Apr 2008

20 hours on the night train from Butterworth in Malaysia....enough said! It was an interesting experience and they have bunk beds. It was weird but fun! My first impressions of Bangkok were that I hated it... all the signs are in Thai and not very many people speak English and showing a map with road names in English only confuses taxi drivers!
The first hostel we arrived at was the Bed & Breakfast and it seemed miles away from anything really and was very expensive (600 Baht) so we spent only one night there. We headed out the first night to the Khao San Road and loved it! It may be because it's the Thai new year and there's a 3 day water fight or maybe it was just seeing lots of tourists but I did immediately exclaim that we were moving to a hostel of the Khao San immediately at a cheaper cost (350 Baht) but with a terrible bathroom!
Before we left we visted Jim Thompson's house (google Jim Thompson and Thailand to find out more about it!) house like his...or there would be trouble! It was a beautiful house I must admit but not quite suited to the British weather!
So we packed again and set off for our new room in the lively part of town... apart from me collapsing with what cn only be described as a combination of heat exhaustion/dehydration/being fed up with carrying a backpack for miles (we got lost even though the taxi driver dropped us pratically on the road/HANGOVER...Luckily two Oz girls picked me up and carried my pack to the hostel (I bought them a beer later!). We then set about exploring the road and getting absolutely drenched! I don't think I've dried out for three days now...flip flops are all over the place and I have a cquired a super soaker for water carnage! It's been brilliant so far apart from the massive number of people today...which is very daunting and at times terrifying!
This morning we decided to havea tour of some 'places of interest' and ended up being bundled into a tuk tuk and taken on a tour which I was convinced would end up in robbery, serious physical pain or a rip off...I was mostly right! the last stop on the tour was a tailors where we got measured up for suits and paid 15,000 baht for the privilege! It's ok though we had already decided we were getting some made anyway but still...I was waiting for the scam the entire ride! But then again I was taken to the cashpoint on the back of a scooter so I was very happy (but terrified of falling off!).
We're going to get some more delicious food now and possibly plan a trip to the red light district for a laugh!
Oh and we've booked our trip fo the Moon Party the entire trip with accomodation in a beach chalet for 5 nights and bus there and bus on to Krabi only cost us 3200 Baht each (52 pounds!) - amazing!

We've arrived in Penang now, it's very hot in comparison to the highlands. We spent 3 days in the mountains which had the most amazing views (we took lots of pictures!). We only did one tour though which was disappointing...we spent the first day just lounging around enjoying the cooler climate and the massive thunder storms which happened every night. The second day we did the Countyside Tour which involved us getting a minibus from the hostel to several places (The Rose Centre - amazing view and beautiful flowers, the Strawberry farm - not very interesting, although I didn't realise strawberries are the flower, The Butterfly Farm - totally amazing insects and butterflies and snakes....and a whole load of cannabis plants apparently then the honey bee farm - not so great if you feel the need to run away from bees...). The Father's Hostel we stayed in was nice and we made a friend... Skippy (Clare named him) the Jungle Cockroach, who appeared to live either under my bed or under Clare's...we're not sure,he may have had two houses, anyway he made me sleep in my hoody (hood over my head)...apart from that it was great!
We caught the early bus from Tanah Rata (the town we were staying in) to Penang (6 hours on a bus for 26 RM!) and ended up getting a taxi from near the airport where the bus station is (another 25 RM) to Chinatown and the hostel we're now staying in (75 Travelers Lodge). We're just trying to work out how to get to Bangkok from here so we can be there for the Thai New Year and Clare's birthday! Then we're heading back down to Phuket and the islands for some serious sun-worshipping!
Please comment! Thanks Richard and I'm glad it's bringing back memories!

