Arriving anywhere in Asia at noon is never going to be easy for a backpacker… At the height of the day's heat we heaved our heavy bags from Kuala Lumpur's bus terminal in search of our hostel. On the bright side though, as we took wrong turn after wrong turn we got to get to grips with what the city had to offer. If first impressions were anything to go by, KL - as it's referred to locally - was going to be pretty awesome. It seemed to be a typical Asian cybe...

Travelling through Malaysia, how could we miss this place? High up in the hills, the Cameron Highlands play host to the country's renowned tea plantations and it's been a long time since we had a decent cuppa so a ticket here had our names all over it! Our minivan arrived on time (15 minutes late is practically on time by Asian standards), and we were on the road in the so-called air-conditioned 12-seater by 8.30am. Luckily there were only five of us on board,...

Penang is known as the 'Pearl of the Orient,' so we expected trishaws pedalling past Chinese shophouses and ornate temples, blue joss smoke, and a stink of chilli in the air. In reality, it hasn't disappointed us… only it threw in a few white mosques, colourful Hindu temples, and some colonial architecture for good measure too. Historically, this island off the north western coast of Malaysia was the waterway between Asia's two halves and the outlet to th...

If there's one piece of advice that echoes throughout every guidebook for backpackers, it's: "don't leave your passport with anyone." So you can imagine our fear when we found ourselves without ours during what seemed to be a rather sticky border crossing from Thailand to Malaysia. As we transferred to a pontoon in the middle of the sea off Koh Lipe island (where we were to board our final speedboat to Langkawi), a strange Thai man insisted he would sort out o...