Been around the world and I, I, I

So here we have it, the final blog. Apologies for it's tardiness, in main it is the Chinese government's fault with their slightly over zealous Internet restrictions. As it has been a while since the previous blog this one may be fairly long I'm afraid, but as I said this is the last one and if you are still reading this then I thank you and I hope you have enjoyed reading it.

We landed back in the UK last Sunday (16th), eight months to the day since our departure. In the 243 days we were away we went to 11 countries and had a truly amazing time. A common question seems to be 'so what was your favourite country?'. That's like asking David Beckham what the square root of 4 is -it's simply not going to happen. After looking pensive for a few moments I will usually come back with an answer of 'hmm, hard to say' and follow that up with 'it's between New Zealand, Australia, Malaysia, Thailand, Laos and China'.

As we were unable to blog from China I kept a written blog as we went. As a result it may not entirely make sense but nevermind, I'm sure you'll get the gist of it. Had we been able to post it would have looked something like this:


The Orient Express

So China is pretty big. 9.5 million square kilometres in fact. With only 21 days to see Hong Kong, Beijing and a few things along the way we need to get our skates on. After buying a guide book in Laos we set about the task of planning our route across China. We devised 2 plans, 'Plan E' and 'Plan M' before merging them to form the master plan 'Plan China Travel Super'. Due to the time constraints we have decided on only 4 or 5 stops including Hong Kong and Beijing.

Hong Kong Phooey
We arrived in the pulsating city of Hong Kong on Monday. To call it a city is somewhat misleading as it is in fact comprised of some 235 islands with HK island only accounting for 7% of the total land mass. Whilst the built up areas are incredibly developed, I was surprised by how much open space there was to be found.
We spent the first night on HK island but moved to neighbouring Kowloon for the other 2 nights in order to get away from the exorbitant prices. On Wednesday we headed out into the New Territories in search of a walled village in Kam Tin. However, as we failed to take the guidebook with us the village proved elusive. All was not lost though, as we enjoyed a pleasant walk back over Tai Mo Shan (HK's highest peak) and through the Shing Mun country park.
Yesterday we rode the peak tram up Victoria Peak to enjoy the panoramic views back down across HK city before catching a train over to the Chinese mainland in time for the night bus to Yanhshou.

Yangshwow
We arrived in the mountain 'village' of Yangshou at 7 AM, the shadowy mountains still shrouded in the pale mist of morning. After 6 months of perpetual warmth the chill in the air struck us like a cannon-ball of ice. It was time to dig out the warm clothes. Some good hard bargaining secured us a cheap room for 4 nights close to the centre of town.
The 3 full days we spent in Yangshou were all about the scenery. 2 of the days we hired mountain bikes and cycled between the somnolent limestone peaks and along rivers, stopping for the odd photo and to climb 'moon hill' -a rocky pinnacle with a moon shaped hole giving panoramic views of the surrounding limestone peaks. Yangshou is surrounded by a plethora of rock faces just begging to be climbed, so on the middle day we did just that.
It is amazing how much building work is taking place in China. Yangshou, popn 300 000, is called a village and on the south-eastern edge of town there are numerous high-rise residential buildings pushing relentlessly towards the sky. One cannot be sure but I would suggest that these may well be to accommodate some of the 2 million people being displaced by the construction of the three gorges dam which is set to flood an area the size of Singapore as it backs the Yangzi river up 550km.
p.s apologies for the extensive use of the words limestone, peaks and mountains in recent postings but since I have been surrounded by mountainous limestone peaks there really isn't much I can do about it!

Ooodles of noodles
Um, wow. I didn't think I would go somewhere with natural beauty to so easily surpass Yangshou for a long time. Well, I was wrong.
Wullingyuan scenic zone is home to 243 majestic peaks rising from the misty sub-tropical rainforest with over 3000 karst outcrops creating a truly unique landscape and one of the most (if not the most) beautiful places I have ever been. A dusting of snow the day before our visit followed by 2 days of clear sunny skies created just about perfect conditions for enjoying this natural playground. Our journey here didn't exactly go smoothly and infact we're not even staying where we intended to -trying to communicate in China is at times as a Chinaman might say 'yuanmu qiuyu' - Like climbing a tree to catch a fish (a waste of time). All came good in the end though and we have had 2 days of walking in the park enjoying scenes such as 'The supernatural hawk guarding the whip', 'The god of longevity welcoming guest', 'Latent celestial bridge' and etc.

