets... possible side effects include ... read more

We came to the Philippines with a hot tip to see whale sharks off the tourist track. We were so excited. Then it started to rain, I got chatted up by a subtle prostitute, it rained some more, and then we looked at a weather forecast. Typhoon? Nothing will stop the weathered travellers! Except a typhoon. Especially one which will cover the whole of the Philippines for the duration of our visas. God damnit. Well, hours after booking flights out of here in two weeks time, we decided that there was just no point in being here at all. Everything is wet, every journey is a massive ordeal involving gut wrenching ferry rides, and the whole damn place can just GET OUT OF MY FACE. It's such a shame. We both love the Philippine people and ... read more

So as you all know we spent christmas in the jungle with some friends we met traveling. We took a few crates of beer, LOTS of bottles of Arak (Chinese brandy) and lots of nips (like peanut m&ms) and were set. We saw lots of monkeys, mainly probiscous although we did see an orang-utan which was amazing, although he was a sleepy teenager so didn't do much. We saw hornbills, and eagles and crocodiles too. But the one creature we saw the most of was the mosquito, which was not fun, we all left the jungle with an insane amount of bites and are still suffering today! Here are few of our faves pics from the jungle! ... read more

After visiting Kota Kinabulu and deciding not to climb the mountain but to save our pennies and go learn to dive we took the horrible night bus to Semporna. After arriving at 4am and wandering around town until we found a hostel with 24 hour reception we managed to book ourselves a little trip to Mabul island. We've just returned from a week with dear Uncle Chang on Mabul island. Mabul is famous for three things, Uncle Chang, the diving and the tanduay (see pics). We had an amazing time, met some amazing people and saw some amazing things, sharks, turtles and nemo to name but a few. Dom completed his open water diving course which means he can now dive anywhere but due to my ears I just snorkled, (I say 'just' but the snorkeling ... read more

So we reached the coast at last! We got to Penang after a drive down from the Cameron Highlands, and the heat hit us! We are definatly not in the highlands anymore! We're staying in Georgetown, the main town on the island, in the mandatory china town. We checked into a hotel called the 'the blue diamond' which was 30RM a night for a double room with a shower! The loos may have been minging but they had a bar and served mexican food so who cares! The hostel also has live music, as it was a Friday night when we arrived we enjoyed this, and Saturday night we enjoyed it too. It seems that the hostel has live music until 1am every night, which booms into every room and causes children to cry. We checked ... read more