Malaysia

Hi again everyone! We hear it's cold and snowy back in the UK, not for us here though!

Good first impressions of Malaysia, clean, organised and easy to get around...but HOT! very hot! and humid! urgh! Spent a couple of days exploring Kuala Lumpur, spending a lot of time in Chinatown and Little India (cheapest areas with good food and lots of hustle and bustle!) as well as the obligatory trips to the expensive areas around the Petronas Towers - at least the trip up them is free!! Couldn't stay here too long though - too expensive! meaning we actally had to stay in a backpackers' hostel for the first time, rather than the surprisingly good cheap hotels we've been used to in Vietnam! Tried to do some shopping, but since neither us are any good at it, and since we weren't looking for Asian "fashion" (aka anything shiny), we didn't do too well!

Got our first taste of the rainforest just a few km outside KL, amazingly jungle-like considering how close we were to the city...though even more hot and humid! There was a cool canopy walkway suspended about 30m up in the trees allowing you to see the jungle from above, and also views back to the skyline of KL in the distance.

Managed to get a bit off the tourist trail by getting a random, unmarked, rickety local bus from a pretty much non-existent bus stop to a small town a couple of hours away on the coast. Stayed in a very basic A-frame "shed" in a forestry park surrounded by silvered-leaf monkeys, cheeky and tame, throwing things at the roof of our hut and trying to steal our food...and mosquitoes! The evening we arrived we went on a boat ride on the river to view some natural fairy lights...tree after tree full of tiny fireflies flashing about 3 times a second, all in time with each other...amazing, looked fake but when one flew into our boat we had to be convinced it wasn't a clever set-up! From our hut, was a series of trails through the rainforest and mangrove swamps...saw an amazing amount of wildlife in a relatively small area - loads of birdlife including egrets, herons, kingfishers, eagles and kites, 1.5m-long monitor lizards...(mating in the lake...seemed to be enjoying it - were oblivious to our presence!), loads of weird and wonderful crabs and mudskippers, a giant otter and an array of monkeys and macaques.

Next headed out to Borneo, oh my god - even hotter and more humid than KL! Convinced we were getting sunburnt even just on the 20 second walk from the plane to the terminal building! Made Kota Kinabalu (the capital of the Sabah region) our base for our visit, staying in a cool little hostel with very helpful staff. Another reason to keep returning here was to eat at the Filipino market - the day's catch barbecued fresh for you, smothered in chilli marinade and really cheap! Over the numerous visits have tried blue crab, prawns the size of lobsters, blue-spotted ray wing, whole baby squid and red snapper so fresh it still looked alive when he put it on the coals! All eaten in a sticky mess with your fingers (makes it even tastier!) on long tables on the seafront with the locals.

Spent a night on an island just off the coast of KK, it's a popular tourist spot during the day, but we hired a tent for the night and were the only people there, other than 19 locals who live at the other side of the island...and the wild bearded pigs and even bigger monitor lizards than on the peninsular! Fantastic to have a deserted beach to ourselves for the night with a bonfire and G&T! Woke up for sunrise (well, after having also woken up about 2am to move the tent cos it was raining too hard! heavy rain really is heavy here!) to enjoy the beach and some snorkelling with the pretty corals and fish before the crowds arrived.

Next went inland to Sepilok where there is an orang-utan rehabilitation centre. Tourists get to watch released orang-utans (and some of their wild-born offspring) return to an area near the centre for extra fruit and milk. Incredible to see them so close, they're so human-like, one of them has a 2month old baby who she plays with like human mothers would - apart from she could hold the baby's hands in her feet! Other young orang-utans were showing off their new-fond swinging skills to the visitors (and their parents!) and chasing away the wild macaques that come and try and steal the free food! And now Ben understands where his cousins come from...! Also visited a rainforest discovery centre near here where they have a botanical garden full of all sorts of plants endemic to Borneo, and with another canopy walkway from which we saw (and heard!) four enormous rhinoceros hornbill birds squabbling over the ladies!

