We were rudely woken up at 6 am by our alarm clock (what's one of them!??) and it felt really strange getting out of bed early! Our cyclo driver who was waiting outside had a tough 2km ride to get us to the train station in time and he didn't make the best start by taking us to the BUS station instead of the TRAIN station, still we made it. We decided to try our first Executive train which was by far the best standard of transport to date in Indonesia. Big comfy reclining seats, tinted windows, air con, free snacks [View Full Entry]

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Another fun train to Java's second largest city and we have more train stories to tell!... As well as all the usual stuff going on we have to add a few updates to our train experiences. Between all of the madness (which included more trannies with musical instruments) a guy with no shoes and dressed in rags drifted down the carriage like an angel with... air freshener!! This man cannot afford clothes .. but owns a full size 1000ml top of the range super smelling freshener..and as we passes he applies a little pressure and just for a few seconds the [View Full Entry]

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Just before I start writing this blog I thought I'd tell you what we are doing RIGHT THIS MOMENT!!!... Well I'm (Lee) sat on the bed listening to Three little birds by Bob Marley, obviously writing the blog... Michelle is washing underwear and hanging it out in the sun to dry as we have just found out there are no laundry's here and ... basically we have no pants. Anyway.. our trip from Cisarua to Bandung took three hours and we chartered our first inter city bus which was very entertaining! At one point there was more 'non passengers' than passengers. [View Full Entry]

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Bogor's main attraction is the botanical gardens and it's a big draw for locals as well as westerners. The packed train certainly suggested that it would be busy. Scores of families lined up along the platform and when the train arrived everyone jumped on. This was our first taste of Indonesian trains and the only ticket we could buy was economy. Trains come in three classes EKONOMI = no seat numbers sit where you want, cockroaches under your feet, strong smell of sweat, filthy rotten seats. BUSINESS = seat number allocated - guaranteed seat, cockroaches, strong smell of sweat, filthy rotte [View Full Entry]

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Jakarta - Sounds cool but is a hole. We didn't have the nicest introduction to Asia's poorest country. Indonesia has its fair share of bad press lets face it. Governments post information on travel websites and deter would be travellers from coming here. However Indonesia has the 4th largest population in the world along with 3 different time zones so its pretty big.. and to put it all into perspective chances of something happening are slim! ;-) After a quick check on the UK's government website to see if the places on our list were safe we were relieved to see [View Full Entry]

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Upon arrival at Singapore's immigration we were diverted into a 'special screening' tent. The effects of the Swine flu are really spreading worldwide and as newcomers to Singapore we were scanned with thermal imaging to see if we had been infected!! However once we were cleared 'virus free' up next was the drug trafficking check. Michelle breezed through without any questions but Lee was put through the mill. 'What are you're plans in Singapore' hmmmm tough question... tourism? once the official finished his questioning we were cleared and then onto the bag scanning zone!!!... apparently y [View Full Entry]

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Our bus from KL to Melaka was strangely an all male, all Indian bus .. so when we boarded Michelle took the usual 'white woman stares' in her stride. Malaysia has great transport links and the travelling along the English looking highway only took 2 hours. Another local bus dropped us at the pornographic sounding 'Red Dutch Square'. Melaka is a world heritage/UNESCO site and is very much like Hoi An in Vietnam (for those who have not been - its old, colonial and well kept). Our guesthouse was called 'River view' which was ... well on the river with a [View Full Entry]

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'mmmmnnnmmmmdumdumdum' the guy sitting next to us had his hands together and head bowed. Tears streamed down his face and people around us took deep breathes. Another bump and the light came on to belt up. The staff looked worried when another bout of turbulence rocked the plane from side to side. Imagine if the engine bucks and we go down? the oxygen masks would drop down but that would not save us? at 22,000 feet and heading for the ground at 400mph surely no one would survive??... Luckily for us it was just extremely rough turbulence. The god the guy [View Full Entry]

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Suddenly our surroundings changed. One minute we were sat waiting for the mini bus to pick us up, surrounded by mountains, forest and a cool morning mist... the next being thrown out of our seats by the 2 metre waves on a speedboat to a desert island. The speedboat from Kuala besut to Kuala besar took us an hour and the guys in the port initially decided that due to the storms (it was peeing it down) there would be no more boats for the rest of the day. After waiting around for an hour we were on our way. The [View Full Entry]

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Taking a local bus to the Cameron highlands was probably not our best choice!!... after 4 hours of travelling and arriving halfway in Ipoh we were knackered and decided to bed down for the night. A quick look in the guide book and we headed across town towards one of the very few choices of hotels. The place was a dump, so we looked at another... which was even worse... the rat traps on the landing was the final straw and we headed back to the bus station to carry on our journey. The walk back across town to another bus [View Full Entry]

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