Perhentian and the last week of our travels

Our last excursion was to the beautiful island of Pulau Perhentian, the larger of the two Perhentian islands and famous for its white sand and turquoise sea. We were lucky enough to be staying in Coral View resort so the accommodation was top notch and for the first two days we were joined by Maya’s grandfather Amar, here we are on the boat on the way over

The first night on the island we decided to opt out of the no alcohol restaurant and bar at the resort and walked 30 metres down the beach to a laid back little kiosk and restaurant which served beer aplenty and had a great view.

That night is a bit of a blur, suffice to say it was a lot of fun and Tom and Amar ended up requiring each other’s assistance to get home down the beach.

The resort was home to some weird looking monkeys (might be called snub nosed monkeys we aren’t sure) who watched us having our breakfast. We weren’t taking any chances after the savagery we endured in Borneo!

The local restaurant we had been at the night before also turned out to be a haven for wildlife, while we were there an Oriental Whip snake fell out of a tree and the owner’s nephew was rearing baby turtles for release.

We did lots of snorkelling in Perhentian and we also did 3 dives. There were turtles everywhere straight off the beach and some of them were absolutely massive, at least 4 feet long. Hawksbills and Green Sea turtles as well.

For our third and final dive we went down to the wreck of an old South African ship which was deliberately sunk 13 years ago in an attempted insurance scam. Since then it has become a home for a plethora of fish and a generally eerie place to dive. Definitely a different experience from diving on a reef and surprisingly a lot more fun. The scorpion and lion fish certainly added to the appeal though, these guys are ridiculously cool!

We also took the opportunity to do a little bit of jungle trekking which we had become slightly addicted to during our time in Borneo. We managed to spot a flying lemur hanging out and loads of water monitor lizards.

Perhentian is a sensationally beautiful place and the diving was superb, it was really good fun taking a little holiday with Amar.

All too soon though it was time to get back on the boat and fly back to KL, where we had four days before heading back to the UK. We spent a night relaxing with Amar before staying with Maya’s Uncle Hardev who was an excellent host and treated us to some superb local cuisine. We also squeezed in a breakfast with Maya’s lovely second cousin Survinder, helped Auntie Vinder move house and joined Aunty Sheila and Kamal for dinner as well as a night out with Maya’s cousin Jahan and Tom’s friend Burnsy. It was really nice to finish the trip surrounded by family and it was sad to say bye, especially as KL has provided us with such a welcoming base during the latter half of our travels. However, now we have said our goodbyes and I am writing this on the plane from Kuwait to Heathrow!

The last 6 months have been incredibly enjoyable, relaxing, sometimes stressful, eye opening and all around extraordinary. Coming back down to earth in England will certainly take some getting used to. We are now looking forward to the next trip (should it ever materialise) and it looks like South America will be on the cards! Only time will tell however, and for now we will be content to catch up with friends and family and Maya will get stuck in to her masters degree. Thanks for reading guys!

Borneo!

We were both exceptionally excited about going to Borneo having wanted to for a long time, it is renowned worldwide as a sensational wildlife destination and we couldn’t wait. After a very comfortable short flight we landed in Kuching, a relatively small city and capital of the Malaysian province of Sarawak on the island of Borneo. We only had a week in Borneo and had lots to cram in so decided to have an early night on our first night ready for the early start the next morning. At an ungodly hour that we had not seen for many weeks we set of for Semenggoh Nature Reserve in search of Orangutans. Semenggoh Nature Reserve is one of the many sanctuaries in Borneo that takes in rescued or orphaned animals, rehabilitates them and then rereleases them into the wild. Everyday at 9am and 3pm is feeding time which increases the chances of seeing the Orangutans as no creature likes turning away a free meal. As the keepers call the Orangutans by mimicking the sounds they make, the semi-wild Orangutans start to slowly emerge from the rainforest, descending from the forest canopy to the lower branches of trees near the feeding platform. They are highly entertaining creatures and offer a wealth of facial expressions and are quite cheeky going back for plenty of helpings of fruit. We were lucky enough to see 6 Orangutans that morning including an incredibly cute baby that was practising its climbing- Maya badly wanted to take it home.
The only downside of the sanctuary was the amount of people visiting at the same time as us, almost making it feel like a zoo. People’s phones going off and baby’s screaming some what removed you from the magic of seeing the Orangutans in the ‘wild’.

