Driving half the length of peninsula Malaysia is always going to take a long time. Luckily on Chinese New Year's Day the vast majority of people were already visiting relatives so we had a fairly clear run all the way - until we got South of Kuala Lumpur. Then the heavens opened, visibility was reduced to a minimum, the traffic started to crawl but still several drivers thought they could drive like idiots. Thankfully we avoided any trouble and never witnessed any accidents. After about 5 hours we reached Melaka, or the outskirts at least. Then the traffic ground to a halt! Eventually we parked up at a posh hotel to enquire about their rates (way beyond our budget!), left the car there and walked towards town to find some accommodation. We looked at several options ... read more

We set off nice and early (well, 9am!) and hoped to beat Kuala Lumpur's rush hour traffic. That proved to be in vain and it was about an hour and a half before we crawled beyond the city limits. The roads then opened up and we had a good run all the way up to Penang Island. On the way we stopped off at the Riverside services where we had a lovely view of, yes, you've guessed it, the river! You can get to Penang two ways from the mainland. There's the tedium of driving into Butterworth then getting the ferry across, or the quick way across the Penang Bridge, all 13km of it. We opted for speed and before long we were bumper to bumper on the outskirts of Georgetown. It wasn't too bad really ... read more

Happy New Year! We made it back to Bangkok where we stayed in the Ambassador Hotelwhich was a nice treat at the end of this trip. 3 nights B&B plus the New Year dinner for just £150 between us. The hotel was in a different part of town to where we had previously been so we were able to explore the abundance of Indian restaurants. Actually, we didn't eat Indian in the end. We had Middle-Eastern meze and smoked shisha in an Egyptian restaurant instead! It was interesting to see the street traders at night and it was quite extraordinary to see just what you can buy on the street. I fear some youngsters may read this blog so I shall just leave it to your warped imagination! We were smack in the middle of a ... read more

From PKK we had a great day out on the bikes. Just around the corner from our hotel was the entrance to a Thai Air Force base. Luckily for us, the main road goes straight through the base so we were able to have a bit of a look around. No security issues here! No photography near the runway though!! Riding through the base it was hard to imagine that it was a military establishment. This was especially so when we got to the far side and reached the beach! It was gorgeous and, whilst the wind and waves were still a bit of a problem in PKK, the beach here was a scene of serenity. First though, we had some sightseeing to do. Now you may question what sightseeing you can do on a military ... read more

We left the hotel in Bangkok in good time to get to Bangkok Noi train station. Traffic was pretty bad so he took a small diversion but we were still able to follow our route on our map. When we got taken to Bangkok Thonburi station we were a little surprised. It seems that whilst the tourist maps say "Noi" that's not actually the name of the station. We had about an hour to kill after paying 100 Baht (£2) each for our tickets so we chilled out and bought some snacks off the nearby market. The train had only third class compartments. This may sound terrible but it wasn't too bad. Ok, so the seats occasionally fell to bits but they were not to difficult to reassemble! The view was nice most of the time ... read more