Good day all. Hope being back to work hasn’t been too much of a shock after the Christmas brake. Without the usual lead up to th  big day it’s made us realise how horrifically short the Christmas holidays actually are. All that excitement, over in a flash.

Since we last saw you a few things have happened. Firstly if course has been the tragic news of Air Asia flight QZ850. We found out as we waited for a taxi on Sunday morning. Surabaya isn’t a million miles away from Bali, and coming from Singapore just last week, we flew a very similar path to that plane. It was for sure the roughest of the 4 flights we’ve taken so far, and I remember saying out loud to Soph that I was not enjoying it. As always I had my face plastered against the window the entire time but saw no particularly bad weather to speak of. I’m a pretty bad flyer as it is, this does not help.

We flew Air Asia from Phuket to Kuala Lumpur and then from Kuala Lumpur to Penang. We know for sure that the plane wasn’t the same one we were on, still scary though. As I type this the news has just confirmed that the plane has been found and bodies are being recovered. Thoughts go out to the families of everyone on board.

On a much, MUCH lighter note, we are no longer staying at the hostel from hell. We managed to escape the ugly bug ball early and move to the South Eastern area of Bali, Nusa Dua. The hostel took the fact we were leaving pretty well. We simply told the woman on reception we were leaving and wouldn’t be paying more than the single night we’ve stayed for, so she didn’t have much of a choice. She could have said no I guess, and forced us to pay for our whole booking, but she probably knew how bad the place was and almost expected us to jump ship early.

Think the worst thing about it was the price. We paid more to sleep in that place than we did in a full on hotel with a pool, a tv and WiFi. And we never saw any dead dogs on the beach anywhere else either. Still can’t get over that. So we were very happy to move on. We walked up and down the main road looking for a taxi that wasn’t trying to con us out of all our money. Took a little longer  than we hoped but we finally got one, threw our bags in the boot and jumped in.

The driver was fuming by the end of the journey as it took longer than he expected. We didn’t care though. Once we got our a man ran over to help us with our bags. We knew we’d hit the jackpot already. We headed in, got our room key card and looked for our room. Wait outside the lift was matey with our bags. Opening the door we walked into a room so big we could have rode an elephant through the door. Bathroom is awesome. Bed is huge. Tv is actually there like they said it would be. The place is top notch. Soph was screaming with joy when we walked in. Much better.

The whole of Nusa Dua is like a resort paradise. Huge all inclusive 10 star hotels are everywhere. From what we’ve seen there isn’t much else here other than the best of luxury pampering and on the beach all you can eat restaurants. There are no people screaming at you to buy their stuff or jump in their taxi. I wouldn’t say it was a place many backpackers go. Everything here is focused on those who already have everything they need within their hotel.

As soon as we’d got settled in to our suite…darling….we went off to discover what’s around. After walking in the wrong direction 2 or 3 times we eventually managed to locate a shopping area. A shopping area created solely for those with bursting wallets and Coutts bank accounts. Still we managed to find a few reasonably priced places to grab some food and a few snacks along the way.

The beach, just the other end of the shopping area, is gorgeous. I mean it really is fantastic. But we reckon the fact we had such an awesome time in Phuket with Hartfield that it’s left us a little spoilt. We still can’t seem to enjoy it as much as we did the icing sugar sand of Kata Beach. Perhaps the fact a lot of the beach is closed off to the general folk and privatised for those in the luxury hotels. We obviously didn’t find it too hard to get over these small issues and spend some quality time on the beach soaking up the Sun.

So tonight is New Years Eve and the celebrations are well and truly under way. Before we left England I had booked a hotel on the paradise island of Gili T just to the East of Bali. We’d heard so much about the place that we couldn’t wait to get there. So we’d booked a fast boat to pick us up at 6:30 this morning and take us to the harbour. But last night I was feeling a little hungry. So I picked up my wallet to walk over the road and grab a few snacks from the quickie mart. It was  then I realised. It was then I noticed. It was then I broke down. Because it was then I had seen a space in my wallet. A space where my last and only bank card was supposed to be. I’d done it again. For the third time I’d gone and left a card in an ATM!

Panic set in for a while. Tears were flowing as the realisation that we had no access to money at all started to sink in. It was an awful moment. I called Natwest but they could do nothing. So I ran down stairs to reception to cancel the early morning boat. With no money, we simply couldn’t afford to go tomorrow. It was a total disaster.

But Natwest did mention one thing. Western Union. We could create an account and have money sent to me immediately. Better yet there was a bank that I could get the money from less than a minutes walk from me. I called Mum for some help. Just a quick call that nobody else but Soph, Mum and I would know about. Everything would soon be fixed and nobody would be the wiser. Of course you can probably imagine my face when mum picked up our face time call to then show me my uncle and two of my aunts who had come round to say hi. This crisis was no longer a secret.

Thankfully mum managed to sort everything out and we are now ok. We still have no access to money apart from Western Union but it’s something, at least.

Today however has now not been in anyway how we planned. Instead we are sitting in our hotel room surrounded by bottles of Bintang and mini snacks. Last year I spent New Years at work and then in a bath with two of the lads from work. It was a little crazy but nevertheless still at work. This year, after 6 and a half years, I get to spend New Years with Soph for the first time. We may not be on the paradise island of Gili T but we’re still having a great time.

So to everyone reading, have a great time tonight and we wish you all the best for 2015.

Thanks for following x

Right then, we hope you all had a lovely couple of days eating too much stuff you shouldn’t and drinking alcohol as soon as you wake just because it’s Christmas. I always think there is nothing that says happy birthday Jesus more than a couple glasses of 8am bucks fizz followed by an afternoon of slowly drowning in Bailey’s.

I hope those of you who didn’t receive either a selfie stick or got engaged this Christmas still enjoyed your gifts from old Saint Nick. After all that’s what this festive holiday is all about right. I’m totally kidding of course. All the pictures we’ve seen of everyone spending time with their families and friends has made us miss home a little bit the last few days. But then seeing the current weather reports for the UK quickly eradicates any feeling of homesickness.

Our Christmas of course was hot. Very hot actually. So hot that I managed to pick up a full body sunburn. It was a weird day weather wise. It was sunny and hot as I said, but there was loud, gunshot thunder going on all day. At first we thought it was some pesky kids letting of fireworks round the corner, but it just kept on going. These kids would have to be millionaires to afford that many fireworks. Thunder without the rain or even clouds is quite cool though. Especially on Christmas Day.

One of the big things we wanted to do was visit the beach on Christmas Day. The beach in Kuta is pretty average so we weren’t bothered about spending all day there. We just headed down for the sunset and to say, at least for a little while, we’d been on a warm beach for Christmas. Now you may remember at various places on our trip we have been stopped by someone to take our photo. Maybe it’s the blondeness of Soph. Perhaps it’s my paleness that excites them so much. Perhaps it’s my muscles. We just don’t know. But one things for certain, people like to have us in their photos. So when a group of local teens came over and asked to take a photo with us we thought why not. A little confused at first but we went with it.

