Still in Langkawi

Well still here, leaving on the 28th to go to Vietnam.
Its been hot hot hot, with some cloud and rain in the middle of it, but still beautiful.
We are still in Malibest but have moved 3 times because other people had booked in. The final room/chalet we are in for 3 nights is the best one as its the one right on the beach, we can sit and gaze at the sunset. However, we have been incredibly unlucky in that the morning we moved and we was in the other room a digger was outside the room picking up stuff, thus waking us up. Late on in the day he was then on the beach right next to us whilst sunbathing shifting sand and then as we were in the room relaxing he only moved up the beach to outside our chalet to shift more sand. Extremely unlucky. But its still beautiful.

The other day we went on an 3 island hopping tour. We went to 3 islands (obviously) by speed boat.
The first island was...
This was a gorgeous beach that we stayed for an hour, then only prob was the monkeys would come out and have a nosy at your bags. We had to race out of the water to stop them running of with the plastic bag, luckily a guy on the beach shoo'ed them away.
The second island was...
We didnt get of the boat at this island but fed the Seaeagles. This was cool. There was 3 type of eagles swooping down in the water to pick up the chicken food we had left for them.
The third island was....
This is where the lake which is a miracle because its so near to the sea but is freshwater and apparently is good if you have fertility problems you are supposed to jump in to the lake. I didn't bother. We could have gone on a solar powered peddalo, thats definatly a sign of the times. Whilst walking back to the boat from this island we ended up being surrounded by little monkeys again. Im starting to go off them now as im beginning to realise that they are very clever and having seen them try to pinch food of people and try and get into our bags im weary of them. This time though i flapped my fan around to distract them away and all it meant instead was that they came up and tried to snatch it away from me being inquisitive. so now i can say that my fan has had monkey claws on it. Better to be my fan then me.
In the evening we have taken to going to the Irish bar acrross the road from the hotel. They serve cheap tiger beer and cheap wine. They do do a mean sausage chips and gravy though with vinegar - ahhh bliss.
The other bar we have been to is called Little Laylia Chillout bar and this is owned by a Malaysian and his English wife and they spend 6 months here and 6 months in england now that is good. The bar was named after one of his little girls, he said hes going to have to open another bar somewhere with his other girls name on it.

Langkawi - so beautiful

Ah some sun and sea and a swimming pool.

Its beautiful here and it may have only been an hour away from KL but its certainly a different place. The village we are in is called Pantai Cenang and we stayed the first night in the Beach Resort - very nice for 180RM and now we are at Malibest for 100RM, which is also very nice. Hopefully we can stay here for another couple of nights without needing to move on.

Not done much but got sunburnt, gone in the water, eaten at some nice restaurants and generally relaxed.

Last thoughts on Kuala Lumpur

A few final memories.

1. We went to Nandos 5 times in the end.
2. The chinese market we went to was called Petaling Street market and we bought, deadwood season 3, house season 1, sex and the city season 2, dejavu film for the sum of 10 pounds. My bartering skills was excellent until i discovered that Simon was laughing behind my back and not being at all supportive as i was suggesting ridiculous prices.
3. Simons bartering skills are pathetic, he collared the taxi to take us back to the airport, and he said to me, oh got a good deal for 70Ringits, and im thinknig oooh Simon bartered. I asked him later what the bartering started as and he said oh 70Ringits and i said yes very good we will take that. hahahahahah
4. We finally got on an Air Asia flight that did not charge us for excess baggage (they only allow 15kg each).
5. The tallest man, may be the tallest but the most amusing part of his act was at the end when he got in a taxi, and i could see the taxi driver look at him in amazement and then distress as they had to try and get his very high kitchen chair into the boot of the car.
6. Petronas towers said outloud is Pet-re-nos.
7. Travelling Asia is great, but its tiresome having to always plan ahead and working out what the next stage is, and having problems booking into somewhere with rubbish travel agents. Got an Asian Simcard now so can always ring up places with that if needs be.