From here we went further into the rainforest to the Kinbatangan River to try and find the wild version of the cuddly orange things! Sadly, we didn't spot any, but we did see a herd of rare pygmy elephants (not very pygmy - still about 8ft tall!), a crocodile, many different species of hornbills, loads of proboscis monkeys - weirdest looking animal ever - huge noses and beer bellies! All they need is a can of Stella and we understand how evolution made English football louts! Saw most of these from boats along the river, but also had jungle walks (day and night) where we saw some beautiful brightly-coloured birds (especially close at night when they were roosting, apparently not bothered by torchlight), a baby python (where was it's mother...?!), a tortoise and a scorpion - that our guide decided he should pick up and then put on Ben's arm - made him even sweatier than normal in the jungle! Thought the rain in KK came in severe downpours, but here is even worse! No chance of boat rides on a couple of occasions, and the jungle walks were mostly through mudbaths/under a foot of standing water! Sadly Kerry's camera died half way through the three day trip here, meant an exciting morning's camera shopping when we got back to KK.

Most recently have been to Mt Kinabalu National Park where happily, it's not so hot!!! Met another English couple on the bus, so shared the cost of climbing the mountain with them (one company has a monopoly on all things Kinabalu-related and charges you the earth....managed to do it cheaper than most but seems silly to have to pay so much to climb a mountain! Was definitely worth it though, was amazing and were very lucky with the weather. A pretty unrelentlessly steep climb up to a hut at 3300m from where you leave again at about 2.30am to be at the summit (4095m) for sunrise. Beautiful views over the lowlands and covering clouds made red by the sun. Was like looking out of the window of an aeroplane but with other subsidiary peaks around you. Thankfully had no problems with th altitude, or the bitterly cold winds at the top (who knew you'd want hat and gloves so close to the equator?!)...Nepal must have prepared us well! Didn't seem too bad when we got back down after a 2500m descent, so decided we'd explore some of the other trails in the park the next day - bad plan....made our legs 10 times worse!! And rained a lot too that day, have been getting used to walking with an umbrella - far too hot for waterproofs even though it's cool in comparison up there.

Now back in KK, flying out to Brisbane this evening, fingers crossed for less rain there...though have heard it may be rather hot...!

Photos for the last few posts

Hey everyone, sorry about the photo issues, finally found a place with fast enough internet and computer, so here goes, lots of photos to make you jealous!

Starting with the trip to Chitwan National Park, Nepal...

A photo from our first jungle walk, taken whilst hiding between two elephants, bit blurry but definitely a rhino, but it was pretty much dark and Kerry was shaking (surreal moment running through a jungle with elephants, chasing a rhino!). Also the elephant that we went on, a very bumpy ride, a gharial crocodile and proof that tigers really do live on the island (the beach was covered in the footprint, along with rhino, deer and human prints!).

As we've said we got to meet the elephants...

And pretty sunsets over the river...

And hairy lorries...!

Then to Agra and the Taj Mahal...nuff said!!

On to Vietnam, with New Year drunken celebrations on Cat Ba Island, Halong Bay, kayaking and the bay itself...

Hanoi Flower Festival, with 10ft fighting cocks...

The rice paddies and countryside around Ninh Binh...

Typically Vietnamese...women doing the work and wearing straw hats...they actually live up to the stereotypes!

Then on to Hoi An, with some of our culinary creations (the most photogenic ones!) and some of the tailors creations, and the Cham towers at My Son ("Me Sun")...

Our seaside visit to Nha Trang...and one of the big buddhas on the hill above the town...

Now have just got to Borneo, not had time to do much exciting yet so will update you when we've (fingers crossed!) seen some orang utans!!!

Vietnam - via Delhi

Hi again everyone...sorry for the lack of photos again, think there's a problem accessing our memory stick..too big for slow computers!!

Anyway, suppose we should fill you in on what we've been doing... we left you last in Agra before catching the train...ok so it was late and the time waiting for it to arrive was spent fending off begging street kids, but the free food on the train was fantastic, even with ice cream for pudding...we had been avoiding dairy to try and keep the bellies a bit more settled, but when its free!!

