We left Koh Lipe on the 27th of December, having decided that as we were so far to the South of Thailand, we may as well take the opportunity to cross the border into Malaysia. So having booked a ticket to the capital Kuala Lumpur the mamoth journey began, a total of 21 hours! We firts got a boat back to mainland Thailand and then a car to Hat Yai from where we were catching the overnight bus into Malaysia.

We finally boarded the bus at 7 o'clock, by which time we were already pretty exhausted and ready to get some sleep during the journey. We found that we had been given seats right at the back which wasn't a great start as it meant our seats did not fully recline, and also it means you feel every bump in the road that little bit more. Anyway we set off, and after a while the lights were turned off and we got ourselves comfortable and ready for some sleep. Thats when we noticed things moving on the ceiling, although we couldnt make out whatb they were, but when we hit a bump in the road we soon found out as a cockroach dropped from the ceiling straight onto Dan! There were loads of them, and the couple itting next to us also felt them on their feet, so we had a nest under our seats. As most of the ones on the ceiling were directly above Dans seat, and having politely declined swapping seats with Dan, we ended up spending the rest of the journey with Dan curled up in a ball on my lap.

We finally arrived in KL at 6 in the morning having had no sleep, we felt like s***. Anyway after looking at the trusty Lonely Planet and getting our bearings we headed towards the China town area of the city. As we were so tired we booked into one of the first hotels we came to, right in the heart of china town, it was a bit more expensive than we expected but we didnt care by this time. After a much needed sleep we headed out, and the empty streets outside our hotel when we booked in were noew packed with stalls selling fake versions of anything you can think of. we spent the rest of the day checking out the food stalls and being hassled by blokes wselling fake rolex.

The next day we decided to see some of the sights, and so walked to the KL tower, the second tallest tower in the world, the views over KL were pretty impressive. Later we took a walk into Little India and had a meal at the cheap cheap street stalls withn the members of the local asian community, although a few of the dishes did look a bit dubious, it wasn't actually too bad.

We found there wasn't actually that much to do in KL and so after 3 nights we decided to go somewhere else as it was almost New Years Eve, so we went into KL bus station, which was absolutely chaotic and sweltering, and booked a bus ticket to the island of Penang.

We got to Penang and after looking at a few guesthouses decided that we could not face staying in this level of accommodation over the New Year period, when it was likely one of us would be sick, and so paid a bit extra to check into a hotel, which was still pretty reasonable. Penang was an interesting blend of cultures, with large Indian and Chinese areas as well as Malaysian. The first day there was the 30th, and we just spent our time looking around, the next day, New Years Eve, a large concert and celebration had been organised, so we decided to go to this. Having got to a reasonable level of drunkeness before arriving we took more alcohlic supplies and made our way to the concert, where thererwere thousands of Malaysians, and very few other westerners. We soonn realised that we were probably the only drunkards there, as Malaysia is a predominantly muslim country, and so no one else was drinking. Anyway we'd soon befriended a group of local youths and had a great time. As midnight came round we saw in the New Year to the sounds of a Malaysian heavy metal band (their musical tastes are stuck in 1986) and a fireworks display.

After another couple of days of not doing much, we left Malaysia on the 3rd and headed back to Thailand.