Thoughts on Kuala Lumpur

Well, once again, due to my illness (i'm fully better now though) we stayed somewhere a lot longer than what we should of. Kuala Lumpur turned into a week long stay. That's not a bad thing though. Kuala Lumpur is very similar to Singapore, except where Singapore had clinically spotless streets with chewing gum and offense, Kuala Lumpur is filthy with the smells of the sewer system mixing with the smells of the restaurants and food hawkers on the street. We even saw a few rats, Andrea clocked one that was dragging a plastic bag containing some food up the embankment. It was doing a better job of cleaning the streets than the local refuse service anyway.

I'm sure i'm painting a pretty awful picture of Kuala Lumpur, but it all adds to the charm of the place. The locals are very friendly, often calling Andrea a "beautiful lady" when i'm not around. The shopping is fantastic, easily as good as Singapore. You have different shopping centers for different stuff. If you like your Prada, Gucci and Tiffany's there's a shopping center rammed full of them. There's also one thats full of computing equipment, apple, sony, hp, toshiba all present. It kinda reminded me a bit of a giant 7 floor Bowlers on a Saturday. Phone shops are everywhere, so much so that you think that they would never sell anything 'cause there must me more phone dealers than there are people that want phones!

Chinatown was also an amusing place, the market in the evening was rammed full of people and traders with alleyways no wider than your shoulders. Occasionally there will be a mobile fruit vendor that's pushing a trolley up and down the alleyways 'cause chaos for shoppers. You can also tell when the customs people are around as the traders all of a sudden become quieter and rapidly hide their dodgey dvds and fake watches. They all have walky talkies to communicate with each other when danger lurks.

We also went up to do the skybridge walk between the two Petronas towers (pronounced a wierd way). The system is, is that they have a fixed number of free tickets available each day. It's a first come first served thing and you need to be there at 8:30 to grab your free tickets. Being the lazy arses that we are, we turned up at around midday in the hope of getting out tickets. Naturally, they were all gone for the day which was a disappointment, but then along came some german fella who offered to give sell us two tickets 'cause he couldn't make it. For 10 ringits (1.20 in real money), it was a bargain as i would of gladly went way above his asking price for it. The skybridge itself was good except that you have to sit though a naff 3D presentation on how great Petronas is as a company. It wasn't shrek 3D, and with the glasses on it made me feel quite sick more than anything...Andrea was wooed though. From the floor the towers don't seem to be as big as what you would think, i don't know why this is. Andrea says that the empire state building, whilst smaller, is much more impressive. Saying that though, at night the building looks amazing lit up as it is so bright that you can see a big column of light going into the sky.

The other thing we did apart from eat and shop was go to the top of the KL Tower which offered much better views than the Petronas towers could. With camera in hand we snapped away and even found our hotel in the city. Andrea, being the perve that she is, was using the free telescopes not to admire the view but to look into peoples hotel rooms. She worries me sometimes.

The trip to the airport was interesting too. There has been a lot of publicity here about the state of the coaches and the coach drivers after quite a few bad crashes. A lot of the drivers have actually been banned, but the system doesn't pick up on it. They also get paid for performance, so the quicker they get to their destination the more they get paid. This worried us enough to just get a taxi to the airport as it would be the safer option...or so we we thought. Once the taxi driver hit the motorway he just floored it, overtaking, undertaking, and going incredibly close to the car in front. Andrea told the taxi driver that he was dangerous and should be racing on Formula 1, he was more impressed than insulted. The taxi driver did tell me though that i looked a lot younger than what i was and that i had good eyes, that would of been good if it came from a lady, instead it just worried me slightly.

A bonus sight from the plane on leaving the airport was seeing the Malaysian Grand Prix circuit from above, it's very impressive.

So now we're here for a week on the beautiful islands of Langkawi. We're taking a bit of time out to sun ourselves and relax a little before we go to Vietnam on a whistle stop two week tour. Come to think of it, why am i writing this here when i should be in the sun!...i'm gonna go to the beach now and grab me a coctail or two. woo !

