We said goodbye to our friends in Australia and headed for Singapore airport. We were glad to see the improvement in Rob he was on a drip when we arrived but was on proper food when we left. He still has a way to go but things are very positive and the doctors have said they may remove his tube next month.

We had to get from Singapore airport to Johor Bahru (JB in Malaysia) and according to the net there was a limo service, special taxi service or a bus to get through the border. We decided to contact our hotel in JB to arrange our pick up as we were landing at 9.40pm. The charge was around 30 GBP for the two of us and for this we were picked up at the airport never left the car at the check points and delivered to the hotel doorstep (lazy so and so's eh!) but no hassle at all.

We found out that the border is shut from 4 - 7pm every evening to cars as there are around 40-50,000 scooters/motor cycles go through the border every evening transitting from Singapore where they work to JB where they lodge. When we went through at 11.00pm not only were our passports checked twice but also the car contents were checked as well.

JB was not touristy at all, but had some nice buildings and we had a very nice hotel at half the price of a similar standard in Singapore. On our travels round Tony was requested to have his photo taken with 3 Malaysian girls, but their camera wouldn't work (must be his good looks!!!). We also found TGI Friday's where we dived in to get some air conditiioning as JB was very hot and humid, after chatting to the staff we met the manager who said that he always gave a free dessert to new customers, so Thea just had to have an ice cream sundae at 10.30am. All the people we met were very friendly and helpful.

Kuching was our next stop and we thoroughly enjoyed walking around the streets seeing the different shops and markets that reminded us of Oman. The museums were also interesting and helpful, we looked at our map outside a girls school and were inundated with offers of help to find our way. Thea was also approached by a young man as Tony had gone to the toilet (20sen) thinking she was travelling on her own and lost!! He was very interesting and we both had a long chat about life in Kuching and fish in particular.

We had a day trip to Bako National Park where we were transported by boat via the South China Sea to see Probiscos Monkeys in the wild. We also saw snakes and wild boar. The humidity and heat was very high such that all our clothes were ringing wet and Thea's watch stopped working only to start again the next day when it presumably had dried out. The guide told us of a fish restaurant on level 6 of a multi storey car park so we checked it out and found it to be true. The malay lady had to assist us as you had to pick your fish plus your veggies plus stipulate how you wanted it cooking. We had ours grilled and had supposedly filleted, but it still had it's head when served, she saw us in trouble and came and assisted us. Our veggies were minding which is a young fern shoot, very tasty and we were shown later the actual type of fern. The Crown Plaza (hotel we were in at Kuching) wasn't really up to standard in the restaurant area otherwise it was OK.

Next stop was Kota Kinabalu (KK) here we had a beach resort some way out of KK, as most of the hotels/resorts were. It had a lovely pool and a nice beach, but we were warned off due to jelly fish. The restaurant served lovley seafood at a reasonable price. We took a trip to see Orang Utans but it was very touristy and we wished we had done the trip in Kuching, but however, we saw them and it was good.

We also took a trip to Mount Kinabalu, where we went round the Botanical gardens, but only one type of Orchid was in bloom. Also on this trip we saw a sign saying they had a Raffelesia in bloom, which is the largest flower in the world, it takes a year for it to grow but then it only flowers for 7 days. The guide negotiated a price with the local people to allow us to see it. From the mountain we went to Poring Hot Springs which were not very attractive and we opted to hike to a waterfall instead. But before we did this we went and did the canopy walk which was scarry as it was an alumium ladder suspended on rope in the canopy of the forest. Again both of these were in very humid atmosphere. We also stopped at local markets to see their wares, the fruit and veg were very well presented and offered a large range of products. We left the resort at 7am and didn't get back till 8pm, a good day.

From KK we moved to Hanoi via a night in Kuala Lumpur Airport Hotel which we will cover in our next blog. Our time in KL airport hotel was spoiled as we got changed into our swimming gear only to hear a noise outside which was the heavens opening up and dropping a load of rain on us with a nice thunder storm as well. So we opted to have an afternoon relaxing before our onward trip.