Minutes later I spotted another group of lads eyeing us up. And sure enough they came over and took a photo with us. A huge group followed them. All wanting to get a shot of us with their mates on their phone. Boys and girls. Surely this was some sort of school project. Get a photo with two pale white Europeans or get a shot on the beach of someone really really good looking. Something like that.

Then things changed. I spotted an older couple walk past us about 10 minutes before. The older man smiled but nothing was too weird. We were still over come with all these kids wanting our picture. But when he returned asking for us to pose with his wife in a picture we knew something was up. The guy must have been retaking the 11th grade for the 25th time if this was still a school project. And then it clicked. Once he’d taken the photo he came straight up to me and shook my hand like he’d grown up with a picture of me on his bedroom wall. Like I was his idol. I felt so sorry that I couldn’t understand what on earth he was blabbering on about, but I knew he was super happy to have met me. But…who did he think me was?

All these people we not interested in the paleness or blondeness or muscularness of us. They were interested in me. They were interested in whoever they thought I was. This instantly made us feel super embarrassed. I mean what if the real George Clooney or the real Brad Pitt came walking down the beach. Things could have got ugly. So we started to walk away. Not before being stopped again by two lads in their late teens who couldn’t wait to get a shot with us. Super weird, but I can’t blame them for wanting a picture. Bless ’em.

We had our Christmas dinner at the German restaurant we’ve been going to all week. They had their usual menu on as well as a special Christmas one so we could feel more at home. Soph went for the pork medallions. Not so festive but still nice. I went for the stuffed Rudolf with plum and cinnamon sauce. Sorry deer, stuffed deer. I always get then mixed up. It was pretty nice and we felt like we’d at least got to experience some home comforts. When we got back to our hotel we tried contacting some family members over the little internet we had. But it seemed everyone was doing the same thing so we didn’t really get to talk for long, if at all.

Since the big day we have continued chilling by the pool. That was pretty much all we did yesterday. Not exactly the traveller lifestyle perhaps but it’s Christmas and that’s what we fancied doing. Doubt we will get to lounge in the Sun on boxing day ever again so let’s make the most of it.

Today we have moved out and just a couple of miles up the road to a town called Seminyak. We’ve heard lots of people say that it’s a nicer, calmer and altogether cleaner version of Kuta. Our taxi took us straight to the door of our new hostel. Through the main road of shops and a restaurants. It looked very similar to Kuta, just without the awfully busy one way system. When we got to our hostel we climbed the stairs following the signs to reception. When we got there we were greeted by a couple from the movie The Hills Have Eyes. If you haven’t seen this film they basically looked like zombie inbreds who’s only means of communication is through a sequence of grunts and moans. The woman behind the desk looked like….uhm…well, dead. She literally looked dead. She must be a zombie. She is about 180 years old minimum and we reckon she must have been fed metal bolts as a child because she has only a single tooth the size of a large chisel poking directly at who ever she’s looking at. Wouldn’t surprise me if this tooth controlled her every move. Whispering to her. ‘Eat them’.

Ok so that’s that. When we got to our room we discovered the worst room in the history of rooms. It’s similar to being on that night train with the windows open. We feel like we’ve interrupted the shooting of the new Bugs Life sequel on the day the whole cast have brought their families along. It’s disgusting. The shower is cold too so we can’t even enjoy that. We have 4 nights booked too. Not going to happen. Before visiting the land of the undead and telling the zombie upstairs that we won’t be staying, we decided to head down the beach to at least see what the fuss is about.

Seminyak beach is disgusting! We got there and discovered the worst beach we had ever seen. Covered in rubbish. We stepped over nails, broken glass and what seemed like a forest load of dead wood to reach the sea. Where the first wave brought in 4 crisp packets, some more broken glass and a tree. Then things got a lot worse. We walked along the beach for just another 30 seconds before it officially topped the ‘worst beach ever’ awards. I had to cover Soph’s eyes and walk her straight off the beach as she cried in my arms. Because there, in the middle of the beach, surrounded by kids building sand castles, was a dead dog!

Luckily I spotted it before Soph had a chance to. I made sure she didn’t actually see it but just the knowledge that it was  there was enough to cause her to brake down. Could have set me off to be honest. Nobody gave a hoot either. Think that was  the worst thing. People we letting there kids play in the sand around it. Like it wasn’t even there. Shocking!

We immediately walked back to the hotel, told Frankenstein that we wouldn’t be staying after tonight and booked somewhere else.

Ok ok. So what we don’t want to do is scare anyone away from Bali. We are more than likely just staying in the bad places, or simply turning up on days when things are not at there best. But for two backpackers with a tiny budget, so far Bali is not ticking the boxes. Perhaps it’s because we have been spoilt by the amazing beaches in Thailand only a matter of weeks ago. We don’t know. But tomorrow we are pretty sure things are about to get better. We head to a town called Nusa Dua and Geger Beach. From what we’ve seen an  heard about this area of Bali, were in for a treat.

So of course we shall let you know how that goes. But for now, we have a bushtukka trial to get on with. Sleep well, don’t let the bed bugs bite. Ours will…..

Thanks for following x

So this is Christmas. And what have we done. Well I’ll tell you what we’ve done. We’ve gone and got ourselves a nice little spot by the pool, ordered a couple of beers and now we’re applying the Sun cream. But don’t you start thinking we’ve totally forgotten what it must be like for everyone back home right now. Earlier we were freezing our buts off. We experienced first hand what life in England is like. Thankfully we managed to find the air con remote just before we froze to death. It was like…16°C or something. Freezing we were.

Anyway Merry Christmas everyone. This time last year I was at work about to spend the next 48 hours dealing with people that enjoyed nothing more than to shout, swear and generally moan while we sacrificed our Christmas for the sake of making them happy. Hoovering the floor and washing up glasses while the floor of my own home flooded with sewage water, destroying everything it touched. How things have changed 12 months on.

The last couple of days have pretty much included an early morning battering of the door by the hotel staff wanting to clean our room like its an emergency. This is followed by some lunch at a bar packed full of Australians talking about barbecues and kangaroos, or whatever it is they talk about. Visit to the beach for a while to watch the surfers. Bit of dinner in town and then an evening of watching James Bond movies that have been cut and edited so that they make no sense. To be fair there have been a few back home that I’ve watched and still not understood so it’s not been so much of an issue for us.

Here in Bali we are staying in Kuta. Probably the worst an  dirtiest part of the entire island and not exactly the paradise we had been expecting. However we are still enjoying it and know that when we move on after Christmas we will get the chance to discover all the amazing areas you’ve been sharing with us. We had looked at moving before Christmas but as you can imagine Santa himself wouldn’t get a room this close to the big day. Plus having booked the only hotel in Bali with a 100% no refunds no matter how far in advance you book policy, it would have been an expensive decision anyhow.

Last night we headed out for dinner with the intention of getting some money out at an ATM before hand. When we reached the machine I opened my wallet to find, or should I say not find, my bank card. Turns out I must have left it in the machine the last time I got cash out. You see over here, like in Thailand, the cash comes out before the card. In Singapore and KL, just like at home, they don’t let you forget your card because it beeps at you as if by not taking it the machine will self destruct. We can both vividly remember looking at the cash when we got it out the other day. Who wouldn’t be impressed with seeing a million in cash. So I suppose we were so preoccupied with the cash that we just walked off.

