Hi all

So here we all were sitting in Jehrte for the six hours or so we had to kill before our bus left for Singapore. Cool. We left our bags with the ever helpful ticket office and headed off for some food, Internet and whatever else we could find. First priority was food. We wandered around passing various options, most of which were closed. Firkin Ramadan. Eventually though we hit upon a Chinese run café and headed in for some serious grub. There was no menu as such, just a counter with various foodstuffs in a hot hold. You go up and the girl behind the counter dishes you up your heart’s desire. Chicken, vegetables, pork, rice, noodles all served up in various sauces and it was actually pretty good. Me and And had also spotted some locals eating what looked like huge dumplings, so we added a couple of those to our plates and off we went. They were seriously tasty. They were stuffed with a kind of chicken in gravy but tasted a bit sweet. We made slight arses of ourselves when we had to ask the woman behind the counter how to eat the darned things, and even then just adopted our own way. I ate mine like a Cornish pasty to begin with, then opted for picking bits of it out with chopsticks. A few strange looks, but hey it worked for me. The meal was only slightly spoiled by the blokes at the table next to us noisily eating chickens’ feet. Not the nicest sound in the world as they cracked, sucked and crunched their way through them, but it was fascinating to watch. Except for Mand who threw down her chopsticks in disgust and declared she couldn’t eat any more. Ah well.

After lunch we headed for the Internet café for our Sunday MSN session which we were promptly kicked out of when the staff all had to head off and eat. Flamin Ramadan interferes with everything. But by now the market was open and we decided to kill some time by wandering around there for a little while. And how glad we were we did. It was full of cheap imitation watches and as we were heading to Oz and some kind of reality where time really did matter, we spent a good hour annoying the piss out of one of the stall holders by trying on just about every single one of the 300 or so watches they had on offer. I eventually settled on a dodgy Polo Barbara for about two quid and Mand on a really pretty something else. Mine consequently gave me a rash within about two days of wearing it (although for those two days I took great delight in getting people to ask me the time every few minutes - which wasn’t annoying at all) and has since been consigned to various pockets in my rucksack. Balls. Mand’s however has proved a much better buy (or maybe she’s just not as sensitive skinned as me) and she is now official time keeper of our trip.

Next stop was a goddam shoe shop. As Mand and Laura disappeared inside frothing at the mouth at the thought of all the wonderful delights it might contain, me, Andy and Kimbers waited outside with mounting agitation. Eventually, after about three days I stormed in with the words ‘don’t worry, I’ll sort this out’ and promptly found myself admiring a lovely pair of brown leather shoes. Needless to say I bought them and suddenly found myself outside (after a little ‘new shoe’ dance to entertain the staff) and looking at the bemused and amused faces of Andy and Kimbers. You just can’t trust some people :o)

After a few games of cards back at the station me, Mand and Andy headed for a supermarket to stock up on supplies for the ten hour journey to Singapore. The supermarket was amazing, well, it was after the near emptiness of the Perhentians, and it wasn’t long before we’d bought enough snacks to last several journies. I’ve never been so amazed at the sight of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk before, and probably never will again. What we failed to comprehend was that we’d be asleep for the majority of the journey anyway. And so it proved. The bus was super comfy with leg room aplenty and a packed lunch thrown in. Absolute luxury. We disembarked with our shopping bags full of treats virtually untouched, and trying desperately to find a way of carrying them and our rucksacks through customs in Singapore, like a bunch of bag ladies on a day out. But before we knew it we were through, back on the bus and waiting outside the bus station for taxis.

We waited for what felt like hours for a taxi to come past so I took a management decision and hopped across the road to get a funeral parlour to phone one for me. When I emerged it was to see Andy and Kimbers already gone and Mand and Laura about to get into a second. I jumped in and as we pulled away we saw our two ordered taxis pull up and zoomed past a puzzled looking funeral guy and two pissed off looking taxi drivers. An hour in Singapore and I was already upsetting the locals. Sweet.

We all got dropped off outside a five star hotel in the centre (we’d decided on yet another ‘one last treat’) and weren’t really surprised to find that they had no room for five smelly, dirty, hadn’t had a hot shower for ten days, backpackers and retired across the road to a coffee shop that had free refills til ten. As me and Andy sat and sipped our virtually free coffees the girls headed off to find suitable accommodation. The theory being that they’d have a slightly better chance of convincing a reticent receptionist that they weren’t all bad. No such luck but they did come back with a phone number for a boutique hotel called ‘The Scarlet Hotel’. One swift phone booking later (thank God there’s no such thing as the smellyphone yet) and we were in taxis and heading off. The look on the porter’s face when he opened the taxi doors and we all piled out thrusting backpacks at him was a sight to behold. In we went and were shown to the most luxurious suite in the place. It was fantastic. Cable telly, mini bar, huge soft beds, spa bath and two showers. Top drawer. To make it absolutely perfect I opened the mini bar and there, nestled inside beside the nuts and crisps, were three bottles of ice cold Stella. How happy can one man be? The words ‘pig’ and ‘s***’ spring to mind...

After long hot showers and spas all round, it was with reluctance that we headed out into Singapore for some shopping. With the girls once again frothing at their beautiful mouths at the thought of Gucci, Prada and for some reason Top Shop we were soon caught up in all the, ahem, excitement. After about forty days and forty nights in Top Man we left, exhausted and happy and headed back to the hotel to get well and truly smashed before we headed out into the hugely overpriced pubs and bars of Singapore.

