Our first entry from outside of the UK, first stop is Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia flying with Air Asia.

Helen had a very emotional 24 hours prior to departing as her family dog, Meg had to be put to sleep due to her failing health. She is now over Rainbow Bridge with Jennifer, Ben and Storm alive and healthy again with a smile on her face!

On the day of departure, we were in Cardiff and had Brunch at Fino Lounge with Nicks family, we grabbed the opportunity to feast on proper English food and enjoyed it! thanks Anne and Brian!

After bidding our farewells to Rob, Kate, Matilda and bump we made the long journey to Stansted and reality hit in that this journey is nothing in comparison to some of the journeys we will be making over the next 2 years.

On our way to Stansted we met up with Aaron, Alex, Fergus and Russell at a proper British pub near Harlow for again, some proper british grub and our last opportunity for some gossip. It was virtually like the Last Supper for us as we knew that we would have various food experiences over the next 2 years, both positive and negative especially as Helen can be a fussy eater. We then had our goodbyes with Anne and Brian who then made their way back to Cardiff!

On arrival at Stansted after being dropped off by the boys, Aaron realised that he had forgotten to pay for his pudding. We had a long queue to drop our bags off, Nicks bag was 9.2kg and Helen's 12.5kg. Helen was feeling very proud as she thought she would never get her bag to weigh below 15kg.

Luckily we had pre booked our seats so we were at the back of the plane were the seats were 2,3,2. We had the 2 seats so had nobody annoying us or getting in our way if we wanted the loo. There was a mother of two very young children who wanted the empty seats so her children could lie down during the flight, and an older woman (she must have been in her late 60's/70's) tried to challenge the mother saying she wanted the seats but of cause the mother refused to back down. The older woman then got her arm stuck between the seats and was trapped, We couldn't stop laughing!

Shortly after take off we had 8 hours sleep, when we woke up we then had 5 hours to kill by watching films, play games and read our kindle/iPad. We were disappointed to find that the films we had downloaded had no subtitles. Thanks ITunes(!)

As the option of watching a film was eliminated we decided to play Scrabble, and Nick thrashed Helen 289-251 by making up words such as Haid, sveer, biet? What a cheat! Helen will win the next game, Watch this space!

We landed half an hour early, got our first Travel stamp in our passport, woo! Outside the airport there were loads of shops including MacDonalds, Starbucks and 7/11. We then took a one hour bus journey to KL and checked into our hostel, The Explorers guesthouse right in Chinatown.

As it was still relatively early and wanted to get our body clocks in sync with Malaysian time, we had a wander around Chinatown, where there's lots of stalls selling fake goods and street food. We settled for a restaurant that had a lot of White people eating in it as Nick felt this indicated it was trustworthy with travellers. The entire meal minus the beer was about £6 and we had already blown our budget but hey, only our first night!

Our hostel was a luxurious hostel by hostel standards, we had our own bedroom, towel provided, free wifi etc. Couldnt sleep due to the air conditioning and was was paranoid about our room being broken into or the hostel burning down - need to change into traveller mode :) you do read a lot of nightmare stories in the media!

Day 1 - We woke up relatively early to book our bus from KL to Mersing, Johor and the ferry from Mersing to Pulau Tioman which is a 6 hour bus trip only to find that because it's Malaysian holiday the next available bus was eitherat 11.30pm that night or on the 1st of September which was in 5 days time. We decided to take the overnight trip and booked our tickets as Nick had already booked his OW and AOW courses with Tioman Dive Centre. It was crucial that Nick completes his PADI qualifications as we had already booked some diving at the world rated Sipadan Island.

Our afternoon was spent browsing Central Market which reminded me of the Souks in Dubai. We had our lunch and decided to try authentic Malay/Chinese food, Helen couldn't bring herself to eat the meat....in particular as it did notlook very British! While eating we saw a sign for a waiter/waitress job and the going rate was 4.80rm per hour which is equivalent to £1.01 an hour.

We decided against making our way to Batu Caves as it was pouring down with rain so headed back to our hostel to have a nap as we struggled to adapt to the time difference with having a lot of sleep on the flight.

Helen wanted to go to Nandos for dinner and 'apparently' Nick was forced into going - so we went to Nandos for dinner. It dawned upon us that a measly glass of pop cost more than what the waiter probably earns in an hour!

After Nandos we went back to the hostel to pack our bags and head to the bus station for our bus journey to Mersing. The bus journey was fast and erratic but we got to Mersing safely. On arrival we had about 2 hours wait for the ferry.

Now we are going to spend a week in Pulau Tioman where Nick will obtain his PADI Open Water and Advanced Open Water. Our next entry will be in a weeks time when we head back to mainland Malaysia.

(Fergus, Don't be worried about the apparent lack of photos - the opportunity hasn't arisen yet for Nick to wear his Morphsuit).