Pickup, boat, minivan, boat, taxi, coach, taxi, bus, boat. Are we there yet?

Koh Phangnan, Thailand to Pulau Tioman, Malaysia

Whilst diving on Koh Phangnan our dive guide had mentioned the diving off of the northern tip of Sumatra in Indonesia. An island off the coast from Banda Aech which had been relatively undamaged by the tsunami. We had considered going to Indonesia and had initially decided to leave it for another time. But having heard that it was a beautiful place and the diving was great we decided we should go to Sumatra and see how we got on. It would be an adventure.

This meant we had to take the same journey that last year had left us stranded in southern Thailand, luckily this time it was relatively smooth and so after a taxi, a boat, a mini bus, another mini bus, and another boat ride we found ourselves in Panang, an island off of the west coast of Malaysia and a point from which a ferry sailed daily to Sumatra. Or so the Lying Planet said.....

We arrived late in the evening and couldn't understand why when we went looking for dinner that most of the restaurants were shut. We only realised why the following morning when the clock in the hotel showed an hour later than we thought it was. DOH - Malaysia is an hour ahead of Thailand. No wonder the Malaysian border crossing guards had charged the foreigners for their overtime, it must have been at least 4.30pm when we had come through the previous day!

We set off to sort out our boat ticket only to discover that the boat to Sumatra actually only ran 5 days a week and of course the next day, a Friday, just happened to be the day it didn't go. As we weren't overly enamoured with Georgetown (rundown former colonial capital of Penang) we were just slightly miffed. But still, I do believe these things happen for a reason. The reason in this case was to give us more time to do a bit of research on the Banda Aech region. ..

I'm not entirely sure Mik would have drawn my attention to what he found on the internet but luckily for me I was reading over his shoulder. There were reports of a protest in Banda Aech by those who weren't getting the aid quick enough, for there are still hundreds of people still living in tents there even nearly two years on. The area continues to experience up to 20 small tremors each day but recently one had been strong enough to send people running from their homes. So that, combined with the fact that it was Ramadan and thus services might not be working as normal we decided we would have to give it a miss this time. I do hope we can get there one day though.

So we changed direction and decided to head down the coast and to an island called Pangkor. Having asked the guy in the hotel where to get the bus from we loaded our packs on our back and set off to the nearest bus station from where we could apparently catch a bus to the main bus station and on to Pangkor. Upon arrival we couldn't find any buses heading in the direction we needed and ended up asking a taxi driver if we in fact needed to get to the bus station on the mainland. He said no of course not and that we could get a bus direct to Pangkor from the bus station near the airport, and he, obligingly, would take us there. We figured we weren't getting anywhere at this bus station so we jumped in and he drove us the 20 minutes out of town to the other bus station.

Once there we walked into the booking hall and found a company selling tickets to Pangkor (well the nearest mainland town anyway) Mik went over to get us 2 and ask what time the bus went. The woman gave him the details and as he was reaching in his pocket for the cash said "The bus leaves from Butterworth bus station" Needless to say this wasn't where we were currently located and was in fact the mainland bus station and the one which we had initially assumed the bus would leave from. To say we were a little frustrated at this point is somewhat of an understatement. Mik hadn't been entirely convinced by Pangkor anyway so when I spotted a company with a bus leaving for Kuala Lumpur in 20 minutes I headed over to see if they still had space. We bought 2 tickets and walked outside to find the poshest bus we have seen on our travels to date. There were only 21 seats on the coach due to the fact that they were enormous. They were like first class plane seats complete with personal TV screen and various ways to adjust our seat. We settled ourselves in for the 5 hour journey. Although the bus was very comfortable and goes down as one of Mik's best ever bus journeys I was unlucky enough to get the only TV screen that didn't work and obviously the seat was just too comfy as I didn't even do my usual drifting off to sleep routine. Bummer.

Anyway, we got to Kuala Lumpur, checking into our hotel and headed out to the all you can eat chicken restaurant we had frequented on our last visit. It was a Friday evening at around 7pm and as we walked up the restaurant we saw a massive queue coming out of the door. Now last time we had been it had been practically empty but then it dawned on us that it was a Friday night during Ramadan and that the sun had just gone down. Meaning that those that hadn't eaten all day could now go stuff there faces with chicken as we had intended. We decided it wasn't worth waiting for - besides who leaves an all you can eat restaurant before all the food has gone?

A bit more shopping and sending home of bits and pieces was done while we were here and we also managed to hook up with Rob from Singapore as he was once again in KL on business and we went out for a great Thai meal and a couple of bottles of wine.

Then early the next morning, armed with a couple of Dunkin' Donuts (something I seem to have developed a craving for whenever we are in town which sells them), we jumped onto a bus to Mersing, the jumping off point for Tioman Island. It was a 5 hour journey which passed without incident except for the fact that the only loo stop was at a restaurant which wasn't open, for us anyway. The driver seemed to be very well catered for though, and disappeared for 40 minutes whilst we all stood around waiting!

