KL, a very tall building, and being attacked by mosquitos

Arriving in Kuala Lumpur, or KL as everyone calls it, was a bit different to arriving in Singapore. Even though the bus was 2 hours late, and it was dark, I refused to get a taxi and attempted to find the monorail station. This proved pretty difficult as there are no signs anywhere, and there are millions of people all trying to sell me another bus ticket, but I found it eventually thanks to a helpful local. On the way, I passed a guy with a motorbike and several cats sprawled across the seat. At the hostel I met 3 nice blokes, Kev, Ranj, and Tom, they invited me out to dinner, and although I wasn't going to drink anymore (had resolved to give up drinking when I got to Singapore, without success), we stumbled across a bar which was giving out free drinks to ladies, so my plans were foiled again.

The next day, after visiting a very nice art gallery with the lads, I went up the observation tower to see the city, it was an amazing view, KL has some great buildings. Afterwards, I decided to talk a walk in the small forest in the centre of the city. The forest has a paved path running through the centre, but it also has tracks running off the main path, and I'm the sort of person who cannot walk past an interesting looking path. This was a mistake.

I was a couple of minutes in when the mosquitos came out. At first I wasn't too bothered, I've seen plenty of mossies on my travels and have kind of got used to them. I soon realised these were different though, for starters they were HUGE, and jet black to make them look even more evil. If I waved my arms about, they wouldn't budge off me, and if I brushed them off the thing that they stick into you to suck your blood out detached from their bodies and stuck in me. In the space of about 6 minutes I got bitten 81 times. 81 times!! this isn't an exageration, I counted them afterwards.

The thing is with mossies is that, even if you are aware you are being bitten, it doesn't really hurt at the time. Its the next day when the itching starts. Even with my double defence of anti-histamine tablets and Tiger Balm, the itching was unbearable. It actually made me feel sick. It didn't help that I smothered myself in Tiger Balm, which is great stuff but also smells like you walked into a vat of cough medicine. On top of this, I looked like a chicken pox victim with big red blotches covering my arms and legs. Yuck.

Ignoring the mosquito bites, I went out that night with the guys and had a fun evening in a Karaoke bar. The Malays love karaoke, its sort of a national obsession. We joined in whole heartedly, and I did a great Ricky Martin song. We were pretty bad singers compared to the locals, but it was fun and we sang loads of songs.

The third night I went up the KL tower again, with Tom this time, to see the city at night. It wasn't as lit up as much as I'd hoped, but I guess it was a Sunday night and the office buildings were dark. We did get a great view of the Petronus towers though.

The towers are the largest building in the world, if you count the antennae. If you don't, Sears Tower in Chicago beats them. Also there are towers that are taller, the tallest being in Canada. Since when is a tower not a building? Anyway, it doesn't really matter, as the Petronus towers are mesmerising and beautiful. Tom and I walked over to them, and standing beneath them is so cool. They don't look that tall from far away, but when you are next to them they look massive. Your neck really hurts if you look right to the top. They are great.

Singapore

Singapore is great. It's clean, modern, efficient, like a futuristic city. It is so easy getting around, its nice to have a break from the 'challenging' public transport I've come across so far. They are a bit obsessed with air conditioning though, most shops and things are so cold I had to go outside to warm up!

I managed to find what is probably the friendliest hostel in the world. Within 10 mins of getting there the bar staff treated me like I was a long lost friend, and every night was fantastic, I met so many nice people and really felt at home. It was a bit of a shock being the only female in a dormitory with 5 blokes though, especially as I had been getting used to hotels from Bali & Thailand. But I had missed the dorms, there's nothing quite like the atmosphere if you get a good one. There's nothing quite like the (smelly and noisy) atmosphere if you get a bad dorm however. Luckily this was a great one.

The hostel where I was staying was right in the middle of Little India. The area was fantastic, the smell of spices was everywhere and the shops were selling lots of delicious looking food. They also had proper Indian music blasting out from the shops, each shop's music trying to drown out its neighbours, it was so cool, I felt like I was walking down a Bollywood film set.

