Trip to the land down under

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We eventually had to leave Ao Nang after a well rested couple of weeks on the beach. Darren did spend a couple of those in bed but was on the mend when we set off at 6am for our trip to Penang in Malaysia. This turned out to be longer than expected with the border crossing and ended up being about 12 hours long, despite the mad driver's attempts to get us there at the speed of light!

We spent 3 nights in Penang and got to learn why it is crowned the best place to eat in Malaysia. For those of us on a budget it was heaven to see lots of hawker food stalls all together in the one place and so much choice of what to eat. Over the few days we managed to have Japanese, Malaysian, chinese, and even some bangers and mash thrown in there! Much to our dissappointment, we managed to miss the beer festival that was on-they just ran out of the 20p beer before we arrived!

Apart from eating, we managed to clock up a few miles exploring Georgetown, where we stayed. It was a place with plenty of character and it was great to wander through Little India and around the old streets. The next day we found the more modern area and did some window shopping in a huge shopping mall and even fitted in a trip to the Cinema! It had been a while!

Penang made us feel more like the early days in Vietnam, more of a 'traveller' feel to it than a tourist feel and there were lots of little markets and food stalls on every corner. We were glad we had a chance to see just a little bit of Malaysia before heading off to Singapore. The plan to stay on the Perentian Islands and travel by bus through Malaysia was thwarted by signs of bad weather in the East as well as our own reluctance to leave our little beach haven in Ao Nang!

We flew to Singapore after a bit of a delay in Penang. Our hotel was pretty close to the City itself and was clean, though the room was the size of a shoebox, and for at least twice the price of anywhere we had been before! Thought maybe more should have been made of the expense of Singapore in the travel guides!

However, was nice to be in a very clean city (yes, it is true) and it seems you can actually get in trouble for bringing in large quantities of chewing gum! The underground and buses were spotless and everything seemed really well organised-great after months of chaos all over Asia!

We had one full day and we made the most of it by exploring everywhere we could-mostly on foot. We walked along Orchard Road, which was full of designer shops and underground shopping centres that you could get lost in (and we did) full of Guess, Mango, and every other store under the sun.

We walked to Little India and it really was like what we imagine it would be like in India. It seemed really big but full of all these little streets just packed with people and smells of the spices. We were certainly hungry by the time we left. From here, we caught the tube (aching feet) and headed to the Harbour area, where we spotted Raffles, albeit from a distance and got some photos of the rather unusual Lion/Fish style statue. After clocking up a few more miles, we were ready to hit the sack in preparation for our trip to Perth the next day!

Now Perth wasn't in the original travel plan, but seeing we ended up meeting Bree and Paul in Banff, and we were in the area, it would have been rude not to drop by! Plus for us budget travellers, the chance of a comfy bed and home cooked food for a week sounded amazing!

Our flight was with Tiger Airways and everything went on time. We were a bit surprised that on a 6 hour flight we didn't get ANY snacks or drinks included-You can imagine this will be what Ryanair will be like longhaul! We arrived in good time and thought that we'd be nice and punctual for our pick up. Only problem was that noone had warned us that it may be a little tricky getting through immigration! (Yep, Steve-that's you!) We had worried about the land border crossings into Cambodia and Thailand and Malaysia and thought it would be a breeze to go visit Oz for a week. The immigration officer, though, had other plans! We spent a good 20 minutes being asked all the questions under the sun, including how we'd met Bree and Paul and even the ski hill we preferred!! All the time we were thinking, 'what's the right answer?'!! After that we got to go pick up our bags but then got led to another section to have our bags searched!! Finally we were free to go and luckily they didn't spend all night searching but it was intense!

After all that Bree and Paul were there, waiting patiently, ready to take us home to unknown comforts!! Don't feel we thanked them enough as it was just amazing to have a big comfy bed, tea whenever we wanted and foxtel with every football match and trashy tv programme you can imagine! But of course we would have little time for that with all our sightseeing (well, maybe just a little...).

First couple of days we spent around Perth checking out the gorgeous beaches. Couldn't get over the golden sand and beautiful water-it was like Koh Phi Phi or better! Water was a little cold though, but great to get out of the unseasonably early 35 degrees heat! We also had a chance to meet some of Bree and Paul's friends and family as well as catch up with Lena (and meet Andy), in Perth for 2 years and living a great life. This was all at the Breakwater at Hillary's, quite a popular old spot, and lovely for sunset. The pizza wasn't bad either! We were managing to get in a good fix of home food!!

On the Thursday we headed down to Margaret River, 3 hours south of Perth for some camping. We thought our days were numbered when we got told to keep the noise down on first night after a rather rowdy game of cards, but they let us stay! We checked out the Bushshack Brewery on the Friday and tasted all sorts of beer, from chili and ginger to caramel and raspberry. It was great fun and there was even a bbq there that we could use to cook our lunch.

On the Saturday, our simply amazing buddies (hope you're reading this!!) had paid to treat us poor travellers to a day of fun and frolics on the Big Day Out tour. It included wine, beer, liqueur and cocktail tasting as well as a great lunch and a trip to the chocolate factory! This tour could not have helped but please everyone! We survived alright even if we did start drinking liqueurs at about 11.30! It was a great day and we loved every minute, would recommend these tours to anyone!

With a headache or two, we headed back towards Perth the next day and had a day of relaxation and chilling out at Paul and Bree's lovely house before the early flight the next day. We had a great week and are so glad we went to Perth, and we will definitely return the favour one day soon!!

We flew to Kuala Lumpur and were there for just a night beofre heading on to Sri Lanka. We decided not to rush about and try to see things in KL so just rested and were ready to check out the beaches in Sri Lanka!

Our guest house was called Serendip in Negombo and it was great. They arranged airport pick up for us and they were so friendly. They also fed us the best breakfast ever two days running-dahl, beef curry, roti, along with sausages, bacon and toast! It was unbelievable! Other than eating, we spent our time doing a little shopping and swimming in the pool as the beach was nearly too hot to sit on. The rest of Sri Lanka looked really interesting and we would have loved to see more, but we were on the move again to Dubai.

We got here after about a 12 hour flight delay. Would have been more annoyed but when they transferred us to Emirates and we got lots of legroom, great food and more movies than we could watch, we weren't so bothered! We slept it off in our hotel room yesterday and today we are off to explore a little of Dubai before we catch a late flight tonight-first to Doha and then on to Nairobi.

We sure will have a lot to tell you all about Kenya but who knows when? Not sure when we will next have internet connection, but if we do we'll try to update on here first to keep you posted. Otherwise, we touch down in Belfast on 20th December, so we'll catch up then.

Wish us luck for Kenya,
Lots of love!! xxx

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