Not to worry. We can just go back and get Soph’s card. But that’s where things went from bad to worse. Soph’s card was missing! Not at any point on the trip have we had to use Soph’s bank card. We’ve used our travel cards and my Nat West card from day one. And if you’re reading this with a slight sense of deja vu, don’t fear, I also left my travel card in a Thai cash machine not long into the trip. It seems I’m not too good at the getting cash out thing.

Anyway so we have no idea where Soph’s card is, or even if we brought it with us in the first place. That leaves us with 1 of 4 cards left. A card that requires us to call England in order to get money on it immediately. Thankfully all is now sorted and we are ok. There was a slight moment of panic when the cash machine didn’t except our travel card but it soon passed when the next one we tried did. Otherwise we’d of had to take a leaf out of those robbers from Home Alone’s book and robbed a toy shop on Christmas Eve or something.

So as you know we have experienced more than our fair share of locals trying to get us to enter their little street stores. Just the way things seem to be done in this part of the world. But here, in Kuta, they’re relentless. Any more desperate and they’d be clinging on to your ankles while you dragged them along. By the time you got to where you were going they’d be piled up on top of each other clinging on to your waist. But instead of shouting ‘massage’ or ‘watch’ like in Thailand, it’s ‘transport’. There are more scooters here than people. We saw a couple of ten year olds doing wheelies on one earlier. Not that it matters of course. There are no real pavements either. We think that’s probably the worst thing about Kuta. There is traffic everywhere. It’s super busy with cars and scooters that everything is at a constant stand still. Which puts anyone on the pavement at risk as the scooters skip past traffic by driving on them instead.

It’s a pretty crazy place but we still love it. Soph is busy making a little Christmas tree for us out of some crayons and some lined paper. Christmas is of course a time to be grateful for what you have and to treasure those around you. We may be thousands of miles away from our family, but I couldn’t choose to be with anyone better. It may be me who writes this blog each day and you may find me taking the mick out of her sometimes, but if it wasn’t for Soph I wouldn’t be here. She truly is the best thing that ever happened to me and I am so grateful for everything she does for me. I hope your all with someone you love this holiday season, and from both Soph and I, we wish you a very merry Christmas.

Thanks for following x

Happy Sunday. Hope you’ve all had a good weekend. I guess many of you have perhaps finished work or school for Christmas now. For those having to work over the Christmas season just remember you could always pack it all in and go on an adventure around the world. Just sayin’.

So here we are on the Indonesian island of Bali. Possibly the most recommended location of all those we are visiting. Soft sand, warm sea, beautiful scenery. This place is said to have it all.

With our flight from Singapore leaving at 7:15am we decided not to even bother attempting to sleep. We just stayed up watching tv before packing our bags. We always like to leave it until the very last second before packing our stuff. Perhaps it’s the panic that causes us to check everything 100 times to make sure we don’t forget anything. It seems to be working so far.

Our taxi drive to the airport was….interesting. Pretty sure that in requesting the driver to pick us up, we must have interrupted him from a night of playing F1 on his PlayStation. He was driving in and out of cars like it was the final race of the championship and he needed full points. Soph was gripping my hand so hard that it resembled something out of Tom and Jerry by the the time we arrived at departures. Perhaps it was his reversing the wrong way down a dual carriageway after missing his turning that caused us to worry. We did at least have our seatbelts on.

The flight went well. We took off and landed without crashing so I suppose that can be seen as having gone well. Upon landing we had to pay for our Visa before jumping in a taxi again. Going from KL and Singapore to Bali was quite the reality check. Like Thailand it is full of people jumping on us for a little bit of our business. It also takes a little getting used to the currency out here. I mean for starters the taxi to our hotel cost 200,000. Think it’s just under 20,000 to the pound. So getting £100 out at the ATM earlier felt like I’d just won the lottery.

Having not slept in ages we decided to have a quick nap once we’d checked in. That quick nap turned into a 7 hour full on sleep where an angry roaring lion with a megaphone wouldn’t have woken us up. When we did finally stir we discovered that all the plug sockets in the room were European. You know the ones, with the two pointy bits. Not anything like the ones our plug adaptors are made for. So we had to live without internet for the night, which I imagine must have been on par with what it felt like to be one of those Chilean miners stuck down a hole for 69 days. How we survived I just don’t know.

Even with 7 hours of day time napping we still managed to sleep in and miss breakfast this morning. It’s becoming sort of a tradition to miss the breakfast we’d already paid for. Just like its becoming a tradition to be woken up through one of the hotel staff attempting to seemingly brake our door down. This time they wanted to know if we wanted our room cleaned. Lovely of them to offer, but they’d clearly never met a sleep deprived Sophie before. Perhaps they’ll think twice before knocking so early next time.

We headed out to try and find a working plug adaptor once we’d finally got dressed. We found them pretty hard to come by in Bangkok so when we saw one this morning we jumped at the chance to buy it. But it was clear we hadn’t been in Bangkok for some time as we agreed to the first price put on the table. We could have probably flown back to the UK, charged all our stuff and then got back on a flight to Bali for not much more. They saw us coming an absolute mile off. It cost us more than a night in the hotel anyway. They’ll probably still be laughing at us by the time we leave next month.

Once we’d popped back and stuck one of our phones on charge we headed in the direction of the beach. Unfortunately it was a pretty overcast day so there wasn’t much room for sunbathing. We just took a little walk up and down the front watching the trainee surfers wipe out on the waves. Soph is basically a professional surfer following her time in Costa Rica before university. Compared to me anyway. Could be something we look at doing while we’re here. Pretty sure I’ll end up swallowing more water than I surf, but it could be worth the shot. We all know I’ve got the body and flowing locks of a pro surfer….

After a little lunch at some Aussie bar we managed to grab a few afternoon rays by, yet again, falling asleep on the beach. Perhaps we were bitten by a sloth during the night and have now an immense appetite for sleeping. I’d imagine we would probably have noticed if we had but we’ve been bitten so many times by mosquitoes that perhaps we just overlooked it. Whatever it is, it’s at least preventing us from spending too much money.

Dinner tonight was at Mama’s. A German restaurant on the main strip of bars and restaurants here. I knew the Germans loved a good sausage but the menu was more like one of George Michael’s little black books. To be fair there were lots of other things in the menu too, including the pork medallions that I plucked for and the beef stew that Soph had. Things are pretty cheap out here. Even cheaper than parts of Thailand in some cases. So a two course dinner and a couple of local beers was more than affordable. Especially as we’d slept the majority of the day.

Back at the hotel we are chilling out watching James Bond on the tv. If we’ve learnt anything from our time so far in Bali,  it’s that Roger Moore is the absolute man!

Thanks for following x

Right ok so it’s been a while. Singapore is the sort of country that wakes up at 6pm and doesn’t calm down until the early hours. Sort of makes it hard to write anything when your finishing around 3am, so we’ve got a lot to catch up on.

