We flew from Singapore into Kota Kinabalu in Malaysian Borneo, before an onward flight to Sandakan airport. We checked into our dorm room in the exotically titled Sepilok Jungle Resort. Looked great in pictures, but less so in real life - a tad dated and lacking in life. However, it's only a 5 minute walk to the Urang-utan centre. That afternoon we went to see the Urang-utan feeding session. They put bananas and sugar cane onto a platform twice a day and the ura...

We arrived at our hotel in Singapore to find they had no record of our booking. The helpful staff did little to assist and we had to spend money getting the internet booking print out as evidence. No apology and they woudn't refund the internet costs! We got out of the hotel as soon as we could and headed for Raffles. After touring Raffles shopping City complex (just one of about 50 shopping malls in tower blocks) we headed to the Raffles hotel where we had the c...

We took a 1 and a half hour boat ride on some pretty choppy seas - not very pleasant; in fact those passengers on deck got sent down below as it got worse. We only stayed one night on Phi Phi island as we had already spent a lot of time in neighbouring Ko Lanta, accommodation prices at Phi Phi are quite high, and more importantly we had a plane to catch a few days later. It's a beautiful island, quite small, and there are no cars or trucks etc. The only motoris...

Forget backpacking - we are now tanning. The agent who sold us boat tickets to Koh Lanta showed us a lovely small speedboat in the brochure, which turned out to be a 200 man fast boat. We've been done - oh well, it was only 5 pounds. (monthly wage for new cicil servant here is 100 pounds). We were picked up and taken to the accommodation which were little air-con bungalows by the beach. A very small company with about 3 staff - not plush but seemeed ok and with ...

Flew from Bangkok to Kabi, a town that seems to have nothing going for it except as a travel node. It has an airport and the beach reports don't. Krabi has little in the way of tourist interests. We had internet booked a night at a hotel at a nearby beach resort to krab, at the nicely titled Grande Ville hostel. On the shuttle bus (25 seater with 40 people on board) we realised the internet page had been wrong and we were going to the wrong place. No worries - ...