Kuching Kris: We flew from Kota Kinabalu in Sabah on one side of Borneo (Sabah) to Kuching on the other (Sarawak) for a brief outing to sample a bit of Sarawak life. Although it's still Malaysia, Sarawak's effectively another country, on the other side of Brunei. Sarawak has a strange colonial history too. Basically a rich English bloke called James Brooke went adventuring one day in south east Asia (bit like me and Kate, right?). He met the Sultan of Brunei who persuaded him to help quash an uprising in Sarawak. In return he ended up being in charge of the place (the story is probably more complicated but I don't want anyone getting to bored). He became known as the White Rajah and ruled Sarawak as his own private kingdom. Cool eh? Most people just ... read more

Sleepless in Malaysia Kris: We left Singapore by bus on the 2nd of January and planned to head straight for Kuala Lumpur. This plan was scuppered however by there not being a bus until the evening when we got to the station. With this development we decided we'd head for Mallaca, stay the night and go to Kuala Lumpur (or KL if you're cool) the next day to catch our flight to Borneo. So, we had one night in Mallaca and one in KL (see? I'm cool). Can't really report much on them as we weren't in either place long enough to do more than a quick wander. All that was notable was the complete lack of sleep we had in either city. Both places we stayed had paper thin walls and we could hear everything ... read more

Kate On 22nd December we flew with Tiger Airways from tiny but very shiny Krabi airport to Singapore. We passed through immigration with no problems and were given a 30 day stay. This was lucky because we had read in some guidebooks that Singapore used to be very strict about who they let in, and had been known in the past to give blokes with long hair a short back and sides before coming in. There were also rumours of having "Suspected Hippy in Transit"' stamped in your passport. This was abit worrying for Kris as a Catholic priest at a recently family baptism picked him out of the congregation as a "latter day hippy''. So we were quite relieved when they let him into Singapore without labelling him a S.H.I.T. An unusal welcome to Singapore ... read more

Ko Lanta Kris Ko Lanta is a lot bigger than Ko JUm with lots of pricey resorts and family holidays. This also means it has electricity at night. Bonus. On our journey into port on the ferry we were immediately approached by someone asking if we'd like to stay at her seaside bungalows. We accepted and as soon as we left the boat we were crowded onto a pick-up truck for free transfer to Lanta Sunny House bungalows by Long Beach - so called becuase it's..well...long. And a beach. We installed ourselves in a bamboo hut at one end of the complex of variously priced bungalows. We chose the cheapest. The price seemed to depend on the size of the rooms and what your walls were made out of. Ours being titchy and largely wade of ... read more

Back to Bangkok on the Sleeper Train Kris: We caught the overnight train from Nong Khai to Bangkok in an air con sleeper carriage. AT first it was quite exciting. We had food served to our seats, then at 8ish the guard came down the train converting our seats into bunk beds. We'd booked two upper bunks opposite each other and ended up nestled in our beds reading while the whole train drew its own little personal curtains and went to sleep at 9. We closed our little bunk curtains at 11ish......and I basically lay there all night wide awake staring at the ceiling (only 3 foot above my face) and listening to the bloke opposite snoring. Great. Dunno if I like sleepers. Kate: I thought it was cool. It was really cosy and I slept ... read more