Apparently, about 15 years ago, some newspaper decided to write an article on the top most boring places to visit in the world. This person had clearly never visited Tonbridge because they placed Singapore at the very top of that list. Something the government here took great offence to. But instead of crying in a corner somewhere they smashed open their little piggy banks and transformed the country. Now you only need to be here for 5 minutes before seeing a 24 hour shopping mall or an island full of theme parks.

We knew from the second we got in the taxi after our joyous journey from KL that things were different here. It started with a simple sticker. ‘Please remember to wear your seatbelt’. Not only were there seatbelts in cars, they actually preferred if you didn’t go flying through the windscreen when they braked. Cars waited for a large enough space before switching lanes. They didn’t even beep their horn for no apparent reason every 5 seconds. It felt like we’d just landed in a cleaner version of London.

Our first day was spent whizzing about the MRT. Basically the underground in London language. We have pretty much learnt the entire tube map while being here. You can travel the entire length of the country in about half hour it seems. And with a lot less people than in London, you don’t have to spend the trip between two sweaty old man’s armpits. Which is nice.

So day one was about finding our way around. We went down to the river and jumped on a boat that took us up stream past the main business area where all the huge skyscrapers lived. Under the numerous bridges and past the landmarks many F1 fans may recognise from the Grand Prix. At the end of the bay is the relatively new Marina Bay Sands hotel. For the last 6 years this hotel has put Singapore on the map for many travellers. 3 tall skyscrapers with what can only be described as a ship on top. Whoever came up with that is a genius.  A total nutter of course, but a genius none the less.

At night the hotel puts on a light show like nothing we’ve seen before. We watched something outside the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur where water shot up in rhythm to the music. Here lasers shine down from the top of the hotel while projectors show a video on to the front of the water spraying up into the air. As you sit in front of the hotel you see a short film basically in mid air. Fire balls shoot up from the ground too. I really is superb. If a city somewhere in the world can beat that, we need to go there.

The nearest MRT station to where we were staying was the Botanical Gardens. On Tuesday we strolled through the gardens on our way to Orchard Road. Basically a road with Bluewater on one side and Lakeside on the other. The Royal Victoria Place is in there somewhere too. If you like shopping, you will love Singapore. Through the gardens we ran into a large lake with a couple of swans swanning about on it. Out the corner of my eye I saw something dive into the water. “An otter!” I thought. When we approached we realised that this was the strangest looking otter we’d ever seen.

I tried to get a photo of his head peeping through the water but he was an elusive chap. He wasn’t giving anything away for free. We were about to move on and give up when a smaller otter appeared walking through the leaves. This one loved the camera. Walking up and down in front of me like he was on a catwalk. I managed to get pretty close to him and take this photo. It’s probably worth loads as I can’t see any pictures on Google of an otter like this. Must be super rare….

Opposite another shopping centre in a separate part of town is the famous Raffles Hotel. I have to say I’m not entirely sure why it’s so famous, but what we do know is it’s outrageously expensive. My grandparents stayed here about 30 years so we thought it would be a nice place to at least take a look at. Walking around the outside we saw steps up to the Long Bar. The home of the Singapore Sling, a gin based fruit cocktail. We thought why not get one just to say we’ve done it. You know. YOLO. Before going in Soph asked how much I would be willing to pay. I said no more than S$20 as alcohol is expensive out here. Imagine the look on her face when the menu showed S$29 and I’d gone and ordered two. We soon changed the order to one non alcohol one to save a little money. To be honest it was a bit silly as we both hate gin. Never mind.

The Long Bar is also famous for its littering. Not of everything. You can’t just bring your household bin and chuck the contents on the floor. The shells from your monkey nuts however, that’s a different story. Soph could not get over the fact people just dropped their monkey nuts on the floor. People were cracking up laughing when she began clearing them up. It was quite strange though. Especially as nobody had any idea why they did it. Just seemed to be a thing they did.

Wednesday night was Ladies Night and we were hitting up the town. Howard and Fyza, the amazingly generous hosts who we were staying with, were taking us out to see what the midweek nightlife was like over here. And it turns out they like their ladies drunk. And I suppose who can blame them. Soph had seen away 4 free Martinis before I’d had the chance to sip my beer. After a bit of food we headed to another bar at the top of one of those tall skyscrapers. We’d been looking at going up to the top of the Marina Bay building at some point as we imagined the view would be amazing. But the view from this bar was unreal. The hotel was miles below us and we were surrounded by the super tall skyscrapers now also below us. There was more vodka flowing about than at a Russian wedding, seemingly all going into our glasses. Our usual alcohol limit came and went, just as 2am did. There was no stopping these people. Especially when Soph mentioned her Indian roots to a group of Indian locals. It was  like they just met their long lost cousin. We were inches away from heading to a Bollywood club for further drinks. Thank goodness we didn’t. Don’t think I would have ever got Soph out of there.

The following day we were feeling a little delicate. So we chilled out not doing too much but walking around the city. We had a whole extra day left to do stuff so we weren’t too bothered. Annoyingly our last day has been a total washout. It rained like someone had just attempted to cheat the Jumanji game. It was impossible to leave the house at all. It was a huge shame as we felt we had unfinished business here.

Tonight we met up with Michael. A friend of my grandparents who they stayed with 30 years ago and have been in touch with ever since. Local to Singapore, Michael took us to a local food market where we tried some pretty random things. All actually pretty nice though. We chatted about my grandparents and how they met all those years back. It was  a really nice evening and a great way to end our fantastic time in Singapore.

We’ve liked it so much here that we would truely love to revisit someday. If you’ve been to Singapore at all, especially if it’s more than a decade ago, you must come back. The place has transformed. It really is a super place to be. In less than 2 hours we will be picked up by a taxi to make our way to the airport. This time tomorrow we’ll be in Bali.

Thanks for following x

Ok ok, so let’s start today’s entry by rolling back time to Sunday and going through the way in which we have come to arrive in the amazing country of Singapore.

It all started in the morning when we got up to make our way to the bus terminal at the end of our road. Our recent experience has taught us that buses, although relatively slow, can be a much better alternative to a long distance train. So with a huge backpack and a small one each, we set off to find our stop.

Usually we would have already booked our ticket and been simply waiting at our hostel to get picked up. But this was the first time we had literally left it to the last minute to do anything. We had no idea what we had got ourselves in for. The walk to the terminal was awful. We were attacked by people trying to sell us tickets to get on their bus. Like literally jumped on by 100s of different operators all wanting to get our business. But as far as we were aware these were all con men like in Thailand. Willing to say and offer anything just to get us on their bus. We just wanted the bus terminal ticket office.

After pushing off a dozen tickets touts, we managed to find a woman who could help us. She pointed to the top floor and said the offices were there. Phew….So we headed up the stairs, relieved we had managed to fight off the con men downstairs. Something we probably wouldn’t have done had we not just experienced a month in Thailand. We even had to run away from a group on the stairs, they were everywhere and probably the most persistent we’d witnessed…anywhere.

But as we reached the ticket office floor we immediately realised it wasn’t going to be an easy day. The whole floor was a square waiting room with tens of different operator’s ticket kiosks around the outside. Then filling the empty space were more ticket touts trying to get you to their kiosk.

