Biking In Bali

After 9 months of travelling and everything going our way, it was innevitable that we would be restricted from following the original plan to the end. We wanted to continue eastwards in Indonesia to Sulawesi and the island of Komodo to see the present dinosaurs, the Komodo dragons. Unfortunately, because of the distance, alloted time available and the terrible boat services in Indonesia, we had no choice but to return to Jakarta for a flight to Tarakan in the province of Kalimanta (Borneo Indonesia). From there we would head north and cross back into Malaysian territory.

We regrouped with Leive in Ubud (Bali) and Aurore from Belgium also joined us there. We planned to hire some bikes for two days and see the less touristy northern parts of Bali. First things first for me and Maj was to drive a bike down to Bali's airport past Kuta and book our flight tickets, since we couldn't do it over the internet. The tickets ended up being a lot cheaper buying them direct, and we scheduled to fly out on the 3rd of July. That gave us a 5 day window left in Indonesia.

It felt great getting some motorbikes out again, especially some reliable ones. We drove for around 4 hours into the mountain terrain of Bali heading for a small hill side village called Munduk. The views were superb. High altitude lakes shrouded in mist that faded away into really dense forests. At times it was hard to differntiate the tree tops from the clouds because of their whiteness.

We luckily stumbled across a guesth-house that offered us 100,000 Rupiah for 1 night for all four of us. That probably doesn't mean much to you, but let me tell you it was a bargain. The price also included free breakfast, which was a Balinese style cake. Some weird concoction of banana cooked in egg and sprinkled with coconut shavings. Gotta admit it was pretty tasty. The view from our rooms balcony was a great place to eat the brekky, a long stretch of foresty jungle that merged in the distance with the sea. That was where we decided to head next.

The roads were in great condition but they were very windy. At least it kept us focused at all times. As we descended down to sea level you could feel the mountain cool leaving, and the heat of the day starting its attack. It was gonna be a hot one. As we drove the stretch of the northern coastline we passed a few touristy spots with nice hotels, diving opportunities etc. Instead of hanging around here we made back for the mountains, climbing an equaling twisty road as the one we came down earlier. This time we got to pass the hills parallel to Mt. Brato which was again an incredible sight. We stopped a few times for camera breaks before continuing on to a Hindu temple on our route back to Ubud.

The temple here had a pool with small fountains pouring fresh spring water that was supposedly blessed into it. I got invloved with the blessing and had to sarong myself up and enter the freezing water to get my head wet under the fountains. Another experience that I don't think is available in the Sheffield peace gardens.

We had to wait out a small downpour of rain before making the 10km journey back to Ubud. We never got to see Komodo, but we did learn a load of rude phrases in French and Dutch. Who needs dragons?

Stooma klootzak!!! Sil vous plais.

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Indonesia to Malaysia - In addition, the rest of our days spent in indonesia we're long and stressfull. From Ubud we had an 11 hour bus ride to Surabaya, where it took a long time and some help from locals on motorbikes to finally find a cheap joint that wasn't full. The next trip for us was to get back to Jakarta for our flight to Tarakan in Borneo, but everything, trains and buses were completly full also. Even the buisness class tickets. We were looking at our only other option to fly to Jakarta, but we tried a different train station 1st and low n behold they had some buisness class seats remaining. The seats were far from what your picturing as buisness class, with cockaroaches running the place and mozzys getting their munch on, it was a pretty restless 12 hour journey. We hung around Jakarta for a few hours burning time by eating and using the net, and we even bumped into Herman again! Our Jakarta tour guide. He was in the exact same place we met him last time, thought he said he works for a travel agent? My arse, lol.

After reaching the airport and checking in, we sneaked into a business lounge (now your picturing correctly) that was really cozy and full of businessmen. We made use of the wi-fi and free coffee and the comfy chairs. I even helped myself to a plate from the buffet too. Hustling.

Because the bloody border crossing was closed on Sundays we had the privilege of spending a full day in Tarakan on the Indonesian side of Borneo. We took the day to update this god damn blog (Were enjoying it really) and go on our own individual jogs. I got mad lost, and had a little following like Forest Gump through a coast side village with a boardwalk winding between all the houses. It was fun. Later on I spent half an hour in a dedicated gaming cafe where the geeks were playing a shoot em up. 1st game I got powned (gay gamer talk), but in the next game I fucked em all up good and proper. Top ranking player......PAP!

