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Published: April 22nd 2010
Ko Tao
Thailand Helllllllo dear people,
I am going to bring you all up to date on our antics in South East Asia you will be pleased to know.
We are in a place called the Cameron Highlands in Malaysia, I know that this will probably annoy all of you who are stuck in England with rain and cold weather but when we arrived today it was cold and raining and it was a welcome reminder of good old England, we even went to a cute little cafe and had Tea and Scones....so good.
As you may have guessed from the name the Cameron Highlands are in the mountains that is why it is colder and less humid, it is good to escape the bugs and constant heat of the previous places we have been.
We left Phnom Penh on the 31st of March to go to Ko Tao (one of the islands on the Gulf Coast). It was an interesting travel day, just as we were about to leave the hostel in Phnom Penh I realised that some nasty person had stolen my shoes.....annoying! So we did a lot of running around when we got to Bangkok buying clothes and shoes
before getting the train down to Ko Tao.
We decided to do our PADI diving course in Ko Tao so the majority of our time there was taken up with that (we obviously managed to squeeze a few nights out in with everyone that we have met since arriving in SE Asia)! We did our PADI course with Carly and Dan, a couple we met in Chiang Mai back in February so that made us a little less nervous.
On the first day of the course we spent a few hours in the shallow water practicing some of the skills you must learn, such as taking your mask and jacket off and other lifesaving skills that hopefully we shall never have to use.
We did a dive to 9 metres on the first day which was scary, it took us a while to get the hang of equalising (to stop your ear drums from perforating) but eventually we managed it.
The next few days were spent diving in the day and going out for dinner with Carly, Dan, Mij and Jim (two guys we have known since we were in primary school)!
Our last dive was to 18 metres
and was amazing. The water was so clear and we saw so many fish and stingrays etc, we were filmed on the dive, we shall be organising viewings of that when we got home.
We finished the PADI on Mij's birthday so we all went out to celebrate by drinking buckets and beer (standard)!
We left the evening after with Carly and Dan and got the overnight boat (yes we have now travelled by overnight bus, train, minivan, car AND boat....what an accomplishment) to Krabi. The set up of the boat was rather amusing, it was literally the most disgusting looking matresses ever lined up next to each other on the upper and lower deck of the boat. Dan found it funny that earlier us girls had been discussing whether it would have air-con.....not so much! We did manage to catch some sleep though and arrived in Krabi relatively awake. We went straight from Krabi to Ko Phi Phi on yet another boat, funnily enough this one had air con and was way too cold......the British are never pleased!
We arrived in Ko Phi Phi at about 12ish and were immediately hit with SO many shops
selling really pretty dresses and skirts and all that jazz, so bad for the budget! We stayed in the cheapest hostel on the island which also turned out to be the most fun. There were about 5 people staying there that we already knew from other places around SE Asia and everyone was so friendly.
We hit the beach on the first day and the water was so warm it was like being in the bath, we took our books into the sea and stayed there until we turned into prunes. That evening we hit the shops to find some nice clothes for Australia and LA.....we ended up buying two dresses each and the are so nice!
Phi Phi was a party place and we hit the beach on the first night where all the bars were. They give alcohol away there so we only ended up buying one beer. They have crazy locals doing stunts with fire, like the fire limbo and skipping rope, we did not dare to do this.....I mean we could have burnt our hair!
We met loads of people on our first night from our hostel, including two guys from Glasgow who adopted
us as their parents from then on ( we are still travelling with them now)!
Our time in Ko Phi Phi was really relaxed we spent the days lounging on the beach and the evening doing the 'bucket run' with everyone from the hostel. This involved collecting as many flyer's for free buckets for each different bar, then making sure you were at each bar at the right time to get the free buckets....all very complex : )
The best we managed was 7 free buckets, I think some people managed 9 though, impressive.
On one of the nights out there was a huge tropical storm (the night after the tsunami warnings for Phi Phi) so everyone was dancing in the pouring rain, it was so much fun!
Ko Phi Phi has so many beautiful beaches so on one of our days there we went on a boat trip to all of the different islands. We went snorkeling but it didn't last long as there were loads and loads of jelly fish hanging around and some of the people on our boat got stung, Luce and I got out of the water so fast. We visited Maya Beach where
Carly and Dan
Dive Buddies The Beach was filmed, it was very impressive.
We left Ko Phi Phi and Thailand on the 12th April with our new family Euan and Barry (the funniest people ever) to cross the border to Malaysia. the bus took longer than expected and we just made it to the border crossing before it shut, we were the last people to cross! We stayed in a place called Kota Bharu that night and got up early the next day to head to the Perhentian Islands.
The Perhentian Islands are on the East Coat of Peninsular Malaysia, in the South China Sea. They have been the most stunning beaches we have seen so far, and the water was crazily clear and turquoise. We ended up spending 6 days, Euan decided to do his PADI while we were there, and i went on some fun dives now that I am a certified Open Water diver. Lu did not join as she had problems equalising her ears.
I saw a huge Sea turtle on one dive and a Black Tip Reef shark on another, it seemed really scared of us and swam off really quickly.....Thank God. The coral around the Perhentian Islands
P4060264
Night out in Ko Tao is beautiful and really colourful, there were hundreds of Nemo's (Clown Fish) which I had fun playing with!
After soaking up the sun and generally relaxing we arrived back in Kota Bharu and spent a day and night there wandering around and eating some really good street food.
Our next stop was Taman Negara National Park, the worlds oldest rain forest (130 Million years old). We got the Jungle Railway train at 4am from Kota Bharu all the way to Jerantut. The journey was pretty spectacular, we were surrounded by the jungle the entire way.
From Jerantut was got a longtail boat to Kuala Tahan (the entrance to the National Park). This journey was good, but the boat was leaking and the guys found it really funny to keep splashing us with water, so by the end of the journey we were pretty soaking.
Our first night in the National Park was made up of trying to avoid the bugs and not get bitten. We got a four bed 'chalet' which was basically a wooden hut which only had half a wall at the front, which made Euan's comment "Shut the door we don't want the mosquitoes
to get in" rather pointless.
The next day we headed into the jungle to complete the worlds longest canopy walkway. It was the scariest thing we have done so far on our trip, it didn't feel at all safe and it didn't help that we did it with guys who kept shaking it so me and Luce were in hysterics....hehe!! But we completed it and felt very proud.
We then went on a 'small' four hour walk through the jungle wearing only flip flops (me), Jelly shoes (Luce) and Birkenstocks (Barry) with the most inappropriate items of clothing on, oooops! It was an experience and we managed to avoid the leeches (Barry did not) and got back to civilisation before dark.
We were glad to leave this morning and are now happily settled in in the Cameron Highlands where we are going to visit Tea plantations and Strawberry farms and do other fun activities.
Phew..... that was a long blog, sorry if it was a bit basic but didn't want to make it too long.
Other quick things to add, while in the Perhentian Islands a Scorpian landed on me when I got out of
the shower (grim), Luce got her flip flops stolen (apparently there was a crime wave of shoe stealing from us) and we saw the biggest Montior Lizard (it was the size of a crocodile-eeeeks)!
Anyway I am tired, going to go to bed, in a none bug infested room (good tiiiimes)!
Lots of Love,
keep in touch as we miss you all,
Clare and Lu xxxx
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