Day 16 (on the big adventure!) I am expecting today’s blog to be short and sweet as we are just taking the train up to Kanchanaburi to our floating hotel on the River Kwai. Alarm wakes me up at 4.30am! It should have been 5.30am but I have forgotten to change my clock when we came into Thailand. We manage to sneak a quick breakfast before hailing a taxi to take us to Thon buri railway station to catch the 7.45am train to Kanchanaburi. The tickets cost 100 baht, which is about £2 and the train wasn’t too bad. It even had air conditioning - well you could open the windows!!!! The slow journey took us through areas of farmland including rice padi fields and sugar cane but the landscape is completely flat so a little ... read more

DAY 13 This morning is a big travelling day. We are off to Brunei airport at 7.30am to take a flight back to KL, and then on to Bangkok! Can’t wait to go to Thailand. I hope everything is OK when we get there. Just seen a news bulletin that says that Thailand has suffered the worst floods for 70 years and that the rains (which should have cleared by the end of September) are very late this year. Oh well - I have my brolly! Bring it on. We arrive pretty much on time at Bangkok airport. It’s absolutely huge and is pretty impressive when it’s dark too. We make our way down to floor 1 and buy our ticket for the Express bus into town. There is only Stuart, me and one other person ... read more

I must say sleeping wasn’t easy - the bunks were uncomfortable and squeaky everytime you moved - not to mention the man who snored and the girl who must have got up to go to the loo about 12 times, oh and the fact that it was still raining so hard that it made a thundering noise as it hit the roof and that we were still in damp clothes! However, when 2am came we got up and readied ourselves for the feat ahead. A quick breakfast and a hot drink and we went out to meet Porinus our guide to start our final climb at 2.30am.At least it was now dry. Today was going to be a very long day indeed. We would have to climb up to the top, then back to the hostel ... read more

Day 6 Back to KL So it was back into the boats and off on the 2 hour journey (shorter because we were going with the flow of the river) to Kuala Tembling, then onto Apple’s little bus and back to Kuala Lumpur. This time we had a much better driver and we arrived safe and sound - thank goodness! After a nice meal we boarded the Monorail out to KL Sentral (station) and then took the AirAsia bus to the low cost carrier terminal at KLIA. We had a very early flight so decided to stay at a “Tune” Hotel right next to the airport. It was “compact and bijoux” but did the job! We flew out to Sandakan and arrived in beautiful weather. Took a taxi to the Sepilok Resort but when we said ... read more

Hi everyone. After a tedious 12 hour flight from London we arrived in Kuala Lumpur. I hate flying and am very glad to be off the plane (for now!). K L is a very modern city and the transport system is amazing. So with our backpacks hoisted for the first time we were off on the high speed connection from the airport into KL. It is very easy to buy tickets for the high speed train and only a short walk to the platform. When we arrived at KL Central we had to make a decison - do we take the Metro or get a taxi? We decided on a taxi - wrong decision. We bought our taxi ticket from the official booth and we were immediately ushered into the next avalible car. The driver took ... read more