Malaysia Summary

These statistics are a combination of the travelling done in Borneo and the peninsular side of Malaysia, just so you know.

Days travelled - 21 days (3 weeks)

Distance travelled - Approx. 2,060km (1,280 miles)

Hours travelled - 45 hours (1 day, 21 hours)

Destinations - 6

Top 3

3 - Kuala Lumpur - KL has got to be one of the best capitals we have ever visited. It has just about everything to offer, a great skyline, lovely people, some amazingly cheap food joints, bargain markets, expensive malls, and a great night scene. If you ever go, you must climb the petronas towers, you must see the Hindu Batu caves and you must find a local with dreadlocks by the name of Nadzim and get pissed with him. Just suggestions.

2 - Kota Kinabalu - KK (gotta love these abbreviations) is a great city itself also, but the surrounding areas just make it that bit more special. With the highest mountain in Malaysia, Mt. Kinabalu, hanging nearby and the numerous national parks to visit and go trekking around, plus the outlying islands that Im sure would be amazing if the weather was good, makes KK an excellent destination to see.

1 - Perhentian Islands - I think if me and Maj didnt complete our diving course here it would not have made top rank. But as it goes, we did do our diving and it was amazing! The islands themselves while expensive, are nothing short of stunning. The type of setting most tropical islands would be envious of. The water was crystal and so warm, the beach was amazingly clean and white and the diving was out of this world. Since it was both our first dives we cant compare the diving quality, but Im sure it would get high marks from the veterans too.

Final Advice

We both really took to the country and found the people extremely friendly and interested in where we came from and what we were doing there. As with Thailand, you can find such a variety of places to visit from the big city of KL to the vast jungle that covers most of the country to the tranquil beaches and island dive spots. It really does have it all. Except for cheap booze. We figuered with 98% of the population being Muslim that was the reason for the high priced alchohol. It kept me away from it for a few weeks anyway. The food was gorgeous. The only problem I found was that I didn't try a variety of dishes because I was so pleased with what I had previously eaten. The buses in Malaysia were wonderful. They had really big, comfortable chairs (like buisness class on an aeroplane) and the roads and the drivers were the safefest we've experienced so far.

The Borneo side of Malaysia is completely covered in jungles. Everywhere is so green and tropical. Crossing over from Tarakan in Indonesia was quite a headache but it was a way cheaper option for us. From Kota Kinabalu, which is Sabah's capital, everywhere is easy to reach by bus or boat. The south of Borneo takes a long time to reach so plan in advance, we didn't, and ended up having to change our plans.

Malaysia has definately been one of our most enjoyable countries we have visited, the people speak great English most of the time and are more than happy to help, well, except that bastard Vincent.

Slumming it for Orangutans

The 5 hour boat ride from Indonesia to Malaysia was really rough. Maj threw his guts up because of how choppy the sea was. We were sat at the front of the boat to begin with, and we were being completely thrown up out of our seats on the bounce. We headed to the back of the boat to sit the ride out.

We were so happy to finally reach Malaysia again after all the trouble we have had these past few days. Little did we know......

First objective was to collect our money from the western union since we were more or less skint. We just made the bank before it closed. After refueling we wanted to catch a bus to Sandikan where we would be going to see the Orangutan rehabilitation centre. Unfortunately, our luck had not yet picked up and there were no more buses for the day. We were told to catch a bus to somewhere called 'Batu 32', which was the half-way checkpoint for buses to Sandikan and Kota Kinabalu (that's where we head next).

But when we got to Batu 32, occompanied by a hilarious middle aged Malaysian woman who was also heading for Sandikan, we were hit with the fact that the last bus had already departed. This however wasn't the bad news. We also found out that there was no accomodation available in the area and we were basically stranded! We had to sleep at this road side market on the hard wooden floor, with the Malaysian woman no less. It was the perfect end to a unperfect day. Thank god for our sleeping bags!

We were up at the crack of dawn, since we had trouble sleeping anyway and got aboard the 6am bus to Sandikan. We dropped our bags at a near-by restaurant and got fed and showered whilst we were there. It was a short walk to the Orangutan sanctuary and cost 30 malaysian ringit, to enter. We watched a short documentary before going to see the kings of the swingers but it was not what we were expecting, at all. To be honest, I think it was the biggest let down in all of my 9 months of travelling. We saw 3 Orangutans from a distance, horded by loads of tourists, and that was it. We expected to see the babies or even be able to get pictures with them. No such luck.

To make the day a little more worth our while, we went on a trek through the surrounding rainforest within the conservation area. Being the rebels from Sheffield that we are, we diverted off the signed pathway and went for a good jungle exploration. We saw loads of wild monkeys, some very interesting insects, a snake, and most memorable, a bunch of friggin leeches. The first one got spotted sucking away at Majs boob and I had to pull the little demon off. It stretched to about 5 times its own length before coming free. After that, we just kept finding them on us. 2 on my legs, 2 on the back of Maj's shorts. And I even found one about an hour later whilst on the bus, down my shorts!

The ride to KK (Kota Kinabalu) took us past Kinabalu Mt. So the scenery was fantastic. Hopefully KK would give us a change of luck.

