It was a very quick flight to Phnom Penh, about 1hr 40. We bought visas at the airport and withdrew some dollars, as this currency is in equal use as the Cambodian Riel. It was rush hour when we cleared baggage and so we had a slow tour of the capital. It's by far the poorest country we've been to so far, one stranger signifier of affluence is what happens to electricity. The cables here are seemingly thrown up haphazardly on poles (just like Peru and Indonesia) and new cables are continually added to siphon off power until the cables take on the form of mad spaghetti-esque art installatiions. There was a dead tree being used as a pole on the main high street, crazy stuff (centre right on the pic). No sky scrapers whatsoever, loads ... read more

It was the hottest night we've had so far and the kids struggled to get to sleep. We found a much faster bus company to take us back to Kuala Lumpur, with the catching name of Nice. The bus station in Penang was very hot, in fact, today was also the hottest day we've encountered and I'm sure we could have fried an egg on the bonnet of a black car. We were back in the Ramada Hotel in Kuala Lumpur by 3.15pm, almost twice as fast as the journey going to Penang. Maylasia is a very big contrast to Java; the former is modern and quite western in many ways and it makes Java look very poor and lagging a long way behind in terms of standards of living for the local population.... read more

Whilst cooling off again in a cafe (where I had a fresh nutmeg juice - bit of an acquired taste), Ed found a brochure to the Upside Down Museum. Such a simple concept and we thoroughly enjoyed it's strangeness.... read more

The cough and cold we all have is dragging on, so we rose late and then it was a scramble to get downstairs and wolf down breakfast. We knew we had a 4 1/2hr journey so my daysack turned into a poachers bag and was filled with pastries, breads, apples etc. The coach journey to Penang in the North turned into a bit of a marathon it was 8 hours later when we arrived in our hotel. Good learning for the future is to ask which buses are non-stop. The poachers bag was now empty.... Hotel Noordin Mews is an old colonial house in Georgetown, another UNESCO world heritage site. The kids were hungry so we nipped out to the local shopping mall, but there was nothing suitable. A 7 Eleven corner shop had to do ... read more

The breakfast was a real treat and we all agreed it was the best on the trip so far. At 10.00 we met on the foyer for a tour of old Melaka City. The influence of the Portuguese, the Dutch and the Chinese. How Dutch and British ships loaded up with bricks and tiles as ballast and sold them in the Eadt Indies for silks, spices etc. It became a world heritage site about ten years ago and there is a constant fund to resort the mish mash of buildings. Harmony Street was particularly interesting as it had a Hindu Temple, Mosque and Budddhist Temple all within two hundred yards of each other. After an hour and a half we called it a day as the kids were melting. We retraced our steps to an air ... read more