We passed a couple of hours in Mersing before the boat to Tioman left sending emails and making sure we had enough money to last us as there were no ATM's on the island. A 2 hour boat ride later and we landed at ABC beach which had been recommended to us by Kori and Chad, and went in search of a room.

Cara

Wish you were here. Or maybe just down the road so I could pop round for a cup of coffee, or maybe even a beer. And maybe you could get some biscuits

Arse-end of Nowhere, Hot and Sweaty Country

Once again, I feel the need to apologize to our three readers for our rather slipshod approach to maintaining this website and keeping you up to date on where we are in the world. Since the last entry from Sipadan, we have been jungle trekking in deepest Borneo, spent a week in Kota Kinabalu, flown to Bangkok, where we stayed for 10 days(!), travelled to Koh Phangan (again) for over a week, and now we are on Penang on the west coast of peninsula Malaysia.

On the bright side, we are now waiting for Cara's blog from the jungle trek, and for once it is not me that is holding things up. Makes a pleasant change, eh?

If anybody is becoming frustrated at our lack of updates, I suggest you get a hobby. Let's face it, you never read any information of the least interest on this website anyway, so why trouble yourself over it? Maybe this would be a good time to take up stamp collecting, or maybe you could learn Mandarin?

Mik

p.s. As the only reason I'm writing this is because I'm sat in an internet cafe, bored out of my mind, waiting for Cara, I decided to read through my last entry on this site. And don't I sound like a pompous prick? Talk about making a mountain out of a molehill. This is what happens when you try to write your diary at 4am, sitting in a hammock, after one too many bottles of the local firewater. We went to Semporna, we dived at Sipadan, we had a camera stolen. I could have left it at that, really.

p.p.s. To spite me and wipe the smug grin off my gace, Cara has now published her jungle blog below, thus putting the responsibility back onto me to update this nonsense. Don't hold your breath.

Just show me the hammock and leave me alone with my beer

Koh Phangan, Southeast Thailand

"Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana"
- Groucho Marx

Our bus and ferry journey from Bangkok passed without incident on the second attempt, and we found ourselves once more on the quiet island of Koh Phangan. It was pissing down with rain and the catamaran ferry bounced around like a hyperactive frog on a hotplate, but we were still glad to be back. We had enjoyed our time here so much last year that I insisted we come back on our second pass through Asia. Cara was not too eager to be unnecessarily repeating destinations, but I stamped my feet and threatened to burn her collection of flip-flops unless she relented, so here we were.

As a concession, I agreed to stay on a different part of the island than we had previously, and after a wet and windy drive in the back of a rickety old songtheeuw and a very bumpy ride sitting in the back of a pickup truck we found ourselves at Haad Khom Bungalows, a few miles outside Chaloklum*. Haad Khom is a beautiful little stretch of beach on the northern tip of the island, and notoriously difficult to get to, hence the rickety ride in the pickup.

We secured a great cabin right at the water's edge, with a large deck facing the sea and a couple of hammocks strung from the rafters. During the course of our stay I managed to break both the hammocks, but I put that down to their old age rather than my ever expanding waistline. The attached restaurant served up some surprisingly tasty food, and our days were split between stuffing our faces and working it off on the beach. The water visibility was pretty poor, so I didn't get much of a chance to try out our new underwater camera housing. On one occasion I attempted to walk into Chaloklum to replenish our supply of mosquito repellent and crisps, and the steep hills nearly finished me off. Several bottles of Singha back at the bar and I was almost myself again.

We enjoyed the Haad Khom Bungalows enormously, but after three or four days I started to get itchy feet and for once it wasn't down to athlete's foot. We took a taxi back to our old haunt of Mai Haad and checked into our favourite bungalow at the end of the beach. I was surprised when the owners recognised us from last year, but then there can't be too many pasty white westerners over six feet tall with sissy hair and a perspiration problem.

A few more days passed with Cara absorbing photons on the beach and me trying to 'become one' with my hammock. It is testament to how relaxed we were that even Cara was happy to sit through three consecutive Premiership football matches whilst sitting in the chilled beach bar. Okay, she might have bailed out soon into the third match, but it still counts as progress. Cara even managed to continue her uncanny wildlife spotting skills by finding a large, green snake next to her foot on her first try of the hammock. I spend my life looking for these things and she just stumbles across them every other day. I am obviously going about it all wrong.

My envy was heightened to stratospheric levels when an Aussie guy staying next door was circled by a ten metre whale shark whilst completing only his second open water dive. That was enough for Cara and me and we booked ourselves in with the new dive centre that had sprung up next to our bungalows. Of course, we saw nothing even remotely resembling a whale shark, but we still had a couple of great dives. Both the reef and visibility were excellent and we had a chance to give the new camera a run out.

We hired ourselves a moped and spent a few days exploring the island. We visited Haad Rin where the full moon parties are held (shithole!), and Thon Sala, the island's main town (still a shithole, but we found a place where we could get fantastic sausage, bacon and fried egg sandwiches, so we visited twice). The moped also came in handy for feeding ourselves of an evening. The food at our bungalows was just as lousy at it had been last year, and Cara's favourite restaurant, The Four Tables, had closed itself down until November. The Kiwi owner and his Thai wife had decided that business was so slow they would just sit on the beach for a few months, and no amount of pleading from us would change their minds. So every evening, we would jump onto the bike and scoot over to Chaloklum for us tea.

