We've arrived in Penang, Malaysia. Malaysia mostly comprises of a mainland, Penang Island and the northern part of what used to be Borneo. Indonesia owns the southern part. We booked a hotel in Georgetown which is the old colonial main town on Penang. Surprise, surprise it's a UNESCO world heritage city. When we booked in I flippantly said to the receptionist 'We will of course want your finest room'. 'That's handy' he replied. 'I've just upgraded you'. Resu...

We checked out of the hostel and walked down to the bus office. We were headed to Lake Toba. This is the largest and deepest volcanic lake in the world. Formed around 75,000 years ago. Its last eruption put the area into an ice age as the dust cloud blocked the sun. Fortunately its only mildly active producing hot springs on the island. Bus travel is always an issue. What will the vehicle be like, how many people will be on it, what sort of driver? Today we we...

After breakfast we got a taxi to the train station. Our driver looked a little pissed off as I think he thought we were going to the airport. The airport is a long drive and the train station is only a few blocks away. Still too far to walk though. As soon as we got in he switched off the meter and invented a fare. It was still only two quid so not bad. We found our platform and waited. We had booked an Eksecutif seat. This is the top level and guarantees you ...

The trip to Sengiggi on Lombok was painless. We were collected from the guest house bang on 7am in a mini bus. We quickly picked up two other couples and headed to the port. One of the couples was young and Polish. They had been on the road for about 18 months and were planning another couple of years. It made us feel like we were just on a long week end break. They had some useful information, especially about India. We had planned to be there for 3 months but...

So we have one full day in Jakarta. We've set off to see some of the sights. It's very hot and humid. A slow steady walk is called for. To be honest our research suggests there isn't really much of great interest to see in the city. Our first stop is Freedom Sq. It's a huge concrete square with a massive concrete tower in the middle. Ugly doesn't begin to describe it. Apparently the tower is a representation of a former leader's penis. Nice. Moving swiftly on...