So then had a day's sightseeing in Delhi, decided to walk around like usual (explaining this to rickshaw drivers is a nightmare...and ignoring them gets you no further, they just accuse you of being racist - "Do you not want to talk to me because I'm Indian??"), unfortunately the majority of Old Delhi is closed on a Monday...ruling out most of the planned sights - Red Fort etc! Instead we headed first for the intellectual alternative - the Jantar Mantar, a 17th century observatory...a crazy array of building-sized instruments to measure everything astronomical...the exact time, the location and angle of the sun and moon, the distance from equinoxes and some stuff we didn't really understand about deciding on zodiac signs...all in all rather interesting (even just for the architecture) but rather taxing on the brain (had a lovely, but bloody expensive guide to help us...although didn't ask for him...thought he was the caretaker!) After the very grand India Gate (like the Arc de Triomphe), the presidential palaces (and the troop of monkeys in the grounds) and Connaught Place it was time to fly off to Vietnam, where we've been ever since.

Arrived into Hanoi on the morning of 30th Dec after dinner on the plane at 1.30 am and no breakfast!! Went to the cash machine and instantly became millionaires! 1 million dong is about 40 quid! Didn't give the city much of a chance as we wanted to head out to Halong Bay asap. Caught the bus there and got on a boat ready to explore the bay. A beautiful sunken karstic landscape with steep limestone islets, riddled with caves rising out of the sea. Spent New Year's Eve on the biggest island in the Bay (Cat Ba) and started off the celebrations with an Australian family and a couple of americans, pool and the local beer - 4 glasses for a pound! Headed to a more lively bar later, good job they handed round sparklers for midnight, else we would have missed it completely, think the cheap beer and local spirits did their job...next thing we knew it was morning!! no idea how we managed to stumble back to the hotel a couple of miles away, but we all made it!

New Year's day was spent nursing very sore heads, with a breakfast of pringles and orios, exploring the island and kayaking before getting back on the boat for a rather more subdued evening and night on the water. The trip went smoothly, as long as you took what you were sold with a large pinch of salt and just enjoyed it...the Aussies ended up in a brawl with the tour operator in the local police station...according to our tour guide "He's not a bad person, he just works for a bad company"!!

Back to Hanoi for even cheaper beer, 8 for a pound but some glasses did taste better than others...little quality control! Kerry ordered snake head for dinner...very brave, until it arrived and it was disappointingly just a local type of fish! and Ben was later offered $500 to share Kerry with a 14 year old-looking bookseller!! if he'd said $600 I'd have considered it...

Exploring the Old Quarter of Hanoi was fantastic fun, it's a series of streets and alleyways each with their own theme (silk street, bamboo ladder corner, sweet street, snail and frog street, snake- and ghecko-wine street) which were great to get lost down and worry about where you were later. There was a flower festival in the city, may sound boring, but 15-feet high dragons made entirely out of flowers are pretty impressive! Also went to watch a performance of water puppetry...a cross between local stories, Punch and Judy and musical pantomine, set in a swimming pool inside a theatre...very bizarre, but great fun!

Started our trip south with a short bus ride to a little, not that touristy, countryside town, Ninh Binh, which was a great place to explore the surroundings by bike ( it was completely flat, barring the limestone pinnacles, like those in Halong Bay, but rising from paddy fields, not the sea). Cycled about 50km getting very lost trying to follow a hand-drawn map between the local sights, but got to see village life, so was well worth it!

Experienced our first sleeper bus to get down the coast to Hue, not the comfiest night's sleep, the bed was fine, apart from being about a foot too short (we are very tall for here!), the humid, oven-like conditions and being thrown into the air over every bump, of which there are a lot!! Waking up in mid air is an experience!

Hue, the old imperial capital of Vietnam, was great and sunny...apparently the first dry day for the past 4 weeks! Lots of city walls, old buildings and pagodas interspersed with damn good food...tried frog, not just the legs, the majority, even what we think was the liver! It did rain in the evening, the first precipitation since we left the UK...no problem, just meant that we went to the closest cafe to our hotel for tea...run by an eccentric, but very funny woman, with great yoghurt shakes, cheap beer and tasty dinner!