Mount Santubong is a mountain about 35km north of Kuching with an elevation of only 810m. Most of the reviews about climbing the mountain said it was a tough climb and not for the light hearted but after reading quite a few we decided we were tough enough and would give it a go. Armed with plenty of water and a packed lunch we set off early the next day and started the climb at 8am. The reviews which described it as a difficult climb were pretty understated. It was savage. The last three quarters of the climb was mostly almost vertical hillside, with tree roots and ropes allowing you to scramble up the side. It took us around 4 hours up and we were met with a beautiful panorama. We climbed back down and maybe a little foolhardily elected to follow it up with a jungle trek. It was a hot, sweaty day but the forest is so atmospheric and lush we didn’t mind our aching legs.

Mount Santubong was only a warmup though as the next day we were headed for Bako National Park, Borneo’s oldest National Park and home to some awesome animals such as proboscis monkeys, flying lemurs and all manner of venomous snakes. We arrived in the the park by boat because although it is part of mainland Borneo there are no roads intersecting the jungle. We pulled up on the beach and waded ashore and the place looked truly prehistoric. It was teeming with life and before we even went off on our first trek we had spotted a troop of proboscis monkeys, a flying lemur and even an almost impossible to spot green tree viper. The three things we really wanted to see in the space of five minutes!

We were staying in a little jungle bungalow type thing with shared toilets, essentially in the jungle itself set in a medium sized clearing. Near the cafe and accommodation there were lots of Bornean bearded pigs, charismatic but enormous and slightly intimidating and often between us and the cafeteria.

During the 3 days we were in the park we did a multitude of treks, racking up around 25 hours of walking through jungle, scrubland and across beaches. The place was stunning and the pictures speak for themselves! We also did two guided night treks which were really exciting. Walking along in the pitch black jungle with only your torchlight illuminating the trees was a real experience and we spotted some crazy nocturnal animals including spiders, snakes, frogs and scorpions. The single downside of the park is the macaques, little monkeys who are an absolute menace. They cornered Maya and tried to intimidate us into feeding them, baring their teeth and only leaving if you fully try to boot them or grab a big stick and go nuts. They did have the last laugh though as when Tom left the table to fetch some cutlery one of the sneaky simians nicked a handful of chips with an astonishingly quick little raid. Needless to say, Tom was livid and had to buy a new lunch.

The varying topography of Bako National Park:

Some of the wildlife we came across during our stay in the park, including the green tree viper that Tom spotted on the beach on our first trek. The look on his face says it all:

After an unforgettable week in Borneo it was back to KL for the weekend before heading off to the Perhentian Islands with Maya’s grandfather Amar.

Singapore and back to Kuala Lumpur

Arriving on the plane in Singapore from Bali was a bit of a shock…we had just about forgotten the humidity and heat of Malaysia and in Singapore it was even more apparent. Luckily our hostel was air conditioned but that was about all the good we could say about it, everyone staying there seemed really daft and standoffish (no reason to judge a hostel but irritating nonetheless) and the staff were pretty unfriendly. Suffice to say we wouldn’t recommend 98sg hostel, they tried to rip us off when we wanted to book an extra night so we just left Singapore a day early. We did have a lot of fun outside the hostel though!

The first thing we did was take a trip to Chinatown. It was pretty standard, not as good as the one in KL and just a massive market for tacky items, none of which we saw for sale in the real China. We supposed China exported their tackiest items elsewhere. Hence no photos. The day improved after that though, we visited Singapore’s famous aquarium, purportedly the largest in the world. It certainly did not disappoint, plenty of cool fish

Was nice to see some manta rays too as we had failed to see them whilst diving!

That night we headed into the centre and only just made it in time to see a wicked light and water display from a local hotel after we ended up at the wrong train station, a predicament which apparently befalls lots of tourists according to the queue of white folks asking to change their tickets at said station. Don’t head to the Marina Bay station if you are looking for Marina Bay, it’s the one before it. Makes sense! The light show was awesome though

We walked around and took in the skyline and the merlion who watches over the bay, it was very impressive and lived up to our expectations.

The following day we got a train to the Botanical gardens and had a relaxing albeit swelteringly hot walk through them during the morning. A few people were practicing tai chi around and about. This guy in particular was exceptionally zen

Next stop was lunch in little India, we had a fantastic and enormous meal of chicken tikka and naan bread, what else! A great way to round off Singapore. We had eaten all other meals in a local cafe near our hostel, a nice food hall with a Malaysian and Chinese buffet which was reasonably priced and tasty.

The next day we were back in KL having taken an afternoon 5 hour bus back up into Malaysia. We chilled out in the morning and caught up on some sleep before meeting up with Tom’s mate Burnsy from Wycombe who is in KL doing a placement year for his automotive engineering course. It was great to see a Wycombe face and he took us out for dinner with his Chinese Malaysian relatives, naturally we had delicious Chinese food and then drank copious beers at the bar next door.

