Under-estimating the popularity of climbing Mount Kinabalu, we neglected to book our spots until it was too late, and so had to be content with the stunning views of the giant we enjoyed during our bus ride from Sepilok to Kota Kinabalu. At some 4095m, the mountain soars over the surrounding area, cloaked in mist like a giant slumbering dragon. We've agreed that we'll have to come back and complete the climb at some point (although I'm secretly quite relieved we weren't able to do it on this occasion – it looked massive!)

As a result, we had a couple of extra days on our hands, and chose to spend them in Kota Kinabalu, the biggest and most prosperous town in Sabah. We were planning on seeing the local sights and spending a day snorkelling off the coast in Tunku Abdul Rahman National Park, comprising a series of islands which offer the best chance of seeing marine life close up in SE Asia.

Sadly, fate intervened, and I returned from the jungle sporting a rather attractive red rash on my arms, legs, chest and neck. It seemed that my over-zealous application of a Tiger Balm-based insect repellent had resulted in a pretty sizeable allergic reaction, which left me feeling tired, sore and irritable. After a day of antihistamines gave no respite, we decided to pay a visit to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, to a) make sure I hadn't brought back anything serious from the jungle, and b) try and get rid of it as soon as possible. Malaysian hospitals seem a lot like British hospitals except they're more efficient, and A&E has a pet cat. Aside from this hygienic blind-spot, it was a relief to speak with a doctor (in English!) and within an hour and a half, I had been given a blood test, got the results (no dengue fever, hoorah!) and been given treatment, in the form of a hydro-cortisone shot.

James maintained that I was just being a hypochondriac, that it would've gone away by itself given time. He's probably right, but travelling when you're not feeling well is never much fun. Besides, this was the man who told me the cut on my finger was 'just a scratch' when I ended up needing 5 stitches, so I'm happier trusting my own judgment on such matters!

I was pretty tired and grumpy for the next couple of days, so we decided against the snorkelling trip and instead hung around the town, visiting the delightfully 70s Sabah Museum and Heritage Village. The museum itself was interesting, although the highlight for me was being asked to pose for a photo with a teenage schoolboy, who then proceeded to show off the photo to all his friends – before he was even out of my sight! The Folk Village showed all of the different types of wooden longhouse that the different native tribes live in – they all started to look the same after a while, although the highlights were the one with the natural trampoline, and the one with the collection of skulls in the roof, to ward off evil spirits. Looking forward to seeing a real longhouse when we get to Sarawak!

My favourite ride at Barry Island Fun Fair has always been The Jungle Ride. You sit in a plastic boat in a couple of inches of murky water and wobble through a cardboard wilderness as a series of plastic animals take it in turn to pop out from behind trees and bushes. It's awesome.

Travelling up the Kinabatangan River in Borneo is kind of like The Jungle Ride. The water is just as murky but the boat is a little faster, the wilderness a little wilder and the animals a little furrier. Our stay on the river definitely ranks up there as one of my highlights of our trip thus far.

From base camp near Sepilok, we drove for a couple of hours over gravel roads to a small village on a river where we loaded our packs and supplies onto speed-boats that took us upriver and into the wilderness. On the way up the river we spotted our first wild orangutan, sitting in between two branches of a fig tree about 15 metres up over the water. As we slowed down to stop at the bank beneath him he took a look down at us, then resumed his lunch - slowly chewing his way through branch after branch of the tree's fruit.

'The Man of the Forest' is a solitary, territorial animal, and so spends most of his life on his own. Each time we saw orangutans over the next few days, slowly moving through the trees or sitting watch over the river with their soulful dark eyes, it was hard not to feel that they might be lonely, especially in contrast to the happy, playful packs of macaques roaming the treetops.

Over the next few says we set out on a number of dawn and dusk boat rides up and down-river, one day trek into the jungle and finally one night trek. We saw the most wildlife out on the river (orangutans, long-tailed macaques, proboscis monkeys and gibbons, as well as plentiful hornbills and egrets and even one incredibly menacing estuarine crocodile) but the treks into the jungle were just as exciting.

The rainforest is unlike any other environment I've experienced. As you step out from the safety of camp you can feel some very basic survival instinct flip into high gear as your brain struggles to process the sheer density of new sights and sounds, sorting the dangerous from the mundane: screaming cicadas, whirring mosquitos, the crash of foliage as birds move ahead and all around you the shifting green shadows of lianas, leaves and ferns. Through this aggressive terrain our guide strolled barefoot, only slipping on low rubber shoes at night in deference to the fire ants.

Sarah coped with the stresses of the jungle incredibly well during our stay, especially considering she doesn't like camping, has never been hiking before, and is morbidly afraid of half the things we were actively looking for. Creeping around in the jungle during our night trek with eyes wide and shoulders tensed, her head torch was like a strobe-light as she scanned the branches above her for opportunistic pythons and spiders, but by the time we got back to camp she had the biggest smile of all of us at the things we had seen. (Of course this made it all the more ironic given her subsequent delayed 'reaction' to the experience, but she'll fill you in on that in her next post)

Over the last several hundred years the rainforest has been eroded by various colonial endeavours – tobacco and rubber plantations, hardwood logging – and is now further threatened by the modern blight of palm oil plantations. Oil from the palm's fruit can be used to make cooking oils, soaps, and even bio-fuels, and these plantations now cover the majority of all land in Borneo. Ironically, this actually makes it easier for us to see some wild animals as they are concentrated in a smaller area. Other animals that need more space like elephants fare less well, and the government is struggling to balance the needs of their developing nation (and the benefits of a renewable energy source) with the protection of these endangered species. As we drove home in our minibus, stinking and filthy from the jungle, through the window we saw islands of rainforest in a sea of palm plants, and wondered which way the tide will turn.

