What a strange experience Malaysia has been so far. Many travellers, diss Malaysia as being dirty, boring and unfriendly. OK so it can be a bit grubby in places ( and so can my home country too !) And maybe the ladies are not so ' hello, welcomey' as in Thailand.. after all , they are generally Muslims and its not the done thing eh ? There are many Indonesian and Chinese people here and they are friendly enough . The place is generally cleaner than Thailan...

this blog entry will be short... Malaysia, or at least Penang..rocks ! at least it does with good company and finding the right places. I certainly seem to have ran into some interesting people here.. Reena, an Indian woman ( Malay actually) here from KL for a job interview; Claudio, an Italian guy, who has travelled more places than Google Earth, and Tim, an American guy, the CEO of a large computer component manufacturing company, here on business.. On paper,...

My flight to Malaysia was nearly perfect, apart from a bit of a bumpy landing. First impressions of Malaysia were nothing like I gad been led to believe. I had just left the 'land of smiles ' in Thailand... land of smiles providing that you are giving money to whoever it is who's smiling, that is! The first thing I noticed, as soon as I landed and before I left the airport, is that the place is cleaner, more organised and genuinely friendly than Thailand. Even...

blog entry 5.2.2010 Now this is a first , writing a blog on a laptop midway between Thailand and Malaysia, and looking down over some stunning coastline. Probably Phi islands but im not too sure; either way it looked amazing as we took off on the little twin prob Firefly flight. At last I feel free again, and although I have absolutely no idea where I am going to sleep tonight, I am not too concerned apart from matters of cost. Im not too sure what the folk...