Melbourne

The last stop on our journey home was Melbourne.  It was cheaper to fly via Melbourne rather than direct to Auckland, and as we had Nath's brother to stay with in Melbourne we thought why not!

We arrived after no sleep from Kuala Lumpur. The first stop on the way to Zane's was to the bottle shop where we bought some German and Belgium beers.  The rest of the day we spent doing washing and sleeping until the household returned from work. 

Day two Nath and I went into the city.  We met up with my cousin Aaron and walked around the lanes and had lunch there. From here we jumped on the free tram that goes around the city. It was pretty boring. I then met my school friend Emily for drinks on a cool rooftop bar. I bought one round of drinks for $47!!!! So expensive. I guess pimms at $13 a glass isn't the cheapest drinks to be buying.  

Day three Nath and I hung around Chelsea where Zane lives. There is a cycle path that runs the length of the coastline so we biked along part of it.  We had lunch in Mordialloc before cycling home. 

Later that afternoon we headed to the MCG to watch a twenty/20 match between Australia and South Africa. I was disappointed in my first MCG experience as there was no atmosphere at the stadium. Only 20,000 people there in a stadium that can hold 100,000. Also, the game was very one sided and did not create a close finish, the result was never in doubt.

Day four we headed into the city to the Queen Victoria markets.  We were surprised at the cheap meat prices and were hoping NZ might be similarly priced. Wishful thinking me thinks! We bought some lovely flat bread sandwiches which we ate in the sun before walking down to the river front.  Here I met another cousin for afternoon drinks and a long awaited catch up.  We returned to Zane's in time for BBQ dinner - first time we had had steaks in awhile! 

The last full day in Mellbourne was family day. We went with the kids to pick strawberries, but Nath and Zane did all the picking and the kids ate more than they collected.  After picking we were thirsty so went to a lovely winery called Montalto.  Here we drank Pinot Gris and ate pizzas.  They had a big grass area so the kids were able to run around and play which left us able to drink wine. The final stop was in Flinders - a playground for the kids and a coffee shop for the adults.

The next morning we packed our bags and had a twenty minute walk to the train station with our packs on! I'm glad it wasn't a hot day.  We met up with Emily for lunch in the lanes before we took a bus out to the airport to begin the final leg of our journey home.  

Kuala Lumpur

The last stop in our tourof Malaysia was the capital, Kuala Lumpur.  Luckily it was much warmer than the Cameron Highlands. By now we are pretty tired and are ready to be in one place for a while.  Therefore, we took a low key approach to KL.  We ate street food for most of our meals and in terms of sightseeing we didn't do a lot. We walked around the China Town and took the metro to the Petronas Towers.

Once there we discovered an amazing shopping mall so we spent some time looking through some very high end shops.  We then went to Merdeka square which is where the British were based when they occupied Malaysia.  

Later that night we had our overnight flight to Melbourne.  Our flight was with the budget airline Air Asia - 8 hours, no pillows, no blankets, no food or drinks! 

Cameron Highlands

We were in for a scenery and temperature change when we ventured to Tanah Rata in the Cameron Highlands.  We figured we had done enough beachy things that we should try something else. I instantly regretted this decision when we arrived to 15 degree weather.  I had to put on long pants and a jumper! I hadn't done this since living in London.  Right on cue the afternoon rains came just after we had checked into our guest house. This resulted in me nana napping until my hunger was greater than my need for sleep and we ventured out for lunch.  The rain had us rushing back to the safety of our room where we stayed until dinner time. We are such Nana's!

We set our alarm for 4am as we wanted to watch the All Blacks v USA. We got another hours sleep before we had to be up for our tour to the tea plantation and the mossy forest.  The tea plantation was BOH (best of highlands) and is owned by a Scottish family.  The granddaughter now runs the business.  The scenery was really beautiful. We were given a talk about how the leaves are cut and processed into tea leaves and tea bags.

From here we ventured into the mossy forest.  The forest is given its name due to the fact so much moss grows there as it is very damp as no sunlight penetrates through the trees. It reminded me of the NZ bush - very green, ferns everywhere, and moss! 

Our guide took us on a 50min walk pointing out cool plants as we went.  Our favourite was the insect killing plant.  It has a cone shape with sticky nectar that attracted insects, and once the insects were inside they couldn't get out.  The nectar is actually highly acidic and breaks down the insects. Very cool!!  

Unfortunately when we went up to the top of the Mountain (2000m above sea level) to lok out at the valley the clouds had rolled in and we couldn't see anything!!