The day we caught the train
We decided to make Wullingyuan our last stop before Beijing so last Saturday we caught a sleeper train all the way from Zhanjiajie to Beijing (24hrs) and booked ourselves into a youth hostel in the snowy capitol city.
Beijing has been nice -very cold, but nice. We've had a week of clear weather and have done the normal touristy sites here- The Great Wall which was er... great, Tienamen square which is er... a rectangle actually!, the forbidden city which is now infact bidden and the summer palace complete with it's snow and frozen lake. Not much else to say about Beijing really, although I should mention that a 600ml bottle of beer only costs about 18p! -cheap cheap!

And there you have it, we left Beijing for heathrow midday last Sunday. Since returning I stopped off in Birmingham for a Uni reunion and I'm now back up in Carlisle with the family for Christmas. Now its time to find me a job and set about putting on the stone I lost on my travels -bring on the Christmas food!

I would highly recommend traveling to anyone and everyone, it has been a fantastic experience.

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
Mark Twain

I wish everyone a very merry Christmas and a thoroughly happy new year and hope to see you soon. xx Matt xx

Imaginative blog title #25

So, I'm lying in a hammock on a tranquil sunny island in the middle of the Mekong and armed with nothing more than a limited use of the English language and my questionable jokes I will attempt to write a blog that is worthy of this beautiful country. Here goes.....

We crossed into Northern Laos 2 weeks ago at the Chang Khong/Huay Xai border crossing. After one night in the quiet border town we boarded a slow boat (2 days) bound for Luang Prabang. The scenery in Northern Laos is up there with the best we have seen on our trip. We spent a total of 14 hours on the boat with it's very unforgiving wooden seats but it was well worth the pain in the arse! The landscape in the second day was even more beautiful than the first as the Mekong winds it's way through rugged limestone peaks and karst outcrops.
In the late afternoon we reached world heritage listed Luang Prabang where Buddhism reigns supreme (Yay! More Wats!). Situated on a raised tongue of land that stretches into the muddy confluence of the Khan and Mekong rivers, Luang Prabang is a sleepy French-Lao town where everybody wears a smile. We spent 3 days there but thinking back now its hard to remember exactly what we did with them. We went to a big ol' waterfall one day complete with plunge pool, rope swing and jumping rocks. The rest of the time we spent walking/cycling around enjoying the ambiance and majestic views. We also met back up with Gary, Neil and Rosie and met a whole bunch of new people who we would spend a good deal of time with whilst in Laos.

After a 5 hour bus ride down highway13 the jagged karst pedestals of Vang Vieng loomed into view, shadowing a bend in the West bank of the Nam Song river, a tributary of the Mekong. Many would say that Vang Vieng is over touristy and, to be fair, many would be right. However, it is a damn cool spot to enjoy the scenery and chill out for a few days. We spent 6 nights there, went tubing twice, did some rockclimbing and hired motorbikes to see the surrounding area. Tubing, for those who don't know, is a cracking 'sport' which involves sitting in a giant inner tube, floating down the river and stopping off at the odd bar or 9. Great fun. Highly recommended.

After Vang Vieng it was on down to the Laotian capitol, Vientiane. Lacking the beautiful landscape of the North, and having been virtually destroyed in 1828 by order of Rama III of Siam, Vientiane hasn't got a great deal to offer tourists. So after staying there one night (we went bowling. I was rubbish) we caught a night bus down to the market city of Pakse- a stop off point for visiting the Bolaven plateau. We arrived into Pakse in the early morning and set about finding a room and hiring a motorbike for the day. By 10 o'clock we were merrily on our way to the Bolaven plateau, a beautiful claw-shaped highland fortress of forests, rivers and waterfalls.

From Pakse it was a short sawngthaw and boat trip down to Don Det where you find me in my hammock. Don Det is just one of the Si Phan Don (four thousand islands), a 30 mile section of the Mekong littered with inhabited islands. Here the river widens to almost 9 miles before narrowing again at the Khone falls. This is our 4th (and final) day on the island where we have mostly been relaxing. We are a good way from most of the guesthouses and barring the early-rising cockrells it is veritable halcyon.

Well, there you have it. That wasn't as long as I thought it would be and is just about as good a job as I can do I'm afraid. For a more informative and informed view of the Indochina region I recommend The Indochina chronicles by Phil Karber. Or better yet, go there yourself. Seriously, you won't be disappointed.