On one occasion, we were heading out of Mai Haad for dinner when we had a little excitement with our bouncy old moped. We approached the hill that led out of the bay, and I throttled up to carry us up the steep incline. As soon as we hit the concrete rampat the bottom of the hill, I knew we didn't have enough revs to make it up the hill. The bike began to groan under the strain, so I released the throttle and dropped it into first gear. Not a good idea. When the clutch released, the bike lurched forward and the front wheel began to lift off the ground. The front end reared up on the steep incline and tipped us both off the back of the bike. By this point we were only travelling at a few miles an hour, so we both easily managed to plant our feet on the ground and let the bike ride out from under us. Unfortunately, I had kept a tight grip on the handlebars to try and keep hold of the bike. The front end reared up higher and twisted the throttle in my hand. The engine whined like a swarm of angry bees and channelled the extra power to the back wheel. Desperately, and with hindsight extremely stupidly, I hung onto the throttle in a vain hope of controlling the little mechanical shit. As the bike started to bounce about the concrete on its back wheel, it twisted the throttle further still and tried to carry me off into the bushes. For a few moments we danced around together in a big circle, before I completely lost control and me, my mechanical shit, and the angry bees flew headfirst into the nearby shrubbery.

With the lightning fast reflexes of a tree sloth, I jumped to my feet and clambered over the still revving wreckage to shut down the engine. Cara, who had leapt acrobatically from the back of the bike and watched in horror/amusement as the moped and I had our little wheelie waltz about the road, ran over to make sure l was still attached to all my limbs. I was, and apart from a twisted ankle for me and a mangled front basket for the moped, everything was just fine. This has been the only blemish on my otherwise spotless driving record. Unless you count me reversing into that telegraph pole in New Zealand, of course.

Other things happened during our stay, but I've just read through what I've written so far and it was like watching paint dry. With that in mind, I think I'll just end this nonsense here.

Mik

*That sentence long enough for you, Chad?

How to spend 10 days in Bangkok

Bangkok, Thailand

Our stay in Bangkok was longer than we had initially planned for various reasons. And no it wasn't just because Mik couldn't drag me away from all the cheap tat you can buy. But more on that later. Our delayed flight from Kota Kinabalu meant that we didn't arrive in Bangkok until nearly 1am. We headed to the hotel we had stayed in last time, and as everyone else was on Koh Phangnan for the fullmoon party, we easily got a room.

The first reason we stayed longer was because l wanted to visit the dentist. You may wonder why someone who hates the dentist would actively chose to go, and in Thailand of all places. Well, having eaten far too many polos as a child I now have a mouth full of fillings. I had decided that it was time to have the old grey ones replaced with tooth coloured ones - far less offensive when cackling along, as I tend to do!

The dentist who saw me initially was great, very gentle and even allowed me to listen to my ipod to drown out the noise of the drills, for it is this which goes right through me and makes me want to cry as soon as I hear it. Very little pain though, and after 2 sessions with him I was delighted with the results. What a difference. He had, however, uncovered a tooth which he thought needed root canal treatment and suggested I get it done a.s.a.p. - i.e. in Bangkok. I wasn't keen, as you might imagine, but having done a bit of research and realising that it would have to be done at some stage anyway I decided to brave it and go back the following day. This time I saw a different dentist and although I was exceptionally relieved when he looked at the xray and said that I wouldn't need root canal treatment, he still needed to fill said tooth. And he was as rough as you like. I lay there close to tears for an hour with a clamp holding my mouth open. This was covered with stretch plastic so that nothing would fall down my throat whilst he was drilling the teeth right out of my head - or at least that's how it felt. I turned my ipod up to full blast but thus seemed to just dramatise the experience. Needless to say once he was finished and I left the tears rolled. Quite an unpleasant experience, but worth it. I no longer resemble Jaws from the Bond films, and all for a lot less than it would have cost in England.

The second reason was that the day we would probably have left was my birthday. Now I know that at my age l should be starting to ignore birthdays, but that just wouldn't be me now, would it? I didn't want to spend it travelling on to our next destination, so instead we spent the day visiting Wat Pho and the Grand Palace. Both Mik and I had been before, not together, but the buildings were well worth another look. Every wall, floor, ceiling is covered in colourful tiles or painted murals. You've got to admire their patience and dedication. And the huge gold leaf covered reclining buddha in Wat Pho is just stunning.