Then it was Tom’s birthday! After some great gifts including a terrifying traditional mask and a book on the snakes of Malaysia (Maya knows me so well) it was off to a hilariously disappointing Indian lunch. We had been recommended this restaurant by some seasoned travellers we met our first time in KL, Millie and Alan. Thanks for nothing guys! Tom’s face says it all

Thankfully, Maya’s surprise of dinner up the KL tower did not disappoint, it was excellent. All you can eat buffet at the top of the tower in a revolving restaurant. Oysters and 20 different meat dishes, all delicious!

Even the toilets were high tech and Maya was impressed enough to take a photo, self warming seats and loads of controls for the ultimate sit down experience

After dinner we met up with Burnsy again for some drinks, and took only one token photo

Some random pictures of the KL trains, they have very strict rules governing behaviour as it is a Muslim country and there are women only carriages Tom has been asked to leave having got on unawares.

The last couple of days before Borneo we met up with various people we had met on our travels, Tom from Thailand and the aforementioned bad restaurant advisers Millie and Alan. We went to a local famous food street near Bukit Bintang and enjoyed some local style pond snails. They would have been tasty if they weren’t so difficult to prise from their shells. Bit of a mission and we don’t recommend it! It was also the festival of the ghosts that night, Buddhist and Taoist religions try to ease the suffering of the dead as they believe that on the 15th day of the seventh month the realms to heaven and hell are open and they can influence the after lives of their dead. This meant lots of free street barbecues and a spectacular dragon parade which we were all for!

With that it was time for a couple of weeks break from KL, bound for Borneo and the Perhentian Islands

Gili Trawangan and Kuta Bali round two

We boarded a ferry leaving Labuan Bajo headed west and managed to snag ourselves four first class seats with Josh and Vicky to avoid the ‘entertainment’ which afflicted the economy passengers; a tuneless and incredibly loud keyboard player slash singer which offended everyone for the entirety of the six hour journey. Upon leaving the boat we were hustled towards an already overfilled bus to take us to the bus depot where we would board the big bus for the rest of our 24 hour journey. The bus was so full that Tom and Josh ended up straddling bags on the roof with some friendly locals while Maya and Vicky sat on the floor inside, vehemently refusing to climb on the roof despite the cajoling of the driver and some other passengers. The nerve wracking ride lasted about an hour and a half through the mountains of an island we never learned the name of before we got our large, bumpy and extremely cold air conditioned bus which took us the rest if the way to Lombok overnight. Tom on the roof:

On arrival in Lombok we transferred to a horse drawn cart which took us five minutes down the road (a nice little racket) to a ferry station where we jumped on a half hour boat to Gili Trawangan, leaving Vicky and Josh who elected to go and see Gili Air, a slightly smaller neighbouring island. Trawangan was stunning on approach and we didn’t feel so bad about the incredibly long journey we had made to get there.

Having not booked any accommodation we walked around the island for a bit before finding ourselves a nice little bungalow with an open air toilet and shower, quite pleasant in the Indonesian sunshine! Their outlook on what was necessary to do laundry was also amusing..

We spent most of the first day having a well earned nap before walking to sunset paradise bar, a picturesque restaurant with a view of the sunset where we ate some delicious local style chicken.

We spent the next couple of days relaxing on the beach and chilling with Josh and Vicky who had come over from Gili Air, presumably it was nowhere near as fun without us. On our third day we woke up at the crack of dawn and went out fishing as a surprise for Josh’s birthday. We all managed to catch fish even if they were only small although Maya championed the day by catching three fish including two at once, dampening the testosterone fuelled boasts of the men on board.

The last couple of days before Josh and Vicky left were generally spent relaxing on the beach, although the relaxation was interrupted by a kayaking trip taken by Tom and Josh which ended up with them being rescued by a local boatman having capsized numerous times and filling the inside of their kayak with water, making it impossible to right and leaving them quickly drifting back towards Lombok in the current. Lesson learned about Indonesian health and safety standards and kayaks with gaping holes in. We also tried our hand at surfing and got quite a taste for it, deciding to head back towards Kuta Bali to surf after Gili T.

As a surprise for Toms birthday Maya sneakily organised a private BBQ on the beach with a local restaurant, while taking an extraordinarily long ‘toilet break’ during a bicycle ride around the island. Evidently the slow pace of life on the island nulled Tom’s suspicious instincts. The bicycle ride itself was more of a bicycle push, with at least one third of the circumference of the island being beaches with no path. It was still fun though and one of the islands nicest features is an all-out ban on automated traffic, with bicycles and horse drawn carriages the only means of getting around.