So..time to put in our stern face and get things done. We nodded at the closest tout and told him we wanted a one way, direct, no messing about ticket to Singapore. He smiled and led us to his company kiosk. We were stern and pretty rude but it seems to be the only way to get what we wanted. They agreed to what we needed so we passed over the money and some lady went off to get our ticket. But when she returned the ticket said, maybe unsurprisingly, the complete opposite of what we’d asked for.

So you know what we did? We ripped up the ticket into tiny bits and blew it in her face before performing an evil villain laugh that went on for just long enough that everyone in the room felt slightly uncomfortable..

…Ok so we didn’t do that. But we did get our money back. Things weren’t going well. Soph had taken to sitting down on  a bench for a bit just to escape the mayhem while I dived back in ready to get what I wanted. I gave the exact same requirements to numerous other touts to see who could get us the cheapest ticket first. At first they all nodded and shot off in excitement. But when they returned they all had the same issue. There were no direct, no messing about tickets to Singapore today. In the end I had to return to the original lady I’d just ridiculed to give her my money…again.

Right. So. Our ticket was going in the direction of Singapore, but it wasn’t crossing the border. Instead we would have to jump on another bus to cross. Simple enough aye…aye?…We got on with seconds to spare. The only two even remotely Western people on the bus. No bother. The worst was behind us. We thought.

The journey to the border was simple enough. It’s just one straight road all the way. We stopped at a very random service station in the middle of nowhere, yet it was the busiest stop ever. Fish head curry was of course on the menu. We chose to stay hungry. Apart from a waffle biscuit that filled about 0.1% of our stomachs. Then we were off again.

Along the way the driver was on his mobile pretty much the whole time. He even thought it a nice gesture to pick up some hitch-hiker along the way when there were no available seats left. Suppose sitting on the floor isn’t an issue when there are no seatbelts on the thing anyway. Who cares if they fly through the windscreen as soon as we brake.

Arriving just outside Singapore, we grabbed our bags and looked around at the chaos we were about to dive into. Soph asked the driver how to get over to Singapore and he duly delivered that help by walking us to another kiosk before handing us the 6RM fee for the next bus.  Soph does all the asking. I hate asking. I would rather walk us down a dead end than ask someone holding a sign that says “ask me. I’m here to help” for any directions. Maybe it’s a male thing. Soph seems to think it is.

As we purchased the tickets we asked what bus we were meant to get on. The ticket fella simply grunted and pointed at the bus behind us. We took that as “get on that one” and hurried over. The place was packed full of Malaysians and Chinese and Indians and Singaporeans all trying to get a bus. It was crazy and definitely not a place we want to be again. Thankfully our bus was leaving immediately. But it was full to the brim. Apart from two lonely seats on the back row. The isle was just about big enough for my little toe to squeeze through, so you can imagine the awkwardness of having to barge our massive backpacks through everyone to get to our seats. But we were told back in KL that this journey would be no longer than 25 mins. That we could handle.

Unfortunately we had totally forgot to incorporate crossing the border in that time too. We were on the bus for about 5 mins before it got held up in traffic. There were rows of cars and other buses all at a stand still. That’s when the doors flew open. Everyone stood up, got off and started walking. What the hell was going on man! Soph used her special asking abilities to find out. We were crossing the border. Of course we were!

A friendly man who could clearly see we were lost told us to go through and meet the bus on the other side. Simple. So we went in, got stamped out of Malaysia and walked through the glass doors only to find a fork in the path. Bus lane A or Bus lane B. Nobody told us this. What the hell! There are no signs and yet everybody seems to know where they’re going. Soph, quick, ask someone.

Bus lane B turned out to be our path so we headed down the escalator. But at the bottom there were 100s of people all forming what looked liked queues. Yet, again, there was not one single sign to show what they were queuing for. It’s a good thing most people have a good understanding of English here or we’d probably be still in that bus line waiting, slowly starving to death. Someone told us our bus queue was further up behind some pillars. But even when we got there we couldn’t be sure we were in the right place. Jesus this was hard work.

Luckily we got good seats in the back corner of the bus where we could hold our bags on our laps and not be in anyone’s way. The bus was moving, we were on it and we would soon be in bed. We crossed the bridge between Malaysia and Singapore and looked around at the big tall buildings in the distance. Then we stopped. The doors flung open and we were all getting off. Christ! Now we had to do it all again to enter Singapore. What a mess!

First we got in the wrong queue. Then we were told we had to fill out a departure form before queuing. Then nobody had a pen. Thankfully someone behind us lent us there’s to get it all sorted. But to be honest we sat in the queue for so long we could have used that pen to write a novel. Maybe about a couple who set out on a quest to cross the tortuous Singapore border by bus. It was very busy.

On the other side we had the same predicament we had before with no signs pointing us to the correct bus queue. We sort of gambled on one being ours and waited. And waited. And waited, until every other bus had been and gone at least 5 times without any sign of ours. It was at least an hour we stood there waiting. You could say at least it wasn’t cold and wet like in the UK, but the heat of Singapore is arguably a worse fate.

When the bus finally arrived it was as packed as an Asda on Black Friday. We both managed to get a seat but we had to settle for someone else on our lap and a couple of arses in our faces. And to make things worse we had absolutely no idea where in Singapore the bus was taking us.

When we did stop it was on Queens Street. A place with numerous shopping malls and places we could grab some rest before moving on. We grabbed some Dollars from an ATM and tried to work out the conversion to GBP by seeing how much a quarter pounder with cheese was in the closest McDonald’s. We’ve gone from eating no western fast food to eating only western fast food recently. But it felt good.

One more session of asking members of the public for help and a taxi ride later, we arrived at Howard’s apartment. We have been here for two days now, which I will write all about tomorrow of course, and we’ve loved every second.  Worth that horrendous journey to get here. But we wouldn’t do it again. Just fly. But what about your Carbon footprint? If the alternative is that journey, we wouldn’t care if we left a giants boot print on the environment. Well maybe we would. But we’d still fly.

Thanks for following x

So a lot has happened since we last posted to our little adventure diary. I really wanted to post something yesterday but an Internet signal weaker than me after a leg session in the gym, meant I was unable to.

If you have been keeping up with our travels, and I truly hope you have, you would know that we left off having just experienced a pretty rubbish day of traveling from Penang to KL. A Day Soph rated as being her worst yet. Since then we have a had a full day experiencing Kuala Lumpur. And you know what? We bloody loved it!

We started the day as we usually do by sleeping in and missing the breakfast we’d already paid for. Really have to stop doing that. After grabbing a map off the hostel reception desk we headed over to the bus station just behind Chinatown. Here we could get a free bus to pretty much all the main sections of the city. FREE! As in you don’t have to pay. We couldn’t believe it! In fact we loved the whole idea of it being free so much that we went all the way round. Twice. Nothing to do with the fact we had got off at the wrong stop. Then got back on the bus only to realise we were right in the first place and had to go all the way round to get there again. We just enjoyed the freeness of it all. We couldn’t stop wondering why London, or everywhere for that matter, hasn’t got a free bus service.

