This was our last stop in Malaysia, since our time there was constrained by Rosh Hashana, which we couldn't celebrate at all anywhere in such a Muslim country - we even found the contact details online of a Jewish guy who lives in Kuala Lumpur (seemingly the only one in the country, and that must have been why he was listed on the website!), so we asked what his plans were for it....his reply: I'm leaving the country! So we had to get to Singapore in time, and th...

Another island trip, another bout of crappy weather - it seems that every time we try to hit the beach for a few days it starts pouring, but that's mainly because it's just raining quite a lot at the time in general, what with the rainy season being in full flow and all... We'd been hoping to go to the Perhentian islands off the east coast of the Malaysian peninsula, since every single person we'd spoken to about Malaysia had recommended them so highly, but havi...

The main reason we went to Penang, an island off the northwest coast of Peninsular Malaysia, was because it was described in the guidebook as the food capital of Malaysia (I'm starting to notice food cropping up quite frequently in these posts..!). And the food was amazing - lots of cheap market goodies, big mixture of Indian and Chinese food along with the fried rice we'd got so used to. Some of the restaurants were a bit pushy though, especially one Indian plac...

Continuing our overland journey through Malaysian Borneo, we went to Kota Kinabalu, the main city in Sabah, and stayed outside the city in a beachside hostel for Sivi's birthday. Accompanied by our dorm-mate Katrina, we went to one of the islands off the coast of Borneo for some excellent snorkelling and a delicious beach buffet. Many beaches later, that beach is still far and away the best one we've been to on this whole trip! The hostel owners then took us to...

OK, so it's almost exactly 2 months since we were actually in Sarawak, but I hate not finishing things, so much as I'd like to give this blog up as a bad job, I can't. Lucky I've kept a diary... We spent 3 weeks in Borneo in total, about half of that time in Sarawak (the southern part of Malaysian Borneo), mainly going from one national park to another, doing lots of trekking, and (see the photo) looking at orangutans! We started in Kuching, a really lovely rive...