Well a very brief stay in Bangkok was enough to remind us why we're not massive fans of the Khao San Road so we booked our bus ticket to Koh Tao as quickly as possible. Judged to avoid the hoards of people making their way to Koh Phangan to the full moon party (we decided we're too old or just not cool enough for that) we made our way to the bus stop looking forward to our bit of relaxation time. Amongst stiff competition from Vietnam, this may qualify as the worst journey yet! First, we were left at the side of the road for an hour and a half with only rats and cockroaches for company. But the bus, when it came, looked nice so no harm done we thought. At 3.00am we woke up to shouts of "Koh Tao, Koh Tao" so hastily got off the bus. Another wait at the side of the road where we witnessed some poor sod who mistook the stop for a toilet break and saw the bus leaving without him but with his bags! A pickup truck eventually came and took us to the harbour where a bench and extremely spicy pot noodle was all we had to keep us entertained for 2 hours until the boat came. But we made it to Koh Tao, phew, 14 hours after leaving Bangkok!
We stayed for 4 nights in a lovely hilltop villa, looking over Sairee beach, which was a lovely break from some of the less than luxurious places we've been staying in. This was taken at one of the beaches in Koh Tao, on a day when we hired ourselves a scooter to explore the island. Some amazing, remote places we'd love to come back to, especially shark bay. Our stay was slightly marred by the fact Steve started feeling ill, which we think turned out to be Dengue Fever, probably caught from a mosquito in Cambodia! High temperature, aches and pains and most worryingly for Steve, no appetite! Just as we started worrying enough to think about seeing a doctor he started feeling much better and apart from feeling a bit tired sometimes he's fine now.
We headed over to the Andaman coast next in search of better weather. This is one of the islands, Koh Hong, just off the coast from Krabi where we had a fantastic day snorkeling and relaxing. Steve didn't feel quite up to diving but the visibility even just snorkeling was amazing. We got quite excited spotting big tropical fish. No sea turtles yet, we've got fingers crossed for Indonesia...
Our first stop in Malaysia was the island of Penang - not quite the same as Koh Tao - it's like a city with a population of 1 million. We'd read it was a fantastic place for food and experiencing different cultures and it certainly turned out to be just that.
This was a lunch stop in Little India where we had to do a lot of pointing and gesturing and somehow ended up with this great feast. They bring you a banana leaf and pile on rice, popadom...and that was the end of the things we recognised! Decided eating it with our hands as the locals do was a step too far, much more enjoyable with a fork! We made the most of our time in Penang, visiting lots of temples and the botanical gardens as well as treking in the national park. For me, I'll remember Penang for the heat, the hoards of monkeys and the excellent Chinese, Indian and Malay food. Though perhaps we missed out as we didn't feel the need to try fish head, bull testicles or frog curry!
Running out of time now, we made our way to Kuala Lumpur for a 3 day flying visit. This is Batu Caves, which is also an Indian Shrine. Thankfully we visited the day before Deepavali when it apparently gets swamped with visitors, celebrating the new year.
Also managed to drag Steve around the bird park which turned out to be a great place. It's the largest free flight aviary in the world so you are surrounded with some very foreign looking birds as soon as you go in. A huge blue pigeon was our favourite but thought this picture was quite funny...
Perhaps our favourite day so far included a trip to the 86th floor of the Petronas towers, once the tallest building in the world. Amazing views over Kuala Lumpur... and quite hard to photograph as its so high!
The Chinese Thaen Hou temple in the afternoon was a great place to escape the rain and read about characteristics of people born in the year of the rat and the tiger. The best part of the day was a meal in the revolving restaurant at the top of the Menara KL tower, another skyscraper. Wonderful buffet from oysters (which we weren't too keen on) to sea bass and chocolate brownies. The view kept changing as you rotate around and this was our favourite view of the Petronas Towers.
We're now in Singapore for one night before catching our flight to Bali, where we have 10 days before coming back to see a bit more of Singapore. Hopefully won't be so long til the next blog :)
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