On arrival at Mersing, as our boat was many hours late the tide was low so there was no chance of our boat docking so lots of little rib boats had to come and collect us and our bags. This involved a long wait and viewing lots of Chinese/Malaysians being seasick... Not a pleasant sight! Finally, once we were on land we headed to Omars Backpackers as recommended by Lonely Planet for being a 'tidy, clean and social backpackers pad'. 

Omar seemed to be a nice person and the room seemed clean enough, so we paid up and left to go for dinner at Port Cafe and Bistro. Seriously if Helen is to own a bar she wants it to be like this bar! Both Nick and Helen had some western food, home comforts after a long day.

Mersing is a fishing village on the east coast of Johor, it's a busy compact place due to the ferry services to several islands in the Seribuat Archipelago. There is nothing to see here! Mersing is just a place to break up a long journey! 

We returned back to Omars after our dinner and starting reading up on Melaka our next destination, Helen felt something biting at her feet and was disgusted to find that there were bedbugs crawling all over her feet. Naturally she ran out of the room in sheer terror only to find they were absolutely everywhere! Our clothes and backpacks were crawling with the bugs - this is the closest Helen has been to a nervous/emotional/total breakdown and it's only been 10 days! 

Omar came into our room and said that the bedbugs weren't a problem and started using insect killer on them! He totally played the situation down and didn't give us our money back; we didn't even think to ask at the time as we were desperate to run! (bear in mind this was at about 11pm)

Nick went searching for a hotel and we checked in to the Embassy hotel which was nice and clean with a hot shower however our clothes and bags were still crawling with bugs so we spent the next 4 hours finding them and killing them!

We were going to try and get a 7.30am bus to Melaka, and we had probably about 3 hours sleep between us going to the toilet with the runs, checking for bed bugs and just generally feeling wired. 

7am the next morning, no more bugs were sighted - yay but the eggs are even more evil... So its a waiting game. We also missed our bus as it left at 7.15am and all the buses were full as everyone's trying to get back home ready for work/school tomorrow as holidays are over. Both of us were feeling very deflated and checked back into the hotel, put all of our clothes in the laundry, cleaned our bags, used industrial strength insect repellent and treated ourselves to KFC. Hopefully that's the end of the bedbugs!

At the hotel we met a nice man from London who we had a decent conversation about diving in the Philippines and Sipadan...although we didn't get his name! This made us really look forwards to Borneo especially with Mabul/Sipadan, Sandakan and Guning Mulu National Park. Helen really wants to see the Bajau Bajau ever since seeing them on the BBC series 'Life'.

It's now gotten to the point where we have forgotten what day it is! We have faced sandflies, bed bugs, Mosquitos, seriously what else can we face? Lesson learnt: never take a chance on accommodation, we are now going to seriously investigate all future hostels and read other travellers candid reviews!