Sorry its been a few days and also that my final blog for this fantastic trip is being written on my own computer back in Blighty! But the last two days were so hectic and spent trying to grasp final snatches of the flavour of the whole holiday. There was also an impending sense of 'come-down' which basically made me feel that I didn't want to write about it.

However It is correct and proper that every story has a beginning, a middle and an end and my blog shall be no different!

We left the Seaside Traveler's Rest in Kinarut on Thursday 24th April at 7 a.m. in a taxi and got to the airport with no dramas. Really from that time we felt that we were on our way home, although it was great returning to Red Palms, which incidentally we found without a hitch this time! Sophie was very pleased to see us again and although we didn't have the same room this time, after a walk round some of the now familiar streets of the area and a refreshment break in a horrifically expensive "Irish Bar" we were able to gently recover from our journey in the time honoured fashion by buying a beer in the little shop near the Hostel and having a quiet drink in the front garden. Unfortunately we were joined by a couple of aussie lads and a canadian who had had the same idea but slightly changed the wording from "a beer" to "a load of beer" and from "a quiet drink" to "a major session".

Well it was our last sleep in Kuala Lumpur so despite the fact that these lads fitted neatly in age between our own sweet boys we accepted their invitation to join them with the exclusion on food which they planned to get over the wall from next door while we had already decided that we wanted to go back to the first restaurant we had visited in KL The Dragon's View ( you should never go back. All will be revealed later). So the beer flowed freely and we had such a laugh with these guys and eventually they headed off to a club to do whatever it is kids of that age do in clubs these days! and we freshened up for a walk along Jalan Bukit Bintang and a meal in a nice restaurant.

We had a great evening and got back about midnight and although Mandy was tired and went on up to bed I stayed up for a late night discussion with some Malaysian girls and a New Zealand guy who were all Bhudists which was very interesting and mind expanding. So expanding that I didn't get to bed until 2:45. (Still no sign of our mates from earlier in the evening though, Well there wouldn't be would there?)

Despite my late night, I woke up quite early in the morning with the dawning suspicion that I might have eaten a dodgy prawn or something, after a few minutes I realised that I definitely had eaten a dodgy prawn or something. Any way two tablets and a somewhat limited breakfast later we left the Red Palm with my camera and a determined attitude. we had agreed to walk to the Deer Park and National Parks that we had heard so much about and only glimpsed from the tour bus two and a half weeks ago. It was a long walk and we weren't too sure of the way and after reaching the National Mosque (about 2 hours) we decided we should get a taxi, as much for the air-con as anything! Well the taxi driver didn't know where the National Park was and didn't know what a deer was, despite my mime (I mimed a deer, not a national park) We eventually settled on the Butterfly park (I think he thought my deer mime was a butterfly!) instead which we knew isn't very far from the Deer Park. The driver then took us back along the exact route we had been walking for the last 15 to 25 minutes and drove into a huge underground car-park which got him under the dual carriage-way we had been on and out on to the other side and he eventually dropped us off after a ten minute drive at the butterfly park which, had we only known, was about a ten minute walk from where he had picked us up! Still as I said, we did it mainly for the air-con! We decided to go into the butterfly park and it was absolutely fantastic. A bit like the Bird Park except with butterflies. Unfortunately we can't show you how good it was because when we got in and I saw the first butterfly I wanted to take a picture of, a Brookes Bird Wing, I think it was, I discovered that I hadn't replaced the memory card in my camera after uploading the photos the day before. Damn Tiger! Anyway I'm sure if you Google it youll find a photo!. When we had spent enough time with the butterflies (Hot and humid it was too) we walked up the hill in search of the Deer Park but instead we found the National Monument, and very impressive it was too but again.... No camera so you will have to Google that as well!. Eventually we found the Deer Park but unfortunately huge areas of it were barriered off for building work including the bit with the deer in it, and I so wanted to see the mouse deer, the worlds smallest hoofed animal. Oh well I suppose I will have to Google it. By this time my tummy was getting a bit queezy again and we agreed that it was probably better to get a Taxi back rather than walk the seven miles or so back to the Hostel so we did and it took nearly an hour because of the traffic, which incidentally is horrific most of the day and night in KL. We had already packed our bags as Sophie needed the room for more guests but we still needed to do our on-line check in with Emirates and make sure we had good seats on both flights. We got that out of the way and then I succumbed to my stomach thing and slept almost right through till the taxi arrived at 9 p.m. to take us to the airport. I slept most of the way to the airport and after eating a Panini thing which was the first thing I had eaten since the offending meal and which was absolutely revolting, we went through to departures and I dozed until the plane came. I slept almost all the way to Dubai even missing the in flight meal....What I hear you cry.......Poor Boy must have been ill! No sympathy from Mandy though! Stop moaning was the nicest thing she said to me! and I was sleeping, not moaning!

Anyway we had a wander round Dubai airport as I had slept about as much as I could and Mandy still had a belief that we could find cheap gold in Dubai. I suspect that there may be cheap gold in Dubai but we are not familiar with even the price of expensive gold so would not recognise cheap gold if it sat up and slapped us in the face, which incidentally, it didn't. I do also suspect that virtually anything on sale in the airport is far from cheap as Emirates very cleverly fly virtually all their flights via Dubai with a two to four hour stopover during which it appears, judging by the number of travelers carrying Dubai airport carrier bags, virtually everyone buys something, probably out of sheer boredom. They even had monster size packets of Daz in the Duty Free Shop.

Anyway the rest goes without saying really we eventually got on the plane and I mastered the in flight entertainment and watched a couple of films, ate breakfast and a bit of lunch we landed at Gatwick bang on time at 12:30 and cleared customs in time for Mandy to have a fag before Martyn arrived to pick us up.

And so the holiday of a lifetime is over. We get very blaze about our world because we see the remotest parts of it virtually every day in phenominal close-up and brilliant color in the corner of our living room and whilst David Attenborough and the various other TV wild life and travel documentary teams make fantastic programs the real life show that we have had a taste of, is very different. Firstly the heat and humidity is unbelievable, especially in the rain forest. The smells are another aspect of this trip that nothing can prepare you for. They have been intense, many of them different from any smells we have experienced before and in many cases unbelievably awful. In these temperatures and in these atmospheres, and sometimes up to your knees in slimy thick black mud, your senses tell you different things about the macaque Monkey or the bearded pig or the black scorpion than they tell you when your sitting in your living room with your slippered feet resting on a poofe and a cup of tea steaming on the sofa table. The things you see do not look as glamorous, or as beautiful as they do on the documentary but you begin to realise that the reason the places and creatures are like they are is entirely due to where they are, and you're there with them experiencing the environment that makes our world as wonderfull and diverse as it is.

Bye for now,

And to those of you who followed the journey right through, thanks for coming with us. It was good to have your company.