Then it was off to Hoi An to blow our very well kept budget!! It is the capital of silk and tailors...over 500 in the town apparently, so had to take advantage of cheap labour and get 2 suits (Ben), 2 dresses (Kerry-surprisingly!), 2 coats, 2 shirts (Ben) and 2 pairs of trousers (Kerry) made to measure with two fittings in a day and a half!! Managed to do a deal with the woman looking after us, which included hiding a wadge of money in a suit pocket (so she could give the tailors a bigger cut and stop it going to the boss - at least that's what she told us!), got a free shirt and a big discount out of it, so everyone's happy! All looks amazing quality and great fun getting it done...since when do we enjoy shopping!?!?

Oh yeah and Hoi An is a really lovely town, very French with wide boulevards along the river and narrow streets in the old town, really enjoyed our stay here, especially the food, amazingly fresh seafood and local specialities. And we went on a half day's cooking course, learning how to make them...can now make fresh rice paper for pancakes, spring rolls and to turn into rice-noodles amongst other recipes! Got to eat all our creations, like seafood and exotic fruit salad, lemongrass and aubergine stew-like thing and pork and prawn spring rolls and pancakes - yum yum (not allowed to say that here, it means you're horny!!) Food kept getting better with the local coffee - incredibly strong and mixed with condensed milk to make it extra creamy and sweet! followed by pudding of chocolate cake and cocktails!

Had a morning's trip to My Son (a Cham temple complex dating from the 10th century), amazingly well preserved, especially considering the bomb craters dotted in between the towers!

Leaving Hoi An meant a return to the budget and backpacking lifestyle, now with much heavier bags! and a trip to the beach, in Nha Trang. Another night on the bus to get there. More bearable than the last as we were further forward and the driver was saner! After struggling to find breakfast (walking round for an hour -where are the croissants in a town full of French Expats?) we stumbled on a cafe offering scrambled eggs and bacon in a baguette...mmm!!!

Spent the morning walking along the beach and visiting the National Oceanographic Museum...not any old museum...half of it is an aquarium, with amongst others, green turtles, seals and sharks!! This made us hungry for seafood, found a place where you could BBQ eels at the table, again mmm! Afternoon spent seeing the sights, including another Cham temple site, with a 28m high tower about the same age as at My Son, and two giant buddhas 14m tall!!

Now we are in Dalat, in the Central Highlands, dubbed the Vietnamese equivalent of the French Alps in spring, more like Disneyland meets pine forest and rolling hills!!! A really disappointing town and area, filled with reservoirs with swan-paddle boats and gingerbread-house cathedrals! They do make their own wine here...no grape variety, so we later found out because a lot of it is mulberry! Good for the first part, deteriorates rapidly when you get near the salty, dried fruit that they add in at the bottom...weird!!!

Apart from that, food and drink in Vietnam has been amazing, all really fresh, flavoursome and lots of local specialities to choose from, hopefully will be able to recreate some at home. Haven't had that much weird stuff, not seen dog on the menu (just seen it being butchered) and haven't tried duck eggs with an embryo inside, fried crickets or snake!

Off to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City, but no one calls it that!) tomorrow so hopefully still time to find some interesting delicacies!!

Sorry this is a bit long, will try to update it more regularly in Malaysia when we get there in a few days.

