After bartering with every minicab driver in Kuta we had a ride to Uluwatu beach for the bargain price of 70000 rupiah (about 4pounds). We were promised a nice beach and being a prime spot for surfering, plenty of fellow travellers. We arrived to find a non existent town, no restaurants, no shops and no people. The decision to leave was made that much easier when we saw the only rooms on offer came complete with pet tarantula. Not sure how we'll cope in Australia...

Knowing Kuta (our first point of call in Bali) is a lively place we started early and ordered a couple of bottles of wine on the plane, free booze! We'd met up with Zak at the airport which was nice and caught up on the previous weeks antics. With the wine taking affect we deboarded the plane, flagged down a cab and was on our merry way. When we checked into our very posh hotel there was no sign of life at all and we started having second thoughts about going out...

We chose the sleeper train option to get to Singapore, 4 hours longer but always looking for money saving opportunities we figured we could save on a nights accomodation. Bad move as they kept the lights on the whole way so we arrived shattered and not too impressed to find the station was in the middle of nowhere. We wandered around struggling with bags that seem to have gained a few extra items along the way before giving in to public transport. We provided muc...

We arrived in Kuala Lumpur and came across a little guest house, run by a sweet jolly man who helped us throughout our stay, with advice on where to go and what to see. We spent the first day exploring the city and took a stroll over to Times Square shopping mall, where they had a Theme Park inside the building on the 5th to 8th floors of the shopping mall! It was very surreal riding rollercoaster's and other rides inside, whilst other people continued their shop...

We left Penang confident we'd have our best nights sleep on a bus yet with huge reclining seats, pillows and loads of leg room! 5 minutes in and we'd lost enthusiasm as the bus driver clearly thought we were perishable goods that needed refrigerating! Instead we looked out at the views as we crossed the 9 km Penang bridge (apparently one of the longest bridges in the world) and saw the Patronas towers as we entered Kuala lumpur. We were dropped at the Crowne Plaz...