foot nibbling

Oh I almost forgot one of the best bits! On langkawi we went to a spa and little fish nibbled all the dead skin off our feet! It tickled so much and is the wierdest feeling but my feet still feel super soft :)

Georgetown and langkawi

Writing this on the phone as I'm too lazy to find a real computer so sorry for any spelling mistakes. Flew into penang on Tuesday which was wierd as the flight only lasted an hour and I've never flown that short haul before. And it meant we didn't get a meal! But we were staying at this pretty posh hotel called ppisland which was so lovely. Went out for lunch at this ace place called yummy cottage which was really just a little indoor street market and had some fried rice. And then got very confused about where we were (mainly my bad map reading skills) so hopped on a bus to prangin mall which is possibly the best mall in the world. I spent so much money I am really sacred to look at my bank balance. But I did buy, amongst many other things: a new pair of skinny Levis, some beautiful fake Vivian westwood shoes for £7, a pair of glasses on a necklace and an awesome shirt for just £2! It's so hard to not when everything is so stupidly cheap.
That evening we saw some fairy lights twinkling down a road so we went to explore and ended up having a steamboat, which is a bit like a Chinese version of a fondu, with a boiling spicy stock and a grill in the middle of the table and everyone cooks their own food. The place we went was amazing with millions of things on offer to cook like king prawns, clams, pat choi, spring rolls, sweetcorn, etc. So delicious and you could eat as much as you wanted. And after there was free ice cream! Only problem was the ice cream came in really odd flavours like yam, sweetcorn and durIan which is a horribly smelly fruit. So we decided to try them all and they were foul! We ended up trying to melt them in the steamboat to get rid of them! I'd never tasted durian before but it now makes the smell so much worse cos I can taste it too. Such a funny night and the meal was £4 each! Oh and before we went out wed been drinking the vodka my parents brought out and mama g was pouring herself huge measures, clearly forgetting it was 50%, so she was pretty drunk by the time we left the hotel which made it even more amusing.
Wednesday we caught a taxi over to the colonial district and took some pics, wondered through little India and ended up on the street I stayed on last time. Bought some fruit juice in a bag with a straw of a street vendor and wondered back to prangin mall to spend a bit more money. On the way out mama went to take some money out, got her pin wrong once and the machine swallowed her card! That evening we went to a huge street market for tea and ordered loads, just kept going up to different stalls and ordering more. Best was the satays and a noodle dish called Singapore mee hoon. For pudding we had this really wierd thing called chee chow fun which was really thick rice noodles with sweet prawn sauce. Not that nice but the locals were loving it.
Pop ordered a taxi stupidly early the next morning and we went and caught our freezing cold air conditioned ferry to langkawi. Apparently its Muslim honeymoon season and pretty much everyone else on the ferry was young men in shorts and tshirts with tiny wives dressed head to toe in black veils with only a small slit for their eyes. Was a bit odd to find ourselves part of a very small minority of females with our full faces on show. On langkawi we stayed a tropical report which was lovely and clean (although it had the hardest beds in the world) but had the massive problem that we weren't allowed to drink there as the owner was Muslim. Was lovely to be on a duty free island though as beers cost 30p!I didn't feel that well so didn't do much on Wednesday so didn't do that much. Thursday I also don't think we did that much, just lay around as the weather wasn't that great. Friday we went on the island hopping tour which was ace. Went on a speedboat out to a beautiful little beach on another island and had a swim, then saw some eagles which were amazing and then went to an island with loads of monkeys and a huge freshwater lake and had a swim in that next to the mangroves. All really beautiful and we saw what langkawi is really like without all the spas and tourist shops. Had a horrible dinner at an Indian place called the British raj and then went and sat on the beach drinking beers and watching the crabs running around. Next day it rained the whole day which was crap so we stayed inside. Evening was good though, we went to a Turkish restaurant and had lovely food and then persuaded mama and pop to get a shIsha! Don't think they liked it much but soph and I had loads of fun! Then went somewhere else and had cocktails so had a really good night.
Flew back to kl the next day which was odd as I've never been on an internal flight. But we are staying in the poshest most amazing hotel here. It's called the park royal and its five stars! The rents stayed here over Easter when the ash cloud stopped them getting home and they wanted to treat us cos its beautiful.were on the 21st floor so have the best view and can walk around your room naked and no one knows. And there's so much free stuff and a massive free buffet breakfast. It's going to be really hard to go back to dorms and little fan huts after this! Mama and pop have just taken soph to the airport as she flies home today, and then were off to tIoman tomorrow xx