 After our walk we went to the BOH tea factory where we watched workers in each stage of the tea making process.  At the end of it all we were rewarded with a cuppa and scones.  Yum.  This was the end of our adventure in the Highlands.  Today we were up early to catch a bus to Kuala Lumpur where I am hoping the weather will be warmer.

Sadly all good things must come to an end. We have two stops left on our world tour - Kuala Lumpur and Melbourne.

Pulau Langkawi

We had to back track a little as we changed our plans as we couldn't go to the Perhentian Islands.  If we had known earlier we would have gone from Koh Lanta to Koh Lippe and then onto Langkawi. As it turns out we went from Koh Lanta to Penang and then to Langkawi, and now we are back to Penang for a one night stop over before leaving for the Cameron Highlands tomorrow morning.

Langkawi was very chilled and we just couldn't be bothered doing much more than going to the beach. Our general pattern of the day was breakfast, change into togs, beach, too hot so retreat back to guest house with air con - getting lunch along the way, beach again late afternoon then watch the sunset at a beach bar. Repeat three times.  

On our last day it was raining so the beach was axed. A friend recommended a health & beauty spa so I looked them up and booked us in.  Nath wasn't so keen and apparently "I owe him" but at the end he decided "yeah it was good" so I'm thinking I don't owe him anymore. The spa was running a monthly special with a Malay massage, foot reflexology, coconut body scrub and yoghurt wrap taking two and a half hours for £30.  I thought that was pretty good value.

On the taxi ride back to our part of the Island we got dropped off at the night markets. Each night the market is set up in a different location around the Island.  Last night it was our towns turn to host it.  We went for our favourites first - chicken or beef sticks BBQ'd then apply ample amounts of satay sauce. Yummo!  We tried a host of other foods, including spring rolls with a sticky satay sauce and some fiery hot chicken and rice dish that resulted in us having to buy a drink and the guy cracking up at us! 

Today we had a 30min flight from Langkawi to Penang as the flight was cheaper than the ferry! Awesome. The fight itself was actually free, as in we didn't pay a seat price, but just had to pay fuel surcharge and airport taxes, resulting in both of us flying for £25.

We are very definitely coming to the end of our time travelling. After tonight we have two nights in the Cameron Highlands, one night in KL, one night in the sky, and then the rest of the time in Melbourne before landing in NZ very late on the 10th of November.

George Town, Penang - Malaysia

We have entered our sixth country on our world tour.  Not really that impressive when one day driving in Europe we went through three countries in about five hours of driving. However, we're not in Europe so to hit three countries in one day would involve a lot of flying.

Our 8:30am pick up in the mini bus was all good, but the arrival time of 5:00pm in Penang blew out to 8:40pm and resulted in us spending about ten hours in a mini bus, and two hours waiting in a grotty mini bus office in Hat Yai for the final connection to Penang.  Not my favourite day. Upon arrival in George Town (the capital of Penang) we went to get some dinner. Nathan really wanted to come to Penang for the street food so I had to oblige.  We found a neat set up at the end of our road and had Wan Ton Mee (wanton with pork and noodles).  We also tried some pieces of food from the lok lok stall.  They make kebab sticks and you can choose meat, or veges, or in my case spring rolls. Then if your stick is raw you cook it in the vat of boiling water until it's cooked, and then you get the most delicious satay sauce to pour over everything.  The kebab sticks are colour coded to match the price list. So simple. 

Old George Town is a UNESCO heritage town so we spent the day walking around the old town, checking out the buildings, the pier, and the street art.  It's was so hot - real feel 41 degrees! We visited an old Chinese house that even had its own temple.  Very flash.  

That night we went to the street food markets on the other side of town. By luck we walked past a restaurant on our way that happened to be playing the Kiwis league match so we had a beer while watching the league. 

The street food was so yum. We started with meat sticks and satay sauce, followed with a noodle dish (seemed a bit like pad thai) and an egg/omelet dish with prawns.  

The next morning we couldn't be bothered to get up to do too much.  We were a bit gutted as we had planned to go to the Perhentian Islands but had just found out that morning they have closed for the monsoon season (even though lonely planet said mid November). We cut our time in a Thailand short to get to the Perhentians and now it wasn't going to happen.  We spent some time that morning coming up with a new plan (which is why I am writing this from Langawi & why we have ended up back tracking a little on ourselves!).  We could have avoided the awful mini bus ride to Penang and gone to Langakwi from Koh Lanta had we known the Perhentian Islands had closed early. 