Sandikan Photo Link:

http://www3.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=6114702011/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:

http://www3.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=5506526011/a=2264773011_2264773011/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

Georgetown of Penang

We got the train from Surat Thani to Butterworth and this was our first journey crossing a border. We had sleepers and we pretty much slept all the way through until they woke us up at 7am to get through the customs. Me and Dan probably looked a bit retarded going through customs but it was pretty simple and quick, as they gave us a free visa for Malaysia. We got back on the train and all the top sleepers had been packed, which meant we had to sit but we both waited for everyone to be seated and then opened the bottom bunks up and fell asleep for the rest of the journey. We got the boat from Butterworth to Penang, which is an island of Malaysia, where the East India company settled so there is a lot of British influence around here. We had the option to go across the longest bridge in the world but the boat was pretty cheap. Nothing much happened on the day we arrived there, we changed some money and slept until we had to get up to eat and then went back to bed.

There really wasn't much to see here, it's just that a lot of people include this in the itinerary so we though we'd check it out to see what the fuss is about. We decided to leave that evening, as we have limited days in Malaysia and can't afford to waste any days. We got a public bus to the botanic gardens, which was a lot harder than we though, as we got dropped off somewhere, walked a little and then got a taxi to the gardens. The botanic gardens were ok to start off with al these different plants-I aint no expert, but it got more interesting when we followed a path that led us into the jungle. It led us to a pond, which had a turtle that had graffiti on it's shell lol. The path carried on deeper into the jungle and this was the first taster of what Malaysia has to offer. We saw a couple of monkeys and a few more different plants but when we got out, I was drenched with sweat and that's when I felt like i've just come of the jungle. A little joke "Why did the parrot get lost in the jungle?.......................................................cos the jungle is massive!"

We waited for the right bus to take us back and it felt like ages becasue Dan and Anton were quoting Pulp Fiction-oh how many of these quotes i've heard on this trip! We made our way to Fort Cornwallis, which is a British fort on the coast. It wasn't too impressive, especially when comparing them to all the forts we have seen on this trip, so had a walk around posing for pics to show people we've been here. Georgetown has a Little India and Chinatown, so there's a great mix of races here and at first this felt weirds because we were in Malaysia but soon as we had a Chinese and a curry-that went out of the window. Them two areas weren't that impressive so that left us with nothing else to see.

Georgetown photo link:

http://www3.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=5451241011/a=2264773011_2264773011/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

The Robotic Full moon Part-ay

This was where the Thailand trip was ending before we hit Malaysia and it seemed this was the same for everyone who we've met on our travels in Thailand. Koh Phangan. This was where everyone was going to meet and congregrate for the eagerly anitcipated 'The Full Moon Party', which is partied once a month, surprisingly when it is the full moon. The first party was in 1985, when 20-30 travellers partied on the beach giving thanks and then the party got famous from word of mouth. Now there are 20-30 thousand people at each party and it seems that it is a must on everyone's itinerary who is travelling South East Asia. It is considered to be the 'ultimate' party experience and we didn't want to let the team down.

We stayed on Hadrin beach on the opposite side to where the party was happening and found a great location where it was chilled out (not a good beach though)! It was a 10 minute walk to the party beach and more importantly Chicken corner, which is where I consumed many Shnitzel sandwiches from all the competetive restaurants HA! I have to mention our little crew that was with us because they all want to be mentioned on our blog (yes it's getting famous around the world). There was me and Danny, obviously leaders of the pack, or some would call us the 'delegators' and the rest consisted of Kate 'gangster walking' Windle, Beth 'gangster talking' Wright, Kim 'Olive oil' Murphy, Clare 'five head' Greenough and Chris 'Eddie Gordo' Prince. This was the main crew but there were others that joined us because we're the crew that has rep around here.

We stayed a total of six days on the island and there wasn't much to do apart from the parties that were going on every night, mainly the pool party at Coral, which had too many different fluids in the pool by the end of the night. I went solo for one day and went to watch Chris play beach footy with the crazy israelians, while the rest of the crew went to the other side of the island to sit on a nicer beach i think and a waterfall that was a trickle, so they decided to play the overplayed 'Dutch Blitz'- I'm glad I didn't get involved with that one!

Fast forwarding to the night of the party as much didn't happen before hand. It seemed for the guys, it was about wearing bright shorts with the official Full Moon Party logo and posing for as many photos as we could. The Full Moon party isn't complete if you don't cover yourself with bright illuminous paints all over your exposed skin and this was on the agenda for a couple of hours before we left. Everyone had their input on each person, some better than others. Cesca painted a Mike Tyson styled tattoo around my left eye, which inspired everyone else to have a similar design and that kept cesca occupied for the next couple of hours. Sarah painted lines and squares on each leg because that's all she was capable after her weak attempt of a mushroom on my arm.

The night was absolutely crazy with thousands of people on the beach dancing away to the beat. There were different types of music playing but we just generally stayed at the main one. The main event of the night had to be when I had to the robot and Chris had to do the beyonce in front of everyone, because we lost on the card games and this was our forfeit. Obviously we gave it 110% and swapped after 30 seconds, which was the swiftest transformation to ever go down in history lol! We all made it to watch the sunrise and surprisingly we were all together-that shit never happens! Beth couldn't stop taking photos of every angle of the sunrise with different people in the photo's but to be fair she had quality pics, which is why it's a shame that she left her camera behind!

All in all, it's a party not to miss and one we will never forget and it does help to have a group like who we were with because it made it that bit extra special!!

Since we are returning to Thailand at the end of our trip we will conclude with a summary on the country then. It will be more competitive for the countries top 3 destinations also.

Koh Phangan Photo Link:

http://www3.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=5506229011/a=2264773011_2264773011/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/