Well, last entry was from that Dish hole Phuket, which I planned to leave the next day. Unfortunately, at about 10.30 that night, after only a beer and some food, I got violently sick on the street! I thought I was going to be arrested for D&D- but went straight back to the hotel not feeling good at all. Without graphic detail, the night was far from pleasant. Sleepless and sweaty would be more apt, and by the morning I was in no position to get on an 8 hour bus, unless it had a toilet and unlimited sick bags. Food poisoning I think, but seeing what Phuket is like, at least I didnt get mind poisoning.

That meant another night in Phuket, travelling on the next day early doors. The next day was a long, long day of buses, first to Hat Yai, the border town, then on to Georgetown in Penang, where I would spend the night. When we got to Georgetown it was late, 10pm or so, and as we opened up the boot of the minivan, all the bags piled out, including mine thank God, apart from the bag of one Swedish lad. Oh my God, he was spitting bullets!! Apparently it had been left on the floor at the border crossing as the bags were scanned for contraband, and the driver simply forgot to put it back in. I could have easily been mine. Lucky boy. That night I had a bit of food and a few beers and watched smuggly as Portsmouth dumped United out of the FA cup, brilliant. The room was a dive, 2 quid a night, but I didnt care. Play up Pompey!

The next day I had another long journey, 8 hours from Penang to the Cameron Highlands east of the coast line. Bus journeys do not now phase me as they first did, especially after the 28 hour horror ride in Vietnam, so the time passed easily enough. I also met some English people, a group of 5 who had been travelling together for a few weeks, and tagged along with them to find a hostel. Now when you walk into a hostel, and you are offered a dorm room that is either "inside" or "outside" and the luxury of a single room offers itself to the tune of 4 quid- you jump at it!! And it was a really cool hostel with pool table, dvd room and bar, and also a campfire type garden where people generally congregated each night.

The Cameron Highlands are very beautiful, as unlike the surrounding wild jungle, there are thousands of acres of neatly kept and manacured tea plantations at every turn. We decided to take a full day tour. First of all however, we took a 3 hour trek in to the jungle to see a very rare flower. These flowers, (or funguses as the guide liked to remind us), take 4-5 years to mature and grow, and are only in bloom for 7 days before they die. We were lucky enough to be in the vacinity when one was in bloom, so after a very steep climb, and an adventure with a 4x4 and a couple of machetes, we reached it. It was worth the trek. We were greeted by a 2 foot wide, glowing red flower, more suited to Disneyland and Mario Kart than a tropical forest, but stunning. The real problem was battling past the nutty Korean tourists who wished to practically suck all of the colour out of it with incessant photographing.

After lunch, we carried on to the Tea plantations themselves where narrow winding roads carve a path through hedges appearing to hold leaves the same as outside any 2-bed semi in Rochdale. Turns out its Tea! lol. But, the leaves smell and taste of nothing in a pure form, and obviously the real magic happens in the factory. The factory itself was closed, which was not at all a disaster because we simply watched a quick video about it before skipping out onto the veranda for tea and scones with jam and cream.

After dragging ourselves away from there, we headed to a butterfly farm. It would be more appropriately called a butterfly abattoir. It was ill-maintained, with more dead than live butterflies everywhere, some floating in streams, others squished underfoot and some really wishing they were dead. Not a pretty sight. Adjacent to the farm was a small insect and creepy crawly sanctuary which was much better. We saw Rhino-Beetles, and touched them, and all sorts of weird "bugs" from the forest, as well as snakes (one particularly lary cobra), spiders and scorpions.

The tour finished with a visit to a strawberry farm. Now in England, I can only eat strawberries if they are laced with sugar and cream. In Malaysia, I can only eat strawberries if they are handpicked, sitting on top of a waffle, with homemade strawberry jam, homemade strawberry ice-cream and cream. Its really not that different!! That night, the group of guys I had been travelling with were splitting slightly, and one of the girls, Caroline said she would travel with me to Taman Negara, the national park, which meant a long day of travelling the next day.

When we arrived, we got a room for 10 Malaysian Rillet a night each. Thats 1 pound 50- and its a dive, but we didn't plan on spending much time there, so it was fine. So as not to loose an entire day to travel, we decided to do a night jungle safari, which we though was a walk in the jungle. It was in fact a cruise through the huge palm oil plantations surrounding the park in a 4x4 (also filled with Koreans) with one man and his (very powerful) torch. It was difficult to follow the torch as he moved it so quick, but I guess he knew what he was looking for. We managed to see some Leopard cats, which are exactly what you think, a cat with leopard print fur, some wild boars, some buffalo and a pair of other small cats. An enjoyable entree.

Today we had the busiest day for a long long time. Caroline and I got a guide to take us to a canopy walkway quite deep in the jungle, and up high. A proper trek through mud and vines and leaves. The canopy itself was very loud, full of insects and birds in full voice, but to be honest, you could not see anything, and when you did look up, you would soon be looking down if you didnt want to end up on your backside 50 metres down the slope! The trek was about 3 and a half hours, and the sweat, believe me, was rolling. This afternoon, instead of going steady, and because Caroline is moving on tomorrow, we decided to do another trek, this time to the Bat Caves. This was a monster! So steep and slippery after the 3 o'clock daily downpour, but we struggled on and up and down, until we finally reached the caves. And when we did, I got about 15 metres into the cave before seeing as bat whizz past my face, and I ran out! I hate them. Horrible creatures. Ive eaten rat now, but I cant even look at a bat. No good photos from the Bat Cave, plus I heard Robin was busy and Commissioner Gordon was holding the Joker in for questionning over night!!

I am excited about tomorrow. I have booked a 2 day, 1 night Trek to a fairly remote part of the jungle, where we eat under the stars and sleep in a cave (which has no bats I checked). Looks on first meeting to be with quite a cool group, 4 of us, plus a guide. I am now so so happy I decided to visit Malaysia x