The BBQ itself was an awesome night and our last with Josh and Vicky, we cooked all kinds of meat including some exquisite tuna and chilled on the beach drinking wine.

After Josh and Vicky left we continued our beach-going and had some really heavy nights out with the English trio we met diving in Flores who had coincidentally come to Gili T and run into us in the beach. Plenty of laughs with Deb the doctor, Nick the teacher and Ed the officer.

We decided to go back on the slow boat to Bali and stay in Kuta for the two days prior to our flight to Singapore, and here we managed to avoid all the horrible areas we had seen previously, find a delicious and cheap local restaurant and surf every day. It was a completely different version of Kuta and we actually had a great time. Next on the list, Singapore, a world away from the paradise of Indonesia.

Seraya Island and diving in Labuan Bajo, Flores

After arriving in Labuan Bajo on Flores island we were at a bit of a loss at what to do next. We had originally planned to hire mopeds and travel around the island but after talking to some local people we found the coast of Flores was not particularly great and a mountain we had considered climbing was 15 hours each way to get to. Instead we decided spur of the moment to go and stay on a tiny island an hour away by boat called Seraya.

Electing to go to Seraya turned out to be one of the best decisions we have made. Pulling up to the island our driver steered the boat through a gap in the reef and we waded ashore in the turquoise water. We had one tent and Vicki and Josh took another, naturally we had the pink one.

The snorkelling off the beach on Seraya was excellent, the pictures speak for themselves but we saw sharks, cuttlefish, squid, porcupine fish, lion fish, rays and even a turtle, as well as an array of reef fish and coral.

Not content merely to see these creatures in the water, Tom and Josh constructed a rudimentary fishing kit from a plastic bottle, some line, a hook and some dead coral for a weight. Incredibly, Josh and Vicki had some luck!

Of course Tom, master fisherman extraordinaire, had to take over to unhook the beast, a spotted rock cod

The beach was perfect, the sunsets were picturesque and we spent 3 days and two nights eating in the islands only restaurant, snorkelling and drinking beer.

After getting back to Labuan Bajo from Seraya we rushed around all the dive shops and managed to organise two dives for the following day. The next day we went out on two drift dives, a bit of a steep learning curve for Tom after just completing his open water course! Drift dives involve jumping into water with a current (in this case very strong) and letting it take you from point A to B. The first dive we did over a coral garden, although most of our photos are just us goofing around in the current. Flying over the reef at speed was a lot of fun, as was the time spent on the dive boat with three English guys we had met that morning and Josh.

The second dive was at Manta Point and we had big but realistic hopes of seeing a manta ray. Sadly we didn’t see one but we were more than content with seeing a closely related eagle ray and some turtles, as well as the ubiquitous spectacular reef fish. In fact, Tom was so excited and swam so hard against the current to see the eagle ray up close that he almost ran out of air and had to be the guy piggybacking the instructor to share his. Josh found this immensely amusing and his laughter could be heard underwater. There was also a shark that only Maya saw, allegedly a massive white tip reef shark. Slightly unnerving seeing everyone pulling the shark sign (a hand held vertically above the head) and looking around blankly, wondering if it’s underneath you.

After diving we went down to the local fish market to eat some fresh BBQ fish. A little bit ironic given the day we’d had but it was delicious, we all ordered monsters and had a feast

Our next destination was Gili Trawangan, but first we would have to take a 24 hour trip back to Lombok…to be continued!

Kuta Lombok and Komodo boat trip- in search of dragons

Lombok began with a 5 hour slow ferry eastward from Bali. The ferry seemed alright at first and it was refreshing to be the only westerners on board after being inundated with Aussies in Kuta Bali. However, as night fell the swarms of cockroaches that make the boat home came out in full force and they were everywhere. We aren’t squeamish but it was fairly unpleasant, they were in our bags and clothes and people who managed to sleep fell prey to them crawling on their faces and up their trouser legs. Needless to say dry land was a welcome relief and we then travelled north by taxi to Sengigi, the port where we had arranged to meet Maya’s friend Vicki and her boyfriend Josh. The hostel was difficult to find in the dark but after stumbling through gardens and tripping over some chickens in the longest, darkest alleyway in Indonesia we managed to find it. After a relaxing sleep we woke up to Josh and Vicki’s arrival and their new friend Ali who was coming along as well having met them on Gili Trawangan. We taxied to Kuta Lombok (same name different island) which was the polar opposite of its Bali counterpart; all deserted white sand beaches and understated local restaurants. We found a place to stay and hired mopeds, the thing to do in Indonesia. We headed east first and found some of the most incredible beaches, postcard style, with no one else in sight. The sea was a mesmerising turquoise but our revelry was dampened slightly when Vicki got stung by a jellyfish. It was quite a nasty sting but she took it like a champ and was out on the beers the same evening, despite subtle fears that she might die, having heard of phantom deadly jellyfish in Australia.

