We were impressed when we arrived at the jetty for our ferry to Langkawi to be greeted by the sight of a huge modern gleaming white ship. Until we were directed to the small ramshackle boat bobbing beside it. Somehow they managed to squeeze hundreds of people into the belly of the boat in tight rows of seven. Once we set off the windows were so splattered with spray that we might as well have been in a submarine, the obligatory DVD kept skipping and losing the pi...

On Monday we were picked up at 8.45am by a mini bus and taken all over the Cameron Highlands. We visited a rose farm built into the side of a hill, a (pretty boring) bee farm, a strawberry farm where we drank the most amazing strawberry milkshakes and bought yummy dried strawberries, a market, a Buddhist temple AND a tea plantation. Phew. And the trip only cost £5. The tea plantation was what we really wanted to see as it's what the area is most famous for and i...

Our second full day in KL was a rainy one. We stood at the doorway to our hostel umming and ahhing for ages over whether to step out in it without an umbrella but eventually decided to take the plunge and ran to the train station, sheltering in shop doorways whenever someone upstairs REALLY took the piss. We caught a 20p train to Batu Caves, a sacred site for Hindus that thousands of pilgrims travel to each January/February. There are 272 steps that lead up to th...

Whilst in Melaka we poked around the shops, ate lots of the local cuisine (chicken and rice balls for lunch and curry laksa - basically noodle soup with unidentified floating objects in it - for dinner), and visited the remains of the old Dutch church that used to be there. More excitingly though, we went to a foot spa and paid for fish to nibble at our feet to get rid of all our dead skin and make them lovely and soft. The lady behind the counter showed us a pic...

On our second day in Singapore we walked across to Sentosa Island, which is touted as being 'Asia's favourite playground'. Perhaps that should read Asia's most expensive playground. There are lots of cool things to do there, such as walking through butterfly-filled rooms, watching snake charmers, posing for a picture with exotic birds, riding the sky tower for panoramic views etc etc but literally EVERYTHING had a price tag: usually around $20 per activity. That ...