Hi everyone! Quick update from where we have been since arriving! Hope you're all good. Singapore was a great city - although pretty sterile. Felt a bit like you had never left the airport...very clean and quite quiet compared to what I thought it would be, but really great none the less. Did all the main touristy sights, and spent a lot of time in the botannical gardens! We stayed in Little India, and loved china town too.

Since then we have got the train and then a local bus up to Melaka - the historical town of Melaysia. The trains and buses here are so amazing - loads of space and really clean although I think they make us pay 'tourist rates' - still thats only like 4 pound or something... Melaka was ok - could have been beautiful and really interesting, some great historical buildings and right on the straits leading to the sea, but felt a bit run-down. Stayed in a crazy hostel (nuts owner) but was fun - met a few really great travellers, a couple from Liverpool who gave us lots of tips so we've pretty much changed all our plans! Heading to different islands in Thailand (Turatao Ntnl Park - 52 islands, deserted, can stay there in tents and just chill) so that should be good. They also gave us some ideas for conservation projects we could do in Borneo that they are running...so possibilities there! We've met some crazy characters already, including a 'backwards man' who only walks backwards (he was fun!) and some nuts karaoke singers.

We then came to Kuala Lumpur - its a really dirty city when you come from Singapore! Did all the main sites (Petronas twin towers, Chinatown night market etc) and the Batu Caves and Temples. They were really interesting (despite the masses of rain!). You climbed up piles of steps infested with crazy monkeys, and the temples within the cave were pretty beautiful...not to mention the impressive Golden Bhudda at the top! KL definitely hasn´t been one of our favourite places, it is pretty dirty, the transport systems rubbish and makes it either really difficult or expensive to get around the city, and I don´t think its much of a ´destination´. Still, we've had a good time and the hostel again has been great (never particularly clean.....but fun, and meet nice people!). Weather has been boiling, crazy muggy, but often cloudy and we've had some warm rain, hopefully it'll cheer up for the beaches so we can get a bit of colour!

We then got the night bus tonight over to the East coast of Malaysia and took a crazy speedboat over to the Perhentian Islands (boat trip an event in itself, you rise about 1m over the sea and bang down - its nuts!). Island was a little piece of paradise - gorgeous white white sand beaches, green sea that is like glass you can see through so clearly, and the best diving/snorkelling in Malaysia. It was SO hot though, so we had to stick in the shade as we burnt quite a lot from wearing factor 50 and staying in the sun for only 30 minutes! Eek - even Em burnt her nose, so we stuck in the shade and sea. Took an amazing day trip snorkelling on another little boat to different points around the island, saw black coral, colourful coral, thousands of amazing fish, and the two best bits were going to shark point and swimming with sharks, and going to Turtle beach and snorkelling with AMAZING turtles in their natural habitat. They were huge, over 1.5m long and so amazingly gorgeous!

We met some great travellers from Cork and have come with them now onto Cameron Highlands - in the mountains in internal Malaysia. Much cooler up here and wetter - loads of tea plantations, strawberry and flower farms, and waterfalls you can swim in - looking forward to a couple of hiking trips over the next couple of days! We also met some great guys from Russia, Andre and Max on the islands and went snorkelling with them, but they were quite funny and scared of the giant lizards (over a couple of metres long) that chilled around the island!

Next plan is to go from here to Langkawi island and then get a boat across the border to the Ko Turatao Marine park islands in Thailand, so will email from there along the way!