Howdy everyone.

Before I really begin I would like to thank everyone for their support of my hair growth. It is starting to get beyond a joke but I have come this far and another 3 months without a trim isn't going to be the end of the world - is it?

As Zoe said last time we travelled from the dirt and filth of KL (actually it wasn't as bad as some of the places we have visited) for the clean pure untouched peace of the Cameron Highlands. This vision that we were expecting was a little different from the reality we faced when we arrived but I'll crack on with the story.

Based soley on the text in our Rough Guide we had decided when we got to the town of Tanah Rata which is the main town in the Highlands, we would stay at Father's Guest House. When the bus stopped in town there were minibuses from about 5 different guest houses looking to transfer people to their accomodation - everyone had the same idea as us and so the Father's minibus had people sitting on knees and bags hanging out the back while each of the other buses drove away empty. The place had a range of differnt accommodations but we opted for a room in one of 5 corrugated steel sheet clad domed roof nissan huts. It was like a row of mini aircraft hangers and a great novelty.

On Saturday morning after a hearty breakfast of bacon and eggs (how I'd missed that!) we packed ourselves up ready for a day of walking and went to town and bought a map of the local walks. From the outset of the walk it was obvious that the Cameron Highlands had suffered the same fate as many of the south American places we visited - the people were not aware of what they had and as such had spoiled a great deal of it. The rivers and trails were full of rubbish and ramshackle buildings (housing, hotels, factories, you name it) had been thrown up all over the place. Despite this, we had a cracking walk up a 1812m high peak which was very steep, muddy and slippery and just used our imaginations to erase the garbage. We arrived back at Tanah Rata and stopped for lunch, just in time as it turned out because the heavens opened and there were rivers running down the streets. With lunch finished we made a dash through the lighter rain back to Father's. That night we had a few beers and even managed to get the Assen GP on the telly!

Sunday was not a good day for me. I had contracted some kind of lurgy which confined me to bed for the whole day! Zoe went out walking with a gang she met over breakfast and they planned to do a tour of a tea plantation. For whatever reason, 11 million other people had the same idea and the place was bursting at the seams. They viewed from a safe distance and then went walking instead up a different steep, slippery, muddy hill. They found a "Pluck your own" strawberry farm on the way and so stopped for a pluck and a bite and, just like the day before, got back for food just in time for the afternoon downpour. When they got back I was still in no fit state for anything so Zoe went off for dinner with a couple of other friends and I stayed in bed.

Another day dawned and I felt better, not 100% special forces Nick but well enough to leave the room. We chose another walking route and set off into the wide blue yonder. This route was not so steep or slippery but there were signs warning us of the danger of bees! At each of the bee danger zones we trod carefully and kept our eyes and ears attuned for the stripy devils but on the whole trip we saw just one bee and it merely waved us on our way. This day was different from the previous 2 in that the rain did not come in the afternoon. We emerged from the trail in the hills into a village called Orang Asti which was as quiaint a place as you could imagine. It was ramshackle huts and chickens and all sorts tucked away in a forgotten corner of the countryside, quite nice really. It stayed bright and sunny all day with clear blue skies until nightfall so we sat outside our hut and enjoyed the ambiance.

Tuesday morning we got a bus to Penang and then took a ferry across the Melacca Straights to the the city of Georgetown on the Island of Penang - apparently there are a region, a town and an island that all have the name Penang. We found a nice little air conditioned room in the Golden Plaza guest house and set about finding what to do in this place. Our book said that the tourist office on the 3rd floor of the tallest building in town was the best source of info. Turns out the office is now on the 56th floor, the view is great but the information on offer is next to useless. We couldn't even take any photos because of the wrinkly UV film on the windows! Armed with no extra info we decided to rent a scooter the following day to do a lap of the island and see if we wanted to go to the beach resort of Batu Ferengi on the northern shore of the island. We also decided to apply for a 60 day Thai visa as that would sort out a load of potential problems for the princely sum of 4 quid each.

We got our bike (100cc of Honda's finest semi-automatic moped) and set off fo the resort town of Batu Ferengi. As soon as we arrived we decided not to bother coming back to stay for a night, the town looked tacky and reminiscent of the Costa Brava complete with parascenders close to the shore and horses on the beach. We stopped long enough for second breakfast and then hit the road. Zoe had read about a Batik factory which she wanted to visit so we headed there. Batik is the technique of fabric patterning where a wax outline is either hand drawn or printed onto the fabric and then dye is added to the fabric so that the wax acts as a barrier to the spread of the different colours - like a stained glass window effect. The dye is then sealed in place and the wax melted off with hot water. It was an interesting visit and the workers were as steady handed as I've ever seen. The rest of our ride round the island took us to a couple of man made reservoirs and Kek Lok Si temple on our way back to Georgetown. We ditched the bike and collected our thai visa'd passports and booked our bus tickets for the journey up to Krabi (in Thailand) on Friday. The guy we bought the tickets from recommended getting the mini-bus across the border as far as Hat Yai and then getting a big air conditioned coach in Thailand for the remainder of the journey up to Krabi. At the time this seemed logical and so we paid for the tickets and went on our way. The rest of the evening was spent washing off a day's worth of grime accumulated on the bike, having dinner and hitting the hay.

Our last day on Penang was Thursday and we did the two remaining sights that had been on our list - the furnicular up Penang Hill and Fort Cornwallis. The furnicular is a pair of carraiges linked by a heavy steel cable running over a winch pulley. It has two stages as the vertical rise is actually in excess of 700 metres and it took us about half an hour to make the ascent including the carraige cahange at half way. The view from the top would have been spectacular had the clouds not rolled in and the heavens opened. If we had had a view we wouldn't have known what to do with it anyway! The fort was exactly that, a fort on the site of the first British landing on the island which has been filled with a series of informative displays and such like. Pleasant way to pass an hour but nothing more.

Friday dawned and we were full of excited anticipation for the continuation of our journey up into Thailand. We boarded the minibus and it was a bit cramped, a little warm and stuffy perhaps, but not altogether unpleasant. To get off Penang Island we crossed the 13.5km long causeway which we had seen just about from various vantage points around the island, what a feat of engineering that is! Leaving Malaysia and entering Thailand involved a minimal amount of fuss and then we were at Hat Yai. We were accosted by loads of touts trying to sell us tickets to Krabi and we chose one vendor who offered a good price for a comfortable looking a/c coach leaving in an hour. At first when we sat down our choice of bus looked ok, but we set off and they put on some Godawful music videos and as the journey progressed they just kept on picking up passengers until the seats were full, the aisle was full and the a/c had completely given up trying to reduce the temperature. The journey was hellish and when we alighted from the bus in Krabi we found the outside ambient was actually cooler than the air on the bus - pissed off only just covers how we were feeling! Everything changed however when we got out of the taxi at a fantastic hostel, got cleaned and had dinner with a couple of beers.

Saturday was just a chill out day where we did nothing in particular but got a lot done at the same time. We sorted a trip to the Hong Island for kayaking and snorkeling on Sunday and booked a mini-bus transfer and accomodation on Ko Lanta for a minimum of 2 nights.

We are now on Sunday night and both pleasantly exhausted after a day long trip on a longtail boat (essentially a long wooden boat propelled by a car engine with a long prop shaft attached to the gearbox output shaft) out to Hong Island. We snorkeled for hours and kayaked around the island and the lagoon. The weather could have been better but if the sun had been out we probably would have said it was too hot!

Tomorrow morning we set off for Ko Lanta and then it is Ko Pipi straight after that. I leave you to await word from Zoe sometime in the next week or so.

Bye for now and see you in October.