Well after 6 months away we are finally preparing to leave Asia. We began our final week on a small Malaysian isalnd called Langkwai. The island has a lot going for it: huge, clean, empty beaches, very friendly people and best of all the entire island is duty free so beer is cheap as chips (actually, much cheaper than chips). Other than soaking up more sun and enjoying a drink, we had a little mystery to investigate. We went out to the balcony in the morning to collect our swimming stuff, and lo and behold, my bikini was missing. After a lot of searching we are still mystified. Has a bird or dog taken it away, has someone stolen it (doubtfull as it is very old) or have aliens come down and removed it? If anyone has seen a very faded black stripy bikini please let us know. This is now about the 6th piece of our clothing which has diappeared in mysterious circumstances.

We also spent a couple of days on Penang trying to negotiate the pavements outside the Chinese shophouses, which are cluttered with stalls, motorbikes and people. It rained a lot during our visit, so we were restricted to visiting museums and eating a lot for the first 2 days. When the weather finally improved we took a very steep furnicular railway up to penang hill to admire the view and walk on swinging bridges through the tree canopy. Jon's fear of spiders was not imporved by the 20cm beauties we saw along the way. We were also slightly concerned when we observed a termite nest in one of the bridge supports.

We've had a great time on our trip so far, but there are a few things we are looking forward to when we return to the western world . . . .
Knifes (spoons are not very good at cutting meat)
No more fried rice or noodle soup
Never having to hear, "Hey mister, what's your name, where you from, come look my shop"
Public transport that turns up on time (ish)
Decent music