Bali Photo Link:
http://www3.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=5886773011/a=2264773011_2264773011/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

Gili, Gili, Gili, Gili, Gili, Gili........

Indonesia has loads of beautiful beaches and with Kuta (Bali) out of the way, it was time to visit another. Gilli islands are a group of 3 paradise islands off the main island of Lombok that have no cars or motorbikes on them, just horse & cart to get you around. Obviously there's gotta be the hard work of travelling to the island, which took 2 buses and a 5hr boat ride, which we slept on by hiring mattresses-PIMPING. Leive was still with us but we found her a dutch compandre, Elle, who we met in Thailand and caught up with her in Bali. They just chatted shit in dutch while we talked about important relevant things in life-true story! We had to get a small boat (20min) to Gilli Trawangan, the backpacker island, but the boat was a nightmare. The sea was pretty rough, which resulted in me getting drenched but one girl dropped her bag and one fell in- don't laugh!




Finding cheap accommodation took a while but the island was expensive for our budget. We met up with Alejandro and the 2 Canandians who we met in Thailand but they had another Canadian with them who looked like Bart Simpson, so we welcomed him with both arms and chilled with them the night. We both made sure we got a good nights sleep before we went on the beach to sleep some more and that was what pretty much happened for our days on the island, apart from one day when we went around the island but that didn't take long at all.




We found a nice cheap restaurant that had a buffet style lunch/dinner and ate there for most nights. We went to the free cinema (a projector) one night but you had to buy something to watch the movie, which was kick ass by the way-funny movie, and with the 21% service charge, it turned out to be a bit of a cheeky skank. Watching the Germans beat England was our last night and with that loss it was time to leave the island.

Gili Trawangan Photo Link:
http://www3.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=5886728011/a=2264773011_2264773011/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

Boadin' in Kuta (Bali)

We didn't arrive in Kuta, Bali, until really late on Monday the 20th of June. So instead of hunting for cheap accomodation we just stuck with one the first places we came across (at 80,000 Rupiah, it turned out to be one of the cheapest options anyway). We knew 2 Dutch girls who were both in Bali at this time but they travelling separately. We managed to contact Ell the following day who had been in Kuta for a while now and she was able to show us around. But Leive, the other Dutchy managed to avoid us until our last day in Kuta. We found a great food joint that was cheap and would be our 'local' for the next few days straight away. It cost only 10,000 rupiah (bout 80p) for a considerable portion of nasi goreng super. With the lack of sleep in past few days we really needed a day of relaxation. So the majority of our time was spent reading on the beach and taking the odd dip in the cool of the Indian Ocean (been a while since we swam in these waters).




Me and Ell wanted to give surfing a try since we were in Bali and its famed for its big waves. Maj stayed in bed again the lazy git. For an hours surfing lesson and then 2 hours use of the surf boards afterwards we payed only 8 pounds! Since we had our lessons from a local, who could speak English great, it was so much cheaper. Some places were charging up to $50, so a great bargain went down. I managed to stand and start surfing straight away after my 5 minute tutorial, and I loved it. The hardest part was timing the waves. I would either be too late and miss the collapse or I would be too far away and have to deal with the wrath of the wave. That hurt at times, especially if the board knocked you on the head. I'm definitely gonna give it a try elsewhere on the travels to master my technique.

Other than eating cheap and relaxing at the beach we got our tickets for the next place booked, which was the Gili islands off the coast of Lombok. The four of us planned to travel there together and we would be meeting up with the gwizzly gwizzly Argentinian Alejandro and the two Canadians. Terrance and Phillip, okay budday!

Bali Photo Link:
http://www3.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=5886773011/a=2264773011_2264773011/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

Indo Volcano Bromo

We stayed up to watch the England vs. Algeria game at 2.30am, which shows our dedication to the team but they played shit and wished I never stayed up. We were travelling at 8am and with 4hrs sleep, we had a long journey ahead of us-a nice 15hrs when it was meant to be 10. It seems this is how Indonesia works, that they tell you a time but it ALWAYS takes longer. We got to our hotel, which is in the nearest village to Gunung Bromo, and just had enough time for food before we went to bed.




