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Published: January 6th 2008
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Haha - it seems the beging of every one of these is an apology. This is no different -I'm sorry once again for not maintaining this for those of you who check it. You should at least find lots to look at on the following entries. I've just spent 2 hrs uploading loads of pics for your viewing pleasure and, of course, to show off and boast about all the things I've been doing!
So I last left off when we made our way from koh phi phi, having spent far too long there but enjoying it so much. unfortunately this meant that we had a little bit shorter than we wanted in malaysia. From Phi Phi we went to Lanta -which had nothing for us but we stayed there a couple of nights just to make sure. Thats where we got the fish dinner for less than a happy meal! From Lanta we went to Langkawi, a collection of 99 islands in Malaysia, which also happened to be a tax haven -roll on cheap booze! 2 ringit/ 20 baht each, I could get used to this. Again we notice the different attitude towards farangs here, tourists are not seena
s walking ATMs. We were bowled over by how kind and helpful everyone was as wel las relieved to find that even the tourism offices are honest -who'd have thought?! again there's not alot to do here for three young fellas (the Sewde is still with us, now we know his names Emil!). But we went island hopping, seeing monkeys (check out those pictures) even finding Jamie drinking on the beach -haha. We then went off to Eagle island, where I got some great pics of the eagles -there were so many -I'm hardly Daivd Attenburough though. Also on the trip was a freshwater lake on an Island not much bigger than the lake itself, again planty of pics of this but the really amazing thing was the echo. Shout loudly in one direction and you can hear it run around the entire lake, clear a anything (I'm still a kid, sorry Dad -immature). From Lankawi, having stocked up on a couple of bottles of spirits each (Smirnoff vodka 3.50 pounds for 1.2lt !!!), we left for Kuala Lumpur. Having learnt from our previous travels that its much cheaper to make your own way rather than book it all we
got on the boat to mainland Malaysia.
Actually on the subject of making our own way, becuase the journeys have ade such a major part of these blogs so far, the journey from lanta to Langkawi I planned for myself, Elliott ad the Swede. We made our own way and had a lot of fun - we ended up getting on the most decrepit bus you can imagine - a real local buss which took us down to Satun (a 4hr journey) for 90 baht or 1.20 pounds. It was one ofd those moments I think i'll remember from thailand, not because I was doing something exceptional but because we were really backpacking. We were among honnest thais, and we were a curio for these guys who didn't come into the tourist circuit. The seat was hard, the roof leaked, there was no aircon there was fish at our feet (we were at the back for more legroom) which threatened to empty from its container and spill all over us at any point... but it was one of the best journeys I've had. Just so different.
We arrived on the mainland and booked 3 of the last
5 tickets to KL, litterally fighting off people at the kiosk -we very nearly didn't make it. Our journey from here was un inventful, apart from having to spend 3 hours in a kareoke bar waiting for the bus to leave! At 5am local we were chucked off the bus and given directions to China town where all the budget accomodation was to be had -directions we could trust being in Malaysia. After walking around waking up receptionists and seeing some real dives, we stumbled into "le village" and somethign just clicked. There was no hot water, the showers weren't as clean as we couldd have liked, the rooms were pretty shitty but not exactly dirty (we've been in worse) and there was a strange smell... but the common room in the morning was indescribable. It had its own charm and elegance, like a dilapidated french chateu -missmatched furniture, old fixings bohemian paintings everywhere, resident guitarists and alternative musicians in flowing clothes still up smoking peace pipes on the rook terrace -It was unbelieveable cool.
There wasn't much to do in KL apart from shop, the drinking was expensive which limited our nbight time persuits. We thought we'd take
advantage of being up so early and go to see the twin towers (where entrapment was filmed) and the KL tower (third highest in the world). Both were spectacular but a little boring, its becoming a bit of a shock -entertainments is much more expensive here. I'm glad we did it though, we saw the entire city but as I'm sure you can tell by the pictures we were very tired.
Anyway next stop singapore, our asian adventure is coming to an end... :o(
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