Our first point of call was the KL Tower. Not to be mistaken for the iconic Twin Towers you may have seen on TV, this KL Tower is simply a telephone communications tower. With a restaurant and a viewing deck. You get three options when you go in. First option is to go 280m up and look through the windows of the lower viewing deck. Second option is to visit the restaurant a little higher up. Thirdly you can go all 421m to the open deck where you are, if you’re a total nut case, literally able to just jump off.

The view is spectacular. I mean it’s a crazy way up in the sky but if you can over the fact it isn’t about to topple over, it really is a sight to behold. It’s strange that when you are that high up you do get a sudden urge to either jump or throw something over the side. Like when your holding a balloon and you let go slightly before grabbing it again. Luckily I held on to my camera and Soph never mustered up the courage to launch me off the side, so all round it was a really enjoyable experience.

On the way down we had a look from the lower viewing deck. Obviously it wasn’t quite as good. One, because your not as high up. And two because it’s busy with kids running around and loads of tacky merchandise being sold off the side. You can look more directly towards the ground than the open deck, but I was pretty happy we’d spent the extra to go all the way.

Once back on solid ground we decided to hop back on the bus to the shopping centre. Obviously with it being Christmas just around the corner, everything was dressed in decorations and plastic Father Christmases. It all looks pretty rubbish during the day, but when the Sun goes down everything looks totally different.

We stayed wandering around the many different shopping malls for hours. Taking time to stop off in two separate Starbucks just to grab some WiFi signal after buying a couple of new t-shirts. Mine have shrunk again. You can feel pretty weird after two back to back toffee nut lattes. Especially when you eaten nothing but a donut all day. The free internet was worth it though.

We were waiting for the Sun to go down so we could see all he Christmas decorations in their full glory, and of course to to see KLs most famous attraction. The Petronas Twin Towers. To get there you have to walk through the shopping mall to another shopping mall. This has a walkway over a busy main road to another shopping mall and an escalator up to a shopping mall. You could spend an absolute fortune in KL. They must spend everyday shopping here. Each mall is attached or opposite one another. And they all have the same shops. So if you can’t find your size in one just go over the road or across the bridge. You’ll find it somewhere. I had the slightly embarrassing moment of realising I was a double extra small in the Malaysian Topman. XXS! They may as well have just pointed me to the kids section. Or the gym….

When we finally came outside after following all the Twin Tower signs we thought we had made a wrong turn. The signs had all gone and so had the shops. It wasn’t until we looked up did we realise we were directly below them. During the day they look pretty good. But at night these towers look like nothing we’ve ever seen before. They are huge. And yet just earlier today we were looking down on them from the top of the KL Tower, now lit up behind another skyscraper. There were crowds of people all trying to get photos with the towers. Selfies upon selfies. Some as couples. Some pretending to hold the towers in their hands. Some pretending to wee on them by standing by the water fountains in front.

We walked through the shops under the towers to the other side where we found a giant Christmas tree and a musical water fountain display. We stayed and watched for a while longer before taking our last few photos and heading back to catch the last bus. Of course our walk back took us through more shops and restaurants, but we were pretty happy to stick to our now favourite evening meal of noodles in a cup from the 7/11 store. You got to save the funds somewhere.

When we got back to the hostel we asked the reception if they could book us a bus to Singapore for the next day. Something you would perhaps think in the UK would be a crazy thing to do. Leaving it until midnight to book a bus to another country for the very same day. Apparently here they do too. We had to wake up this morning and make our way to the bus terminal ourselves and book the ticket for the next possible bus.

Now that is something we have done. We are in fact now in Singapore. But I will leave today’s story for tomorrow. Let’s just say the travel was worse than that of Penang to KL, and we are so glad we don’t have to go through any border crossings on foot any time soon.

So as I say I will carry on tomorrow, but for now we are staying at Soph’s aunt’s brother’s apartment in Singapore. That’s Soph’s….aunt’s….brother’s….
After today’s experience and the hostels we’ve been in the last week, it feels like an absolute paradise. Thank you Howard.

Thanks for following x

First off thank you to all those that got in touch to explain what halal meat was. It wasn’t exactly what we thought but at least it’s not some strange animal from an alien planet.

So as I mentioned yesterday, today we have been traveling from Penang to Malaysia’s capital city, Kuala Lumpur. I also said yesterday that we would need to make sure we got up for breakfast in the morning. With a long bus ride to come we were going to need to stock up on food, plus we were still yet to start packing our bags.

Unfortunately with a mix of Soph feeling sick and the sound of morning prayers outside the window, neither of us had much sleep. During the night I checked my phone and saw my Auntie Kay had commented on our website. Considering sending us an alarm clock to make sure we had our breakfast. Haha, I thought. Then I had the great idea of turning my phone off so not to waste any battery during the night. My phone that a had our alarm set on it. Now off.

When we did eventually wake up it was gone half 10. Breakfast missed again and now less than half hour before the bus was picking us up. What a start! Scrambling together all our stuff we just about managed to make it downstairs in time to get picked up. The minibus was picking us up at 11 and taking us to the city bus terminal ready for the noon trip to Kuala Lumpur. So we waited. And we waited. 11:30 soon past and we still hadn’t moved. I went and asked the miserable bitch from the other day what was going on. She told us to keep waiting….

It wasn’t until well gone 12 that the minibus eventually arrived. Apparently according to little miss moody on reception, we would still be able to get on the bus. The bus that left over 10 minutes ago….

When we got to the bus terminal we had to hand our ticket into the office and get our seat numbers. We were pretty sure we would  be turned away because we’d missed  our bus. But it turns out nobody is ever on time here and they just make it all up as they go. We had our bus but we were starving. Plus in the rush to pack our bags I hadn’t had a shower either. Hot, hungry and most definitely bothered, we waited for our bus to turn up.

When it did eventually get there it was well past 1pm. From our previous experience of bus journeys around Asia, they consist of over the top air con, almost no leg room and a piss smelling toilet that fills the whole bus with its stench whenever someone opens or closes the door. This bus was different in every way. Firstly the seats were huge. They could almost lay down flat and had leg room a giraffe would feel roomy in. There was no toilet to stink the place out and the air con was weaker than if I’d put an ice cube in my mouth and began blowing. But on the whole I thought it was quite nice.

Soph however. She hated every second of the journey. As I said at the beginning she had a very bad night and she’d not been well at all. So while I’d slept most of the way, she sat uncomfortable from start to finish. The bus did jump around quite a bit and it was quite warm, but she really, really hated it. It probably didn’t help that some local sitting behind us was burping his way through the alphabet throughout the journey.

5 and a half hours after leaving Georgetown we arrived at KL Sentral. The main bus and train terminal. We grabbed our bags from the lower deck of the bus and headed inside the terminal. It had started to rain pretty hard so we were grateful for the shelter. But Soph’s large bag must have been leaked  on during the journey because it was totally drenched. It literally needed to be rung out before we could put it on.