Rest of Nepal and into India

More updates from our travels... though sorry no pictures cos the computer keeps losing internet connection when we try and upload them!
The rest of the time in the Kathmandu area we spent looking at more temples/culture etc, this time in Patan (just south of Kathmandu itself). The Durbar Square here, though similar in terms of style of architecture etc, was so much calmer, more organised and you got far less hassled by people trying to sell you stuff that it seemed a hundred times more enjoyable! Unfortunately it wasn't as sunny (apparently it's permanantly misty for all of December in the Kathmandu Valley!) but didn't detract from the atmosphere. Back at the Hotel everything had gone christmassy - fairy lights and mince pies for breakfast!! Were invited to Raj's house for dinner and to meet his family...was brilliant - as soon as we walked through the door we were plied with beer and copious amounts of really tasty home-cooked food that seemd to keep on coming for hours! Learnt to play a new game with his kids, think it was called "cannonball" - involded flicking pucks around a table to try and get them in holes in the corners - a strange cross of pool and ice hockey! - quite good fun though! Then we went off to stalk some wildlife in Chitwan National Park in southern Nepal. Staying on an island within the park which had three wild tigers living on it - sadly we didn't see them!!! just scratch marks, footprints and pooh to prove they really did exist somewhere! did get to see rhinos, 2 sorts of crocodiles, monkeys, deer, civet, lots of parakeets, cranes and a multitude of weird and wonderful bugs from walks, boat rides and elephant safaris - yep, we rode an elephant!!!! Had a bit of time to get to know the elephants one afternoon, learning about how they were trained, looked after etc....Kerry got to feed them and get spat at as thanks (the elephant was just upset she didn't have any more food for her!) and Ben got to experience getting on top of an elephant Mahoot-style - holding it's ears and being lifted up by it's trunk!! Muchos fun - if a bit wobbly trying to turn round to sit on it's shoulders!
After an early morning xmas eve jungle walk where we woke up a rhino, it was time for a three hour bus ride to the India border. A couple of things to note about travelling on Nepal's roads...
- horns are the most important thing cars can have - whoever's is most tuneful wins on the roads!
- they dress up their lorries in bright colours and designs - even give them afro's!
Then into India...
Possibly the most laid back immigration ever - 2 casual-clothed men sat at a wooden desk by the side of the road, one sleeping, one doing a sudoku! but they let us in so we won't complain!
Met up with a Dutch couple to get a taxi to Gorakhpur (the nearest place on the main train line), finally sorted out a ticket to Delhi, but had to put up with Indian "queueing" - elbows had to be employed, even against old women, to avoid being trampled and bundled out of the way! Thankfully the train was on time, well, only half an hour late (instead of the 6 hours late that many trains were!), cos Gorakhpur really didbn't seem the most exciting of places to spend much time...The train was great though, clean and comfortable, good food...good job when we were on it for 22 hours!! Got there 4 and a half hours late, which meant we didn't have time to see anything that day before leaving early the next morning to come to Agra.
Arrived here (Agra) yesterday and spent the afternoon at the fort - a collection of very impressive red sandstone and white marble palaces, fortresses and mosques, with monkeys running around and views over to the Taj Mahal. Which is where we've been today! So much more impressive than you imagine from the pictures! Intricate carvings and delicate inlays of semi-precious stones everywhere you look, and not unbearably crowded early in the morning. Think we should set up a business though - apparently blonde and ginger English people make very good subjects for Indian tourists' photos...we must have been asked to be in tens of them these last couple of days!
Heading back to Delhi tonight for a whistle-stop tour of the sights tomorrow, then we're flying to Hanoi in Vietnam...will update you on that soon!

Kathmandu, after trekking

Ok so here is our first update since we've been away. Apparently we could have used the internet in a few villages along the way, but couldn't be bothered to guess when the power cuts were going to happen each day!

First couple of days in Kathmandu, being tourists and dealing with the crowds (mainly of guides wanting to take you trekking or people wanting to sell us hash!) Met our guide, Raj, at the airport, saved us having to negociate the mass of taxi drivers trying to rip you off, then had a couple of days to ourselves round the sights of the city...big culture shock, huge traffic jams of pedestrians, rickshaws, bikes, cars, goats and cows accompanied by LOTS of horn honking! Visited Durbar Square among other places in the city centre, large collection of temples etc, again with people selling you everything under the sun.

So, we've completed the Annapurna Circuit, 21days (well half days...we only walked after lunch on 3 days...v. relaxing and not too stressful, that's not to say easy, especially on the legs and lungs as we got higher!) of beautiful weather and the most amazing scenery. Didn't quite realise how high the Himalayas were...

