Thailand
Arriving in Bangkok we got out of the airport and took a bus to a popular place for backpackers 'Khoasan Road' to find our place to stay. Although there were plenty of touts and tuk tuk drivers Bangkok felt much more of a relief after spending the last two weeks in India as the words 'no thank you' actually worked! During our time in Bangkok we did a lot of walking around exploring the different areas such as Chinatown and Little India, as well as enjoying the food from the many stalls and streetside cafes! We visited two monuments while we were here the Golden Mountain and the worlds largest reclining Buddha Wat Pho! After reading the 'freaky Bangkok' section of our lonely planet guide we decided to do something different from visiting temples and visited a forensic medical museum which was based on the other side of the river within the hospital area. However, firstly we managed to stumble upon (thinking it was the museum) a floor of anatomy. Here we observed many human remains (whole and parts) in glass cabinet displays including babies and conjoined twins. Whilst pretty facinating and kind of creepy, with no written description avaliable we sensed we wasnt in the right place and left to find the museum. The Forensic medical museum was just as facinating showing pictures and evidence from crimes (and again more body parts) demonstrating injury, murder and suicide with a section about the Tsunami. They had even mummified and placed one of Bangkoks famous child killer and cannibals in a glass display! After some good days of relaxing in the city we decided to move on to the Thai Islands.
Koh Tao and Koh Phi Phi
We took an overnight train from Bangkok to Chumphon to get our ferry over to one of the smaller Islands Koh Tao which is a popular and also the cheapest place to dive. When we arrived at the port we were surrounded by many dive schools and after hearing one that was familiar we wanted to check out we caught a lift to their resort. We stayed at Bans diving resort, and on the first day decided to begin an Open Water course on Scuba Diving. Our first few days were spent with a mixture of classroom lessons, homework and a 'tester session' in the swimming pool with our dive gear on before heading out to the open water, where we did four dives to get our certficate. Scuba diving has definitly been one of our highlights so far we got to explore many different dive sites around the Islands and on one dive we followed a giant turtle. Although we had to be careful of the territorial trigger fish which was known to come and 'charge and bite' at you if you invaded it's space too much! After finishing our open water course we decided to stay on to do our advanced so we could do some more interesting dives. One was a deep dive where we went down to 30 metres, a navigation dive, fish identification and a night dive! The night dive was crazy, we jumped in to the water in pitch black and made our way down the buoy line underwater with torches. Unfortunately I managed to find myself pretty disorientated not knowing which way up i was and spent most the time trying to hold petes hand while swimming around! At one point we swam without the torches this was pretty cool as the plankton in the water created a florescent lighting when we moved around and actually was a lot easier! Although most of the time was spent diving when we werent we chilled on the beach and did some walking around and at night we enjoyed some dinners which were literally on the beach, was lovely! Here we also saw our first thai lady boys!
After Koh Tao we decided to visit the Phi Phi Islands which was off the other (western) coast, after travelling all day we ended up spending the night in Krabi town before getting our boat to the Islands in the morning. Phi Phi Island was stunning and most of our time here was spent relaxing and exploring the Islands. We found a really nice chilled out bar called 'sunflower' where we could relax on the beach in hammocks and seating made out of boats! On one day we took a long climb up to the view point. Taking the longest way possible (by accident) only realising this when we found the proper way down actually led us straight to our guesthouse! But the climb was worth it as the view of both sides of the islands were great. On another day we decided to do a snorkelling trip to 'Phi Phi Lei', a small island which is protected from being built upon and also famous for being used during the filming of 'The Beach'. This was alot of fun as we were on a longtail boat for the day in a small group, stopping off at a few stops to swim and snorkel, where the water was really clear! On our last day we also walked around the coast of the island to another beach, 'long beach'. We really enjoyed Phi Phi although it did rain a lot which we guessed now after hearing in Malaysia were because of the floods affecting the south of the Island, this indicated a good time to leave to start our journey travelling accross to Malaysia and eventually Singapore!