Gunung Bromo is probably the most visited active volcano in Indonesia, it has a rough pattern of erupting every 2-4 years. The crazy thing is that there are bigger more active volcanoes all over Indonesia but these require tours and days of trekking, so it ends up being expensive. We got up at 3.30am, another night of 4hrs sleep and we started to make our trek to the volcano. Everyone was making their way to the viewpoint with 4x4's which see's over Bromo and the other surrounding volcanoes, including the big daddy Gunung Semeru, but we decided against it and did it our own way. It was an hours walk to the top and it was fairly easy but the hard part was walking in the dark as we forgot the torch. At first it was ok using the 4x4's lights but once we were on the path, we couldn't see anything! So we paid a guy to take us with his horse to the foot of the volcano and then we nabbed his lighter that had a torch to get our moneys worth.




Once we got to the top, we were surrounded by Indonesians who were there to see the sunset on the one and only platform, so we decided to go and find our own viewpoint by walking around the crater. I stopped and walked the other way around because there was no path and there were huge drops on either side-fuck that! Dan who loves the outdoors carried on and I just met him halfway on the other side. The volcano itself was letting off constant steam from the hot lava in the middle of the crator, but it left an eggy smell, which had me gipping for most of the time. When the sun came up, that was when we could appreciate the volcano and the surroundings truly-it just seemed like a different planet. We took our pics and posed in all the Indonesian pics (standard thing now) and made our way back to the hotel for breakfast and a shower before another long day of travel ahead of us, and you lot think we've gone on a long holiday-jeez!


Gunung Bromo Photo Link:
http://www3.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=5871189011/a=2264773011_2264773011/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

Fans in Yogyakarta

We arrived at Yogyakarta (pronounced 'Jogjakarta') at 4am after a 9 hour long haul by train from Jakarta. The train was cleaner than an Indian train, but the amount of touts and beggars and coffee sellers that constantly patrolled the carriages was ridiculous. Neither of us managed to squeeze in a sneaky nap. So you can guess what the first thing we did was, after finding some digs. We planned to have a dedicated rest day (it's been well earned) and catch up with the blog/photo's etc.




Yogyakarta's main tourist attraction is another world heritage site called Borobudur. It is a truly colossal structure and a poignant epitaph to Java's Buddhist history, ranking with Angkor Wat as one of the great Southeast Asian monuments.......according to Lonely Planet. It really isn't that spectacular to be honest, but it was worth the visit, especially because we managed to get student entrance fee (Sheffield shuffles still going strong I'm proud to report Uncle Daz). The temple is located 42km away from Yogyakarta and was constructed in early 9th century AD. With Islam taking over Indonesia as the dominant religion, Borobudur was abandoned and not re-discovered until 1814 when Stamford Raffles was governor of Java (Yes, the same dude who founded Singapore, and yes he was an Englishman, top lad).




The stupa has survived the times really well with the carvings and decorations very clear and easily identifiable. It wasn't the 1500 narrative panels of Buddhist teachings nor the 432 Buddha images that kept us entertained on this day though, it was the number of people who were fascinated by OUR presence! I kid you not, we were like friggin celebrities. We must have had over 100 photographs taken with complete strangers. It was so much fun though. There was a class of kids on a school trip and their teacher asked if the children could practice their English language skills with us. The teacher hogged nearly all the questions though. Afterwards we got a brilliant picture with the kids at Borobudur doing the famed 'conquered pose'.

Next we had a little walk around the park and found an elephant stable. We arrived just in time to help the keepers feed the elephants their lunch, which was a bunch of mini bananas. Maj thought it would be funny to stick a banana in each nostril of the elephants trunk.




Making our way to the exit we were beeped by a large black Toyota. Down rolled the windows and it was one of our fans from the photo shoot with his 2 sons. He offered to drop us off at the exit since it was a fair distance (not in English by the way, he kind of insisted with his hands that we get in and then pointed ahead, why not, he was only a little fella, couldn't see him taking both of us hostage).

The rest of the day we had a little nap and awaited England's 2nd group stage game against Algeria. Just having my second coffee as I type this up. COME ON ENGLAND you bunch of scum bags!

Yogyakarta Photo Link:
http://www3.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=5871307011/a=2264773011_2264773011/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

Jakarta ala Shit Hole!

It's been a while since we've been on a plane but we made it Jakarta, Indonesia's capital, in one piece. We got the public bus to the centre and a rickshaw to the hotel and it felt like being in India again, with how busy and smelly everything was. We didn't do much on the first day we got there, changed some money and went on a big search for an internet cafe to update our blog for our crazed followers. World cup fever has really kicked in, with one guy sat on the corner laughing at us when we told him we were from England because we drew to the US. We watched the Portugal-Ivory Coast game at a restaurant but we were joined by loads of people on the streets too watching it from the curb.