So, most of my time was spent in Singapore socialising, and marvelling at the efficiency of it all. I also attempted not to break one of the hundreds of laws (almost anything slightly bad for you is illegal here, chewing gum and spitting comes to mind). Its definitely a big brother society, but the locals don't seem to mind. I spent an uninteresting afternoon at Sentosa island, a holiday resort only 10 mins away from the city centre. I spent a great evening walking around the river bank, taking photos of the lights reflecting in the water, and listening to live music. One of the pubs I went into here was an English themed pub, and they had it so accurate it was exactly like being back in London. It even had lots of blokes in suits and posh English accents, obviously straight from work. Singapore is a great place to recuperate and think of home, I even got a proper cup of tea, in a teapot!! And a steak pie with chips, and McDonalds. Its amazing what you miss when you are away from home for a long time.

On Holiday with Jenny

Jenny, my sister, came to visit me on holiday in Thailand for 10 days. It was a bit strange for me, having a holiday in the middle of my travels (I know most of you at home think I'm on permanent holiday, but its different. You feel different, you do different things. Its hard to explain).

Anyway...she arrived into Bangkok, and the first thing we did was to get conned into taking a river trip - the woman blatently lied to say there were no public river boats (which cost 9Bt), so we paid 300Bt for a long boat. It was worth the money though, as the boat took us round the canals. Bangkok is sometimes called the Venice of the East, and it was great to see the traditional Thai houses which looked like they were on the verge of collapse into the water. We stopped at a floating market, where we were the only Westerners there, and all of the signs were in Thai. We managed to point and use sign language to get the best chicken satay I've ever had. Also in Bangkok we did the other tourist sights - the extravagant Grand Palace, Lumphini Park, and back to Jim Thompson's house where I was happy to sit in the cafe whilst Jenny looked round.

That night we jumped on an overnight train up to Chaing Mai, in Northern Thailand. We didn't get much sleep as it was too hot and they didn't turn the lights off, so that was the extent of long-distance journeys for Jenny and I. In Chaing Mai we booked onto an day tour which took us to see an Elephant training centre, where the Elephants performed for us, and then we got to ride the elephants through the river & woodland. It was nice, the elephants were obviously all healthy and happy, and it was good fun. After the elephant ride, we went floating down the river on bamboo rafts, and then onto a carriage pulled by oxen. I don't think I've been on such diverse forms of transport all in one day before. On the way back to town, we stopped at a boring butterfly / orchid farm, and also at a more interesting snake farm. It was good to see the snakes, except they didn't look half as healthy as the elephants and the owners tormented them a bit for the tourist show. The snakes kept escaping out of the ring and heading straight towards the audience! We got to hold a massive snake as well, very scary!

After a couple of days in Chaing Mai we flew to the island of Koh Samui (2 hour flight vs 24 hour bus ride), and did nothing but sit next to the swimming pool for 2 days. Well that's not exactly true, we did visit the beach once, and marvelled at how deserted it was, we also went walking to the nearest cafe's / restaurants. We also had a Thai massage, which was great, the masseurs pretty much climb all over you and twist your arms / legs into weird positions. It was good.

Our flight back to Bangkok was great; we arrived at the airport, managed to catch an earlier flight and it only took about 20 mins between the time we arrived at the airport and the time we were in the air. In Bangkok we went on a shopping spree. We started at the massive Chatachak markets (over 8000 stalls), but it was very hot there and the stuff wasn't very good quality, so we moved onto the excellent night bazaar. If anyone comes to Bangkok you have to come here, not only does it have lots of stalls selling really nice things, its incredibly cheap, and has a massive outdoor food / beer court with a big stage and live music. It has a really nice atmosphere.

On Jenny's last day we attempted to go to the Oriental hotel for afternoon tea, but were refused entry because we looked too scruffy! Instead we ended up at a street-cafe in Chinatown, eating the weirdest noodle soup with strange things floating in it. You don't ask what you are eating in Bangkok, some things are even impossible to tell if they are meat or vegetable. If you have a strong stomach though, its great. I don't really, so I end up in McDonalds more times than I should.