People watching in Kuala Lumpur

Kuala Lumpur is like a dirty version of Singapore. Our hotel Katari, is really good as for the price it has the most amazing view of the Petronas towers and the KL Tower but as we are starting to discover really is in one of the skankiest places outside the Putrapaya Bus Station. If you turn right out of the hotel then you are hit with people touting for business to get you on the buses, if you walk left though it changes and takes you eventually on to Bitula Bintang road and this is a great road, lots of shops and a pub that we have taken to siting outside of and watching the world go by. Its perfect for people watching.
Last night for instance we are sat there wondering why people are in a huddle and suddenly this guy stands up and its like 'oh my god' he was enormous and he was just on the pavement touting for people to pay 15RM to have their picture taken with him. It turns out that hes the 2nd tallest man- Ajaz Ahmed in the world. It was funny watching the 3 lanes of traffic slow down and nearly cause frequent accidents. At about 10oclock at night suddenly a parade came down the street of an army band. They were doing their brass band music stuff and then suddenly they all start dancing waving the trumpets in the air. Of course the giant over the road has got the best view leaning over people waving at them with his enormous hands.
Our meal last night was at the Outback Steak House and is probably the first meal that we have had in the past couple of weeks where the portion sizes were actually normal. We rolled out of there bang into a fashion show on the street. It gave Simon a good opportunity to snap like a professional photographer with his flash new camera. haaha i still reckon i get better pics with my little camera.
Sent 3 parcels of yesterday, by sea, will take a couple of months but it does mean when we get home we will have loads of things to open. I reckon at the moment we could have a dining room table to seat about 25 people with the amount of place mats etc we have bought. Oh yes and we are collecting chop sticks. In fact im gonna see if i can pinch some from the restaurant we are going to tonight.

What day is it?

Just discovered that it is Saturday today we have thought it was Friday. No wonder the post office told us it was closed tomorrow. We were going to the Petronas towers today but didnt go because we thought it would be half a day as they like to pray on a Friday. Instead we went shopping again. I got pair of adidas trainers(£10) and some shoes for £4 they have gone back in the box that we have had posted home. Simon had a mad shopping day yesterday and got a flash camera, some flip flops, diesal top, posh aftershave deodorant. Oh and he got his hair cut today.

The other day as Simon was still ill, we decided to go back to a docs again. We ended up in the Outpatients department at the Chinese Hospital as it was the most convenient place and it turned out to be the best place as he got to see the ear nose and throat specialist, who shoved a camera down his nose, ear and down his throat. He also did mine for good measure. He said Simon had got tonsilitus. We blame Andy. Hes on the mend now but no alchol.

Our favorite place (Well mine) in KL is Nandos.... we have been 3 times. KL Tower tonight which revolves so you get to see the whole city

Journey to Kuala Lumpur

7 oclock pickup
Stuck in the only traffic jam in Sabah to get to the airport, fly from Sandakan back to Kota Kinabalu, admire and be annoyed we have no camera on the plane on the fact we are flying right next to the highest mountain in South Asia - Mt Kinabalu and we can see the top above the clouds - very cool.
Pick up luggage and realise we need to go to Terminal 2 of the Airport (Kota Kinabalu is not a big place and really does not need 2 terminals). Terminal 2 is on the other side of the runway and was in fact a 10min taxi journey.
Flight to Kuala Lumpar at 12. Arrive at 3.30, get a bus to the city for 9RM each (a pound) instead of a taxi for 100RM (£12)cos we are trying to be on an unsuccessful budget. We were on the coach until about 7.30 and this wasnt because it was going everywhere but was because of the traffic. Kuala Lumpar has got a serious traffic problem. Mind you we did for some reason see the Petronas Towers from all angles. Kuala Lumpar traffic jams involves a couple of rules. 1. Its okay to go through lights on red. 2. Must beep at everyone. 3. Must swap lanes at all times. 4. Its okay if you are a scooter to drive the wrong way if it means it will help you go the right way.

When we finally did arrive we had to walk in the rain to the hotel, but luckily it was only up the road. However the best sight that we saw in Kuala Lumpar was not the Petronas Towers but NANDOS. Which of course is where we had tea..... Much better then the Nandos in Australia. I might even send them an email and inform them about this.