That evening Mik took me to dinner at the riverside Shangri La Hotel. We both got poshed up - as much as our rucksack of clothes would allow. I even put on some mascara! There was more than one restaurant at the hotel and we checked them all out. We eventually decided to go for quality and quantity and went to the buffet. It was a foregone conclusion really as soon as they allowed us to wander past the food to have a look. So having secured a table by the riverside we set about getting our first plate full. There was sushi and fresh king prawns and mussels and salads the like of which I hadn't seen in some time. With a plate full we returned to our seats and got stuck in, just as the first rain drops fell. What a shame. We moved indoors. And resumed our eating. I could list all the things which we ate (Mik has in fact done this!) but besides making for fairly boring reading, it would also be very embarrassing. So suffice to say there was food of all kinds from BBQ lobster tails to massaman curries, to kebabs, and not forgetting the puddings.....! We ate a lot of everything and rolled ourselves home.

Around my birthday I had also treated myself to a couple of beauty treatments at the nearby salon. A facial, peedicure and 1 hr massage for a tenner. And I went shopping and bought a few new clothes items. The stalls down the Khao San Road tourist area are packed with everything from dresses to bags to fake CD's - and I don't think a single thing costs more than 5 quid. And when you are on a budget like mine this is a great place to shop.

We headed to the IT mall one day int he hope of finding a cheap camera to replace the one I had had stolen in Borneo. We managed to find one and also decided to splash out on an underwater casing for it so we could take it diving. It's a shame we hadn't had one for the whole trip but then again we would probably have double the amount of photos we already have, so maybe it's just as well.

The third reason was Ashleigh and Phillip, a couple we had met briefly last November in Argentina. You may wonder how a meeting last November affected our stay in Bangkok 1O months later. Well the story goes like this....

One evening we decided to check out a different road than usual for a restaurant. This one was also lined with the ubiquitous 'tat' stalls and I was fully engrossed in checking them out when I heard Mik shout, and I quote "Fuck off!", quite loudly. I wondered what the hell someone was trying to sell him to make him react like that. As I turned round I realised that he was making his way toward a couple with rucksacks on their backs. It took me a second or two to realise that it was the couple we had met very briefly in Argentina earlier in our travels, Ashleigh and Phillip. They had literally just stepped off a bus and were on their way to their hotel. None of us could get over the coincidence and we all stood for a few minutes mouths agape. I mean fair enough if we were following the same route but these guys had been home to the UK for a few months and had then started their travels again, going the opposite way around the world to us. Bangkok is also not a small city, but, it would appear, it is a small world.

So we stayed a few days longer to be able to go out for a few beers with them and catch up on what they had been doing. We took them to our favourite restaurant near the Khao San Road. It was a tourist restaurant but the food was better than most (they did a great BBQ red snapper for just over a quid), it was cheaper than most, and Mik had made a friend with the waiter there, who took great delight in taking the mickey out of him. He also made a mean cocktail.

As it was Phillip and Ashleighs first time in Bangkok they were keen to see other places which was great as we had gotten a bit lazy about going further than the area around our hotel. So we set off one evening for a hugh night market and despite not buying anything we had a great evening eating food from the food court and drinking beer form the beer court. there were seveal different stalls selling various types of beer in various vessels. We chose the 5 litre despenser complete with pouring tap and a column of ice in the middle to keep the beer cool. Mik approved of this invention. As you can see!

It has been great to see so many friends - old and new over the last few weeks. Jen, Simon & Charlotte in Sydney, Rob in Singapore, Kori and Chad in Borneo and then Ashleigh and Phillip in Bangkok. All great times but it does remind us just how much we miss our friends back home. We wish we could have packed you in our bags too.

We then booked the bus and ferry to get us to Koh Phangnan, one of the islands off of the the east coast of Thailand. This however turned out to be a fourth reason for not leaving Bangkok when planned.

The agency we had booked it with told us to get to their offices for 5.50am as the bus would leave at 6am. We did this. We waited, no-one came. Eventually I walked up to the boat companies office and asked what was going on. The girl looked at me, said something to her colleague in Thai then turned and said that the bus had gone. I was fuming. I am not a fan of getting up early for no good reason. This was of course compounded by the fact that it's the first time I have ever known a bus in Asia to leave on time. There was nothing we could do we had to wait until the next day. I went to tell Mik and he was then fuming also. The company had offered us a room for free for that night which we took but it didn't really cheer us. We had been in Bangkok long enough and were keen to move on, and besides it meant we would have to get up at 5am again the following morning. Which we did and in case you are interested the bus that morning left 15 minutes late. Right before the tanks started rolling down the streets signaling the start of the coup.

Cara

The virtues of idleness

Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia

"Your true traveller finds boredom rather agreeable than painful. It is the symbol of his liberty - his excessive freedom. He accepts his boredom, when it comes, not merely philosophically, but almost with pleasure."
- Aldous Huxley