Singapore

In singapore now, in fact going to catch a plane to penang in a couple of hours. Had such a lovely time here i forgot how much i love this city.
We got here on saturday after deciding to leave cherating early as it was a bit hot and not so much to do. Oh but on friday evening I went on the firefly river tour which was amazing! best 3 pounds i've ever spent. picked us up in a little tiny boat once it was dark and there were only 3 of us. I've never seen fireflies before but they are so beautiful. They move quite slowly in sort of bounces so everything seems really magical like a disney movie. firstly you'd just see them moving around the trees and then our guide would flash a light and suddenly they'd all head over to our boat and surround us and be on our hands and hair and they were so gently and lovely.
we caught a taxi and then a reeeeeaally long coach ride on saturday morning to singapore and are staying at sleepy sams again! it is such a lovely hostel especially after the place in cherating which had bed bugs. saturday evening we sat around here and on the internet and then went for a little wonder. discovered haji road in kampong glam which is a really pretty little lane with tall colonial houses and the most wonderful boutique clothes stores. spent about 2 hours in 2 shops trying everything on and i fell in love with so many cool things. Then we went and had dinner at the lovely deli morrocan opposite our hostel and then had an early night. pop booked us into the girls dorm which isn't as good as the main dorm where i stayed last time and the girls were pretty unfriendly and grumpy.
Sunday we got up early and it had rained during the night, still we decided to go to the zoo so we caught lots of mtrs and buses and got there...just as it started to rain again. and it pissed it down for about 3 hours, we got soaked, so we decided it would be a good (and hilarious) idea to buy bright green rain capes with singapore zoo emblazoned accross the back! aha we looked so funny they are ace! the zoo is really cool as there are no cages, just moats and ditches between you and the animals and glass between the really dangerous ones (a huge crocodile headubutted the glass about 10cm in front of my face i was so scared!) so it really flows and feels a bit jungley as the monkeys can move all over the park just moving through the trees overhead. Saw so many cool animals. and some babboons having sex and things like that. good day, soph has lots of photos. Came back here and then went and collected mama and poppa g from the station! so good to see them and it's so wierd meeting them out here on the other side of the world. lovely though. We weren't that hungry so we just went to a little sisha bar and lay around on cushions drinking beer. good times.
Monday we had a little explore around singapore. Walked down to the river and sat having a very expensive beer, then caught a riverboat which had the best audio commentry ever. highlights included "let me recite for you a poem" "why don't you try writing your own poem" "singapore is a painting and you are part of it" and other such gems. the mama and i were wetting ourselves for the whole thing.
Then we wondered up to little india, via lots of shopping centres for the air conditioning and had a drink in a cafe. Came back here and had dinner before getting spruced up and going to raffles hotel for coctails. Went into the Long Bar and ordered our singapore slings and they were sooooo good. really delicious. and every table has a huge thing of peanuts and you throw the shells on the floor so when you walk it's really crunchy underfoot. the bar was pretty cool with old fashion fans and stuff. but the drinks worked out at almost 15 pounds each! pop was pretty shocked as we thought they were going to be about 8 pounds. ah well had a lovely time.
that's about it as i have to run and catch a plane but romy you are rubbish with your coming home dates xxxx

bad times

everything isn't going so well anymore. due to certain reasons that some people may know, i have lost a lot of respect for the person i'm travelling with and started to realise that all of the origional bad things i thought about them are correct and all of the nice aspects that people tell me just aren't or are just for show so that person can get what they want. i know it's not nice to bitch about people on the internet but i am stuck with her and have no one else to talk to and i'm starting to find it really hard. if i was at home i just wouldn't want her as my friend because i don't like people who treat other people like that, but instead of being able to get away from her we are stuck travelling and in the same room together. and she bluddy moans about everything!
but i will try not to rant anymore, i just wanted to get that out the way. we're staying in cherating which is sooo hot and there's barely any breeze but it is lovely and cheap and they have such good food. Last night we went to mata hari restaurant and i had barbequed prawns and they were so fresh and delicious and i was so happy. Looked like there were some other good places to eat too so im quite excited for tonight. then went to another restaurant to have a drink but it was wierdly run by about 8 little children. A grown up showed up after a while and started playing on a computer but these 3 8 year olds took our orders, money and made our drinks while some smaller kids ran around them and 2 13 year olds played really loud malaysian reggae music and played xbox. very very strange.
This morning i went and sat on the beach and talked to mama g which was ace, had not such a nice lunch at a self service place as i accidentally picked liver (eeuuuuuuurgh) and lay around reading and planning and stuff. think tomorrow im going to go to a turtle sanctuary in the morning and then a firefly tour where you catch a boat and watch them over the water in the evening. There's not really anyone else here though so i'll probably have to do most of it on my own as i'm avoiding my travelling companion as much as possible. ah well.
so that was today, not hugely excting but im just so excited about having internet and being able to come on here every day. hope everything is going well back home and the postcards arrive soon! xxxx