The hotel we are staying at called Katara may have a cosy room but has a most amazing view. We can see the Petronas Towers and the KL Tower from the bed.

Jungle Birthday

Had a great very relaxing day on my birthday, woke up extra early as we are going seeing the Orangutans and opened my cards. Opened my pressies. Simons finally learnt i like a bit of cheap tack and then we were out and walking down the road to the Orangutan Rehabilition Centre to watch them come out for their morning feed watched by a lot of people. So so so cute and funny. You can see how they have their own personalities and who in the group is boss. There was about 8 Orangutans who came up for food.

After that we went back to our beautiful chalet and relaxed, attempting to sit out on the balcony as it was so hot. When we were sat on the balcony, we suddenly saw that the branches of the trees in the jungles were shaking, we got excited cos we thought perhaps it was an Orangutan coming to see us at the Chalet. Needless to say it wasnt but what did happen was that loads of Macaque monkeys came out to eat the fruit on one of the trees behind the chalet next door. It was awesome to see. We also saw a massive bird, some type of birds of prey.

In the afternoon we wandered back over to the Orangutan Sanctuary again, on the way we bumped in to the Macaque Monkeys in the car park, as they obviously were clever enough to know this was a good source of food. We also decided to sponsor/adopt an Orangutan called Sen. Such a little cute thing. Its now me and Simons first big commitment and the question is whether we are responsible enough to pay our £25 a year from now on :-)

Early evening, glass of wine sat in the bath - bliss

Evening spent eating a cool buffet(nice though) with a nice bottle of wine and then watching Poseiden adventure. Quiet birthday but im always going to remember the fact ive spent my 31st in the Jungle.

Sepilok Nature/Jungle Chalet

We have had an amazing couple of days. Having finally left our sick beds in Kota Kinabalu, after spending the last evening in Shenanigans listening to the local band Musika. They were a band of 7, with a very dodgy keyboard and drummer but interesting to listen to. The guy singing with his dark sunglasses on looking like a black singer (who sang golddigger) and 2 women singers. We reckoned Simon Cowell would have thought they were an interesting band.

On Saturday we made our way to the other side of Sabah to go to Sepilok to stay at the Nature Resort for 2 nights(200RM (£25)) and then 1 night at the Jungle Resort.

Both were situated on amazing grounds placed on the edge of the jungle where the orangutans lived. In the nature resort we had our own private chalet and our little balcony looked out in to the jungle. It was so unbelievable cool. The place would have been perfect if the food was nice or at least warm. In the lake we saw a massive Monitor lizard swimming across wanting feeding.

The jungle resort we stayed in the best room they had which was an executive room with air con and breakfast for the sum of 150RM (£20). The food however at this place was amazing.

Apart from relaxing and exclaiming on how hot/humid the place is we didnt do much for the 3 days. We saved the orangutans for my birthday. We did however go on a night nature walk through the jungle. There was 5 of us on this hour walk. The other 3 were kitted up with there own torches, specially clothing and the flashest cameras ive ever seen. Me and Simon were in shorts, our little digital camera, borrowed torches and mossi spray. The walk was very good though, we didnt see anything mega scary and i didnt get attacked by leeches and the guide was a nice bloke and pointed out things like giants ants, flying squirrels, a bird that was sleeping and strangely a crab in the middle of the jungle.

At the Jungle resort I had foot reflexology for 30mins. I didnt realise that it hurts. Shes pressing parts of my foot saying this is your head, your ovaries etc. It was good though, she did say at the end that i was very tired, had i climbed Mt Kinabalu. I dont know whether she meant by feet felt tired or she meant that my whole body was giving off vibes of being tired, which if so i would say the flu we have had has contributed to this.

Simon's grand day out

As Andrea has already said, I ventured alone on a trip yesterday without her which was a little strange to say the least. The trip was a river cruise along the jungle in south western Sabah to see some of the wildlife there. Like the last trip it was in the guides car, but this time there was two other people doing the trip too. One of the girls was from Sydney and was tattooed and pierced to the hilt, surprisingly she was a tattoo artist. The other girl was from Spain backpacking round the world, she'd come via India. It amazes me just how many people we've met (girls and boys) that are backpacking on their own. Anyway, the car journey was unfortunately 2 and a half hours so i managed to get some snooze time in.

