We arrived into Kuala Lumpur in the late evening and to our dismay found that it was lashing rain. Thankfully we were quickly poached by a local guest house and made our way past the gates to Chinatown and on to Wheeler's Hostel. A towel and a decent room awaited us ( not to mention a free dinner!) and, aside from the occasional mouse we shared our room with, things were good. The following day was a hectic one as we ventured out into the city and our first port of call was Chinatown. Roadside rice and chicken shops, "designer" bag [View Full Entry]

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Getting out of the jungle was nearly as difficult as getting into it and we spent the best part of a day (and more money than we would have liked!) but, eventually arrived in Tanah Rata in the heart of the Cameron Highlands. Tanah Rata is a small town situated on a long road of villages, markets and farms and has some gorgeous views of the surrounding hills and countryside. The Cameron Highlands is Malaysia's premier hill station destination and their premier tea producing region. In the days of British colonisation the English, missing their tea, decided to bring over a [View Full Entry]

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We left Kuala Terengganu a little apprehensive about the journey ahead of us and with good cause. Taman Negara is notoriously difficult to reach and for us it was no exception! Following a 7hr night bus journey from Terengganu to Kuala Lumpur, we loitered in the hotel lobby of the 5* Crowne Plaza Hotel (they were not pleased to see us!) and boarded a second bus after 3hrs that would take 3hrs. Having reached the small town of Kuala Tembeling we embarked on a 3hr boat journey in an uncomfortable wooden long boat and then- finally- having reached Kuala Tahan and [View Full Entry]

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From the Perhentian Islands we took a boat back to the mainland and from there we took a a very packed public bus to Kuala Terengganu. We didn't have much planned for our time there but I hoped that we would get to visit Kenyir lake- the largest man made lake in Asia. We checked into a mediocre hostel and enjoyed our first McDonald's in a long time! Malaysia is a predominantly Muslim country and this was more evident in Kuala Terengganu (and the journey there) than it had been on the islands. Pork was off the menus and the women [View Full Entry]

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Having decided to depart Thailand a day later than our visa technically allowed us to, we expected some hassle at the border. That didn't turn out to be an issue but the journey itself wasn't the best. We took a boat from Koh Phi Phi to the mainland and then caught a bus from Krabi to a town called Sungai Kolok on the Thai/Malay border. From there we walked into Malaysia (stopping briefly to pay our fine and get stamped in of course!) and took a taxi to the small town of Kuala Besut. The taxi turned out to take 90 [View Full Entry]

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Donna and Aisling were due to be arriving into Bangkok on the 15th of February, so we bid farewell to Cambodia and departed by bus for the infamous Khao San Road. This time around though we knew what to expect and where we'd be staying. The bus journey seemed particularly long because we were both excited and looking forward to seeing the others after all the time that had passed. We eventually arrived and booked into the cheapest dump we could find, about 500m from the K.S.R and headed out for that obligatory "Welcome to Thailand" bucket. As it turned out, [View Full Entry]

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We departed Kratie for another long bus journey through the arid and dusty landscape, broken only by a short rest stop where we got the opportunity to sample fried tarantulas. Yummy. Actually, they weren't all that bad really and seemed to have some kind of a delicious glaze on them.... Anyway, we arrived into Siem Reap just as the sun was setting and got to see the first of many stunning red sun sets across the jungle. With the help of a couple of touts we checked into a gorgeous guest house, with it's own lotus pond and frog chorus and, [View Full Entry]

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From Sihanoukville we travelled back to the capital and then from Phnom Pehn we took a mysterious bus journey in the direction if the Ratanakiri province. I say mysterious because according to the Lonely Planet this journey takes about 19hrs... best case scenario... but the bus company we were travelling with claimed we'd make it in 12hrs, no matter what. So as we sat there questioning to what lengths our bus driver would go to save us those 7hrs and observed that the Cambodian countryside was nothing like what we were expecting. The roads in Cambodia are notoriously bad and, although [View Full Entry]

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We boarded a bus bound for Sihanoukville and arrived a short 6hrs later. We discovered on route that the rest-stop food was considerably less palatable than we had experienced in other countries, after Dec got a bowl of something stir-fried with the unusable bits of a chicken. So on our arrival we headed to Serendipity Beach and hit the sand for some lunch and for a quick paddle. There are loads of free accomodation options in Sihanoukville, which we of course opted for. We got a very small (but completely free!) double in a beachside "resort" called the Frog Shack that [View Full Entry]

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Following a night of rest and relaxation, after our journey into Cambodia, we rented a tuk-tuk and we spent a couple of days sight-seeing around the capital city. This of course included the obligatory trip out to the Killing Fields and to the S-21 concentration camp. The Killing Fields (for anyone who hasn't seen the movie) were used as an execution centre during the three years the Khmer Rouge were in power in Cambodia. They consist of 129 mass graves where around 17,000 men, women and children were bludgeoned to death (to save precious bullets) between 1975-78. Today the site holds [View Full Entry]

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