We only lasted 2 nights in Singapore...to be honest it was a bit boring (Unless you like to shop!) and it was very expensive (we're measuring the expense by price of beer, in Singapore it cost singapore $8-14 which is roughly 4-6 quid!) so we booked ourselves on a bus from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur (KL) for $25 each. We couldn't find the bus station for a long time, we exited the MRT (metro/tube) then had to walk for ages with our backpacks to the remote bus station only to find that we'd just missed the 10am bus by 10 minutes and we'd have to wait until 12 for the next one... so we sat on the shaded benches and travel hysteria kicked in! For some reason the cans of Mango juice has bits of jelly in them much to my amusement and Clare's disgust but she persevered with drinking the entire can!
The bus was air-conditioned thankfully as the journey to 5 and a half hours. The border crossing took no time at all, put it this way, a Kim Wylde song started on the radio as we got off the bus at the crossing point and it was still playing by the time we got back on the bus! The journey didn't seem to take that long (compared to the 12 hour flight!) and we even got a refreshment stop at what can only be described as the scariest service station in the world! Whilst Clare pottered around looking for food I was left with the task of calling ahead to make sure we could get beds in KL. The first phone I found did not appear to work and before I knew it I had a big spider on my face but I refused to scream about it and went to use the other one...then a poor man with backwards feet got off another bus, he could only walk squatted down so he was only 2 feet tall and it was quite bizarre to watch him get off and then back on the bus! Needless to say though I still couldn't work the other phone either so we were heading to KL without accommodation.
Once we had realised that there was absolutely nothing I was going to eat we got back on the bus with a packet of wheaty cheese crisps which I took an instant dislike to! During the rest of the bus journey there was a massive rain storm which lasted until we got off the bus in bustling KL. We didn't have a clue what bus station we were in or where any of the hostels were that we decided we were going to try and get rooms in...luckily we managed to orientate ourselves quickly and stumbled across the hostel that was number one on our list of places we wanted to stay (Red Dragon Hotel in Chinatown) AND we managed to get 2 bed room for 3 nights at a very reasonable price (19RM each per night. 6RM = 1 pound! Oh and I'll get to beer prices in a bit!).
The first night we decided to have a wander around Chinatown, it has a really busy street called JL Petaling which is filled with market stalls and places to eat...you literally can't pass a stall without hearing 'beauty, come look at my watches/bags/perfume/pirate DVDs/fake football shirts/belts', it's all very amusing but it is quite annoying having to say 'no thank you' every few seconds every time you walk down the street to get somewhere!
The next morning we got up early and walked to the KL Tower which is the 4th tallest communications tower in the world. The lift to the observation tower was unbelievably quick and after a few seconds we were 276 metres above KL which had some amazing views!
We then headed to the Petronas Twin Towers but by the time we walked there we decided we'd had enough of being hot and enough of looking at towers and ambled through the shopping mall instead to take advantage of the air-condtioning and get a ice cold smoothie! Yet another walk back to the hostel, and we had a few well deserved beers (beer price in the hostel 7RM = just over a pound!), and I have managed to convert Clare to a beer drinker...
We then headed back down the market street to find a place to eat, it was raining bu we sat out on the street tables with a massive brolly to keep us dry. We ate loads and headed to the Raggae bar which is the only bar in Chinatown because we'd seen a sign saying it was ladies night and we'd get drinks for a pound! We had several! We finally got over our collective shyness to chat to some English people in the bar and only tow things soured the night:
1. Some guy did something (not sure what) and was asked to leave but he refused and got man-handled out of the bar but not without a fight and he squirted pepper spray all over us (we were sat at the next table) and the bar was quickly vacated until the pepper had gone.
2. We decided to try and find a club but were to inept to read a map and ended up seeing more rats and cockroaches than is generally acceptable before heading back to the hostel!

This morning we tried and failed to get up early... we were not exactly clear-headed! But we did manage to walk to the Lake Gardens which were beautiful! Plus we've booked ourselves into the next hostel in the Cameron Highlands, a place called Tanah Rata which is apparently a mountain rainforest where I hope to be left in a hammock for one entire day with NO WALKING! Not that I'm complaining but I just had to insist that we get our first taxi of the entire trip today from the Lake Gardens as I think I'm quite exhausted from walking up to 6 miles a day in very hot and humid conditions!
We'll be in the Highlands for around three days before heading up to Thailand for some sunbathing on the beach (at last!).

Mosquito bite count
Clare: 6
Leanne: FOURTEEN (all in the last 12 hours!)

We left London on Monday morning in rush hour to get the flight to Singapore... the first couple of hours were fine and we watched some of the in-flight entertainment (P!nk live at Wembley of course!) then tried to doze...I was unsuccessful but Clare fell asleep before we even took off so I had sleep-envy for most of the flight! I also had a small child behind me who insisted on kicking the chair repeatedly...I was not amused! in the 10th hour of the flight I started to get very grumpy and it was't helped by the awful breakfast I was served... We landed in Singapore at 8am their time which was like 2 in the morning our time and immediately found me the smoking deck...once 'd stepped out of the air-conditioned terminal in the very hot and humid air Ithought I was gong to die there and then of heat exhaustion but we managed to haul ourselves back to the baggage carousel and both bags arrived safely!
As we are useless we had badgered our hostel booking and so we got the Metro/tube/MRT to one of the many shopping centres and sat there wandering what to do with ourselves. We walked for a while (mostly in cirlces) before finding a little hostel called the Cosy Corner which is...ummmm....interesting! We have a double room and we're staying here 2 nights and some how managed to ight off the urge to sleep and went for a walk to one of the Quays to have a look around and take photos (they are lovely I promise to upload them asap!).
After walking around for hours and developing blisters from our flip flops we decided to have a snooze back at the hostel...unfortunately I have no concept of what day it is and set or alarm to wake up up yesterday...needless to say the 3 hours kip we got was great and we headed off to Little India where we ate a very hot Indian meal before a thunder storm strted crashing around us...a bit soggier than before we headed back to the hotel which has free internet but there's a queue so I'm going to sign off now and update you all later....We're heading to the rooftop beer garden to drink Tiger Beer and look rather pink and tourist-like!