For the first time, since starting to blog our travelling experiences, weve encountered a dilemma. Should we a) Say that the Pulau Kapas was just alright, nothing out of the ordinary and not somewhere that we would highly recommend or should we b) Not say anything or c) Tell the truth. The reason for opting for either of the first two scenarios would mean that we would not be contributing to the relatively little amount of web material that exists and so in a small way doing our bit to ensure that the Pulau Kapas would remain relatively untouched by mass [View Full Entry]

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We took the short bus journey from Melaka into the bright lights and skyscrapers of KL. We had prebooked our hostel based on a reccommendation from Dawn and Alli. The hostel was called 'Back Home' and was convientially located on the outskirts of Little India and in close proximity to all major attractions. The hostel was only a short walk from the bus station but we still managed to indulge in a McDonalds McValue Lunch before we made the trip. Arriving in new places can be somewhat overwhelming at times as we have no idea where we are, however we have [View Full Entry]

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Malaka, our first stop in Malaysia only a short bus trip from Sinapore, is a town with a lot of charm. We stayed in Chinatown, an area quite cental that is oozing with character. We arrived on a Friday evening just in time to see Chinatown's weekend night market spring into life. The whole of Chinatown is overtakien by street vendors selling tasty treats and clothes - some of which we recalled seeing in Urban Outfitters back home. Each night over the weekend we headed back to the market to gorge on the local delights and witness the audably challanging karakoee [View Full Entry]

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Our flight arrived in late at night and as the airport shuttle took us towards our guest house in Chinatown we were admiring the city lights and the calmness of the place; excited about exploring the next day. As with Hong Kong we only had a limited amount of time in Singapore. Our hostel was ideally located within Chinatown; a hub of activity, with food stalls, souviner shops and traditional Chinese pharmacies. We headed into Chinatown and the smells from all the eateries insantly made us hungry. We selected an organic vegetarian restaurant and tucked into an amazing meal of fresh [View Full Entry]

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After crossing the Chinese border into Hong Kong we entered a more western, diluted version of China. I think the first realisation that we were no longer in China came when we were crossing the road; people pressed the buttons at traffic lights, waited patiently at them and then when the light turned red the cars they actually stopped and people crossed the road on cue from the 'green man'. The calmness and orderly fashion was a bit of a culture shock for us, as we had become so accustomed to sprinting through moving traffic and had gained the understanding in [View Full Entry]

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On the hard sleeper train to Xiamen we met an extremely friendly Chinese student called Jing Jing. Jing Jing was returning home from Hangzhou after visiting here brother. Even before the train had set off Jing Jing had greeted us and immediately offered us a vacum packed chicken's foot with an oreo biscuit to wash it down. Up until this point we were more than aware of the ready to eat delicacies that were to be found in Chinese mini markets and although we were keen to try new things we hadn't been particularly forthcoming in trying chicken's feet. The particular [View Full Entry]

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We were elated at the thought of leaving the scorching tempertaures of Suzhou but a little dissapointed that, as a result of the heat, we couldn't fully appreciate all that it had to offer. Hangzhou was a three hour train ride from Suzhou. The journey took us through the metropolis of Shanghai but we'd decided on this occasion to give Shanghai a miss. We were pretty tight for time and having been city hopping for the past six weeks, the thought of going to another larger, brighter and more bustling city didn't seem to appealing. Shanghai is hosting the World Expo [View Full Entry]

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After a full recovery from our three nights in Nanjing we made our way to Suzhou for a few nights. Suzhou is known as the 'Garden State' in China and our hostel was located in the historic part of Suzhou and was a maze of canals, small teahouses, eateries and walled gardens. Suzhou was a lot smaller than most of the big cities we had been to so far and it was really refreshening to sit back beside the canal without any hustle or bustle. The only downside of Suzhou was the heat. It was so hot, approaching the 40's with [View Full Entry]

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Before we left Wuhan I (Sarah) had been feeling a little unwell but decided just to try and sleep it off on our overnight train to Nanjing. We successfully made it onto the train but as the hours passed and my trips to the trains, shared steel 'squat', toilet became more frequent it became clear that I had travellers poo bum (amazing luck). As if that wasn't bad enough (having the a dose of the most uncontrollable runs in a shared squat toilet for a period of 12 hours on a hard sleeper train ), when morning arrived and it was [View Full Entry]

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After leaving Chongqing (furnace one of three) and mking our way down the Yangzte we made boarded the bus and made our way to our second furnace, Wuhan. We were only spending one night in Wuhan to wait on the train to Nanjing so we used it as a chance to rest up, recouperate and get our clothes washed after the river cruise. The Irish couple and the montreal-ians were also staying just for the night and then we were all going our seperate ways. We all spent the evening together in the hostel pleased to feel and smell clean and [View Full Entry]

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