Hello Again! First up, we must apologise for leaving it so long. We\'ve been pretty busy over the last 2-3 weeks and thought we\'d save all of our news up for a big juicy postcard! After completing our diving cert\'s in Koh Tao, we headed for the neighbouring island of Koh Phag Ngan to catch the full moon party. We stayed in the North of the Island, in a resort called Coral Bay which is further away from the action and a little more chilled. Home was a little bungalow overlooking the bay, and with our hammock strung up on the balcony we had a fine time relaxing. I don't quite know how a week passed so quickly - all we seemed to do was sit around playing cards, talking and eating (a common theme in our travels!). The night of the full moon party we ventured out of our little hideaway and proceeded to enter into the party spirit by guzzling plastic buckets (literally) of Vodka and Thai Red Bull (which allegedly contains amphetamines) which are sold by stalls absolutely everywhere. The party was down on the beach at Hat Rin where the bars lining the shore had set up sound systems pumping out the tunes for the massive crowd. From when the buckets starting kicking in, things are a bit hazy and the night became a blur of manically dancing pill heads with neon paint tattoos, fire jugglers, and guys urinating in the sea or passing out face down in the sand. So, I think that you will agree that these are all of the ingredients for a truly cracking night out which we concluded by scrabbling half of the way home over rocks at low tide as the sun came up - not a good idea - we have the coral cuts to prove it! So that wrapped up Thailand with a bang and we headed over the border to Malaysia. Most neighboring countries seem to give way to each other seamlessly but traveling into Malaysia the changed were much more noticeable. It actually looked like someone had bothered to do a bit of town planning and had even paved a couple of roads while they were at it - hell they had even planted a few pretty plants by the side of the road too! The Island city of Penang marked the first point of our transition back into civilization. Here we started off on a theme we seem to have stuck with in Malaysia of seeking out higher ground. We looked out over the city from a skyscraper and took a funny little train up to Penang Hill where they have a scarily high and wobbly rope bride for thrill seeking tourist to clamber over. The definite high point was feeding the monkeys at the Botanical gardens though. They are really cute but can get pretty aggressive when the snacks aren't forthcoming enough. After Penang we headed North across the water to the Island of Langkawi. The beaches here aren't as nice as in Thailand but there is plenty to do and we had a really good time there. We hired a car, and ever the altitude seekers, took a really, really high and precarious looking cable car up a mountain for some pretty amazing views of the Island. We hit the malls there and Paul managed to restock his entire travel wardrobe (depleted after he ditched his controversial vest following the relentless taunting on the message board) while Linda came away with only a bottle of Vodka - something not quite right there! We also did a bit of sun worshipping and hired jet skis that were pretty nippy little devils. A big draw for Langkawi is that it is a tax free island which equates to super cheap booze! There was only one real bar serving booze (as Malaysia is mainly Muslim) where we were staying so a group of us would head down to there of a night to take advantage of the bargain bevies. One evening we went night swimming and experienced Phosphorescence, which is a kind of plankton (I think) that lights up with movement - a bit like an underwater disco - It was an amazing experience - we did a sub-aqua can-can with our legs all a-glow! Next up on the old itinerary was the Cameron Highlands. An area up in the hills which is covered in tea plantations and jungle - It has a bit of a reputation for being quite like England with it's cool climate, green and picturesque scenery and colonial architecture. You can even get tea and scones there! We did a mini-trek while we were there and took in some of the tea plantation, and went for a little explore in the mossy forest which is full of all sorts of plant matter which our guide alternately informed us would either kill you or make you super-virile! We also visited a butterfly farm which was much more interesting for it's collection of creepy crawlies, snakes etc. Our guide kept pulling these hideous creatures our of their cages and encouraging us to touch them. We will post some pictures so you can see why we declined his kind offer for the most part. Today we arrived in Kuala Lumpur which so far seems to be very big, busy, hot and full of Malls. We already checked out one which made us feel like absolute paupers - it had Gucci, Cartier, Versace, Chanel, Chopard - the lot. It was a reality check to go from feeling like relatively wealthy Westeners in Thailand to drooling at jewels which cost more than we are ever likely to earn in the next decade. In a couple of days we travel to Singapore and then fly to Australia. The both of us are gagging to eat some decent Western food - we keep craving salad! Anyway, if you are still awake, I think that's quite enough from us! Hope everyone is healthy and happy. Lots of Love, Linda & Paul xxxxxx