Hey everyone..sorry its been so long since the last blog.

We had a great time with Lesley in Cha-am. An amazing hotel and pool and food and a really fun thai new year in the town getting soaked and covered in white gloop. Thank you lesley!

Next we headed down to Ko Tao to do some snorkelling which was really nice. The beaches were lush and the weather was good. The night boat to and from the island was interesting with very tiny matresses all cramped together, personal space was a bit of an issue.

Next was Ko Lanta- a very peaceful island where you ended up with beaches all to yourself! we stayed in a little ramshackle hut right near the beach which had a very crazy owner and some very cute cats. We spent our days drinking fruit shaked in a beachside cafe and generally relaxing!!

we headed down to Malaysia after that. the border crossing was fine. we had to stay overnight in a town before we could head to the perhentian islands. We got a speedboat over which was amazing fun! we decided to stay on Kecil (the smaller island) because we heard the beaches were better and the accomodation cheaper. We stayed in another beachside hut in a palce run by a 'ladyboy' called Didi who was lovely. Our favourite thing we did on the isalnd was take a snorkelling trip which was phenomenal. one of the best days of the trip. there were so many fish and we fet them with bread...hundreds circled us and were all the colours of the rainbow. it was a greaT experience. we went to a place called shark point where there were often sightings of sharks. Neil saw one for a couple of seconds but i wasn't so lucky =( I still claim 'i swam with sharks though'! we also got to swim alongside a turtle in the bay. it was amazing..so beautiful. Unfortunately when we arrived back 'home' we discovered our back had been sunburnt becasue we had been in the water so long so the next day we spent in the shade.

Next on the list was Taman Negara national park. it took us two days to eventually get there but we had fun trekking through the jungle and going on the longest canopy walkway in the world although we didn't get to see much wildlife.

we tried to get to the cameron highlands the next day but unfortunatley by the time we got to kuala Lumpur to get a connecting bus they were all full. We decided we would rather make the most of Kuala Lumpur..and we did. We visited the Petronas towers to walk on the sky bridge (the highest in the world!) to see the view over the city. We spent many hours soaking up the sights, smells and shopping of CHina town, we went to the 4th tallest telocommunications tower in the world to look out over Kuala Lumpur (much higher than the skybridge--amazing views), we went to the Batu Caves where a huge thunder and lightening storm decided to come right over us and there was the highest Hindu something staue in the world, and we went to the shopping area of the 'Golden Triangle' although we couldn't afford anything! Kuala Lumpur is definitely an amazing city to visit.

We flew over to Kota Kinnabulu in Borneo yesterday. the flight was fine except they charged forall food and drinks so we didn't even get a free glass of water!

Today we have taken the bus to Sandakan so we can go and see the Orang-Utan rehabilitation centre tomorrow which we are both really excited about!

that's about it for now. only 2 weeks to go!

Neil says hi!

xxx