After the craziness of Kuala Lumpur, we headed outside the major cities to a small city called Tana Rata, a small town in the Cameron Highlands. The Cameron Highlands is a highland region about 214 km north of Kuala Lumpur at an elevation of around 5,000 ft above sea level. This means that we are not always in a constant state of sweat and we can actually wear jeans and a sweatshirt. The Highlands were named after William Cameron, a British colonial government surveyor who discovered the plateau during a mapping expedition in 1885. The fame of Cameron Highlands then grew during the colonial era when British planters realized the potential of its fertile mountain slopes for growing tea, then a prized commodity. Cameron Highlands is still home to many tea plantations, being Malaysia's largest tea-producing ... read more

After all the sickness, we finally decided to make the move to Malaysia. It took around 14 hours of mini bus rides to get to the island of Penang is northern Malaysia, but we finally arrived at night and found a place to eat and sleep! Coming over on the ferry to the town of Georgetown, the main city in Penang, was quite fun and we are ready for a new place with new adventures. We had absolutely no idea what to expect from Malaysia, so anything would be new and exciting. As we came into the city, the skyline was bright and really pretty. We also noticed how clean and modern all the roads were, which is super nice. So far- so good! Our first morning in Georgetown we decided to do a small walking ... read more

So here's another exciting blog... we sat on the beach! Literally, there is not much cultural experience in Thailand, especially on the beaches where westerners out number local Thai people. From Krabi we took a boat to Ko Phi Phi (pronounced pee pee- jokes are once again endless). Ko Phi Phi Don is the main island and this is where we stayed. We found ourselves a nice little room a few yards from the beach for about $6/person. Phi Phi is once again an expensive island with expensive accommodation and food. We ate ramen noodles for lunch almost every day that way we could afford to eat good dinners. One night we ate an all you can eat BBQ (it was $10/person, but worth it!) and we also found a great Italian place on the island ... read more

After the madness of Bangkok we thought it would be a great idea to head to the south east and head off to the Samui islands. We went to Ko Tao first- a smaller island that is famous for its diving. This did not excite me because we all know how much I hate fish. We took an overnight bus from Bangkok that arrived at 4am. We then had to wait until 7am to board the boat. That was fun! We made it safely to Ko Tao and found that accommodation was going to be a bit difficult. There were tons of guys trying to sell us room/diving packages on our boat to the island, but we chose to ignore them and head off to the south part of the island on our own. We had ... read more

We had heard wonderful things about the town of Pai, north of Chang Mai. We had heard stories of the wonderful scenery and it being a great place to chill out. So after a four hour local bus ride we arrived in Pai, the land of hippies. No one had warned us about this! They are everywhere and from every nationality. Japan, France, Germany, US, Australia- the hippies of all those countries come to Pai. So after the initial shock of smelly hippies everywhere we decided to just relax and join in the hippie fun. We found a small bungalow down by the river and went off the first night to find some live music. We found a jazz bar that played all the classics- it was pretty chill to sit on some pillows and listen ... read more