We ragged the mopeds around and did some racing in a dirt field we found before heading back to get some food and chill out. The next day was a similar plan although we were going West. We jumped on the mopeds once again and headed for tranquility, although this time we were stymied by a recurring puncture on our moped. The first tyre shop failed to fix it after two attempts, even after we paid the exorbitant sum of £15. It was too late to go back though as we had crossed a mountain by then and even so we didn’t feel too bad as we had a fun hour playing with the tyre owners many children who outclassed Tom in football, they were adept dribblers. We eventually got it fixed and arrived at a world class beach a little later than expected. We had some good games of volleyball and rented a surfboard designed for people with a thousand times more experience than us, Tom and Josh gave it a good go but met with little success. Tom also sustained what looked convincingly like a broken toe during an intense point of volleyball, having given Josh a hard but accidental booting. After that we went back towards home, stopping for some delicious fish on sticks, enormous grilled mackerel for 30p each, deal of the century.

After Kuta we headed back north to Mataram where we waited all day for a bus to take us to the port to leave on a MUCH anticipated four day tour of Komodo National Park. The boat was somewhat smaller than we expected, given that 26 people including crew were spending 4 days on it, but there was an upper deck with 20 tiny mattresses so we picked our beds and dumped our bags in the hold. We left Lombok at 4pm and motored until 9 as we had a lot of sea to cover in 3 days. Along the way we had fish stew, cooked by the 6 live aboard crew who were fantastic cooks. Every meal on the boat was delicious, with curries, stews and huge bowls of rice and vegetables to feed 20 hungry travellers. We stopped at 9pm to take in an Indonesian sunset and catch some sleep. However, we were rudely awoken at 2am when the boat started motoring again. Thereafter there was little possibility for sleep as the boat was tossing and turning and on the upper deck we were rolling all over the place. We stopped again at 7am for breakfast and swam ashore for a short trek to a waterfall, where Josh disappeared and climbed all the way to the top. We stopped again for some pristine reef snorkelling and a walk to a freshwater lake which made for some eerie snorkelling, before beginning an epic 16 hour motor in the early afternoon. During this leg a lot of people began to feel seasick, luckily though Josh spotted some dolphins in front of the boat which boosted morale significantly!

That night was a little better for sleeping but not much, we stopped at 7am for breakfast and climbed a small mountain (big hill?) for a view of Komodo island. There was more snorkelling and then we arrived at Komodo island, the entrance to which is a bit like Jurassic Park and definitely ups the excitement. We met our guide and began the long trek across and round the island. Incredibly, after only 10 minutes of walking we came across our first Komodo dragon, a female relaxing under a tree. She was enormous and everybody was suitably impressed, little did we know the males would be twice the size! As we neared the end of the trek we saw a whole group of lazy dragons chilling out near the local kitchens, one of which, a 10ft male, was hanging out in the toilet. They are incredible beasts. That evening we moored in a quiet bay, drank some beers and did some fishing before enjoying a nice sleep with no sea spray and no rolling around.

The final day we headed for Rinca, the second of the three islands where Komodos are found. We were lucky enough to see 2 in the wild, including a baby which dropped out of a tree and scared our guide. We saw more lazy dragons hanging out by the local houses as well. That afternoon we stopped and did some front flips off the boat as well as snorkelling and beach volleyball. We then reached our final destination in Labuan Bajo on the island of Flores. We decided to stay in a hotel rather than another night on the boat as there was no more food, the hotel turned out to be disgusting (our immediate neighbours were covered in bedbug bites but we narrowly escaped them) but we went to Paradise Bar and had a few drinks with all the people from our boat and reminisced about Komodos.

Indonesia! Jakarta, Yogyakarta and Kuta Bali

We arrived in Jakarta by plane from Bangkok. Jakarta is the capital city of Indonesia and is located on Java, one of the main islands of Indonesia and the second most westerly large one. The taxi to our hostel was horrendous, taking 3 hours to travel ten miles. The traffic in Jakarta is unbelievable, the city having expanded beyond any means of making it functional; at one point the taxi had to cross over a railway line with no crossing or signage, guided and lifted over only by local teenagers looking to make some money from grateful drivers with expensive cars (needless to say our cabbie was not forthcoming). We didn’t do a lot in Jakarta, it was difficult to get around, very big and often smelly. People generally mention Jakarta having no real tourist destinations and being somewhere you like by getting to know, but having heard what else Indonesia had to offer we didn’t really feel like sticking around.

