We stayed at De Galleria for 2 nights as planned and spent a couple of hours before our last night there checking out the other hotels/hostels in the area. Kota Kinabalu seems to be quite expensive (compared to other places in Malaysia) for accommodation. In our experience so far accommodation for a basic fan room in a hostel ranges from about RM25-40. Hostels here seem to be about RM20-30 more per night so we have decided to live it up for a few more nights, we are paying RM88 per night for an air con room with a 33 inch flat screen HDMI TV and we have an ensuite bathroom and a large room. Blowing the budget a bit, but we decided to pay RM15 more and stay in comfort than stay in a hostel. Kota ... read more

By far the most amazing thing we have ever seen and are likely to see. At around 6:30pm this evening we saw 158 green turtles hatching in front of our room. Along with Debbie, Hash, Kerry, David, Steven and Zul plus other guests from Petani we watched as they made there way out of the hole (which the female turtle came and laid the eggs 2 months ago) and instinctively walked down to the beach and in to the sea. Unfortunately 4 were dead and there were 5 unhatched shells, of the ones that made it to the sea hopefully at least 3% will survive and count towards the decreasing turtle population. This is what travelling the world is all about, seeing amazing things like this.... read more

Thursday 8th April to Wednesday 14th April 2010 We left Fathers Guesthouse in the Cameron Highlands last Thursday morning at around 10:30am. We had organised with the Guesthouse a mini bus to the port and then a speed boat to take us to Perhentian Kecil (literally translated ‘Small Island’). The mini bus journey was pretty uneventful, we wound our way down through the many mountains of the Highlands and after 2 hours we stopped at a town called Gua Musang in a small hotel mainly catering for tourists connecting between travel destinations. After an hour’s lunch break we climbed back in to a different mini bus (thankfully with less people in) and made the further 3 hour drive to the coast. We arrived safe and sound, were shown where to get on the boat, had our ... read more

After our 2 days in Kuala Lumpur sight seeing, having our feet nibbled on by fish (video to follow), eating lots of Chinese noodles and Indian curry and naan bread we are now in Ipoh which is 3 hours north of the capital. We got up at 6:30am this morning, went down for more curry for breakfast and then took a taxi to the main train station (KL Sentral). Our train didnt turn up until 9:15, but was very comfy and the air con was turned on to the max (which is always a bonus in this humidity!) we spent the journey gazing out of the windows at the beautiful Malaysian countryside. We arrived at Ipoh train station 3 hours later, which was quicker than we thought we would be, and were quickly mobbed by a ... read more

Time has absolutely flown by and I really cant believe how quickly it has gone. It only seems like yesterday we had our last day at work, when it was nearly a week ago. We have said all of our goodbyes, had some lovely cards and presents from various people, had 2 brilliant leaving parties and are nearly all ready to head off to Stansted on Wednesday evening. We fly out at 11:15pm with Air Asia, Wednesday is going to be one of those horrible 'limbo' days where we are going to have itchy feet and just want to get going. I am taking far too many clothes, as I knew I would, and Phil is hardly taking anything (as we both knew her would) but Im not one of those people who can travel light. ... read more