We had a bit of a deserved lie in the next day, checked out, and made our way to the train station with Lieve, our new dutch comprande to book our tickets (people are just wanting to travel with us all the time-must be my good sense of humour!). We got stopped by Hermen, who was telling us to go to another station as the tickets are a lot cheaper. It also said this in the book but we were a bit weary of him at the start because he approached us and usually they ask for money. He got on the bus with us, took us to the main office, where we spoke to the master officer fo the station and he sorted our tickets out for us. There was a huge que, which we would have happily waited in but this station manager waited in the que for us and called us up when we had to pay-What a nice guy!

It was lunch time now, so Herman took us to his house, in a small poor village right next to a stinking, rubbish-filled river. We met his mother, who was either blind or had really bad eye sight. The house had one room and an outside toilet-these guys were really poor but yet she had the biggest smile on her face. He got us chicken and rice, because allegedly the chicken in the town is no good and village chicken is better, so we all munched that down. We got a pic with Herman and his mother and another pic with the boys hanging around smoking as they've got nothing better to do. As we walked back through the village to get back on the bus, we walked past some school kids playing football with a tennis ball (ghetto), but then they stopped their game to shout 'boolay' to us and we were cheering with them until we found out they were calling us 'foreigners'. We laughed it off and walked off before we were about to hmmer these school kids-only kidding.

We wanted to see a bit of the city while we were here, so he took us to Indonesia's National monument (monas) and we got mobbed by kids, grown men and women for photo's. Lieve got it the worst, a white girl, and every lady wanted a pic with here-bless them. We visited Masjid Istiqbal, the biggest mosque in South East asia, which holds 200,00 people. It wasn't that impressive from the outside like usual mosques but inside it was really huge. We had to cover up properly so we all had to wear a gown to look cool. Across from the mosque was a nice looking church, which we also visited before we made our way back to our hotel and then to the train station.

Jakarta photo link:
http://www3.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=5871219011/a=2264773011_2264773011/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

Singapore Summary

Days travelled- 2 days

Distance travelled- Approx. 50km (31 miles)

Hours on transport- 1 hour

Destinations- 1

Top 1 & Final Advice

Since Simgapore is such a small country and we only stayed within the central area, it makes things a little difficult to determine our top 3. You don't need to spend long in Singapore at all. I reckon 3 days here would be more than enough. Not only is it small and very easy to get around on the MRT, but it is the most expensive place we have been to on our travels. The country is really beautiful and clean and in has a lot of construction being conducted in the bay area. In a few years time when its all finished it should be amazing. The unique night safari is definately worth a visit to see what mischief the animals get up to at night. We were lucky enough to see 2 mousedeers getting it on. Really intense fornication. From Little India, which has the cheapest hostel options, it is possible to walk to the esplanade bay and merilion park area. But then there is always the frequent and fast metro service for your convenience. If you have plenty of denaro and are a fiend for shopping then go to Orchard Road, its basically Singapore's answer to 5th Avenue. Not our kind of scene im afraid. All in all, great city, great people. Would definately return.

Singapore Slingers

A lot of fellow travellers have advised us to spend only a little time in Singapore since it is very expensive for south-east asia. That was enough info for us to reduce our time there to 1 full day. But I think we covered more than anyone would have expected. We caught a bus from KL to the Singapore border crossing and we were supposed to be picked up by the same bus on the other side to take us to central. Although the fat bastard of a bus driver had other plans and left without us. Maj got his usual terrorist suspicions at the passport counter and had to be frisked in back room for TNT, good work boys, he is a dodgy looking geeza. He had the same issue as before where his name was too identical to someone who has been blacklisted. He got checked out and everything was fine, except our transport to the city. We asked another driver where abouts our bus should be located and he was unsure. We explained our problem and asked if we could jump on his bus, he was cool with it and didn't even charge us. He let us use his i-phone to find out where our friends were staying and he even dropped us at a money exchange spot, real stand up guy.

First impressions of Singapore.....it was so clean and green even in the heart of the city, great looking place. The road system was really efficient also, not a pothole anywhere! We caught the MRT metro the remainder of our journey to yet another little India. This lil' India especially on this night was like downtown Delhi, swarmed with Indians and hardly any room for cars on the roads. We found the Incrowd hostel where we were knocked aback with the $20 dorm bed charge (about £10). We did get a free breakfast, even if it was just toast and tea. We met our friends there, grabbed a late night curry (obviously) and turned in for the night. Tomorrow was gonna be a long ass day!




