Natsausage

The flight to Kuala Lumpur was only 5 hours, but they didn't stop feeding us!! Seriously, every 5 minutes they were walking round passing out nuts, drinks, beer, sandwiches! We even got a huge meal, veggies with rice, a croissant, cake, fruit! Ace :) Kuala Lumpur's a very energetic city, at first it's a bit overwhelming, but it's loads of fun once you get used to it. It was really hot though and we hadn't been to a beach in ages so we got on a bus then a boat to a gorgeous little tropical island down at the south end of the peninsular, called Pulau Tioman. There's not a lot to do here except swim, sunbathe and snorkel or trekking. It's quite a big island but there's only a couple of little villages spread out ... read more

The flight here (to Chengdu) was fine, I couldn't stop trumping though, that always happens to me on planes. The food was alright too, we got some noodles with chicken, a bread roll and some watermelon. Yum yum. When we arrived we got the airport shuttle bus into town, then we had a bit of a hairy moment because I didn't have a map to find the hostel, just the address and directions written in English which none of the taxi drivers could understand. We asked in a travel agents and a hotel but no one could understand to help us. Matt was shouting me, because obviously it was my fault. Then our guardian angel came over and said in a chinese accent "where are you going?" It was a taxi driver who could speak a ... read more

We're back in China and after Japan, it is a real shock! Japan is so clean and civilized, and the people there are lovely and friendly. It's so clean, we saw people scrubbing the pavements and road signs! After the sumo, we went to Kawaguchiko, which is a lake near to Mount Fuji. As we were leaving Tokyo, we could see the mountain from the train, but we weren't sure if it actually was Mount Fuji because it is very shy, but it turned out that it was! We were super lucky because when we got there we could see it all afternoon and evening and in the morning, it was still there!! We had a breakfast picnic by the lake looking at it - amazing :) We spoke to someone who had been there 2 ... read more

I will have to be quick - the internet is well expensive here. 70p for 20 minutes!! We have done 2280 miles in the last week! Starting from Hanoi, we got the bus to Nanning in China, that took about 9 hours, then we took the train to Shanghai which took 30 hours! It actually went pretty quick though. Shanghai is a world away from SE Asia, so different. And it was really difficult to order food - all the menus are in Chinese. We gave upand had a MacDonalds. Then we got on a ferry to Japan which took 46 hours. We had a cabin all to ourselves, and it was really nice, we had a tv, a big hot water flask so we could make noodles and tea. They even gave out free travel ... read more

My Mum and Kate are now here with us in Hanoi, we are off to Sapa tonight. I think we gave them a pretty good welcome. On the way to the hotel from the airport, we saw a bad motorbike accident and 2 dead bodies on the road. Our hotel was bad. To me and Matt, it was ok. Hot shower, bed, their room even had a window. Things took a turn for the worse when we went out for tea last night though. Someone came into our room, had a bite out of my LAST crunchie, then hid it behind the bin. Who does that??!! My last crunchie!!! I'm not going to get another for at least 3 months : ( And what were they doing in our room in the first place?! Grrrr. And ... read more