After leaving our jungle camp and returning once more to civilisation, we were waiting at the offices of the trekking company on the dusty main road of Gum Gum, a small town just outside Sepilok, for a bus to take us to Kota Kinabalu (just KK from this point on). We had a few hours to kill, and I passed the time merrily counting the flies circling my head. I hadn't showered in three days, and can only assume the flies had mistaken me for a large pile of dung. I had counted thirty six flies, six mosquitoes and a wasp when the office phone rang. After answering it, the young man in charge asked if there was anybody called Mik in the office. I thought it was a bit of a coincidence and assumed there was somebody else there of the same name, and so went back to fly counting. The name was shouted out again. Cara poked me in the ribs and said maybe the call was for me. Of course it wouldn't be, I haven't had a phone call in nearly a year, and nobody could possibly know I would be sat in a pokey office twenty seven miles from the back of beyond, at lunch time on a Friday afternoon. I figured anything for a laugh and grabbed the phone. I though better of saying hello, Gum Gum G.U.M. Clinic* and opened with a simple hello. Unexpectedly, the call was for me and it was Chad, our Texan companion from Sandakan and the jungle, who had travelled the same route to KK the previous day. He was calling to let us know they had experienced some difficulty securing a room in KK as all the hotels and hostels were full to the rafters with students and their parents, in town to celebrate graduation week. They had finally managed to grab a room in a hostel in the city centre, and they were holding off their last room for us that night if we wanted it. We most definitely did. Both Cara and I were already knackered before we even started the six hour bus journey to KK, and neither of us particularly relished the thought of trawling the streets for a room long into the night. I thanked Chad for taking the time to contact us and for sorting the room. We agreed to meet up with him and his wife, Kori, later that night, although it would take three bars of soap and an industrial sander before I was clean enough to hygienically re-enter society.

The bus journey passed without incident, and on our approach to KK we were lucky enough to see the impressive granite rock face of Mount Kinabalu, rising up into the darkening sky, 4100 metres above the dense jungle. We had at one stage considered trying to climb the mountain, which seems to be a very popular activity with visitors to Sabah, but Cara delicately pointed out that climbing a mountain would require some considerable exertion and no small amount of willpower. At that point I went right off the idea.

We arrived in KK shortly after nightfall, and a short taxi ride later we were at our hostel. I say short taxi ride, but only in terms of distance, not time. Our taxi driver has assured us he knew exactly where Summer Lodge Hostel was, but after fifteen minutes driving in circles around the same two city blocks, even he conceded defeat and stopped at a taxi rank to ask a colleague where the hell he was supposed to be going. The other driver set him on the right road, and we spent another ten minutes driving around two different blocks. He stopped the car once more and asked a passing pedestrian if he knew any better. The man immediately pointed up at a nearby building where, in letters five feet high, was written the name of our destination. We had only driven past it twelve times and all three of us had missed it on each occasion.

Our room was another small, windowless affair with no furniture save for three pairs of bunk beds and a shiny new air conditioning unit on the wall, but it was all ours and after sleeping on the floor for two nights, listening to small animals being eaten by large animals, it was a welcome sight. The aircon was cranked down to it's coldest setting and we dived into the showers to scrape off the loosest of the accumulated grime. We were both fairly exhausted by this point, so we called in at Chad and Kori's room to bail out on that night's festivities and to thank them again for arranging our accommodation. We then quickly munched down a couple of burgers at the nearby Burger King, and went home to sleep like a couple of hibernating bears for twelve hours.

Before going on our jungle trek, we had pre-booked a couple of flights out of KK up to Bangkok the following week, so we had six days to spend in the city. Our original plans were to fly back to Kuala Lumpur, but AirAsia's wacky pricing policy meant that it was much cheaper to fly to Thailand instead. So with time on our hands, we mooched around the city day after day in the lazy way that has come to epitomize our travels. A few times we went for dinner with Chad and Kori, although I let the side down by foolishly choosing restaurants recommended by our guidebook. I really should know better by now. On two separate occasions we force marched them across the city to eateries that no longer existed, only to slog all the way back to where we had started for our dinner. I'm convinced they thought I was making it up as I went along, and for a few days we didn't see them as Kori "was feeling too unwell". I suspect they were politely putting us off to save shoe leather on more of my wild goose chases.

Chad and Kori are from Austin, Texas, and run their own business, working on the inside of the American political campaigning machine. Their lives are consumed entirely for months at a time working on various campaigns. However, in between these bi-annual events, business slows down and essentially gives them nine months or so of free time. During these periods, they travel the world on a backpackers budget and actually save money by not living at home. Let me repeat that for clarity. They travel to all the exotic locations of the world for nine months at a time to save money! If they weren't such affable, intelligent and good humoured individuals I would probably feel the need to jab them with a very sharp stick, borne out of envious resentment. I should point out, for tax reasons, that I have utilised the word "travel" in this paragraph in place of "business research trip to study the socio-political framework of Southeast Asian countries". Despite my, and Cara's, runaway envy, we all got along just fine and many evenings in KK were spent drinking beer and chatting about everything from British and American politics to how best to pee in the jungle without getting bitten on the arse. And apparently, Americans find the excessive use of the word "Brilliant!" by the Limeys almost as grating as we find the ubiquitous use of the word "Awesome!" by the Septics**. Who knew?