We headed over to the taxi rank where we joined a long queue of people all waiting to get home from work or, like us, find their hotels/hostels. Thankfully a woman in the queue recognised the fact we were new to the city and told us we needed to buy a ticket from indoors first before waiting.  When we started getting closer to the front we could see how rubbish the taxi system was here. The taxi drivers were refusing to take people to certain places for reasons such as, they didn’t want to drive to that part of town today, or they’d just come from there, or they were simply lazy dicks that simply couldn’t be arsed to do their job.

We were pretty lucky that our driver was more than happy to take us. But once we started moving he decided to tell us he would be unable to take us to our hostel as it was in Chinatown where they have a very busy night market. So we would  need to make our own way there. Our way to a place we had no idea where was, with no map, in the pouring rain.

The night market in Chinatown is massive and very busy. It’s a pretty mental place to be on a good day. But with four heavy bags, a poorly girlfriend, an empty stomach and a tropical storm above our heads, it was a nightmare. And it got no better when a local tried to help by pointing us in the wrong direction when we literally two doors away.

Once checked in we headed out to grab some food. We found a restaurant opposite the hostel in the very centre of Chinatown. Just as we were paying the bill I saw something move behind where Soph was sitting. I double looked to see a fat old rat running from the kitchen and behind some chairs. How nice.

Back at the hostel it was time to trim the facial hair. That’s my facial hair of course. Soph wants to leave hers a little longer. With no razor and no trimmer it was down to the scissors to do the job. Do not try this at home. Soph started things off by using a comb to make sure all was even. I then finished the job by chopping off the finer bits to give a real close shave. Not sure I ever want to go through the constant fear of slicing through my windpipe ever again. So either I will have to put up with the beard from now on, or buy a razor. We’ll see.

So today, on the whole, has been pretty rubbish. Soph even marked it as the worst day of our trip so far. So I apologise if today’s blog entry is a little miserable but I suppose we are a little miserable today. Then again when you realise you are traveling the world and don’t have work in the morning, you remember to forget all the crap.

Thanks for following x

Hello again from Georgetown on the island of Penang. As I mentioned the other day, we are only really in this part of Malaysia because it was a place my Grandad mentioned. A place much nicer than the hussle and bussle of the big KL. Well thank you Grandad, because we have really enjoyed our last couple of days.

Sadly we haven’t really got the time to visit more of the island as we would like. But our time in Georgetown has been a real added bonus to our trip. I suppose you can see this city as the Chiang Mai of Malaysia. The calmer, more relaxed city that accommodates all those who visit. Of course all this is before we even visit Kuala Lumpur. It may be that the whole country is like this. But covering such a small space, we feel Georgetown is going to be very different than anything else we experience here.

When we arrived to check in we were told breakfast was included and that it would be served until 10am. Perfect. Although the place was a little more expensive than our usual stops, at least it had a meal included. And it didn’t finish until 10. We could easily catch up on the hours of sleep we missed traveling to the airport and get some food in us before exploring the city.

I suppose you can probably understand our annoyance when at 11:20 we were woken up by a loud banging at our door. So much for breakfast. The noise was coming from one of the hostel staff asking if we were going to extend our stay or, basically, get the hell out. What this abruptly rude woman hadn’t checked was that we had already agreed to stay another night. So, without being too rude, I told her to go back to her desk and look at her computer screen again. This time in a way that didn’t involve being a miserable bitch.

I suppose her abrupt knocking was for the best. Although we both like our sleep, we also hate letting a day pass us by. Especially when we are only in a place for a very limited amount of time. So we quickly got dressed and headed out for some exploring.

This city is tiny. You can get anywhere by either walking, hiring a bicycle or by hopping on the free shuttle bus. We decided to have a slow stroll along the sea front, following a map we picked up at the airport. The first place we stumbled across was Fort Cornwallis. A small star shaped fort built about 300 years ago with a load of cannons pointing out to sea. Oh and a lighthouse. Nice little place to visit if your passing, but I wouldn’t seek it out if your not.

From there we walked down Beach Street. A busy road full of banks, coffee shops and bars. I’m pretty sure I may have mentioned this on previous days, but yesterday was pretty much the hottest day since hot days began. So hot my bottle of water evaporated all its contents before it could reach my mouth. Just like that. Gone. So anyway, we needed a break from the heat and an air conditioned juice bar was ticking all the boxes.

We really aren’t a million miles from Thailand. And in some cases it shows. With their food stalls, religious shrines and phenomenal number of 7/11 stores. But when an Asian waitress starts talking to you in perfect English, you know your somewhere else. Everyone here seems to speak better English than most of the people you meet on Tonbridge High Street each day. Then they go back to talking in their native tongue effortlessly. They just seem to accommodate us Brits so well here that you can feel comfortable immediately.

After a little refreshment we headed on towards the very centre of the city. A place called Little India where, as I’m sure you can imagine, is full of Indians. And Bollywood movies stores. And spice shops. All playing ridiculously loud music from huge speakers in the road. Not stuff you would find me searching for on Spotify, but they obviously loved it. Of course being half Indian there is a picture somewhere with Soph under the sign post. She hates it and doesn’t want it on here though. I’ll have to wait until she’s asleep before posting that separately. Sometimes she needs to understand you have to give the fans what they want.

We spent the rest if the day chilling out before heading to a little bar for a couple of drinks. With last week in Phuket with Hartfield being so expensive, together with the fact we don’t seem to fancy the local dishes available here, it was pot noodles for dinner. It’s alright though. They are local pot noodles. So we are still experiencing the culture of Malaysia, just in our own way. Plus you can fill your pot up with boiling water in store. It’s bloody marvellous stuff.

Today we woke at the increasingly disappointing hour of 12 o’clock midday. Another wasted breakfast opportunity and a few hours of our last full day wasted. Well not wasted as such because we love sleep. But not what we would have liked.

When we eventually got up Soph was up for a little treasure hunt. It was a sort of sight seeing tour that you could do on foot through the small nooks and crannies to see all the different examples of street art in the city. We walked around most of these roads yesterday but never really stopped to notice the work on the walls. So with our map in tow we took off.

It was clearly a very popular thing to do in Georgetown. Loads of visitors were out with their maps trying to find each hidden piece. Some were obvious. But some were inside shops and down little passage ways that you usually wouldn’t even consider walking down. We looked high and low for every last one. It was thirsty work. Thankfully there was some refreshment available in the form of a large ice slurp. About 60p got you a huge ice ball in a plastic tray that was soaked in Ribena or lemon or whatever really. Different but rather nice.

At one point, while in search of another piece of art, we found ourselves walking on a type of pier. There were small wooden houses or shacks that were selling fruit and water and other souvenirs from their front doors. All of which were set on a structure standing in the sea. So caught up with discovering all the hidden street art we hadn’t noticed we’d stumbled on to one of Georgetown’s other main attractions, the Chew Jetty. On here we grabbed some fruit to snack on that we’d never tried before. Bit of a mix between a watermelon and a pineapple. It comes in the form of a huge green spikey watermelon with a bright yellow centre which is the part you eat. If I could remember it’s name I’d tell you. It was rather nice though.

The art hunt It was a really fun way of exploring the city without simply walking in no particular direction. And of course being the most competitive team around, we were having to help others locate art as if we’d been living here for years. We found them all, and some.

