The road from Pangandaran to Yogyakarta went through beautiful countryside with rice fields and hay stacks and lots of people cycling around. Yogyakarta (or 'Yogya' as it's known) is renowned as the cultural capital of Java - I wasn't particularly enamoured by it but it was a good base for visiting the impressive temples at Prambanan and Borobudur. In Yogyakarta city, men in batik shirts and traditional Islamic hats, and women with long headscarves, zipped aroun...

It was nice to slow down for a while after a week of moving to a new town every day. We did spend an entire day getting there though - after leaving our hotel in Jakarta at 7:45am, we travelled by taxi, train, jeep, bus and becak (almost like a wheelchair propelled by a man on a push bike) and eventually arrived at our accommodation in Pangandaran late at night. We stayed in a beautiful hotel there with a swimming pool. One thing I noticed along the journey was ...

I had no time to see around Jakarta but by all accounts I didn't miss anything. On the journey into town from the airport I was struck by the urban poverty and slum housing, on a scale I haven't witnessed anywhere else in Asia. Five of the guys I'd travelled down from Bangkok with came with me and we were joined by some new people from Australia, Malta, Canada and England - all had travelled quite a bit already - Indonesia doesn't seem to be a first-time travell...

Walking around Singapore I felt like I was in a theme park - everything was so new and clean. It was eerily quiet though, it was a Friday night but the streets were pretty much deserted. It was very cheap and easy to get around on the metro and taxis but, aside from public transport, most things are expensive. I only had half a day there so couldn't fit much in - I went for a walk around town, saw the markets in Chinatown, some temples and mosques and then took ...

Melaka was my favourite stop in Malaysia, such a pretty town. It is a bit schizophrenic in style - it has at various points in history been under the control of the Portuguese, Dutch and British and it blends these influences with those of the Malay, Chinese and Indian population. The town centre is a collection of red buildings (the red paint being a Dutch contribution) with a pretty fountain dedicated to Queen Victoria, a miniature windmill and some Portuguese-...