Most of our time in KK, however, was spent earnestly doing nothing. We plodded around a few shopping malls in the hope of finding a new camera, but most days passed without excitement. One morning, we managed to summon the energy to take a speedboat out to a nearby island, where we sat on the white, sandy beach and snorkelled in the clear, turquoise water for a few hours before dashing back to our comfy, air-conditioned hotel room. We had, by this time, found a vacant hotel room with real windows and a hot shower, and for most of our stay we treated it like a little cocoon, seldom leaving it in the hottest part of the tropical afternoon. Our only excitement came on our walk back to town with the Texans after one of our failed restaurant escapades, when I was chased down the street by an overly friendly rat. This gave everybody a laugh, on top of the fact they had already been whooping it up over my complete failure to successfully stamp on the many passing cockroaches.

One evening, I was standing outside an internet café having a quick cigarette and waiting for Cara to finish her emailing, when a couple of glum faced Australians walked up and lit up beside me.
"Are you Australian?" one of them asked me.
"No, English." I replied.
"Oh, but you know Steve Irwin? The crocodile hunter?" his companion asked.
"Yes," I said "Why?"
"We've just heard he died today."
"No shit? How?"
"I don't know. Our girlfriends are in there checking the internet to find out." he told me.
We spent the next few minutes chatting outside and I told them how sorry I was to hear about the loss of their greatest cultural icon. Just then the girls came out of the internet café.
"He was stabbed through the heart by a stingray!" they both shouted jubilantly.
"Yeeeesssss!" the men cried, and punched the air with their fists.
"It's what he would've wanted." one of them told me, after seeing the bemused expression on my face.
"We're just glad he wasn't run over by a truck." his friend added. "That would've been a shitty way to go."
And off they all went, to have a beer and celebrate the life of their country's most famous madman.

Our flight out of KK was in the early evening, and I decided against getting something to eat prior to driving to the airport. In the customary Do-The-Opposite-Of-What-Mik-Says-And-You'll-Be-Fine way that life seems to take these days, it turned out to be a poor choice. All AirAsia's flights out of KK now fly out of the new terminal 2 building. Unfortunately, the new terminal 2 building has not been built yet. We pulled up in our taxi to discover that check-in was in a small, open, concrete shed in the midst of an enormous building site. There were no other facilities, save for a small cafeteria that serves up food that not only resembles, but actually tastes like, something that has been excreted out of the back end of a flatulent water buffalo. To compound matters, our flight was delayed for three hours. This in itself would not have been a problem had they told us so up front. We would simply have jumped into a taxi and gone back to the city centre for a few hours to find something edible. Instead, they informed us that the flight had been "retimed" to one hour later. When this hour was up, they retimed it back another hour, and then another. We spent the time swatting aimlessly at the large cloud of mosquitoes that whined incessantly about our heads for the whole duration. By the time we finally took off, I was so hungry I was contemplating eating the headrest cover off the seat in front of me. I might have tried it too if the occupants bald, flaky scalp hadn't put me off.

Mik

*G.U.M. = Genito Urinary Medicine, or Clap Doctors as they are politely referred to back home.

**Septic = abbreviated rhyming slang, Septic Tank = Yank
Trust the cockneys

In the jungle, the mighty jungle..

North East Sabah, Borneo

Sandakan

Leaving the fantastic diving and bad memories of being robbed behind us, we caught a bus to Sandakan, the former capital of Sabah. We met a couple from Texas, Kori and Chad, on the bus and went out for dinner with them for a cheap martabak (Malaysian filled roti) with curry sauce. They too had travelled in South America and it was a great opportunity for us to reminisce. As the Malays are Muslim and don't drink we headed for a Chinese restaurant in search of a few beers. We found it. Thus ending mine and Mik's week of abstinence.

Sepilok

The next day we headed to Sepilok Orangutan Sanctuary which is located in the jungle. The orangutans are an endangered species and so native injured or orphaned orangutans get brought here, to one of only four sanctuaries in the world, cared for, and taught how to fend for themselves. They do their own thang in the jungle most of the day, but have a feeding platform, so that the public can see them. We went to both daily feedings and watched as orangutans large and small swung through the trees to make their claim on the bananas. It was a great sight, especially as the smaller long tailed macaques would try desperately to steal the bananas out from under their noses. They are such funny creatures, in some ways so very human looking, but being covered in bright orange hair makes them look so comical. We stayed an extra day at the resort and spent the day just relaxing in the jungle environment, and getting eaten alive by the mosquitoes.

Kinabatangan River

The following day we were picked up and taken to the office of Uncle Tans Wildlife Tours. This company had come highly recommended for their 3 day jungle tours along the Kinabatangan River. I was very keen to experience the jungle as we hadn't done it in South America, but I was slightly concerned with the company's opening line about their accommodation. This is not the Hilton, it read. Ahh! Oh well. I'm sure I'll manage for the two nights.