Once we’d smashed all the competition we headed back to Georgetown’s famous Love Lane. After walking down here yesterday we noticed a shop that we thought surely too good to be true. But this afternoon we realised it was in fact exactly as we’d hoped. A coffee shop that puts your face on top of its cappuccino froth. Literally a must for anyone.

You walk in. You order your coffee. You take a selfie on their smart phone hooked up to a computer and they give you a number. After a little wait someone comes to you with your coffee, with your photo on it. We couldn’t believe what we were looking at. Coffee. Our faces. There. In front of us. Mental. And it was actually pretty nice coffee all for less than a small regular latte at Starbucks.

Something else we have also experienced today has made us feel a little sad. Happy. But still sad. You see today we failed in our attempts to stay away from western fast food. Today we had McDonald’s. Bugger! Just the simple double cheese burger meal sufficed. It tasted pretty much the same, maybe a little different from home. But just as we were getting up to leave I noticed a disturbing sign.

“McDonald’s Malaysia. 100% halal meat.”

Not knowing what halal was, my first thoughts were, “what the hell have we just eaten.” Perhaps I shouldn’t have said this out loud, but I was pretty worried we’d just eaten a burger made of some animal I’d never heard of. Thankfully Soph thought she knew what halal was and told me it was all ok. However I’m still not totally sure so if someone could help us out that would be great. Please be good….

Tonight we have booked our bus tickets to Kuala Lumpur and will be starting that 6 hour journey around midday tomorrow. We are definitely getting up for breakfast. For sure. Maybe. Probably not. We’ll see. See you in KL.

Thanks for following x

Today we have said our goodbyes to Thailand and moved on to the next part of our adventure. It’s been an incredible 5 weeks in such an amazing country that has everything. Apart from enough toilet paper. It needs way more of that.

We worked out yesterday that if you were to take the combined time in which Soph and I have been away on holiday together you would get 5 weeks. Yet these 5 weeks have flown by like it was a short weekend break. I can’t imagine how quick the last 9 days have been for Hartfield. A blink of the eye I suppose.

Anyway it was Hartfield’s birthday yesterday and surprisingly, we spent it down the beach. He was so excited to have a sunny, hot birthday for the first time ever. He couldn’t sleep a wink the night before. So I suppose it was destined to be the only day it rained. But as Brits, we were never going to let a little bit of rain spoil a great day. Us boys went straight down the pub while Soph went back to the hostel to pick up some more cash.

We thought Soph would be a while but she really did take ages. Turns out she’d bumped into another puppy along the way and couldn’t move on until, I imagine, the owner had to pick up his little baby pug and run. Eventually, when she did meet us, we scoffed down a light lunch before hitting the beach again, now soaked in Sunshine. We stayed until the Sun went down and took a few pictures to remember the day by. Feel free to stick this one in your August pull out for next year’s calendar. Everyone will want one.

When we got back to the hostel we wanted to shower away the remainder of sand before hitting a bar or two for some birthday drinks. With an early night needed too, we were looking for a sharp turn around. But lo and behold the pattern of the day continued when we got back to find all the water was off. Nothing was working at all. We can deal with a lack of hot water but it’s extremely difficult to wash with no water at all. Try it. You’ll see.

Once out we took our place on our usual stools outside our favourite cocktail bar. Next door is another small bar packed with Thai woman all wearing skirts shorter than a hamster’s shin bone. Both bars are outside, right on the main road of restaurants that everybody walks past on their way out to dinner. Now this bar is always busy. Mainly with Thai woman as I said, but also with the odd, older gentleman.

All the female employees that are sitting at this bar having a drink are local. They are also very interested in getting seemingly single men to come and have a drink with them. They scream in your face as you walk past if you look remotely without female company. We’ve been watching them all week, wondering why they need so many staff on for just a handful of customers. They are very helpful though. We often see them giving their customers lifts home on their scooters. Very nice.

Yesterday however we saw an even friendlier stance. One member of staff was more than happy to allow the 70 year old man drinking with her, to twist and pull at her nipples. We’ve been to many pubs in the 8 years since we turned 18, but never, not once have we been offered this service. Maybe it’s just a Thai thing. We shall have to ask next time we visit the local Beafeater restaurant.

We were catching a taxi at 5am this morning to make sure we got to the airport on time. As you know Soph and I would usually take a train or lengthy bus ride to our next destination. But to keep Sam company and to give us a little rest from what would have been about 16 hours of continuous overland travel, we decided to catch a flight. Well two actually.

So, although Hartfield’s birthday, an early night was needed. Again I suppose it was meant to be that this very night happened to be our latest, and probably most alcohol filled. But hey, it’s a birthday after all. We can sleep on the plane.

We arrived at Phuket airport just before 6am, checked all our bags in and waited for our gate to open. It was a pleasure having Hartfield with us for the past 9 days. It’s always great to see him, but for us to be able to share a portion of this adventure with him, is bloody fantastic. So cheers for the company mate. See you in about 5 months.

And then there two. Again.

Before we left England we went to visit my Grandad to say goodbye and all that. We told him we would be passing through Kuala Lumpur on our way to Singapore, spending a couple of days exploring the city. But he told us that when he was out here, he much preferred the island of Penang to the big KL. So, Grandad, here we are.

It took an early morning taxi, a flight from Phuket to KL and then a connecting flight back up to Penang island. Plus the packed bus journey followed by another taxi. But we are here. Georgetown, Penang, Malaysia.

It may sound stupid but we really felt that we had entered a totally different country once we walked out through the Penang airport doors. Obviously we had but we expected it to be almost identical to any Thai city. Manic roads, desperate taxi drivers, woman shouting massage at you. But it was nothing like that. The taxi drivers pointed us towards the bus stop. The bus driver was really rather welcoming. Even the taxi driver from the bus stop to the hostel was extremely helpful in pointing out where to go in the city, without trying to get further business from us. It was a very pleasant surprise.

It’s quite difficult trying to convert money though. I’m having to convert to pounds and then to Thai just to work out whether something is a good deal or not. Sure we will get used to it though. Just before we have to move on I suppose.

After dropping our bags in our room we took a walk to a large shopping centre at the bottom of our road to grab some food. Now we’re not sure whether we are simply getting a little sick of Asian food or if perhaps Malaysian dishes are simply not to our liking as Thai ones were. But following today’s lunch of gristley chicken and slimey noodles, were are seriously craving a McDonald’s. We’ve lasted 5 weeks without any western fast food. Mainly by pretending to look down on those that have traveled half way around the globe just to eat McDonald’s. Today however, we seem to be getting pulled further and further under old Ronald’s magically greasy spell. Hopefully we can last a little longer at least.

Tonight, after an early evening siesta, we popped out to see where the Christmas songs that we could hear being destroyed by someone outside were coming from. Turns out next to the hostel is a square of live entertainment with lots of different food stands around the outside. All of which made us want to throw up. Perhaps we are the only ones in the world who don’t like a fish head curry or  a boiled frog porridge, but we don’t care.

So now we are back in our hostel ready for bed. We are now 8 hours in the future here. I see if I can find the UK lottery number  and send them to you. Can’t lose.

Thanks for following x