We moved on to Yogyakarta via a seven hour train which took us through mile upon mile of beautiful rice paddies, it was spacious and comfortable and probably the best journey we have had on public transport anywhere. Watching people spray their crops and beat rice by hand as we flew by was relaxing after the fetid conurbation of Jakarta. Yogyakarta itself is an understated place, with horse and carts aplenty and smiling, friendly locals. We went to an ‘art exhibition’ immediately upon arrival as our hostel keeper insisted we learn about traditional Batik art. Inevitably, it was his friend’s art shop but one of the artists took us through how they were made, layering wax and paint onto paper in stages and it turned out to be worthwhile. Of course we left empty handed.

The next two days we spent meandering along Yogyakarta’s streets, stumbling upon an interesting modern Buddhist temple, street bands playing for the traffic at intersections and even a Biology Museum, where we got our first sighting of a Komodo Dragon, albeit poorly stuffed and in a glass case, the victim of a less than excellent taxidermist. We also visited an army museum in an attempt to learn more about the Dutch exploits within Indonesia, we saw lots of guns and uniforms and although our guide was brilliantly enthusiastic his English left a lot to be desired and he got somewhat confused about dates so any information we gleaned probably won’t stand up to scrutiny. Our next stop was Bali, a relatively small island to the East of Java which had to be reached by a ferry and bus combination.

Said bus and ferry took 23 hours, it wasn’t too bad, the bus had Chelsea FC blankets which despite the team kept us warm and cosy in the characteristically Baltic air conditioning. We got a cab to Kuta and slept off the bus journey. The following day we explored Kuta, it isn’t really to our taste and definitely deserves its reputation as a paradise lost. Fat Australians outnumber everyone else 5 to 1 and it was another place where foul stickers and bracelets abound (who buys these things?) and dancing monkeys delight passing morons. It does however have a worthy nightlife and clubs that offer no strings attached free drinks in the hope you will stay and buy more, we didn’t. We met some friendly English girls and a Bornean guy, drank the free booze and after 2 days and a slight hiccup with a bank machine which ended in us being robbed of 130 pounds, we moved east again towards Lombok.

Bangkok

Arriving in Bangkok at 3.30am, four and a half hours earlier than expected, was a bit of a shock. After a couple of taxi rides (one particular driver tried to charge us an £80 starting fee on the meter, who falls for that?), countless ‘sorry we’re full’ and endless wandering around we found a hostel that had four beds (Scottish Beth and Belgian Nick were still with us) at 6.30am, only 3 hours after we had arrived! Unfortunately we couldn’t check in until 2pm so we spent the day splayed out on the bean bags in the common room attempting to watch films, sleeping and counting down the hours until we could get a proper bed.

That evening we took the metro in the sky to the river and caught a boat in search of a restaurant with a city view. We missed our stop on the boat and ended up getting out on the wrong side of the river, but we stumbled across an excellent riverside restaurant where we had great Thai food and after drinking 6 litres of beer between us (and a few cocktails) we decided we may as well see what Kao San road was all about.

Kao San road is a bewildering street, packed full of drunk westerners sitting on plastic chairs in bars that all compete to have the loudest and most obnoxious music. We tried to find a half decent place to sit but we couldn’t really see ourselves having much fun so we opted for a much more relaxed neighbouring street where we had a few more beers and ordered ‘bread and dip’, or as we call it- toast and jam. It is kind of fashionable for travellers to detest Kao San road, but it is an easy place to dislike. It is unnecessarily vulgar and appeals primarily to large groups of teenagers, which is fair enough. Although we didn’t actually see anyone buy any of the bracelets emblazoned with phrases like ‘I love rape’ and worse, the vendors must sell some. The highlight was Tom and Beth eating some deep fried scorpions, which were surprisingly tasty.

The next morning we tried to find a good hangover breakfast, after a good few hours of wandering around (we were getting fairly good at this in Bangkok) we were informed that as it was Saturday most places were shut. The bustling markets that we had been to the day before were all closed as was virtually every restaurant, we settled for a burger in the end as it was all we could find! Another boat trip up the river and we decided to do our own little walking tour that afternoon, with Nick as our guide. We walked for what felt like hours through market stalls that sold everything from food to amulets, as well as the occasional stall that sold various animal parts that we were pretty sure were illegal. We ended up walking down a small street that was lined with tiny houses, all boxed in extremely close together. What was bizarre was that even though some of the houses were the size of most people’s garages and they had 6+ people living in them, most of them still had enormous flat screen TVs on the wall.