Sloshed and dressed in our best threads, a few hours later we headed off to Raffles, home of the Singapore Sling and easily the poshest hotel in the world. Ever. Obviously, we weren’t allowed in the posh bit (although we did get some cracking pictures of it before the security men started taking an interest in us) and instead had to join the rest of the riff raff(les) in their public bar which is just round the corner. The place was pretty grim to be perfectly honest. They place huge bowls of monkey nuts (as in the ones you buy in England, not some local ‘delicacy’) on the tables and the tradition is to throw the empty shells on the floor. Ah well, when in Rome and all that.

The bar is proper old colonial, all wood and brass and had a really relaxed ambience with an undercurrent of mischievousness. They had a live band on who were pretty lively and played loads of pure gold songs. From Led Zeppelin (ahhhh Smoke On The Water) to the Chillis and I’m sure there was some Abba thrown in there as well. After some really dodgy dancing and a few peanut fights however, we decided it was time to move on to a little club Andy had been to before which was quite handily situated just across the road.

Inside, there was another live band on, playing all the same tunes as the one we’d seen earlier. Hmmmm. But the cocktails were (relatively) cheap and it wasn’t long before the girls were up gyrating their various bits on the dancefloor and fighting off the amorous intentions of all the pilots and flight crew sleazing around, while me and Andy sat at the bar and got well and truly trolleyed. Eventually though, we felt duty bound to go and at least watch them. There was a roped off, reserved VIP area which the girls told us was ours to go and sit in. Drunkenly believing the hype we sat ourselves down, occasionally dancing but more often thunder slurring each other over the music. My kind of night.

One of the pilot guys was getting a little too friendly with Mand, a situation that was swiftly settled when I went over, delicately and smoothly put my arm round her waist and began dirty dancing with her. At least that’s what I thought happened anyway. Mand is convinced I went over pulled her backwards away from the guy and began wobbling all over the place like a man shaped jelly. Either way it kinda worked and he then only tried chatting her up when he thought I wasn’t looking. Or occasionally trying to talk to me like I was his mate and asking if I didn’t mind that he was dancing with her. Strange.

Laura meanwhile was fighting off the amorous intentions of half a dozen pilots who were all anxious for her to go off with them and ‘party’. Interestingly enough she decided against such a promising offer. Also, once again, she affected not to notice that they were all trying desperately to get in her pants -‘Who me, no. They were just being friendly’ ‘Really hun, then why wouldn’t you go with them’. At least that’s answered that question on whether or not she knows what she’s up to. She’s not away with the fairies, she’s just a bit of a din. Sorry, I mean it’s false modesty. Anyway, one of the guys was pretty insistent and tried to jump in our taxi to come back with us. After comparing tattoos for five minutes or so (he was an ex-US Marine - well the tattoos said he was anyway) he finally got the message despite me doing my damnedest to scare Laura by inviting him back, and we jumped in our cabs and disappeared into the night,.

By now, we were all well and truly buckled so back at the hotel it was obviously time to drink more JD. With Laura throwing a kind of strange fit about people smoking and retreating into a celeb magazine, the rest of us had ourselves a singalong with Andy playing guitar, until it was all but impossible to retain consciousness. We took to our beds for the most part fully clothed and a scant two and a half hours later we were up and off.

Now to be fair I was still seriously pissed and looking at Kimbers I could see she was too. Andy and Mand looked annoyingly untouched by the previous night’s excesses and spent the journey to the airport royally taking the piss. Laura meanwhile slept through our departure, or at least pretended to. Bless. Although we didn’t always see eye to eye I was still kind of sad that she was leaving us. We weren’t really each other’s cup of tea to be fair, but I’ll never forget some of the things we got up to together, and her knack for taking over the DJ booth is truly something to behold. We had a lot of fun and the memories we share are forever, inextricably linked. Good on you hun, didn’t think you’d last the distance, but you proved me one hundred percent wrong. And with some style to boot x

At the airport Andy walked us to our terminal (mainly because a drunken Kimberley wouldn’t let him out of her sight - ‘Eight hours is soooooo long, I don’t want you to go’ - and then we were through to departure where we all promptly fell asleep. Somehow we roused ourselves at exactly the right time and it was with genuine regret that we boarded our flight to Perth.

I for one was absolutely enamoured with all five of the countries we visited in Southeast Asia. Albeit a whole lot less with Cambodia than the others. And to be fair we were just leaving somewhere we didn’t want to leave, Mand had caught Cameron the moaner’s cold and I guess it just wasn’t the right time for us there. But I would like to go back some day and have another look with a fresh pair of eyes. Maybe we will.

As for the other countries I’d gladly live in any one of them, particularly Vietnam. The people, the culture, the history, the scenery, the pure vibrancy of the place found a space in my heart its going to be difficult to match anywhere else. And I was only there two months.

Laos was absolutely beautiful and not even I am going to be able to forget the sheer majesty and breathtaking views afforded us by the slow boat and our night bus through the mountains. The people too were simply awesome and probably more hospitable than even the Vietnamese were. They were definitely more laid back. I guess they’re at a place in their time that sits, much like the country, between Vietnam and Thailand.

As for Thailand we’re gonna head back there again at some point (I just found out today that for me at least it’s going to be when I make my visa run on 16th April, where I’m going to meet up with a certain fat bloke with a big Sam Allardyce like head) and I know we barely scratched the surface in the month we were there. Myself and Mand are definitely heading back there before the end of this trip to do the bits we missed.

Malaysia, well I can’t really comment. The beaches of the Perhentians were stunning, as was the opulence of the Pan Pacific Hotel at the airport. Other than that, all we really saw was a grotty hotel room and a bus station. But the people seemed nice. We’re probably going to try and fit a return visit in there too before we head back to blighty, probably after Thailand and on our way to Indonesia. Possibly before we head to New Zealand. Am I the only one wondering if we’re ever going to get home?

Still, next up was Australia, which despite our misgivings about leaving Asia we were looking forward to like a koala looks forward to a nap.

Laters all

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