After a couple of uneventful days in KL we headed to Taman Negara, supposedly Malaysia's best asset - thick jungle apparantly heaving with wildlife. Here we did a canopy walk billed as the longest and highest in the world. Half of it was shut, however, so 10 minutes laterit was over. A disappointment. Add to this the realisation that morning that Paddy had left his camera on the boat the day before, the fact that the mosquitoes were eating us alive - and you may ...

After a long, bumpy jeepney ride and a short flight we were back in Malate, Manila. Our base. The area where you have to walk down the middle of the road amongst the traffic because there are no pavements (not a problem because they swerve to avoid white people apparantly), where child beggars hit or swear at you if you don't give them money, and where everyone you meet on the street is selling something; but we loved it because everyone had a sense of humour abo...

Island Hopping: The envy of all beach travellers. The first day began with a trip to the local market to gather some provisions. This entailed useless, ignorant westerners agreeing to buy all that (Ca)Pitan suggested, insisting only that we have a crate of beer to go with his four bottles of rum. The cloudy weather dampened no one's spirits as we embarked upon our trip. Ice cold beers at the bow were the order of the day as we made our way to the south side of ...

On arrival in Manila I was greeted by Dominique (friend from Uni those that don't know) and Paddy - fantastic to see both of them. Once we had left Dom's air conditioned jeep however, I was all too aware how inappropriate most of my luggage was - expect a package home (sleeping bag, gloves, hat, scarf, hoody joggers and more ridiculous items for sweltering heat). Those checking my bags at the airport thought I was a madman. Anyway, Paddy and I enjoyed 5 days in...