Tomorrow we head back to Thailand for a bit of shopping before flying to Hong Kong on the 26th. Right, I'm off to check the internet to find out what the England Croatia score was.
Bummer. Ah well as a wise woman once told me "it's only football".

xx Matt xx

We are family

I've got all my sisters with me. Well that is to say I did have. We also had our parents with us. This of course means that most, if not all, of my blog audience was here to witness the events of this blog and so I shall keep it short and sweet.

5 Nights in Bangkok
And you've got a whole lot of worldly oyster action on the go. It also gives you time to do a bit of online job hunting/applying which took up the couple of days we had there before meeting up with the family. We had one day with the folks in Bangkok for which we had left the sightseeing- boat trip, King's palace and Wat no.'s 11494-11528 (we've seen a fair few of them now)-that said Bangkok has it's fair share of sparkly and more interesting Wats.
Then it was on up to Phitsanaluk for a couple of nights and a day trip to the historic park of Sukhothai -the original capitol of the first Thai Kingdom. We hired bicycles to explore the area and had a thoroughly enjoyable day in doing so.

The life of Pai
From Phitsanaluk we headed North to the much talked about Chiang Mai. To be honest I was a little disappointed with Chiang Mai, I mean fair enough it's got a shed load of Wats to visit and a village nearby which seems fairly good at making pretty umbrellas (ellas, ellas), but apart from that its nothing to rave about.
Pai on the other hand is. Set in the mountains with clean crisp air, Pai has a lively and yet chilled ambiance and activities that could see you entertained for a month. S adly we had but 4 nights. Still we found a 2 day trek/white water rafting trip that was just the ticket. The first day we headed into the jungle to a camp on the river. After a quick dip in said river Myself, Em and Dad went to a nearby cave with Jacka (our guide). I was expecting to just walk around in a cave a bit admiring a few stalagmites and stalactites, so I was pretty pleased when it turned out to be more pot-hole stylee caving. Tho as I was squeezing through gaps I thought I might not be able to make it back through, I couldn't help but think about the people who drowned in Thai caves a few weeks ago. All adds to the excitement tho hey.
The second day was white water rafting. Although the rapids weren't as wild as they could have been it was a really fun day which included a spot of cliff jumping as well as some damn hot hot springs. At this point I should big up my Mum for going white water rafting as she was a tad scared and to be fair you don't see a whole lot of 54 year old women white water rafting.
The next day we hired motorbikes to explore the surrounding area, take in the views and get hugged by an elephant (see photos). Sadly that was all we had parsley sage rosemary and thyme for before going back to Chiang Mai to see M, D + L off for their week down in railey beach.

I went to Tha Ton and all I got was this lousy blog title
From Chiang Mai Em and I headed North to Chiang Dao. The plan had been to do some walking but the elements, they say no. So we looked in the big ol' caves a bit and did a load of reading. Today we went to Tha Ton, decided not to stay, turned back and came to Chiang Rai which is where I am typing this now. We're off to Laos tomorrow. Pip Pip, Cheerio.

xx Matt xx

The Cambodian Job

Today (16th Oct) is mine and Emma's 6 month travelversary!!! Happy days. However, sadly that means that we now have only 2 months left. BOO HOO i hear you say!
We have spent the last couple of weeks in Cambodia and now have 2 days left in Phnom Penh before flying back to Bangkok to meet you (that is if you are mum, dad or liz. If anyone else is still reading this thing then just ignore that last bit).
Our time in Cambodia started off with a run-in with the Cambodian mafia. As advised by our trusty guidebook we avoided the Bangkok to Siem Reap buses as they are notorious for scamming people. However, said guidebooks' advice has resulted in a large number of people arriving across the border in need of transport. This has fueled a scam to rival the Bangkok-Siem Reap bus scam. After crossing over into Cambodia your travel options are limited to but one choice- "THE COMPANY". Basically the deal is you either pay the extortionate $12 for the bus or you get followed around by members of "the company" who exert their authority over anybody else who is willing to offer you transportation in order to make you pay more. As we had time on our side we thought we'd try to outlast them by sitting down and having a beer. At this point we were six having been joined by Gary, Katrina, Neil and Rosie. Contrary to popular belief beer does not solve all your problems and time, it seems, can be a fickle friend- it 'did an Italy'*. Our next plan was to split up in order to lose the company and try to find some transport without their 'help'. Myself and Gary set off to find a taxi for a reasonable price. We thought we had succeeded, however, it turned out that we had been followed and by the time we got back to the others the company were aware of our illicit taxi deal. After three and a half hours and with our good friend Percy Veerance on our side we finally managed to agree to $30 for a taxi between the 6 of us. It was a bit of a squeeze putting 7 people, 6 large backpacks and 6 small rucksacks in a taxi but we just about managed and were on our way to Siem Reap.
* a reference to Italy's switching of allegiance in 1943.

