Our next stop on our tour of Malaysia was a town called Melaka in South Malaysia on the West Coast. Throughout its years of existence it was taken over by the Portuguese, Dutch and the British. Because of its cultural legacy it achieved UNESCO World Heritage Status in July 2008. We took a bus from KL and within a matter of hours we were there in Chinatown looking for somewhere to stay. We stumbled upon The Voyage Guesthouse and for 35RM we had our first room in Malaysia with not only one but TWO massive windows looking out onto a lovely old Chinese style street, the room was by far the best we had had for a long time, although it was still shared facilities we were very impressed. We immediately dumped our stuff and headed ... read more

The Cameron Highlands is located amongst the peaks of Banjaran Titiwangsa on the west coast of Peninsula Malaysia. At 1,500m (5,000 ft) above sea level it is the highest area on the mainland, enjoys a cool climate, with temperatures no higher than 25 °C and rarely falls below 12°C year-round, hence why it was a popular retreat for the ruling British. The highlands were named after William Cameron, who was a surveyor for the British colonial government and was mapping the area; incidentally, he forgot to mark the highlands on the map - surely a somewhat embarrassing thing to have to admit! It wasn’t until 1920’s the location was confirmed, development as a hill station only occurred when Sir George Maxwell who held the post of Senior Civil Servant visited. The Indian tea planters, followed by ... read more

We wanted to give the West Coast of Thailand one last chance so we headed one hour south to Koh Lanta where we have been told by many many people and our guide book is THE place to see some amazing sunsets. We got there and got a free lift with a woman who was on our boat advertising her place, Lanta Sunny House, it was bungalows 50m from the beach for 500B, wishing it was cheaper but knowing we’d have trouble getting cheaper, we went with her. Our bungalow was to be fair nice and had a massive balcony which became very handy. We immediately headed out to see what the beach was like and to be honest weren’t overly impressed, with lush pictures still in our minds of Bottle Beach back on Koh Phangan. ... read more

Our next stop on our tour of the Thai islands was Ko Pha Ngan. We left Koh Tao on a rather overly full boat and 2 hours later were back on dry land. After much debate we got a tuk tuk to Chaloaklam for 150B each this is where we had to get longtail boat around a cove to our home for the night 5 nights - Haad Khuat (Bottle Beach). We booked our stay here months ago, after noticing how quickly accommodation was being snapped up in preparation for the New Years Full Moon Party. We were staying in Bottle Beach 2, the end resort and one out of only 4 quiet locally run resorts on the beach. Our beachfront bungalow cost 600B a night and was well worth it. The beach was amazing, possibly ... read more

After the worst journey ever from Kanchanaburi which consisted of 4 long stops, 3 buses, one reminiscent of the venga bus, one ferry and a tuk tuk we finally arrived at our next destination Koh Samui and the area known as Chaweng Beach. We were staying at Moonlight Budget Guesthouse for 1 night for 450B a night about 5 mins walk from the beach and 10 mins walk from the main drag. Even though we had been on the road for pretty much 24 hours we were eager to hit the beach. So we ventured down and were met by a 2 meter bit of sand between the resorts which line the beach and the sea, with no where to put our sarongs to sunbathe, the resorts have pretty much taken ownership of the beach at ... read more