So, June 14th. The previous evening I flicked through a singapore guide and picked out all the sights we needed to see, let's just say there were a few. We got up at the crack of dawn, grabbed some brekky and made moves. First off we transitioned from lil' India to the Muslim quarter. Here we saw the Sultan Masjid and also took a walk down Arab street. The area suprisingly had a very European feel to it, with an exotic Singapore twist. There were cafe's lining the paved streets, and cars having no access to the area. But palm trees and other beautiful plants had the finishing touch that was needed. From here we walked to the Suntec city (shopping centre, nothing Aztec or anything) and we got a chance to make a wish at the fountain of wealth, which just so happens to be the worlds biggest fountain. Another tick off the list.


Next up was the Singapore flyer, a complete copyright effort of the London Eye. We never went on because I had better (and cheaper) idea. We crossed the bridge over to the newly developed Sands on the Bay hotel and shopping centre. This was my favourite area in Singapore and wasn't even fully developed. We went inside the hotel and tried to make our way to the rooftop but unfortunately it wasn't opening for another week. Instead we got as high as the 22nd floor, more than high enough and a great view over the harbour of Singapore's skyline.





We crossed the double helix bridge on the way back which was a interesting piece of construction. Then visited the war memorial monument of the victims of World War II, St. Andrews Cathedral, the Esplanade theatres on the bay and then over to Merilion park, that's where the lion/fish fountain is located. After going to see the Stamford Raffles landing statue (a Brit, who founded Singapore in 1819 and had a great effect on the success of the country) me and Maj parted ways, he needed to sleep.

I continued down to Chinatown and visited a Buddhist temple. Inside on the 3rs floor they had a museum with loads of blown up photographs of important Buddhist sites from around the world. It was unbelievable how many of them we had visited during our trek of Asia. After, I headed back to find Maj and get some lunch, Subway seemed the right choice at that moment in time.

We continued the days stroll along Orchard Rd, which is more than comparable to 5th Avenue in New York City for the amount of top end stores located there. On the plus side it also had an onslaught of shopping outlets which had lower range shops, so you can imagine how busy this road can get.




The main attraction for us in Singapore was our visit to the Night Safari. We saw loads of nocturnal animals doing there thing (especially in the mouse-deers case) that you would not normally see in a day zoo. We saw an animal show too that was really fun. And got to travel around the park on a tram seeing loads of activity.

It finally looks like we reached the tip of the mainland. What now you ask? A flight to Indonesia of course. Let the journey continue.

Singapore Photo Link:
http://www3.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=5871099011/a=2264773011_2264773011/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

K to the L

What a city! Kuala Lumpur was such a cool place. Indians eating their curries in little India, Chinese eating their noodles in Chinatown, and me, Maj and Anton eating Big Mac's in McDonalds........only kidding. The special dish for us in KL was the Singapore noodles, should have saved it for Singapore to be fair though. But they were so damn tasty, we had to get our share.

We decided that we would get up early on our first full day to try and get tickets for the Petronas Towers Skybridge. They give out 1,200 tickets at 8.30 every day for free, and luckily we managed to get them on our first attempt, only just though. The only times left were later on in the day (6.30 for us) but it aint nuthin but a thang. I left momentarily to head to the British High Commission to collect my brand new deluxe passport, fina-fuckin-ly! With the trouble in Bangkok preventing me from accessing the Embassy in the city centre I had my passport collected and delivered to KL. So nearly 2 months and 200 pounds later I recieve the damn thing, old passport gets the snip, and I get a RF chip keeping track of me where I am at all times, they fucking got me JB!!!

The Petronas towers are the 4th tallest buildings in the world (after the world financial centre in Shanghai we saw about 5 months ago), standing at 451.9m, although the skybridge is only 180m off the ground. More than high enough for a fantastic ariel view of the city.

After purchasing a new camera since the old one was on its last legs and extremely low on HP we got a public bus out of the city to go see the Batu Caves, which took about an hour to reach. Batu Caves serves as one of the main Hindu Temples in the world, and can sometimes see over a million Hindu's visiting the temple at one time during the major holidays. We had a guide and bodyguard called Smith who joined us for our visit here. He was a little Hindu boy who just tagged along and kept telling us stories about the caves, he was really proud of his religion and the caves. He used a stick to fend off all the monkeys that roamed around here too, these were some brave little monkeys, nearly as vicious as the ones in Kathmandu.

