Hello all, boy do I have some little gems for you today! :-D

So we booked our "tour" (I use the term loosely) to the elephant sanctuary at Kuala Ghanda. Through Ping Anchorage (the only tour company in Malaysia it seems!) The taxi was meant to arrive at 8am...it was late. It was a proton car, it had leather-ish seats,reverse sensors, electric windows...but NO AIRCON. The bloke said it was broke..he spoke literally a few words of English, we thought ahh it's OK, he's just the driver, (we were told on the phone we'd have a private tour, just the 3 of us) It turned out the sanctuary was FOUR HOURS DRIVE AWAY! we were not told this previously, and had no water with us! The Taxi man (who had a ping anchorage shirt on,so he was'nt just any old taxi, he worked for the company) did a U turn after around 30 mins....he had gone the wrong way!!! He then had to stop for petrol, mum was weeing all over the seat because we were trying to make the best of it and were in hysterics as usual. All the way there his head kept dropping and he'd catch me giving him the eye in the mirror, as if to say you better be wobbling your head to keep the flies away and not be bloody falling asleep!!

After hours, we finally arrived, it was quite busy and I saw other backpackers that were english and american. It was just after 12, we asked the driver...who turned out to be out tour guide what do we do, at which...he shrugged and promtly returned to chatting on his mobile phone. He said we should probably eat, so he took us to this little shack, where we had a type of noodle soup and a drink, it was enough for me as I don't eat a lot, but this was not enough for Sue and Mum at all, and this was the only meal we'd get all day. After lunch we had to take our shoes off to enter the reception area, where they wanted passport ID! Sue said "as if I would carry my passport around HEEERE! HONESTLY!" mum had to run outside before she went again! We watched a video on the sanctuary and our guide was...you guessed it, asleep behind us. The video was disturbing, the elephants had to be taken from the wild due to humans taking down their rainforest and plating crops and fearing for their safety, because the elephants turned up looking for food. Seeing them being darted, falling over and chained up, was not nice to watch. After the video, I was desperate for the toilet, I followed a sign saying "toilets" missed the next sign completely, and carried on walking towards lots of houses, so people obviously live on the sanctary too! I saw a womens & mens toilet sign, and went in (it was shower cubicles with broken doors, sh*t and muck everywhere, flies, the lot! I thought Oh dear lord, but going by the rest of the place, thought this must be it! so down came my shorts and bikini bottoms and I peed into the drain (there are lots of toilets in Malaysia which are just holes in the floor, so I thought at the time it was a toilet, maybe it was - who knows!) These toilets were attached to somebody's house....so basically I p*ssed in some persons minging shower....all over the back of my legs! hahaha But when I came out of the shower/toilet I noticed all the baby elephants chained up down the bottom of the hill, and some in cages. So I told mum and sue, we took some fruit and fed them and stroked them, they were lovely! really adorable. One little one only had 3 legs, his front one was a stump. They were desperate for attention and food! lol. I could have stayed with them all day, but we soon ventured back up to the reception area, where our guide was looking as dopey as ever! after lots of more waiting around, we were taken to an area by the river with loads of other visitors. At 2.30 we saw lots of elephants being taken into the river to play around and be washed with malay blokes on their backs, prodding them with sharp fork like things, mum and sue found this cruel, but I think their skin is so like rhino's it would'nt hurt them. You then lined up to have a ride which lasted 30 secs round in a circle, then you fed them all with fruit, and then you could get on their back and they would throw you into the river. Eventually the babies were brought out to have a frollic around in the water, and soon after they were being taken away to be locked up for the evening at 3.30, so we only had 1 hour with the flipping elephants in total, if that! I did'nt end up participating in anything, all I wanted to do was get in the water with the babies, and after filming mum and sue, I took my shoes off to get in, and they were getting out! So I was quite dissapointed, but I'm sure I'll visit Thailand at some point in my trip and wash some Ellies!

So we drove 4 hours to see what we had paid 430 ringgets for (like 70 quid each!) for one hour!!! It was very disspointing indeed. Then it was home time again, we had to get into the stifling hot car for the 3/4 hour journey back to Port d*** on. Well...the driver was mad, obviously in a rush, used the hard shoulder most of the time at a high speed, swerving in and out of petrol tankers! never indicated, it was quite scary sometimes! Just wanted to get back to the hotel, order some room service and get some sleep!

Got back to hotel, it had been raining all day (praying for our last day to be sunny! because in central KL it has been raining non stop) We ordered room service, a chicken burger, a beef burger, a pizza and 3 desserts of chocolate bannana cheesecake. Guess what.... Sue was blow drying her hair, and we had a power cut...just in our room!! the maintenance man arrived, knew nothing, opened the loft above my window sill bed, all this sh*t fell down onto my bed (atleast it will be nice and comfy for my ant friends aye?!) an hour went by...another maintenance man arrived, as clueless as the other one, (by this time Sue had done the best part of half a bottle of vodka, we had hardly anything to eat all day, safe to say she was as p*ssed as a f*rt in a trance!!) SHe's offering them a beer, to which the reply "no madam we are muslim" Sue said, well im a vegetarian, but it dont stop me! LOL. Eventually we got the power back, the men left laughing at us. Nearly another hour went by...still no sign of room service! we rang to complain, as we have been typical bluddy english and waited patiently. Mum and sue's dinner arrived freezing cold, no sign of any of mine, theirs was taken back to be re-heated, mine arrived hot, so I ate mine, then theirs arrived, and it had been re-heated. When we got to pudding, Sue spat hers out, it was weird chocolate mousse with cornflakes on the bottom and bits of bannana on the top with some toffee sauce, it was absolutely rank. Steaming Sue, grabbed her plate and said That's it, I'm a chef III'm going to tell them how to make a cheesecake, all of this is absolutely ridiculous!! SO down she went in her pyjamas! niplles-a-kimbo! LOL She managed to bump into the silverback manager from the restaurant, he came upstairs with the "chef" Sue went into the room ranting and raving "we've had a very horrid looong day, everything is ridiculous! THAT is NOT A CHEESECAKE! I am a chef (by the way she is a nurse at the hospital!!) We saw the elephants, it was soo disspointing, he was falling asleep at the wheel, we are very tired, we just wanted to eat and get to bed" The man was trying to follow it all, and we think he thought she was very upset, when infact she was out of her tree on vodka!! He said he will see us in the morning.

This morning (sunday 7th dec) at breakfast he said we can have dinner for free in the a la carte restaurant upstairs called the crow's nest, woooo! we have to dress up thought or we wont get in! and then we got into our room due to an immense down pour outside, and we had a nice fruit basket awaiting us, all not ripe enough for us to eat by the time we leave tomorrow mind you! but very sweet all the same LOL. and so here we are!! What another funny couple of days.

We are all packed to leave for centre of KL tomorrow, I'll hang about in Mum and sue's hotel for the day, then I leave to fly to Aus on my own around 10.45pm. Mum has informed me somebody's mate called ahmed is picking us up and taking us to the airport tomorrow, its cheaper than the hotel rates...so god knows what will happen on that taxi journey!! who knows with us!!! ......

lots of love, Amy xxxx

ps, mamaged to load my photos onto this computer, but it wont let me upload them onto facebook or my blog! which is very helpful, so maybe I will try from KL, and if not, from Aus! x