perhentian islands

so on saturday (?) soph and i left the cameron highlands and caught a mini bus and a water taxi accross to perhentian kecil which is an island on the north east bit of malaysia. all the clouds that were over the mainland disappeared as we got close and it looked so pretty with completely clear turquoise waters and huge hills covered in forest with white bits of sand around the edge. it was boiling hot and we really wanted to stay on long beach where there are lots of parties as we were getting a bit sick of not talking to anyone except each other. but apparently the whole island was fully booked so i dropped soph off at a cafe and started trekking up the beach to find some beds. eventually after sweating buckets i found 2 beds in the grimmest dorm room in the world. it had mice, cockroaches, ants, various biting bugs, 1 plug socket between 7 that only worked at night, no lock on the loo, no sink, lots of sand...etc,etc. grim. but we booked a bed and planned to move the next day. went and played in the sea which was so warm it was probably warmer than the old cliche of bathwater and we just sat in there for a few hours having a perv at the scenery. at the dorm some of the boys in there invited us out to dinner with them and by staying in that horrible dorm (we ended up staying there the whole time) we got in with a really lovely big gang of divers who we preceded to get hideously drunk with every night. first night we went to mata hari for dinner and then to a beach bar that was really like koh tao where you sit on the sand with little tables and watch locals play fire poi. we were drinking this stuff called monkey juice which was a really sweet rum that got me so so drunk. also had a shisha which was pretty nice. sat there for ages watching all sorts of odd things (detailed in the emails to various people) and then at about 5am we went and jumped off the pier into the water which had loads of phosphorescence, which made all of the water sparkle whenever you moved. soph says i stayed in there for about 40 minutes just watching it as it was so beautiful.
The next day was a lazy beach day, just sitting on the sand and playing in the water. In the evening it was the world cup final at 2.30am, i watched a bit but got really sleepy and knew we had an early start the next day so went to bed about 3.30.
Monday we went on a snorkelling trip which was so so good :) i saw some black tipped sharks, a stingray, some nemo fish and a turtle!! the turtle was amazing it was huge and just didn't look real. Whole day was ace and the water was just so clear, saw so much more than on koh tao or phi phi. although having my back and bum out of the water all day i got so burnt and am still a bit red. That night there was an open mic night at one of the bars and some of the boys sang flight of the conchords songs which were so funny. i also found a mirror so it was the first time id seen my reflection since getting there which i didn't like at all. urm i can't remember what else happened that night so i was probably pretty drunk.
lots of the boys left the next day and i was so burnt i didn't want to go outside much so just hung around the hotel drinking lots of ice coffee and reading my book. in the evening we went to bin tang restaurant which has gorgeous views out over the whole bay and i had a lovely dinner but i was feeling really sick so couldn't finish it. i went back to the room and slept for a bit, but woke up at about 4 when the others came back and we all went swimming in the phosphorescence again. oh it was so good. im going to miss that so much.
we left pretty early this morning and caught various buses and taxis to get us to cherating. i don't think soph likes it much (again see my emails) but it seems lovely to me, even if it is a bit quiet. and it's a lot cheaper - our really nice chalet is cheaper than our 2 dorm beds were. so today we've just been doing washing and stuff and i think we're going to try and do the firefly tour tomorrow evening. but now we have internet again im sure i will update this soon xxxx

cameron highlands

we're in the cameron highlands at the moment which are so beautiful. they're right up in the mountains and al you can see are misty clouds and hills covered in tea plantations. We're staying at daniels lodge which is a proper backpackery place and the owner is really nice. and it's so good not having sand all over my feet! this morning i went to a malay food stall and hadthe best meal i've eaten out here. it was just fried vegetables and rice and a curry sauce but it was so delicious. wish we had food stalls like that at home. we went on the countryside tour' in the afternoon and it was probably the best day we've had out here. went to lots of different little places like a tea plantation( and bought looooads of tea for everyone!), a rose garden with hundereds of flowers, a butterfy farm with bluddy huge butterflies and horribly big beatles and insects (which the tour guide made us hold!!) and some other litte places. soph and i had a cup of really fresh fried sweetcorn which was amazing. we got back quite late and went to an indian restaurant for tea but my meal wasn't great and a woman next to us had chicken tikka and it looked sooo good i was pretty jealous. soph isn't happy with the food out here at all. she says she just wants to make her own food and doesn't like that most people out here eat out. ah wel im loving it :)
we're heading off tomorrow in a minivan to the perhentian isands (its costing us bluddy 26 quid!) and apparently internet is super expensive there so we probably won't be in contact for a few days. but apparenty it's ace and pretty there so im sure it will be worth it.
hope everyone is doing ok xxxx