Getting to the jetty i donned my suncream for my baldy head and sprayed the mossie repellent(orange flavour) all over. I now smelt like a giant orange, so whilst repelling all the bugs i was now a magnet for hungry monkeys. We got on board the boat which was like a flat bottomed speedboat and then we headed up river. The first creatures we bumped into was a giant posse of Macaque monkeys that were fishing by the shoreline. We threw them some water mellon to munch on and some of them even swam up to the boat to grab some ! The more you looked at them, the more monkeys you saw, they were everywhere on the ground, in the river, in the bushes and in the trees. I got the feeling that we were the ones being looked at. Heading further into the jungle we then started to spot the big Proboscis monkeys which lived high up in the trees, again once you spotted one you could then see more and more of them. They're funny looking creature because of their floppy nose, big white tail and bum, and the males had a big red ying yang. The reason for them being in the trees was because the leaves acted like viagra for the males. The locals call them the "24 hour monkeys"...hehehehe. After a few hours of travelling and more of the same monkeys we headed back only to encounter a herd of wild water buffalo cooling themselves in the river. They looked just like cows to me, but the guide assured us that they were wild.

Getting back to the jetty we had a lovely meal of rice, chicken, some green stuff and water buffalo ! I'm guessing that they might be wild, but they're not protected ;) It was beef really though. After dinner we then walked along the river to find these two trees which were inhabited by thousands of fireflies. They give of a flashing white light which just made the trees look like decorated Christmas trees...quite cool really. I thought at this point I would be donating a lot of bloody to the local mossie population, but lo and behold the repellent actually worked ! woo. That will come in really handy for our next leg of our journey....Left turn Clyde ! yay!

Still in Borneo

Well our trip has come to a bit of a standstill at the moment. Having got the same throat infection as Simon we are both just not up to doing much at the moment. We did have another trip planned which we had delayed, until today. We were going to cancel it but Simon has gone on it without me as we have already paid for it, i just couldnt face sitting in the guys car for a couple of hours feeling sick.

We are now trying to work out what to do for the next week as coming to borneo was about the jungle and the orangutans and so far all we have been doing is watching dvds. (1 pound for latest dvds - marvelous) The market was good though on Sunday.

We are both feeling a bit down but as both of us are getting better (Simon is nearly right apart from him still feeling deaf in one ear). We are trying to decide what the next step should be.

Welcome to the jungle

Feeling a lot better from my sore throat and ear infection i was prepared for the day trip to the jungle today. Well, i was, unfortunately Andrea seems to of got a sore throat today and her energy levels were down and wasn't fully on the trip today. She'll be making a trip to the doctors tomorrow to get the same stuff i did (minus the ear drops...ew), she's ok and should be on the mend in no time. In the mean time it's my turn to look after her.

Firstly we went to Mount Kinabalu to take a look. The size of this mountain is impressive, it just dominates the landscape and with the jungle seemingly creeping up the side of the mountain made it even better. If my energy levels were fully back to normal I would certainly be up for the mountain climbing expedition to the top, ropes and all ! After visiting here we moved to the hot springs on the other side of the mounting, noting a POW camp from world war II (Ranau) on the way. The hot springs were great, we both jumped straight in and started to detox our skin, it's a good job that it was open air 'cause it would of been pretty smelly otherwise. After that Andrea went to the outdoor pool filled with freezing natural spring water, she sat and continued to read her Jilly Cooper book (again!). I however went on a trek to another waterfall and a bat cave. Water, sunblock and hat on my head i headed into the jungle. The first thing i noticed on the walk was the complete lack of people around. You could hear the birds, insects and even monkeys in the jungle calling each other....i was half expecting a tiger to jump out at any moment. The waterfall was pretty and full of locals swimming in the pool at the bottom. I tried to go further to the bat cave but a combination of time and extreme heat made me turn back. I got back to the pool and jumped in to cool off :)

After waking our guide up (btw there was only Andrea and I on the tour so we were in the guides car for the day!), we headed into a cafe in the village (for local people). The ladies quickly scuttled around and presented us with a really nice traditional Malaysian meal of rice, chicken in a nice sauce, and bok choi. After all this fun the trip was pretty much over as it was a three hour drive back. The drive back was relaxing as we took in the sights around us.