After replanning our trip we headed out to Penang Hill to take the funicular up to the top for a view of the Island. Many moons ago the British use to come up here to escape the heat. Very much a disappointment.  We went for the view but largely the view was obstructed by trees, buildings and smog/fog/haze. There were many tourist activities at the top - like having photos with poor animals, an Owl museum, restaurants and souvenir ships.  Not what I signed up for.  Nathan and I even refused to have our photo taken before getting on the funicular because we knew they would then try to sell it to us as a mug, plate or tacky fridge magnet.  Due to the bus ride taking an hour each way and the queues for tickets and then the que for the funicular this activity took up the whole day and upon return to our hostel it was dinner time and bed time. We had to be up early for our ferry the next morning to Langkawi. Again, not one of my favourite days on tour. 

Koh Lanta

We had a very short ferry boat ride to Koh Lanta. We arrived by mid morning and were in the swimming pool soon after arrival as it was so hot.  We had lunch at our resort and lounged by the pool area until late afternoon where we finally did some Island exploring and walked along the beach.  

Our resort was at the far end of the beach so we walked along the beach front into town.  We had a beer at a cool little beach shack before returning home to only just miss the monsoon rains! 

It was still raining when we woke up so I was not keen to hire a scooter as we had planned.  We spent some time booking accommodation for our next stop and having breakfast.  The rain eased and then completely stopped so we did stick to our plan of getting a scooter and seeing the Lanta Old Town on the other side of the Island.  Here the little houses were built over the sea.  We found an awesome hammock shop and ended up buying one even though there is no room in our packs!  

The day finished with a swim in our pool and beers on our little deck looking out to the bungalow in front (we couldn't afford a sea view bungalow!).

The next morning was an early start as we headed to Malaysia.

Koh Phi Phi

We had a two night stay on Koh Phi Phi.  We arrived at 1pm so we checked into our guest house and then went to the beach.  The tide was waaaaay out and we had to walk across a lot of sand to get to the water. Then we had to walk a long way out to reach deep water. It was really weird how shallow the water was.  Suited the Asians though who were wearing life jackets in water up to their knees!

On our last day we booked ourselves onto a boat trip encompassing snorkelling and visitng Islands and swimming with glow plankton in the evening.  

Our first stop was monkey island and a monkey literally grabbed the water bottle from the guy standing in front of me, ripped the cap off with its teeth and then began skulling back the water! I was aware that they are wild animals and carry diseases so I wasn't keen to get close, but some girls were picking up the babies, and some bigger monkeys were climbing up on people trying to run off with items like scarves and especially food and drink.

We then went snorkelling which was cool.  The boat driver threw some chicken in right where I was snorkelling and then next thing there is a fish frenzy right in front of me! Our next stop was Maya Bay (where the beach was filmed). Here we had time to swim and sun bathe.  The last stop was a slow cruise back to harbour as we watched the sunset and then waited for it to get dark enough to see the plankton.  Unfortunately it was impossible to get a good photo of the plankton. 

This morning we made the short journey across to Koh Lanta.  We will stay here two or three nights.  Currently we are finalising our itinerary as we might cut some Thai Islands in a bid to get to the Perhentian Islands in Malaysia.

Koh Tao

We finally arrived in Koh Tao after two trains and a ferry all the way from Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand.  We had no accommodation booked but knew we wanted to scuba dive.  We had read a lot of diving schools include accommodation deals with a diving package.  We walked up and down the main road checking out lots of different diving schools.  We finally settled on Sairee Cottage and it was the best decision ever! We ended up staying much longer than we had intended, partly because my diving took longer than it should of, and partly because we loved our little bungalow and sairee village. 

Back to my diving - on the first day of actually diving in the sea I didnt like it - I didn't like the feeling of going deeper and deeper underwater.  Then my mouth piece broke off (I may have chewed it off!!) and I had to change regulators underwater and I just freaked out.  So because I didn't complete the first dive of the day I could not go on to complete dive two, or dives three and four scheduled for the following morning.  My dive school was really awesome and let me join in with another group that were coming through (at no extra cost) and luckily this time I managed to complete my dives. I was so proud of myself because after that first attempt I really didn't know if I would be able to complete the course.  I'm pleased I managed to complete it as now Nathan and I are both PADI qualified divers and we can go diving together in NZ.  

Most of our time in Koh Tao was taken up with the diving course - three days of theory and two days of diving.  We had a day where we just relaxed out our resort pool and another day where we went to a nearby Island resort to snorkel. Snorkelling is so tame now compared to diving! We also spent a day at the pub watching the rugby and just chilling with friends we had met on the diving course. 

While in Koh Tao we celebrated our 11 year anniversary!!  Scary how fast that time has flown by.  

We are now spending tonight in Krabi which is just a transport hub between the islands on the East and West coast. Tomorrow morning we take a ferry to Koh Phi Phi as we start to make our way down the West Coast towards Malaysia.