'Pen in hand'

Penang 08/06/2013 - 11/06/2013

Day 1

We arrived in Penang and found a cheap dorm room, some guys had told us that there was a festival in georgetown. We went exploring, the festival actually runs all month, we had arrived on the opening day and there were hundreds of people flying kites of all shapes and sizes and playing drums. Food stalls were everywhere, it felt like a really nice welcome to a city that I ended up falling for.

All around the city there were buildings with various art installations and random collections of things that were involved with the festival. All of them were free to enter and there were random treasure hunts set up around the city.

In the evening we found somewhere that sold cider, I can't tell you how excited I was. Well... turns out carlsberg have made a 'Cider' called Somersby, it's actually never seen an apple. It reads on the ingredients, apple juice from concentrate and sugar :( basically it tasted like apple tango. AHHHHHH I was angry! Still am actually... bahah

Day 2

More exploring the city and the random hidden parts it had to offer, the food here was second to non. I could of happily stayed in a food court all day trying a bit of everything. Malaysia = FATTY!!!

We tried some homemade Indian sweets (I couldn't tell you what they were) and visited a toy museum.

 CREEPY!!!!

The first edition of superman comic, apparently worth 2.5 million, woah!

Day 3

Mostly spent sorting out our Thai visa but in between we managed to find a few interesting things while we waited.

After we had picked up our visas, we took a bus out to the national park, unfortunately it was quite late in the day, we didn't find much before getting hungry and heading back. We found a waterfall that was marked on the map but i don't really think you can call this a waterfall...

Yeah!!!!!!?

We left early the next day for Langkawi. We'd devised a route that meant instead of getting the ferry straight from Penang to Langkawi, we got a ferry, then a bus then a taxi and then another ferry. It worked out half the price so we set off. The whole day went without a hitch and everything was perfectly timed.

Paradise on every 'Per inch of the islands'

Perhentian Islands 05/06/2013 - 08/06/2013

Day 1

Minibus to the ferry port, the driver was a completer lunatic. He stopped and picked us some wild fruit on the way, it tasted like shit.

The boat from the ferry port to the islands was BEAUTIFUL. We were in paradise.

We found a little basic chalet on long beach, we had sea views, pretty luxurious, it was the most expensive accommodation we'd stayed in at 60rm a night, but even that was only 12 pounds a night. (The keyboard on this netbook doesn't have a pound sign, grrr)

We spent the day swimming in the amazingly clear and warm water, in the evening we took a walk to 'Coral Bay' which is on the other side of the island. I was freaking out because I had seen an absolutely massive spider hanging above my head in the jungle which you go through to cross the island.

We ate on the beach watching a lightening storm in the distance, i will never forget how beautiful this was!

The return back was the most horrible experience, we hadn't thought to bring torches with us and so we had to walk through the jungle in the dark. Olly was fine, obviously having seen a spider the size of my face earlier that day I was actually squealing like a little girl. Olly has never laughed so much, I don't think I've ever been that scared and he definitely hasn't seen me that scared, every movement or sound was freaking me out. In hindsight it's hilarious, not so much at the time.

Day 2

Not so much to report, we wen't missioning across the rocks that boarder the islands coast. Olly had to carry his bag above his head to stop it getting wet, we bought a waterproof bag the next day.

Mr coconut.

This guy joined us in the evening he was munching all the moths by our light.

Little and large.. haha. The little moth is UK size

In the evening we had a few drinks on the beach, Olly was with a couple of guys playing with a fire staff. I regret having no photos of this, it was wicked. :(

Day 3

We rented snorkel equipment and wen't off in search of some underwater magic. I don't think either of us were prepared to come across 5/6 baby black tip reef sharks. One guy said he'd seen 11, we all agreed we were glad we didn't bump into mummy and daddy.

It was a little frightening but mostly just amazing. 

This was the single most amazing evening EVER.. why? Well we crossed over the island again (this time actually equipped with our head torches) to go and catch the sunset.

These pictures say it all...

Olly got annoyed with the cloud blocking the sun, i actually thought it was quite cool. We decided it was like the sun getting changed and quickly popping behind the cloud for some privacy :)

The evening ended with a BBQ, I ate Kingfish and Olly had Barracuda, YUM!

We leave tomorrow to go to Penang. The islands were beautiful, but neither of us really sunbathe (and that's pretty much all there is to do apart from drink and eat) and they were quite expensive in comparison to everywhere we'd been. I would love to come back here with friends on a holiday though. It was breathtaking. 

'Get your camera-on the highlands'

Cameron Highlands 02/06/2013 - 04/06/2013

The drive here was beautiful, and when we finally got the 'Tanah Rata' in the highlands it was a tiny little village with mountains towering around all sides. I actually fell in love with this place within the first second of being here, mostly because as soon as we stepped off the coach there was a chill in the air, hoodies on we went walking to find a hostel. By night it was cold enough to wear clothes and sleep under a blanket, it was a comforting feeling to need to wrap up at night, something I didn't realize I'd missed so much.

Day 1
Today we had met up with Meika again and the three of us decided to go hitchhiking. There was only one main road through the mountains so it was easy to hop on and hop off.

Our first stop was a strawberry farm, unfortunately it was school holidays so they wouldn't allow us to pick our own :(. I was actually sick of seeing strawberries and strawberry memorabilia by the end of the day, it was EVERYWHERE!! I think i counted over 20+ strawberry farms on a 12km stretch of road.

 Strawberry smoothie.

 Strawberry umbrella?

We hitched a bit further but the traffic got so bad because of the school holidays we decided to get out and walk.

We found a stall selling 'Toddy Palm' it's some kind of strange fruit, tasted like licorice and was so refreshing having just walked 3km.

Next stop a random mushroom farm, this was my favorite. I have a soft spot for fungi ;)

Still trying to just pick one strawberry...

Ahhhhhh!

We then found a cactus farm which was pretty cool. I've realized by this point there slightly obsessed with 'farms' of any sort...

Haha

Next stop of the day was a ... yeah you guessed it a farm. A butterfly farm :)

 Some of the butterflies were enormous.

 I managed to pick one up :)

 I had to Macro this dudes face, he was having a staring showdown with us!!

The frog families.

We hitched back to Tanah Rata and had the best food we'd had on our travels. It was an amazing Indian place, we wen't back several times. We decided after this to Hitch to a Aborigine village which is marked on the map, in total we spent 3 hours looking for it. We finally bumped into a guy who told us that it didn't exist anymore, even though they advertise it on the tours, we couldn't help but laugh that we'd been trekking for so long in search of something that hadn't existed for over a year. 

 A random bathtub full of courgette's? Totally normal...

This made me laugh...

Such a wicked day.

Day 2

It had been pretty gloomy most of the day, Olly and I felt pretty brave though and we knew we couldn't miss out on seeing the tea plantations, so although we thought a storm was on it's way we hitchhiked again to see the tea plantations.

We ended up in a mini van with an Indian family, Ponita and the monkeys. Hitchhiking was fun! It's pretty exhilarating just jumping in a car with random people, we ended up meeting some real characters.

As we suspected the storm came in fast, we actually got stranded here for about two hours as the rain was so heavy we couldn't stand in it to hitch back up to the village. We drank a pot of every tea on the menu and then braved it and wen't out in the rain to try and get back to our hostel. Luckily we were only waiting 5 minutes before someone stopped, again such a fun mission we felt truly stranded at one point, but we made it back in on piece.

Olly's sad face and dodgy moustache as we got stuck in the storm. It's a shame we got no good photos of the tea plantations but we tried! :)

 Tomorrow we leave for the Perhentian islands. Bye bye rain.