First stop in Asia was Singapore - we instantly liked it, just because of the crazy energy of the place. It is nice to be challenged with day to day activities in such a foreign environment.

We spent the entire first day trying to organise a method of transport out of the city - how hard could it be? Well everything was booked up absolutely solid - we'd kind of overlooked the fact that it was Chinese New Year. This caused some major stress until we resigned ourselves to staying in Singapore for the entire weekend. Looking back, this was an awesome decision because it meant that we were able to enjoy all the New Year festivities.

We checked out the Singapore Zoo, which is world famous and is justifiably so. It is the best zoo we have ever been to with fantastic enclosures for the various animals. Some of the enclosures are so clever that you don't even realise there is a fence and you almost feel like you're walking in the jungle with these creatures.
79% of Singaporeans are Chinese and so the city was celebrating New Year in a big way; we enjoyed Chinese food stalls, boat rides on the river, paper sculptures and free acrobatics. On the night of actual New Year, a huge street party took place in Chinatown and it culminated in a Fireworks display. We'd never seen (or heard) firecrackers like it - deafening. We had a great night until the last firework of the night (or at least a bit of it) managed to find its way into Sarah's eye!!! So, St. John's ambulance and then A&E for the second time in a week meant we got three hours sleep. I must compliment the Singapore health service though - on arrival at the hospital, we registered, had a prelim examination, saw a second nurse, got referred to an eye specialist, saw an eye specialist, had about 15 minutes of surgery (removing firework from Sarah's eye), got a prescription and got signed out in just over an hour!! Dread to think how long this would take on the busiest night of the year in the UK!

Next morning we got the train into Malaysia to Kuala Lumpur (or KL as everyone calls it). We only had one afternoon and evening here, so we searched out the KL communications tower to get the views of the whole city, especially of the recognisable Petronas Towers. The views were great, especially as darkness fell over the city; on the way back we wandered for miles through Little India before finding somewhere to eat. KL was very busy and pretty dirty but we'd sussed out a decent hotel for the night so were chuffed.

The next day we tried to get an early bus for the next leg of our journey but with the whole day booked solid we feared we were going to have to revise our plan yet again. However, we sat in a little food place/hawker stand and waited for somebody to make a 'no show'. Whilst waiting, we enjoyed 'pulled tea' (Malaysian speciality) and Roti Canai with banana (our new favourite breakfast dish!). Just an hour later, we claimed two seats on a bus to the Cameron Highlands.
The Cameron Highlands were fantastic - an area in the Centre of Malaysia at altitude. It is considerably cooler than the coast and is a welcome relief (really fresh); it is also the perfect environment for growing tea and the areas of jungle that have been cleared are carpeted with emerald green tea plantations. On our first full day we took a guided trek through the virgin jungle - this was fantastic. We were pleased to do a bit of exercise for once and enjoyed the local knowledge of flora and fauna from our guide. He pointed out all these different plants that the native peoples use for medicine; there was one which I just couldn't recognise the smell of- after hearing its qualities (muscle ache relief) we realised that it smelt just like 'Deep Heat'! We walked to the top of two jungle covered peaks and to a native village.

The next day, we took a little bus around all the local attractions such as a honey farm and butterfly farm; we got some good pictures here. The highlight of the day though was the visit to a Tea plantation - miles of tea bushes clinging to the hillsides with little old ladies snipping off the leaves. We enjoyed a lovely fresh brew and some scones with jam!!! Very English. We found some great restaurants in Tanah Rata (Cameron Highlands) - we are really enjoying the food so far in Asia, dead cheap and better quality Indian and Chinese than you would ever find at home. I am going to have to work hard when I get home to rid the excess pounds.

Leaving Tanah Rata we reluctantly abandoned part of our plan for Asia. We have already decided upon our next holiday destination - Malaysia Borneo (Sorry Blandy - we wanted to go, but Kinabalu was booked up!), it was at this point that we decided to just make up the details of the itinerary on the spot - you just can't book ahead for things like bus tickets.

Our bus ride to Butterworth was scary as hell. We had a MAD bus driver! He just ranted the whole way and shouted at everyone. At one stage when two guys got on (with all the correct tickets), he climbed out of the drivers seat and kicked them all the way down the aisle! Needless to say we didn't get any sleep on that journey. From Butterworth we got a ferry over to the island of Penang and Georgetown. Penang was established by the East India Trading Company in the days of the Silk road/spice trading and in Georgetown much of the architecture is faded colonial grandeur. We made the effort to get the bus and walk out to Kek lok si temple which is the biggest Bhuddist temple in Malaysia. This place is incredible, huge, it sprawls over an entire hill! The craziest bits were the pools that were full of fish and turtles respectively. No exaggeration, the turtles must have been three deep in this pool - the water was just churning with them! We explored the temple for a couple of hours and took loads of cool photos.
We were eager to get off the beaten track again, so we took a bus to the end of the line on Penang to a little fishing village called Teluk Behang. Here we found a rustic little guesthouse that frankly was very surprised to see some tourists. Although very rough around the edges it was full of character and we chatted to a couple of Ozzies who had been virtually living there for the past 14 years. We spent two days walking forest paths, relaxing on deserted beaches and swimming in shady pools. We watched the fishermen arrive back in the afternoons with their catch and we ate the best seafood of our lives! The seafood was incredible - we ate on plastic plates, sat on plastic chairs, in a slightly grubby openair restaurant and the fish I would wager tastes better than anything we will ever be able to afford back home. We were so glad we ventured out here.

From Penang, we had a mammoth days travel (over 12 hours); we took the ferry back to the mainland and then a minibus to Hat Yai in Thailand. Here we then took a bus (organised on the spot) to Krabi on the West coast and that brings you right up to date..... I will let Sarah tell you about Krabi in the next installment.

Arrrr, that was a marathon, hope you've made it this far, if you did, then leave us a message. See ya all soon! xxxx