Wat a lot of temples
Siem Reap is the main base for visiting the world famous temples of Angkor, butt loads of big ol' temples built between the 9th and 13th centuries. On our 2nd day in Siem Reap we hired some bicycles and went exploring some of the temples. If you were so inclined you could spend weeks there and still not see everything but one day was enough for us. Twas a good day and we saw the main attractions such as Angkor Wat -one of the most inspired and spectacular monuments ever conceived by the human mind, Bayon -a Jayavarman temple in the centre of all things temple and my personal fave, Ta Prohm -an Indiana Jones sty-lee temple complete with crumbling structures and oodles of sprawling vegetation.
While in Siem Reap we also went to the landmine museum which is rum by Aki Ra(a former child soldier for the Khmer Rouge) who estimates that he has personally cleared around 50000 landmines. Despite such efforts there are still a staggering 3 million mines still to be cleared from Cambodian soil. wowzers.
From Siem Reap we got a boat ride through stilted villages and across the very flooded floodplain of the Sanker river to Battambang. It's a very frenchy feeling town, although many of the buildings have seen many better days. From Battambang we hired a motorbike to ride the rather muddy road to the temple and killing caves of Phnom Sampeau- our first real look into the savage brutality of the Khmer Rouge regime.
After just 2 nights in Battambang we got a bus down to Phnom penh to stay by the side of the aptly named lake Kak in the North of the city. The following day we visited the Toul Sleng museum, a former school converted by Pol Pot's regime in 1975 into the detention and tourture centre -security prison 21 (S21). Of the 14000 people held there only 12 lived to tell their tale.

The wheels on the bus break down and down
After a 2 night stay we headed south to Kampot, a relaxed if slightly deserted feeling town near the coast. Unfortunately when we were just half an hour away from our destination the bus broke down. As we were waiting for the bus to be fixed/a replacement bus many people took other transport into Kampot. By the time the replacement bus arrived it was just myself and emma waiting. When it reached us the replacement bus' driver was a bit over enthusiastic with the turning around and managed to get the bus stuck in the mud! leaving us at the roadside with 2 broken down buses. Eventually the bus company paid for us to get rides into Kampot on motorbikes. The plan was that we would take a trip to Bokor national park but sadly the day we had the trip booked we were both ill and so didn't make it there.
As i said we are now back in Phnom penh. Since returning we have visited the famous killing fields of Choeung Ek where approximately 17000 men, women and children were executed between 1975 and 1978. It is a truly sobering experience (not that i was drunk i hasten to add!) walking past mass graves and seeing bones and clothing protruding from the soil. The central memorial holds some 8000 skulls in a glass case to forever remind people of the atrocities of the past. There is a great deal of animosity in Cambodia that not a single person has been tried for the crimes of Pol Pot's regime. However, legal processes are finally in action with trials of former high ranking Khmer Rouge officials due to start next year.

Wow, would you believe that has taken me more than 2 hours to write. You better enjoy reading it! There are more photos online although many are duplicates cos i couldn't be bothered to sort them out. Just time for me to say a big hello to big Chris B. there. you happy now? also hey to everybody else, i hope you are all on top of the world looking down on creation.

xx Matt xx

One night in Bangkok

And you've got yourself a very predictable blog title. However, although we are about to spend one night here this blog is actually nothing to do with Bangkok as we have only just arrived on a night bus from Koh Tao. But that bit comes later, for now lets start at the beginning.

In the beginning
There was rain -and quite a lot of it! After staying one night in Hat Yao we set off in the morning for Ko Lanta. Rather than book transport all the way there we decided to use public transport in an attempt to save money. After a taxi, bus, taxi, bus, minibus, boat, minibus, boat, minibus, van journey taking twice as long as the straight through option we were somewhat questioning the wisdom of the morning decision. Calculating our savings to be about 50p concluded lesson 1 of travel in Thailand -Just book a ticket all the way to your destination cheapskate!
In Koh lanta it rained, we got very wet driving around on a motorbike and then it rained some more.

