New York

We spent our last few days in Australia back in Sydney kicking about Russel's flat relaxing before catching a plane to Singapore. We went out for a meal with Russel, Nic, James and Sarah, which was a good laugh. Great meal. Nepalese place, really good food. We then flew out on the 1st November to begin the final leg of our round the world jaunt. The flight was a bit traumatic. First couple of hours was constant turbulence, and both of us were gripping onto the arm rests in panic for most of that. The inflight entertainment didn't work which was a bit crap, so I entertained myself with quite a few miniature bottles of wine. We arrived in Singapore at about 10pm both pretty tired. We headed for Little India, an area of the city with loads of hostels. Unfortunately we didn't bank on every hostel in the city being full and were both extremely tired and emotional when we eventually checked into a hotel at about 1am (4am Sydney time) having trapsed about with full backpacks on around the dark, smelly streets. The hotel that we eventually found was fine although we paid well over the odds for it. We had been offered a mattress with some interesting brown stains on it at the end of a corridor, without a door, on a kind of balcony/part of the roof of the place before...so that had been the final straw and we splashed a bit of cash just to get somewhere that resembled a room. Next day we headed back to Little India and managed to check-in to a hostel no bother that morning.

Singapore was alright. It's a pretty amazing mix of Cultures. Little India was interesting because it is Deepavali - Hindu festival of lights - at the moment, so they had all these ridiculously colourful decorations and neon light displays up all over the place.

We didn't spend long in Singapore, only one full day. We didn't see much of it as we spent half the day trying to buy a train ticket to Kuala Lumpur. I'm not sure there's an aweful lot to see in any event. We walked down the main street, Orchard Road, which is basically just one continuous stretch of massive shopping centres. Could have been anywhere. Weird walking down the street in the intense humidity and getting blasted by freezing air conditioning every few steps, from all the shops. I'm still struggling to get used to hot outside, cold inside. One thing that was good about Singapore, and has been so far since being in SE Asia, is the food.

Amazing selection of stuff to eat. On our day in Singapore we ate curry in Little India in the morning, Thai for lunch, then Chinese for dinner. Great stuff. We stayed in a dorm that night, which was a bit like a prison cell, which we had to share with an American Jesus freak and a girl from Leith. Not sure which is worse.

Next day we got up early and caught a train to Kuala Lumpur (KL). I think the line that we were on is part of the Orient Express route.

Certainly there was a sign indicating that was the case. The train took about 7 hours and was absolutely freezing. We went 2nd class, and the carriage was literally like sitting in a fridge. Wasn't very comfortable, and the toilet was a hole in the floor that went straight onto the tracks. Wasn't too bad though.

We arrived in KL mid-afternoon, managed to check-in to a hostel at our first attempt, then went and had a look around the city. Again, there wasn't a lot to see, apart from the Petronas Towers.

Absolutely amazing building, especially when all lit up at night. More massive shopping centres involved here, making up the bases of the two towers. We wandered about here for a while before going to get some food. The food in Malaysia, so far, has been great. You can eat and drink for next to nothing. We both ate and had a drink in KL for under 2 pounds for both of us. Despite the small shard of glass that I found in my Nasi Goreng, that was pretty good value. Nasi Goreng is great - basically spicy chicken fried rice with seafood, or whatever meat they have lying about. Been eating a lot of it, from dodgy little places that we've stopped at along the way. We only spent the one night in KL before moving North and to the West Coast of Malaysia, in search of good weather, and beaches. The weather so far has been disappointing. Been pissing with rain for the majority of our time here so far. I was getting a bit worried that we might have made a mistake in planning the trip the way that we have, and that we were going to be under a monsoon cloud for the whole SE Asia leg. A Malaysian guy that we spoke to allayed those fears by telling us that the weather has just been pretty shocking for this time of year and that it should be good by next week. So should be ok fingers crossed, as I'm planning on getting very very very very brown.

From KL we got a bus to a little place called Lumut where we caught a ferry to an island off the West Coast of Malaysia, called Pulau Pangkor. When we disembarked we caught a weird little pink taxi/minivan to the other side of the island to a little bay called Teluk Nipah.

Was a really pretty little beach town. The beach had rope swings hanging off lots of the trees lining it, which was quite smart.

Unfortunately the weather spoiled any quality time on the beach. It was a torrential downpour for nearly our whole time there. However, we did venture into the sea on our second day there. The sea here is really warm so we spent a good couple of hours mucking about in the waves. Other than wandering about the beach and sitting drinking Tiger beer on our little porch, watching the torrential rain and the weird hornbills flying about, we didn't do a lot.

Jenny is taking great interest in each and every cat that we come across, which makes getting anywhere quite a slow process as they are all over the place here.

I even spotted one down a drain in Singapore. Jenny fed one of the cats in Teluk Nipah a tin of curry tuna, so even the cats like it spicy over here. Was good to relax for a day or so before we hit the road again.

Last couple of days were a bit of a nightmare. Began a marathon two day slog North from the island. First caught a boat back to the mainland. Then caught a 2 hour bus to a town called Ipoh. Ipoh was a bit of a dump, and had proper open sewars running down the sides of the streets, absolutley revolting, the place stank like a toilet. Unfortunately we had to kill a whole day there wandering about in the rain before catching an overnight bus to Hat Yai just over the Thai border. Got absolutely no sleep because the bus was freezing cold. Managed to negotiate the border crossing before catching another 4 hour minivan to Krabi on the West Coast of Thailand. This was a nightmare, not least because we knew it was to be 4 hours, and we spent an hour and a half crawling about the streets looking for people to pick up before leaving. Got no sleep here either because it was so cramped and the driver was driving as fast as he could overtaking on blind corners driving literally inches befhind the vehicle in front at 70mph.

Having survived this we then caught another 1/2 hour taxi to our final destination Ao Nang, where we are just now. Slept well last night after all that carry on. Krabi seemed a bit of a dump as well, although we didn't spend long there and I was having a bit of a strop because of sleep deprivation. Ao Nang has niceish beaches, although the view out to the islands is what it's really all about and the longtail boats scooting about from bay to bay.

Really pretty. There are several reminders of the devastation that was caused by the Tsunami that hit in 2004, in the shape of evacuation signs, and there still appears to be a lot of rebuilding going on around here.

Ao Nang is kind of spoiled by the road that the beach backs onto that is littered with tack shops crawling with tourists. Going to head to better beaches tomorrow probably and try to escape the crowds.

Weather is still pretty crap although it's not raining and the sun is making some effort to come through.