We met the other people in our group and we were really lucky as it was just us and another couple from Amsterdam, Koen and Linda. Normally there are about 20 people a day on the tour, and as there were also just 2 people in the camp from the previous day, we had gotten very lucky indeed. We took a 1 1/2 hour bus ride to the river where we boarded a rather small boat. I only say this as I knew the river to be full of crocodiles and was somewhat alarmed to be so close to the water. The journey took considerably longer as we zigzagged across the river stopping to see the wildlife on the way. We saw egrets and other birds, long tailed macaques and BIG crocodiles on the river banks which slunk into the water and somewhere under the boat When we approached, gulp.....! We even got to see an elephant - another stroke of luck. The elephants are extremely endangered and there are only around 150 left in the area. They also only pass through this area twice a year and we were fortunate enough to be there at one of those times. I can assure you that wasn't due to any amount of forward planning, just pure luck! We sat in complete awe as we watched an elephant scratch his backside on a tree trunk on the banks of the river just 20 feet away from us.

Upon arrival we walked the 10 minutes or so through the mud to the camp and were assigned a room. I use this word in the loosest possible sense as really it was just a few planks of wood held together with chicken wire. Still, the huts usually slept 6 and we had it to ourselves so at least no-one else would have to hear me whimpering at every strange sound from the jungle. The beds were just mattresses on the floor with a mosquito net above them. We had been provided with a single sheet each, but no pillows. This I created out of my dirty washing bag, sealed of course, wrapped in a sarong. We carry sleeping bag liners with us so at least we would be covered, but I still went for the extra covering of a towel too. We thought the sleeping arrangements were bad until we saw the toilets. Well, holes in the ground. They were of course the usual 'french style' toilets but these were worse than most as they were in the middle of the jungle where most ideas of sanitation went by the wayside. They also attracted hoards of mosquitoes. And I can tell you that it's not easy squatting to have a pee whilst holding your breath to keep from retching, and waving the mozzies away from your rear end so as not to get bitten. I did my best but to no avail. Hence I just rolled over and crossed my legs in the middle of the night, I didn't want to bump into the camp pig in the pitch black on my to the toilets as Kori had had the misfortune to do!

It wasn't long before we realised just how close to nature we were. Soon after we arrived one of the guides spotted a bright green snake in the grass behind the main hut. It was only small but even as Mik and Koen took photos, I kept my distance. Later during our introduction and briefing we asked our guide Leo whether the snake was a dangerous one. He said that it was a pit viper. We, of course, reiterated the question and asked what would happen if it should bite us. His response, "Oo la la, then you dead". What a way to start. Taxi!

The other form of entertainment in the camp were the long tailed macaques. As soon as any food was out on the tables, albeit covered by plastic hoods, the little monkeys would come swarming and try to grab anything they could. The first thing we saw disappear was an opened can of condensed milk. The thief ran off with it only to tip it all over the thatch roof of the kitchen and lick it off. What a waste! Much better drizzled over pancakes!

Our programme included several safari's over the 2 days, either in the boat or walking though the rainforest. We were provided with welly boots whilst at the camp as it was prone to rain quite a lot, as we would discover. Guess that's why it's called the rainforest then. These of course had to be tipped upside down and shaken vigorously before inserting one's foot.

Unfortunately for me it wasn't just welly boots that the little critters chose to have a nap in. When picking up my bag in our room I felt something crawl along my hand and fall onto the floor. I dropped the bag and made a small yelping noise. A passing guide heard me and asked what had happened. I said I thought it was just a millipede that was now hiding underneath my bag. He asked if it was a millipede or a centipede. I told him I didn't know. I hadn't exactly taken the time to count it's legs. He lifted the bag and saw that it was a centipede, I still couldn't have told you the difference, which apparently meant that it was poisonous. Great, the thing had just been on my hand. The guide tentatively lifted my bag and tried to get the centipede away. It ran across the deck and into one of Mik's welly boots. After much banging of said boot it eventually plopped out and ran off under our hut and away. Phew. I guess I had been grateful that the chicken wire would keep the monkeys, and hopefully big spiders and snakes, out, but hadn't given much thought to the smaller and possibily more dangerous insects. What is it with me and critters?

Having seen the elephant on our way to camp meant we had already spotted the number one ranked mammal. But we had been spoilt and now wanted to see more. Luckily the guides did too and so we did another afternoon boat safari instead of walking so that we could try to find the elephants again. We had pulled into the side of the river just down from the jetty (again I use this word in the loosest way) when we saw the next group arrive. We found out from them where the elephants were and changed our direction. What a result. We hammered it up river until eventually our guide cut the engine and drifted. As we looked at the shoreline we could make out some movement. And as we got closer we could see the bamboo moving and could hear the elephants munching. Amazing.

The guide drove to the bank and got out, disappearing into the undergrowth. He came back and gestured to Mik to give him his camera and off he went again. We sat quietly in the boat. He appeared again and this time gestured for us to follow him as the elephants were right there. He also advised us to remove the bright orange lifejackets we were wearing as they didn't provide us with great camoflage.

We stood on the banks of the river and wathced as the bamboo moved in front of us, then we got a glimpse of a baby elephant just 20 feet away. Slowly we were allowed to climb up the bank and get closer. There were 2 big elephants to our left busy munching away and the baby one in front of us with it's mother some way behind it but staring directly at us and watching over her baby. There were elephants all around us and we could hear even more than we could see. Mik and Koen were going mad with the cameras whilst Linda and I just stood looking completely gobsmacked by what we were experiencing. At one point a few of the larger elephants made a bit of a move toward where we were stood and the guide motioned us back down the river bank. It was actually fairly scary as you could see by the ease with which they had walked through the undergrowth that they could be on you within seconds if they chose to. Then the guide called us back up.