Our attempt to go to the floating market took much longer than anticipated (notice a theme in Bangkok?) and was somewhat of a disappointment. We set off early in the morning and eventually managed to flag down our own dragon boat after a missed ferry, disastrous tuk tuk ride and a couple of taxis. It turns out the floating market is actually 2 hours outside of Bangkok and by the time we flagged down our boat it was too late in the morning to go. So we were taken on a tour of the canals and to a smaller floating market, which consisted of 3 tiny boats trying to sell us crap. The tour of the canals was amazing despite this, we passed people’s houses that looked like they were falling into the river, people were fishing from the banks or standing waste deep with nets, every now and then people would be feeding the huge Mekong catfish that lived in the river and we could see the huge fish jumping all over each other desperate for the tiny mouthfuls of bread. We saw some huge monitor lizards swimming and basking on the banks of the canal, unfortunately our boat driver wouldn’t slow down or stop so we could take pictures of them! That afternoon we left Nick outside whilst we went to see the Giant golden Buddha, giving him time to befriend an old Thai man who gifted him with a traditional amulet. The Golden Buddha is an enormous, majestic Buddha lying down and coated with gold that seemed as though its housing had been built badly around it. It is found in amongst beautifully symmetrical Chinese style temples and buildings scattered with ponds and giant, slightly scary looking statues.

Unfortunately our last evening with Nick and Beth didn’t go quite to plan. Beth came down with suspected food poising which later turned out to be tonsillitis so didn’t come out for dinner which was a shame. After a great dinner where Tom and Nick both had a healthy sweat on eating very large spicy whole fish they went off to the cinema together to watch World War Z. Maya stayed at the hostel as she was coming down with a cold and a sore throat and also doesn’t particularly like zombie films! The next morning we said our emotional goodbyes before heading off to the airport and onto the next adventure, Indonesia for a month.

Pad Thai and a Chang please: Koh Tao, Thailand

Thailand began with an overland crossing from Malaysia on a night bus, a journey which involved numerous stops and a sadomasochistic driver who insisted on setting the a/c to minus thirty. After one more bus from Hat Yai to Surat Thani we found a hostel for the night and went out for a meal. This was a bit of a shock after being pampered by Maya’s relatives for so long and we ended up having a strange BBQ meal which we didn’t realise was all you could eat until we came to pay. Definitely would have eaten more! The following day we got up at 6am for a ferry that didn’t leave until 10, a slight miscommunication. Our backpacking skills were diminished from a lack of practice but after 2 boats and numerous island stops (all of which were stunningly beautiful) we docked at Koh Tao.

Koh Tao is a real island paradise, all palm trees and sandy beaches. Our first night was spent in a hostel called Jizo’s, and we immediately set out to get drunk, buying into a pub crawl with loads of tourists and some guys from our hostel who were immediately friendly after finding out Tom’s allegiance to Oxford United, despite them being from Swindon. The morning after we were slightly worse for wear and moved to a spacious double room with a fridge and a tv instead of the 8 man dorm. The next day we rented kayaks and paddled round the island a little way to do some snorkelling. The coral was stunning even two metres out and for lunch we tucked into a delicious packed lunch of ham and cheese sandwiches under an overhanging rock. On the way home Tom booked in to start an open water diving course the following day, to catch up with Maya who has her qualifications.

Tom:
The evening before the course started we went into the dive centre to watch a few basic instructional videos, everyone was slightly nervous but mostly excited to give it a go. The first full day of the course was academic work in the morning and a pool session all afternoon, during which I breathed underwater for the first time, a uniquely novel experience. After getting to grips with all the equipment, practicing safety procedures and getting to know each other and particularly my dive buddy Titus, we felt ready for the dives. The next morning we started at 8.30 and got a big boat out to the dive site called Mango Bay. We got all kitted up and into the water and moved around to the anchor of the boat to begin our descent to 12m. As I emptied my buoyancy controller of air and sank beneath the waves it really hit home that it was going to be different from the pool session as shoals of fish surrounded us. One of the most exciting things I have ever done and I recommend it to everyone. We began over a sandy bottom but before long we were cruising weightlessly above an immaculate coral reef, it was unbelievably peaceful. We did 2 dives, one on either side of the bay and everyone in our group was hyped up, we had lots of fun with the hand signals underwater.