Malaysia
After a very very long journey cramped in the back of a minivan we were glad to arrive at the border of Thailand and Malaysia where we could just walk accross! Although our plan was to go straight to the Perhentian Islands that day we had missed the last boat so caught a taxi to a city nearby called 'Kota Bharu' . We quickly found somewhere to stay for the night which turned our to be one of the best places to stay, whilst pretty grotty, the staff were really friendly and Pete got to play on the xbox while i entertained a kitten that would not stop attacking my feet! Early the next morning we took a minibus to Kuala Besut where we would get a speed boat to the Islands. The jouney over was absolutely crazy including trying to climb on and off a speed boat with your backpack, the waves were pretty massive and the journey felt like more of a ride at a theme park, getting absolutely soaked on the way! We arrived at 'coral bay' on the smaller of the two Perhentian Islands and took a short walk over to 'long beach' to find some accomodation. For the first night we stayed at a place called 'Rock Garden' in a chalet on the hills overlooking the beach and then we stayed at a cheaper place on the beach for our remaining nights. Here we just chilled on the beach as the waves were huge and the current was so strong! Swimming wasnt really possible but it was hilarious trying to battle with the waves. In the evening we had drinks on the beach and was usually entertained buy some sort of fire show.
After our time on the Islands we took the speed boat back which wasnt as fun as the first time the waves were even worse and we were pretty lucky to get off the Island as after our boat the rest were cancelled! We took a minibus to our next place Taman Negara, the worlds oldest rainforest and national park where we would so some Jungle Trekking! Taman Negara was amazing and also very hot, on our first full day we decided to do the Canopy Walkway, a 500m set of bridges suspended high up in the trees. This was so cool but pretty scary when you looked down! After this we took one of the trails up a hill to one of the viewpoints which was 344m up, the trail was pretty muddy on the way down which was hilarious trying to cling on to some rope down the 'steps' which were just tree roots. After this we took a longer walk back to the park headquaters where we came accross the leeches, which we were warned were everywhere! I totally freaked out trying to get Pete help me to get them off my socks as they tried to nibble there way through while Pete was the one that remained calm when we got back to park headquaters to inspect our feet for leeches unfortunately it was Pete that had been eaten and had a couple still attached to his skin! Later that day we had some dinner on the 'floating restaurants' on the river. Also while we were here we took a trip to visit an 'Orang Asli' tribe meaning 'orginal people' where we were shown around their settlement this was really interesting as we were told about how there are many settlements and these are the only people that are allowed to live in the national park. We also watched one of the member make a fire and had a go at shooting a blow pipe!
After Taman Negara we made our way to our final stop in Malysia, the capital city Kuala Lumpur. We really enjoyed it here as it was very different to where we had been travelling for the last month! The hostel was also a lot more fun and relaxed and we met a lot more travellers here. Our time was mainly spent walking around exploring, on one day we visited the Petronas Towers, the worlds largest twin towers, where we walked along a skybridge that connected them both and was around 48 floors up! We also walked around chinatown and the many markets and shopping malls spread accross the city. In one market we decided to try out the fish tanks where you sit and put your feet in and they eat the dead skin and stuff off. We got to choose between a tank with big fish and a tank with little fish. Pete decided that we should try the tank with the big ones! Putting our feet in was crazy the fish literally swarmed around your feet and legs biting at your skin! It tickled but sometimes hurt at the same time as some of the fish could fit around your little toe.. very strange! On our final day we got on a bus in the morning to make our way to Singapore!
Singapore
Arriving in Singapore was like arriving in London (they even have a version of the milenium eye) but a lot more hot and humid! For the last couple of days we have spent our time walking around the different areas in Singapore which mainly involve a lot of shopping such as Chinatown and Orchard Road. Singapore is full of shiny skyscrapers and just crazy buildings one which was three towers with what looked like a boat placed on top of all three. They also have really nice areas a long the river with air conditioned streets! Our favourite bit was definitly visiting Sentosa Island just off of Singapore an Island that used be a British military fortress in World War II which is now a resort island filled with attractions. We visitied Universal Studios which was awesome the park was had different areas such as New York, Madagascar, Far Far Away and The Lost world, it was a lot of fun! Now we are passing some time before we need to leave for the airport for our flight to Darwin tonight which we are super excited about!
Laura and Pete xxxxxx