made it to malaysia :)

hello we finally made it out here! after hours of delayed flights and 2 free meals we got to kuala lumpar. had a bit of a nightmare working out the monorail, ltr, mtr and somethingorother express but we ended up in chinatown and stayed in Origional Backpackers, the same hostel i stayed at last time i was here. very very very wierd being back in the same place, i kept getting wierd flashbacks of stuff id forgotton and just felt a bit odd. had some food off the street vendors outside and then crashed.

we got up early and had breakfast on the roof terrace which was lovely and then tried to catch a bus to take us to pangkor island, on the west side of malaysia a bit north of kl. except the bus station i used last time was being renovated to we had to catch another bus to the other side of town to get there. sat on one of the lovely big armchair coaches to take us there but it dropped us at a bus station about half way there in ipoh and we had to wait for about 2 hours for the connecting bus to turn up. sneaky coach touts.

next coach wasn't as nice as the air conditioning was terrible and we both got a bit flustered. but to be honest it was all much easier than i thought it would be and we got to pangkor quite early. a man started chatting to us on the boat over and i thought he was just being friendly except at the end he offered to pick us up the next day in his car and take us on a tour of the island. so we got a bit worried that we were going to be sold/ chopped up and managed to get out of it. it's wierd last time i was travelling it wouldn't have been a problem as i was with a boy, even though i doubt he could have done much to help, but with sophie i was so protective and worried about her that it wasn't even an option, even though im sure he was harmless. but we agreed to meet him for lunch the next day to be polite and he did seem nice.

we caught a bright pink taxi to the other side of the island (Nipah Bay) where we are staying and booked into Nazri Nipah Camp which is a funny little rasta place that is sooo much like thailand. lots of hammocks and bob marley posters and wooden huts. its quite nice though and we have a little chalet with our own bathroom.

I had a horrible night and didn't sleep much, just getting really worried about things as i hadn't heard anything since joe had gone missing and i was finding it a bit hard to suddenly be responsible for someone else when travelling, where as last time it had been a bit more equal as we had both been newbies at it and both been a bit more equal. im sure soph would do fine without me but i feel like i have to look after her and make sure she's having a good time. ended up having to take my pils again which was a bit rubbish as i don't want to spend this whole holiday sleeping and i've been so much more awake this past fortnight but didn't really know what else to do.

we didn't wake up until 12 and ran out of our room to meet our boat man at 1. had a nice lunch with him and he told us more about the island and then we went and played on the beach. oh the night before we had gone out and watched the sunset on the beach and it was so beautiful it had turned the whole sky pink and it set in a gap in the islands on the water. so we sat on our beach for a bit and then walked down the road to Coral Bay which was even quieter and so lovely. we were pretty much the only people there and we just sat and read and played about in the stupidly warm water. we met our little man again for dinner and he took us on a tour of the island and then to a chinese restaurant which he said did the best example of chinese home cooking. i loved it it was so delicious, all seafoods with really rich flavours and all really different, but as sophie isn't a fan of fish i don't think she enjoyed it quite as much.

didn't sleep so well again last night so we spoke to mama g for a bit in the middle of the night and sat around trying to make moustaches with our hair and taking photoe. a giant hairy catapillar as big as my little finger crawled onto sophie's travel journal which was pretty funny.

today we went to a little temple at the end of coral bay that has a big statue of donald duck and lots of wierd ornaments. there was another beach around the corner over loads of stones but there were covered in woodlice that crawled up your hands and you needed pretty good balance so after a bit i turned back, which soph wasn't too impressed with. spent the rest of the afternoon sunbathing and in the sea, ive got a bit sunburnt down one side so im smothering myself in aftersun. it got really windy and i could see rainclouds coming so went back to the room and had a read and a nap. urrrm and then just went and had dinner and then here where i got joe's lovely email so that's all good :) romy im sorry i haven't written you a proper email i keep meaning to but typing takes so bluddy long! and this is retty much what i would have told you anyway. but you are next on my list! also could everyone please send me their addresses and postcodes as sophie has gone postcard mad and i want to join in. she is getting so angry that she can't find ones with pictures of this island on!
we're leaving for the cameron highlands tomorrow where apparently it's going to be a bit chilly which i can't really imagine. hope everyone is well and england is still sunny xxxx

malaysiana

flying to KL with sophie today for the start of the malaysian adventure. very unprepared and my bag feels far too light compared to last time...