The final day was an early start at 6am to do two deeper dives to 18m in an area known as White Rock. Going deeper was even more exciting and sitting on the bottom looking up at my bubbles heading for the surface was slightly unnerving! We did a few safety practices including mocking having run out of air- this one was slightly intense as I took Titus’ regulator only to find there was no air! He only had the pipes twisted though and we shared mine until he could unravel them. During this deeper dive we saw two enormous grouper and a myriad of smaller fish and coral and the three dimensional aspect of being underwater really hit home as we swam up and over massive coral cliffs. The final dive of the day we mucked around for the videographer and had a dance off as well as taking our masks off and putting sunglasses on, one girl in my group called Thea threw up underwater, a feat we were all impressed by and commended her upon. After returning to shore we were awarded our open water diver cards and we all left for a nap. That evening we met up again, Maya came for lots of beers and we went to various clubs and bars on Koh Tao. During the time I was diving Maya had been chilling on the beach and reading a lot so I think she was glad I had finished. We spent 2 more days on Koh Tao, one of which was spent hiking over to the other side of the island with some people from my course and their various friends for some pristine snorkelling. After that it was back on the boat with our new friends Belgian Nick and Scottish Beth to head for Bangkok.

Malaysia truly Asia!

Kuala Lumpur
After a turbulent flight from Bombay we landed in KL and caught the train into the centre. We had the pleasure of staying with Maya’s Aunty Sheila and Uncle Param for a few nights before heading off to stay with her Grandfather Amar Singh for the rest of the week. Aunty Sheila is Maya’s dads cousin once removed, her mother is Maya’s grandmother’s first cousin. A very large complicated indian family! For the purpose of ease everyone who is older then you we refer to as Aunty or Uncle or if they are the same age (ish) they are your cousin. We spent the time with Aunty Sheila being treated to fantastic large family meals. Aunty Sheila’s cousins Kamal and Suresh were visiting from America at the same time as us so there were always a lot of us, especially once you include Sheila’s sister Vinder and brother Hardev who live in KL and her brothers Harjeet and Opdesh who both made appearances from New Zealand and Australia during our time in KL, on top of the rest of the extended family in KL. A lot if family for Tom to meet and try and understand the relations between! We all went to see Maya’s cousin Jahan’s band Scarlet Heroes play their last gig of a tour of Malaysia, they put on a fantastic performance! Scarlet Heroes is a heavy rock band so it was quite a sight seeing all of the older generation sat in chairs at the back nodding along. After seeing the band we went to an incredible Chinese seafood restaurant, you could pick your meal from a large array of tanks that contained everything from king crabs to tiny prawns and molluscs as long as your arm. Tom in particular could have spent hours wandering from tank to tank, unfortunately we had to sit down and eat! The food did not disappoint, especially the king crab claws.

Maya’s grandfather Amar Singh lives just outside of KL in a beautiful community called Valencia which boasts a golf course, club house, gym and a huge pool (the photos of us with the golf course behind are in this pool). Amar took us out for some great evenings with his friends that live in the community and those that live outside. We went to the bar that Izzy worked at when she was out here two years ago, the bar staff thought that Maya was her as they recognised Amar! During our days in KL we explored the city; wandering around china town, central market, the lake gardens, the lake park and KL city centre. KL is a beautiful city full of parks and green areas with incredible sculptures and water features all over the city. A highlight was the bird park in the gardens, the largest free flying bird park in the world, unsurprisingly packed with avian creatures. After a week of being spoiled in KL we left for Cherating on the east coast.

Cherating

The week in Cherating was spent in a luxurious hotel called The Legend, courtesy of Tom’s Dad. We definitely felt as if we stood out arriving sweaty and dusty from the road having walked from the bus stop with our backpacks! The room was spectacular with views of both the sea and the pool, and a fridge to store all of our smuggled rum. We spent the week chilling on the beach and by the pool and hanging out with an English couple we met on the bus, Millie and Alan. We had a great time eating out and drinking lots of beer with them and we ate plenty of Malaysian food from a cheap buffet over the road from The Legend. The only real activity we did during the week was a boat trip into the mangrove swamp, an intriguing ecosystem that Tom has a particular interest in conserving. The unusual trees form the ground and have their roots in the brackish water, providing an unique habitat that teems with life. On our trip we spotted a big family of river otters who we watched furtively hunting for fish and a mangrove snake in amongst the trees. After a thoroughly relaxing week we headed back to KL for a few more days with the family before departing on an arduous bus journey towards Surat Thani and eventually Koh Tao, Thailand.