Millions of beaches (beaches for me)
Beaches come in a can, they were put there by a man in a factory down town. Anyroad, I digress, after 3 nights of rain in Ko lanta we headed north to Krabi where it rained and we were starting to think that coming to Thailand in the monsoon season was probably not the best plan in the world. However on our 2nd day in Railey (near Krabi) the rain finally abated and we had 4 days of good weather to enjoy the views, walking, climbing, kayaking and beaches in the area.
After that it was a switch over to the East sieeeede to Koh Phanghan (you may have noticed that i can't quite decide whether to use Ko or Koh before the islands name and i doubt i ever will as I'm not sure Thai people have even decided yet but anyway I'm getting side-tracked again. right Phanghan. As neither myself nor Emma are very good at doing nothing on beaches we decided we decided to keep moving around in order to see more of the island. So for the 5 nights on Phangan we stayed at 4 different beaches as well as passing a fair few others on the way. Oh dear i forgot to close the bracket) and we seem to have doubly decided along the way, nevermind i think mistakes add character to a blog.

Dancing in the moonlight
Our last night on Koh Phanghan coincided with the full moon party in Hat Rin. It is basically a big ol' beach full of people with different types of music and various rather dangerous fire shows including drunken people walking across fire and drunken people trying to skip with a giant burning skipping rope. They say that the event usually attracts between 8 and 30 thousand people, sadly the crowd just wouldn't stand still for me to count them.
After Phanghan we moved up to Ko Tao for a few nights. The plan had been to do some diving but cost/time/if i do a padi now when will i actually ever need it considerations meant that we settled for a boat trip around the island with a fair whack of snorkeling mixed in. We also hired a motorbike to explore Tao's rater dodgy roads. Apart from that we just relaxed in the islands' relaxed atmosphere.

Yesterday morning we left the room to John the baby gecko and headed up to Bangkok. And here we are. There are a few more photos on the website.
xx Matt xx

We've found Nemo!!!

If anybody is still looking for him it turns out he's been hiding in the reefs close to Pulau Perhentian Besar -just off the Eastern coast of peninsular Malaysia.

So after what seems a very quick 2 weeks in Malaysia we are now in Thailand. Sungai kolok to be precise. At the train station to be even more precise. We're waiting for our train to Hat Yai and we failed to realise that there was a time change as we crossed the border from Malaysia so we have an extra hour to kill. Therefore to I have decided to use said time to write about our jungly and beachy adventures.

After our rainy days in the cameron highlands the day we left was beatiful sunshine. Thankfully it was also clear when we arrived in Taman (park) Negara (National) -Malaysia's oh so inventively named national park (in fairness it used to be called King George V national park, but was changed at independance). Upon arrival we took thge boat over the river from the park entrance from the small village of Kuala Tahan in order to make plans and arrangements for our time there. Having booked Bumbun Kumbang (a hide in the jungle) for 2 nights we crossed back over the river to spend the night and buy supplies.

Day one of our jungly adventures saw us walk on the world's longest canopy walkway -a rather wobbly contraption made from ladders, planks and ropes. After that it was back down to earth to walk to the hide. The walk was fairly short (only 11km) but not easy. It ran parralel with the main river for most of thge time so there were many ups and downs across the plentiful tributary valleys. The jungle was humid, pretty thick and had more leeches than you can shake a guidebook at. We reached the hide with plenty of time to cool off and settle into the hide. Although there was dung promising of elephants, sadly we saw no more than a few monkeys.

On the 2nd day we left some stuff at the hide so were travelling with lightened loads aiming for the caves located further into the park. Sadly a lack of signposting on the trails caused us to walk a superfulous 4km however this did result in us seeing a bear!.............footprint or 2. After backtracking we found the caves in time for lunch, a nice and cool spot, if a little full of bat poo. That night we shared the hide with 3 other people but had no major sightings.

Day three saw us take a different -and far less obvious path back to Kuala Tahan. After a short while we came across a river about 15m wide and 1m deep with no way across it. So it was off with the boots, socks and trousers for a good old wade across the river. That, along with sections where myriad paths criss-crossed, doubled back on themselves and generally made you walk round in circles with a confused look on your face slowede us down somewhat. We still made it back in time to catch a boat to Jerantut from where our train left that night, headed North.