Sorry for the factual nature of the blog, but i'm on a timer and my belly is empty at the moment...now where's that KFC? ;)

Currency math and Deafness in Kota Kinabalu

A small side effect is starting to come into play which is messing with our heads....Currency Conversion. Being in Australia was easy 'cause $1AUD was half (and a bit) of the pound and we had ages to get used to it (divide by two and a bit). Singapore was a bit different because 'cause S$1 is about equal to 30p (divide by three and a bit). Now we're in Malaysia, the currency here is about 7 ringits to the pound, which makes the math even harder, especially when you're bartering. The bonus here though is that everything is cheap, you can get a KFC Zinger meal for just under 1 pound and the average meal with beer and wine is between 5 and 10 pounds ! woo !

In the evening the place stinks of the cooking that's going on mixed with some of the sewer smells i suspect. We've played it safe here eating out, going for the more expensive restaurants because i've been quite ill recently. It started in Singapore with a sore throat which then turned into an ear infection. Leaving Singapore and flying here turned into a bit of a disaster because my ears haven't popped yet and has left me deaf in my right ear. I saw a doctor here though and for the consultation, antibiotic tablets and antibiotic eardrops (ew) cost about 6 pounds !!!! amazing. So it's starting to get better now but i'm still deaf in my ear, mainly 'cause of the ear drops blocking it all up. It has it's upside though when we go shopping when Andrea's saying "can i buy these three pairs shoes, they're really cheap?", i respond with "eh? i can't hear you" hehehe. You never know, i might play the selective deafness through asia ;)

Posh packers not backpackers

We are at the moment sitting in the Airport waiting for our flight, having allowed ourselves 5 hours to get out of Singapore and over the 2 borders and back on buses. 1 taxi, 4 buses later it all went well, and wasnt a problem. I cant help being defensive when people are trying to help you, thinking that they want to rip us off but people are actually just being nice to us.

We bought another bag yesterday, its massive and is posh in that it has wheels and like a normal bag but... you can instantly transform it into a backpack if needs be. At the moment therefore its holding inside it our sexy blue tacky hawaiian bag which admittedly we dont need but we have both become attached to it.

Yesterday was spent doing last minute shopping (again) which we bought 4 abercrombie tshirts for £4 each. Another bag for me. (bag obsessed we are). We also in the morning went on a river cruise on a bumboat. Got to see a little bit more of Singapore. In the evening we reconfirmed the fact that food may be cheap here but you have to buy double as the portion sizes are tiny. Simon ordered lasagne and it was laughingly tiny.

I also managed to lock us out of the room after saying i had the key i then put it in the wrong bag(bag obsessed that we are) and shut the door behind us before i realised.

Im said i know but i cant help being impressed with the transport system, for the past 2 days we have got the tube around singapore and its great, each journey costs about 30p each. You get a swipe card that you a deposit for, but at the other end of the journey you then put it back in the machine and get it back. The stations are all really posh and are massive. The trains are really clean and are open so you can see from one end of the train to the other.

Chewing gum seems to be banned from Singapore, i was hopin customs wold have taken Simons nicorette chewing gum off him, no such luck.


PS. If anybody wants to txt us, please use my original english number as my aussie number doesnt work anymore.

Goodbye Singapore, hello Borneo

On our intrepid adventures, we have decided to go to Kota Kinabalu in Malaysian Borneo. So from here (Singapore) it'll be a bus journey to the border over the bridge, then another bus from the border to the airport there. Sounds like fun and games, we're hoping for the best and planning for the worst. We should be arriving at some random hotel later on this evening.