After Singapore Owen and I decided to have a look around the mainland of Malaysia. We caught a bus from Singapore and went up the east coast to Mersing. From Mersing we caught a ferry to Tioman Island. Tioman Island is a beautiful place where you have to catch a boat taxi to get from town to town because there are no roads. We were impressed by the beauty of the fauna and flora on the island but the locals let us down. They were less then friendly to us and tourists in general. But on the bright side, the beers were cheap and the snorkelling was awesome. We spent six nights here but after reflecting on it we probably shoud have only stayed here for three nights because there really isnt much to do other than drink beer and snorkel.

We left Tioman Island to venture north west to a place called Chini. In the Lonely Planet it descibed the place as a 'must do' but warned people that it is quite difficult to get to. Well they werent wrong! Chini is so remote that it took a lot of effort to get there. Trying to find the right bus where no one spoke English was a difficult task. Hitchhiking was looking more and more appealing as we sat on the side of the road in the middle of no where getting eaten by mozzies. To our relief the bus did come and took us 12km from our destination. In the end we had to get the local bus driver to give us a ride to where we planned to stay because there was no other available transport. When we arrived to our accomodation we found that it was not much more then a thin mattress on the ground in a shed. However with no other options we grinned and beared it.

The next day we woke up to find that we were the only white faces around the village. We were relying on the guy who owned our accommodation for information because according to the Lonely Planet he spoke impeccable english and ran activities. Unfortunately, he passed away eight months earlier and his wife could not speak much english. We were pretty guttered because we were at a lost to what to do. Its not as if we could catch a taxi anywhere because there were none. After many attempts at trying to talk to the lady that ran our accomodation we managed to get to a place where they took tourists out on boat rides around the lakes and through the jungles. This was pretty cool as the boat driver took us to some really remote villiages as well. One villiage we had fun shotting darts with a big blow gun at a target. The local people ended up selling us one which is made out of carved wood. It is pretty cool looking and I am so pleased we bought it from such a remote place.

The Lonely Planet talked about the lake being beautiful, clear and full of lily pads and huge lotus flowers. However, this is not the case. The lake was once clear and beautiful but since they have started to mine around the lake all the mud has collapsed into it. So, as we have learnt on previous experiences The Lonely Planet does not always give correct information because it is out of date. All in all, we were expecting Chini to be a bit better than it was but it was still a cool experience.

After Chini we caught a bus to Kuala Lumpur. We spent five nights in KL looking around the giant malls (one had a massive roller coaster in it) and eating the local cuisine. We stayed in a backpackers called Reggae Mansion and this place was epic! So flash and nice compared to the s*** boxes we were getting used to.

After KL we travelled up the west coast to an island called Pinang. Here there is a bridge connecting the island to the mainland. We really liked staying in Georgetown and ended up staying there for longer then we anticipated. The scenery was awesome and the people we met were great fun!

Our last stop on the mainland of Malaysia was Cameron Highlands. This place is located up quite high so we managed to get away from the heat and stickyness of Asia for a few days. Here we went to a bug farm where there were massive butterflys, snakes, scorpians, toads, beetles and lots more. It was like they all had been injected with steroids because they were huge! We also did lots of walks around the tea plantations and up hills.

Next stop Borneo!!