That night we went to Times Square shopping mall, the biggest in south-east asia, sporting 10 floors worth of shopping outlets and also including a cinema, bowling alley, snooker hall and get this.....a theme park. With a roller coaster may I add. We bought tickets for the premier of Karate Kid, which turned out to be a good movie, though no Karate? Advertising genius. We also had a game of bowling so I had to show Maj and Anton the way of the Turkey.
On one of our nights we arranged for Nadzim, Erin, Heather and Gustav (a Swede who we met on the bus from Perhentian Islands) to go for a night out in KL. Since Nadzim is from the city he knew the good spots to visit. I had to detour everyone over to the Rennaisance Hotel so I could say hi to friend there. We had a really fun night out, even though we lost Anton and he didnt have a clue in the morning of where the hell he went. At least everyone made it back safely.

Me and Anton went to the Lake gardens on our last day to check that out. They had a deer park with some mouse deers there, and I dont know if you've ever seen them before but they are really tiny. Dont move much though. By chance we happened to bump into Gustav aswell, we chatted about the antics of the previous night and said our farewells. He had reached the end of his travels, so it sucked to be him.

Our last night we dedicated to the England boys, and had to watch the horror of an attempted save from Green. What a plonker.

As with Thailand, our adventures in Malaysia were also unfinished. We travelled the mainland part of Malaysia also known as Malaysia Peninsula. After travelling through Indonesia we will pass through into the Borneo island part of Malaysia. We will pick our top 3 and fill you in on the travel stats once we have finished there.

Kuala Lumpur Photo Link:

http://www3.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=5506710011/a=2264773011_2264773011/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

World's Oldest Jungle - Taman Negara

It was a great feeling finally arriving at Taman Negara because we had to endure a 9 hour journey, which consisted of a boat and 3 buses. We found a nice cheap hostel to stay right on the river and went straight for some food on the floating restaurants, which was an experience in itslef.

Me and Dan planned to do the trek early so we could make our way to Kuala Lumpur in the afternoon. Anton (the lazy fuck) and the girls Erin and Heather, who were now travelling with us had a lie in and said they'll meet us later on. We got up at 7.30 am, got the boat across to get our permit and then made our way to the bat cave, which was in the opposite direction to all the major tourist attractions in the jungle. After a brief visit to a village, where we were lost, we finally trekked on the right trail to the cave and we were trekking for about an hour before we saw a couple who directed us the right way. I was gobsmacked for most of the trek because we were in a proper jungle. We've done treks before in jungles/forrests and none of them looked like this. It was only a small dirt path leading us and a small handful of signs, even though most of the signs had fallen off that took us to the cave and if we were 10m to either side of the trail, we would have easily got lost.

We finally made it to the entrance to the cave and it never looked like an ear (this is what the Lonely Planet book suggested). Apparently you had to wade through water so i wasn't going to go initially but it looked pretty dry so I manned up. The only problem now was that we had to crawl through a dark cave full of bats with no torch because we forgot it. Danny, using his intiative used the light of the camera to navigate us through the cave but that was a risk itslef because my camera works when it wants to and we could have easily been stranded. There is a rope that you can use to help you get through the cave but it's still scary when there's bats flying around your head. There was one bit when I was stuck on this huge slippery rock and accidently sat in bat shit (NICE ONE) but my aim was to get out of this cave through a small crack. I slipped and pulled on this rope, waking up nearly a hunderd bats and they were all flying betwen us and around our head. We quickly got the fuck out of there and after getting lost again for a little while, we finally found the right trail back to the main office.

Next stop was the canopy walk, which every tourist does when they are at Taman Negara. The canopy walk is a suspended rope bridge in the canopy of the trees and at some poiunts, you're 45m above the ground. Quite a few people were clinging on for dear life but they were just holding us up, so we had to wait for them. The canopy walk is definately worth doing but I though it wasn't as good as the book made out. Half the bridges are closed and it's full of tourist, which means you're never going to see any animals while you're up there.

We made our way back, got showered, had lunch and walked to the bus stop to wait for the public bus to take us to the town's bus station, which would have taken us a couple of hourse. But Razzali, the malaysian hustler, offered us a lift to the bus station for more or less the same price as the bus and got us there in half the time. He was busting out his Malaysian music, which sent Anton to koo koo land, and had to stop on the way for a pee pee but was too scared to go in the jungle as 'his snake would get bitten off by a bigger snake' so he did his business behind the car! We got there 5 mins before departure time and enjoyed the nice, cheap and comfortable ride to the capital-Kuala Lumpur.

