MALAYSIA My uncharacteristic lack of forward planning ensured that I knew very little about the county before I arrived there, but I should have known what I was letting myself in for when at the Air Asia check-in desk (which I have since come to discover is always a colourful experience) someone was checking in an over sized bag od spuds..... KULA LUMPUR My first stop in Malaysia was the country's gleaming capital, KL. It's a gorgeous city with it's mi...

SINGAPORE - THE LION CITY As per usual, entering the country was a bit of a trauma thanks to the brand spanking new biometric passport deciding it wasn't going to work (again), thus ensuring I would be taken for questioning in a sealed room whilst appearing very shifty as I was squirming in my chair so much trying not to wee. Thankfully, however, I again managed to convince the immigration officials that if I was a terrorist I would have just bought a new passp...

BORNEO I had travelled over to Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, for one reason only - to climb Mount Kinabalu. As soon as I saw the words in the guide book 'highest point in...' I quite simply had to go. The first couple of nights were spent in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah's capital, which is actually a lovely little city, although I have to say I was quite disappointed to find that Borneo had any civilisation on it at all. I thought it would all be jungle and a muddy air ...

MALACCA I opnly wanted to go to Malacca because I knew that the Malacca Straight used to be one of the most dangerous shipping lanes in the world thanks to the pirates so I thought it might be a little bit exciting. Unfortunately, however, quite frankly it isn't. In fact the best descriptive term that I can come up with for it is that it's a bit naff. The city doesn't even have a port anymore, despite once being the centre of world trade and to be honest it...

Back to Bangkok You would have thought that we would have learnt from the first rather hellish experience of the State Railway of Thailand & just got on a plane back to Bangkok. Unfortunately, however, budget restrictions wouldn't allow it and I would have walked back before getting on another frigging bus so round 2 on the rails it was. First of all we had our tickets checked in the usual over-authoritarian manner by the armed guard, and then... *shud...