We started off from around 790m (Besi-Sahar a "large town" at the end of a very long bumpy road, only partly surfaced) climbing gradually up the Marshyangdi Valley from lush rice terraces through pine woodland to high glacial moraines, with views of huge waterfalls and the Manaslu and Annapurna ranges. So few tourists along the way it almost seemed like we had the whole area to ourselves, apart from all the donkey caravans taking supplies up and down to the villages.

Had good sightings of wildlife, including Langur monkeys and Macaques, eagles and vultures and big lizards, unfortunately no good photos!

Had an acclimatisation day in Manang (3500m - day 8) where we were both ill, don't know what it was we ate, but immodium proved very useful! Then carried on to climb higher, with Kerry looking like a German in her bandana and sunglasses, all she needed was a pair of walking poles!

The altitude brought on no adverse effects, apart from making us far more puffed, really noticing the thin air over 4000m, this did however bring new wildlife like yaks and musk deer, unfortunately no snow leopards though. It got much chillier, especially at night, where yak poo fuelled fires were much sought after...hot shit! Good job we weren't ill up there as toilets were unusable as they were frozen!

Stayed at 4800m on the last night before crossing the highest part of the trek, Thorong La pass (5416m), with a pretty chilly start at 6.45 am! Made it to the pass at about 9am and celebrated the feat with photos, no drink 'cos of frozen water, half a Mars Bar and two Italian blokes, before starting the v. steep 1600m descent. Big change to the landscape, with Tibet-like barren desert over the other side.

Had to have beer that night to celebrate, Everest Beer naturally... no-one warned us that at this altitude it explodes when opened and you lose half the bottle...like a champagne bottle in cartoons! swiftly moved on to Tuborg, seemed to be much better behaved!

Descended down the Kali Gandaki Valley, which turns into the deepest valley in the world, between Annapurna I and Dhaulagiri, two 8000-ers, with the valley floor down to 2200m. This side of the trek was far busier as many people come to do shorter treks due to "roads" and and airport! We actually had to share our guest houses with others...although the company was generally good!

Passed through the "Delightful Apple Capital of Nepal", otherwise known as Marpha, providing us with amazing cider, beautiful apple crumble (for breakfast!) and rather whiskey-like apple brandy...good night as a bottle was only 200 rupees (Less than 2 quid). The apple theme continued down the valley from here, with other places serving PURE apple juice...literally pureed apple...gorgeous, no need for the vitamin tablets we'd brought in case we were lacking! Also had more apple crumble this time spiced with nutmeg, cinnamon and cardamom...yummy! Oh yeah and dried apple!

Had a day off in Tatopani (1300m) (means "hot water") where there are really hot hot springs, hotter than a bath...and never gets cold, and only 30 rupees for the day! Then the rest of the day was spent with cards, beer and tasty masala roasted soya bean mix. On the way here we were lucky (?) enough to pass by a sacrificing ceremony of two sheep because it was the day of a full moon!!! Actually heads being chopped off with a rather large knife next to the path, even the locals passing by stopped to watch...no photos of this for obvious reasons!

Then it was time to climb back up again, though only to 3210m this time, to the top of Poon Hill, just above Ghorapani, the compulsory tourist thing to do - witnessing sunrise and sunset over the Dhaulagiri and Annapurna ranges. Incredible sights, even if we did have to set off at 6am and cope with about 30 other tourists...busy!!!

The way back down was through huge rhodedendron forest/jungle, then back into rice terraces at the bottom. Arrived in Pokhara, Nepal's second largest city, to end the trek and have a day of relaxation by Lake Phewa and eating meat!! Lots and lots of meat, with no carbohydrates in sight, apart from beer! Really good change from near vegetarianism over the last three weeks!

The trek was made so much better by the insight and organisation of our now friend Raj, who meant we didn't have to look after anything...big changes to come!!

Now we are back in Kathmandu, we're off for more sightseeing before going to Raj's house for a goodbye meal and then on to Chitwan National Park for wildlife spotting!

Hope this finds everone well, will update again soon. And if we don't get round to it in time, Merry Christmas!