After the train it was a fairly easy 2 bus and a boat trip over to the Perhentian islands -Two small islands 21km from the mainland in the South China Sea. We stayed on the smaller of the islands -Perhentian Kecil in lemon grass chalets on the rather strangely named long beach. I suppose it depends on your idea of what constitutes a long beach, but anyway, thats not the point. The point is.... Wait, what's my point again? oh dear, it seems i've lost my train of thought -nevermind i'm at the station, I'm sure it will be along soon. sorry, bad joke. Lets get this blog back on track. Haha. Sorry.

The island was B E A utiful with crystal clear warm waters. We spent 4 nights there, played a lot of volleyball, went snokelling and managed to watch the england match, to boot. The snorkelling, whilst not even comparing to the Great barrier reef was good fun and as i have said we saw 'Nemo fish' as well as plenty of everycolour fish (well thats what I call them) and a shark and a big old turtle. On the whole it was a thoroughly good few days and cemented Malaysia a big Browlesy thumbs up!

So we're now in Hat Yai and it is time to get some dinner and see if we can find somewhere showing the england game at 2 in the morning......hmm, wish me luck.
xxMattxx

If cabbages ruled the world

If my first impressions of Indonesia were- how shall i put it- well, how DID i put it, wow, i used "rather disappointed" -how very restrained of me, Malaysia couldn't be more different. I'll fill in the gaps in a bit, for now i'm going to talk about Malaysia. I love it already. We got a bus up from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur (KL), upon arrival we headed for the chinatown district where the majority of backpackers stay. A guy from one of the hostels saw us and guided us back to his hostel. From the outside it looked like an absolute dump, but inside was perfectly nice with a good atmosphere and loads of other backpackers.

Now, imagine you've never been to Ireland -I suppose a fair few of you haven't but if you have just imagine. Then imagine your travelling around and don't know every countrys' national day, and it just so happens that you arrive in Ireland on St Paddys day. You'd think that was pretty cool huh?. Well, now imagine that, not only is it St Paddy's day but it is the 50th anniversary of St Paddy's day!! Awesome hey. Well my friends, that (in a rather longwinded and slightly random metaphorical way) was what happened to us in Malaysia. Oh except of coarse we arrived into KL (the capitol) so in the whole imaginary thing you would have to arrive into Dublin.
So after a few drinks in the hostel we went out to join in with the street celebrations shouting Merdeka (meaning independance) at the top of our voices. We then spent the next day seeing the sights of KL as well as booking our bus up to the Cameron highlands where i am writing this.

Bus travel in Malaysia is 18249% better than in Indonesia- trust me, i did the math. It is cheaper, a lot faster, more comfortable and you don't get ripped off. Oh and people don't try to steal things from your bags. Now, as I say, we are in the Cameron highlands well Tanah rata to be precise and it's lovely. It's nice and cool with mountains, jungle, tea plantations and ok so it rains a fair amount but hey, we're British- we can cope with a few drops of rain. Yesterday we walked to a nearby tea plantation, learn't how to make tea -there are 5 key stages don't you know, and got rather wet. Despite the rain it was very nice- you can't beat a nice cup of tea. Today the rain has held off so we were able to do some walking of the jungle tracks. The views were by no means amazing but it wern't half nice to do a good bit of walking. Tomorrow we're off to the largest national park in Malaysia for more jungley adventures.

Right. Now for the gaps. I left you in Maninjau, from there we took a 34hr bus trip down to Bandur Lampung. I was a thoroughly enjoyable trip -NAT!!!. Our aim, as i believe i mentioned, was to visit the Taman National Way Kambas but either the tour organisers had all skipped town or they have been taken under the powers of the mighty cabbage over-lord. So it turned out to be the Taman National No-Way Kambas. We toyed with the idea of visiting the famous volcano to see if it was all it was krakatoered up to be but that was looking like it would be a tad too pricey. So with no-where else in our plans we headed to Jakarta. This gave us four full days in Jakarta which is roughly four full days too many. It did have a rather impressive shopping mall which proved useful for escaping the heat/smell of the city. Then it was on to Singapore aka. the Lion city. It is a rather impressive city and when your arriving from Indonesia you feel as if you've travelled into the future. We spent two nights there exploring the city and visiting the rather impressive (if a little too big) asian civilisations museum. After singapore, it was onto malaysia which I won't write about now on account of the fact that i have already done so.
There are at last some more photos on the website and more will follow in the not too distant.
xx Matt xx