Phuket, Koh Phi Phi and the Tsunami

I jumped on an overnight bus to Phuket, after a hair-raising motorbike ride through Bangkok (far more scary than anything in Bali, I had to ride side-saddle and thought I was going to fall off into the traffic the whole way). The bus ride was interesting as well. One good thing about it was that it was cheap, 17 hours on a bus for a fiver, I can't even get from Fleet to Woking for that money back home. The bad thing about the bus was that a couple of hours in, the air-con started to pump out steam into the bus. It was at this point that the girl sitting next to me showed me her guide book, which said that sometimes buses full of tourists are gassed, so the tourists pass out and all their belongings are nicked. On hearing this, the bus erupted with nervous laughter, and it actually improved the atmosphere, as everyone started joking and messing around. The driver couldn't fix the air-con, so decided to turn it off. Even though it was late at night, it was boiling hot and everyone was soaked with sweat, and extremely smelly. This was before he attempted to drive off with half of the passengers outside - a lot of people had gotten off the bus for a fag break, and the bus driver drove about 30 yds down the road before realising 20 people were running after the bus. As awful as all this sounds, it was a great journey, as it seems the worse the conditions of somewhere I go when travelling, the more friendly people are.

I arrived at Phuket, and felt a bit lost as everybody disappeared to their pre-booked accommodation. I spotted an Aussie guy, Dave, looking equally confused, and we decided to join forces and look for a hotel together. We quickly realised we had two main options; stay in a hotel where they filmed 'the Beach' (for those of you who have seen the film will understand why I refused to stay there), or a crappy, expensive hotel. We opted for the latter, and shared a room to halve the costs.

After a shower to get rid of the now caked-in sweat, we went for lunch with another backpacker, Charlotte. Well it was 2pm when we walked into a cafe, and we talked non-stop until we looked at our watches and it was 10pm. I was exhausted with talking! As we were heading back to the hotel we spotted a bar with only two people in it - the barmaid and a guy playing some music. We felt sorry for them and went for a final drink. By this time we were quite pissed and so the three of us decided to turn the place into a karaoke bar. Well the guy had a spare tambourine and a set of bongoes, so it would be rude not to, wouldn't it? It was another unexpectedly great night.

Phuket is a shitty town, so the first thing we did the next day (after the hangover) was to jump on a boat to Koh Phi Phi.

Phi Phi is a stunningly beautiful island, with a lot of scars. It was ravaged by the December Tsunami, half the town was wiped out and 1 in 6 people died. The devastation is still everywhere, rubble and piles of rubbish litter the landscape. The only people there were a few locals and backpackers who were volunteering to clean up the island. No conventional tourists, as there are no posh hotels left, and tour companies are actually discouraging people from coming, even though the island is desperate for tourists to come and spend their money.

For all of the devastation, the island had a really nice atmosphere and I loved it. As I said, it is still beautiful, you just have to look past the piles of rubble. Dave and I helped out with some volunteer work. Dave was helping to rebuild a reservoir. I helped out by snorkeling just off the beach to pick up rubbish and clean the place up. One afternoon I spent digging 'man-made objects' out of the beach. I swear we must have pulled up half a house, and that is only the tip of the iceberg. It was actually quite fun, like digging for buried treasure. Some of the objects we found were quite disturbing, people's shoes and clothes, lots of personal items. I found a toy snowman, and almost burst into tears! I got quite emotional on the island. Whilst we were doing this, I kept meeting people who had been on the island that fateful day, and heard some chilling stories. This all sounds totally depressing, but it wasn't, everyone was keen to get the island back to normal and as I said, it made for a great atmosphere. It was hard work, with crap tools and an obvious void of no government or charity money, it was only the backpackers doing anything. What the island really needs is just for tourists to start returning to it.

Dave's group of workers were really friendly, so we went out with them most nights, drinking (but only til about 10pm when we were exhausted from working). Two of the guys were travelling with a big wooden duck, named Graham. We managed to really piss them off by constantly hiding Graham in more and more ridiculous places for them to find. It was good fun.

I did do a dive on the island, I just had to as it was reputed to be one of the best sites in the world. It was certainly an excellent dive, and I saw my first turtle! It was amazing, I've been wanting to see one for months, and this one was gorgeous, really big. We also saw a leopard shark, which was pretty cool. The whole thing was captured on video by one of the divers, it is an excellent video and I bought it, so I'm sure I'll bore you all to death with it when I get home.