Just as the guys had clambered up the bank one of the closer elephants gave a loud trumpet. We all stopped dead in our tracks. Mik however provided some entertainment in this split second as he did his 'what the hell was that, oh my god how exciting is this, the baby elephant is coming right for me' dance. The look on his face and the springy movement his legs made had me howling with laughter, albeit quietly! Luckily the baby didn't come any closer or we may have had the mother and any other nearby elephants chasing us down the bank.

We watched the elephants for maybe 30 minutes and it was incredible. We had been lucky to be a small group so that we could get out and actually see them in their natural environment. It was starting to get dark and looked like it might rain so we had to leave. As we backed away in the boat however we saw several of the them come down to the water's edge and we watched as the baby took a bath and the others had a quick drink. We had been very lucky. It was a truly amazing experience and definitely a highlight of our whole world trip.

So from the highlight to the low lights. The night safari's! These weren't my favourite activity. The first one in the boat purely because it hammered it down pretty much the whole time we were out and the sound of the driver furiously shovelling bucket loads of water out of the boat left me feeling a little uneasy. Especially when we saw the eyes of crocodiles glinting in the torchlight, although half the time they actually turned out to be tin cans! Phew. We did see a magnificent owl though, who sat quietly and let us admire him, plus other birds and river frogs. It was quite difficult to see these things though as I had to have the drawstring on the hood of my waterproof poncho pulled tight around my face so as to not let the driving rain in. Not sure why I bothered really as I was still soaking by the end. We walked back to the camp and treated ourselves to a can of cheap Indonesian beer. It was mine and Mik's 4 year anniversary after all!

The walking night safari on the second night wasn't so enjoyable purely because I was shit scared. In my mind there was always the possibility of spiders or snakes falling out of the trees on to me. Linda and I had the same misgivings about walking around the jungle at night, and both kept our distance when the boys were playing the - who can get closest to the poisonous black scorpion - game. The guide won as he foolishly let the scorpion run over his hand.

Much to the boys disappointment, and Linda's and my delight, we didn't see any snakes and only one spider. The huntsman spider, also known as the long legged spider, but named by the guides the Peter Crouch spider. It did look remarkably like him. I was glad I had done it though. I would have happily given the scorpions and spiders a miss but we saw transparent frogs, a civet cat and birds sleeping. Clinging onto a branch with their feet, their head tucked under their wing, totally oblivious to the rain falling on them. Very cute. I was also followed by a beautiful butterfly which continually landed on my poncho. This may have been because my poncho was lit up like a beacon by my head torch. Apparently it gave me an angelic look. Well there's a first time for everything!

On our last morning we got up at the crack of dawn again for a second early boat safari. This time we had the camp manager (Lan) and I think he was determinded to find us something. He did. He spotted a large male orangutan sitting in a tree at the side of the river. How they see these things I will never know. Eventually after staring at the branches at which he is pointing does a dark blob shape become apparent and slowly you realise that it is indeed an orangutan. Not just some leaves. Lan decided we should all get out of the boat and try to get closer. For anyone watching from above (e.g the orangutan) it would have been quite an amusing spectacle. There were two groups, so about 15 people, fighting their way through the jungle in search of the particular tree where the orangutan sat. Or at least he did until we found said tree, upon which he would move. So we would change direction and chase after him as quickly at the thick undergrowth would allow us. This game went of for a while but we managed to get a few glimpses of him. It is something else to see them completely in the wild. Eventually he decided he had had enough of this game and so decided to try and wee on us! Luckily I hadn't been able to get close enough to him to have to avoid getting wet. And with that he was gone.

On the way back to camp we were able to take the boat right to the doorstep as the river levels had climbed so much that the banks of the river were flooded. The guides knew every tree and every turn and took us right into the camp. And that was our last jungle experience. We packed up our damp, filthy, smelly clothes and set off back to civilisation desperately in need of a shower. We actually nearly got a wash on our boat trip out as the heavy rain had washed a lot of debris into the river. This included rather large logs, some of which weren;t floating on the surface and could not be seen. So it came as a bit of a shock when one hit the propeller and tipped the boat at an alarming angle. For a split second I think we all thought we were going in, rucksacks and all. Luckily the driver managed to regain control and kept the boat horizontal. The two guides thought it was highly amusing, I guess they must have seen the look on my face. But I saw their's too and they thought it was all over just as much as we did.

We had had a brilliant time and were somewhat sad to leave but the thought of a shower and a proper bed was too much of a draw, so we left the jungle and all it's animals and critters and made it back to the office from where we would catch a bus to Sabah's capital, Kota Kinabalu.

Cara

p.s I know those of you reading this know better than to think that I am the one who is slow in writing up my entries! x