Taman Negara photo link:

http://www3.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=5506872011/a=2264773011_2264773011/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

Diving in the Perhentian Islands

We arrived at the Kuala Besut port at 4am after a reasonably quick and comfortable journey from Georgetown. The journey by coach took us across the Penang bridge which has a length of 13,500m. Quite the bridge. At the port side travel agency we met an entertaining character by the name of Firdaus. Because we were now travelling with Anton (flying Jew) and three other girls we met in Penang, Firdaus was adamant that he be our pimp and try to hook us up with the girls. He was a terrible pimp and his hoes weren't much better.

Our main reason for visiting the Perhentian Islands was to complete our open water diving course. This would allow us to do fun dives around the world at a cheaper cost and also make us licensed divers, wooooh! The Perhentian islands are split into 2, big island and small island. The small island is the cheaper option and was our destination. The speedboat across took around 20 minutes and was a thrill in itself. The driver sped between potruding rocks and on our approach to the shore about 4/5 other speedboats were weaving in and out of our boat nearly colliding with one another. They were definately pro's. Charged us an extra quid each to make the 20m journey from speedboat to the shore, robbing gits. When we arrived at like 8am (yeah 3 hour wait for the bloody boat) me and Maj took about another hour trying to find the best deal for the diving course and our accomodation. The best we found was diving course for 950 Malaysian Ringit, about 200 pounds, and 2 triple rooms for 30 ringit a night, for island accomadation prices, that was a bargain. Got free internet too :)

For our diving course we had to watch a dvd and complete a booklet with 5 sections with mini quiz's as part of the theory side of the exam. We had a test at the end of the course to take, which I can tell you we both passed with ease. But that was the boring part. The diving itself was amazing. Neither of us have done diving before, only snorkelling, but so many people we have met on the travel have advised us towards it.

We had a sexy French instructor for our course called Suzie, plus it was only Maj, myself and a Malaysian guy called Nadzim on the course at that time. Our first dive that we completed involved us going through a range of skills such as taking our masks off underwater, replacing them, and clearing the water from within. We also learnt about equalizing the air spaces in our lungs and sinuses by pinching the nose and blowing gently, you had to do this all the damn time! The first time we were moving about freely underwater whilst being able to breathe was incredible. It felt like you had entered a whole other world.

Our second part of scuba training involved a lot more techniques, for instance swimming underwater without our masks, and also the cesa technique (controlled emergency swimming ascent) for use when you run out of air in your tank. We also used the alternative regulators on our partners air tank. All stuff that would potentially save our asses if shit kicks off at a deeper level. Maj kept cramping up underwater whilst we were doing the techniques and I couldnt stop laughing and filling my mask with water, it was really funny to witness. At the end of the session we were front/back flipping, spinning on out heads and floating like Buddha underwater, it was so sick!

So with 3 dives still remaining, Suzie decided that we would finish our theory test early doors, so that we could just finish the course with some fun dives. Like I said before we both passed the test, and only had a swimming and water treading exercise to complete along with the dives to become certified.

So on our remaining dives we got to a deepest descent of 17.5m, and saw a whole load of marine life. Our best spottings were a sea turtle, a school of bumphead parrotfish, some triggerfish (which can bite if you piss em off) countless nemo's or clownfish, some angelfish and a megalodon!

So yeah, the course was amazing and I recommend everyone to give it a blast. Plus it also makes future diving available, so I think I may have to look into diving spots in Indonesia.....

On our final day instead of relaxing, we joined in with a volleyball game, I was on a different team to Maj and Anton and we absolutely dicked on them. They didnt know what the hell hit them. Baaammmm!!! Bussin shots like Gaylord Focker in meet the parents. What it do!

Nadzim, the guy from our course switched details with us and said that he will meet up with us in Kuala Lumpur when we get there, since thats where he lives. We also bumped into Timmaaaay again from Koh Tao. I dont know if we mentioned him before but he is basically a pisshead who slept out in the corridor 3 times because his room-mate had the key, and once on the beach where he got his watch robbed. He arranged to meet in KL also, so that should be a fun night.

Next stop, Taman Negara jungle.

Perhentian Islands Photo Link:

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