The first leg of our Borneo tour! We arrived in Sandakan late on a Wednesday night after a short flight from KL. The town was pretty deserted, but we were easily able to find the place showing the England game by following the cheers. This local pub had really gone to town on the event, and both James and I were made to pose with the World Cup replica trophy the landlord had created. Ingeniously, he had also hooked up a projection screen on the building opposite, so we could watch both matches at the same time.

It was a nail-biting game, made more so by the oohs and aahs of the party of locals enjoying a hookah pipe at the table next to us. One of these men won 10,000 Malaysian ringit (about £2k) as a result of a bet he'd put on England and USA emerging victorious. Pronouncing us lucky charms, he insisted we enjoy a beer on him before we were allowed to leave.

Sandakan once boasted the world's greatest concentration of millionnaires, though there's little evidence of that today. Now it's really just a jumping-off point for exploring the local jungle. We used the local bus to head to Sepilok, home of the Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre. This is one of only four orangutan sanctuaries worldwide, and is particularly necessary here. Thanks to logging and the ever-expanding palm oil plantations, the “man of the forest's” home is rapidly being destroyed. The apes are brought to the centre to be rehabilitated into the Kabili-Sepilok Forest after getting lost or being kept as pets by locals. Visitors are able only to see one of the feeding platforms used during the early stages of an orangutan's treatment, in order to keep human contact to a minimum.

After watching an introductory video written and narrated by an ex-Newsround presenter, we were allowed to venture out to the platform and silently await the apes. We saw 3 orangutans in total, who one by one came swinging into view along suspended ropes, to feed on bananas and milk provided by the centre's staff. Sadly we didn't see any of the babies whose faces are plastered on all of the sanctuary's marketing material, but we did enjoy the attempts of the various monkeys who also live in the forest to steal the orangutans' food – they were incredibly cheeky, especially the little ones. It didn't quite match the panda sanctuary in Chengdu, but it was still interesting to see orangutans for real, rather than at the zoo.


Now Sandakan wasn't exactly a culinary paradise (the condiment of choice, which comes with everything, appears to be mayo) but on our last night we happened upon a little rooftop bar called Ba Lin, which wouldn't have looked out of place in Ibiza or the Med. Candles and cushions were the order of the day here, and we chilled out on oversized sofas, whilst admiring a great view of the town. My salad still came drenched in mayonnaise, but somehow in this setting, I didn't mind quite so much.

As we casually navigated yet another hairpin bend in our 'Super VIP' coach, I remembered the terror of bus journeys in Vietnam, let out a happy sigh at the comparison, and reclined my chair another notch.

We were on our way up into the Cameron Highlands, north of Kuala Lumpur. A favourite weekend journey for Singaporean supercar owners, the pristine winding roads are enclosed by dense, humming foliage on either side, but occasionally you catch glimpses of the most incredible views through gaps in the trees: forest rolling over mountains and valleys above a bright white blanket of cloud, and patches of mist drifting like ghosts over the tree-tops.

We stayed in a town called Tanah Rata in the highlands. It felt like a real mountain town – much more Alpine than Malaysian. Having trudged the length and breadth of it looking for our hostel (this took 10 minutes – it wasn't a big place) and finally checking in, we set off once more on a mission to find 'The Best Meal Ever'.

Todd's brother Joe had visited the same town several years before us, and in one presumably beer-fueled evening had stumbled across a restaurant that served him what he claimed was The Best Meal He'd Ever Had. His directions to find this culinary nirvana were, ' It's on a main road, can't remember the name of the place, but it has a sign outside that has mispelt 'various' 3 different ways'. Luckily for us, there was only one main road and it was a fairly small one at that. I'm not sure it was the best meal I've ever had, but it was definitely one of mine and Sarah's best currys. Thanks Joe!

The main attraction in the Cameron Highlands are the tea plantations. 70% of all Malaysia's tea is grown there, and about 2-3% of the world's tea. We visited the Sungai Palas Boh Tea Estate. Boh is the biggest brand of tea in Malaysia, which was founded by Scotsman J.A. Russell in 1929 and is now run by his grand-daughter Caroline.

The tea plantations themselves are beautiful, covering the hills in emerald green stripes as far as you can see. The younger leaves that haven't been picked yet are almost luminous in colour, highlighting those patches that have yet to be sheared by the teams of pickers. We only saw a handful of workers in the field, but apparently the whole estate is still picked by hand. We had a great tour guide who explained the process of growing, cutting and preparing the leaves prior to processing into tea. The marketeer in me got a little bit carried away with the details. I was amazed to find out how versatile tea plants are. Most of the differences between types of tea (Japanese, Chinese, Black) comes from the age of the leaves and the way they are processed after picking rather than from different plant types. All of Boh's teas come from the same plant, and the entire plantation is a monoculture of this one varietal. Definitely premium innovation possibilities here – single estate teas, different terroirs, new species of tea...

...as my head cleared, our 4x4 climbed further up the mountain roads (which by now had given way to gravel) clear of the tea fields and up to the summit of the Highlands – Gunung Brinchang at 2031m. After taking in the cloudy views we took a short trek into the 'Mossy Forest'. Todd tells us this was one of his highlights. The forest was a magical place (at least until we got there) - very cool, very damp and very quiet, it feels ancient even before you learn that it's around 240 million years old. Older than the dinosaurs. It's called 'mossy' as grows out of the very first moss that can attach itself to bare rock that lifted itself out of the sea. The dead leaves, trees and insects that the forest drops to the ground go on to form the soil that nurtures future forests. Each centimetre of this spongy springy soil takes over 100 years to form. Sarah managed to accumulate roughly a millenium's worth of sediment on her shoes and trousers within 10 minutes.

On the way back to town, we stopped at the Boh factory to sample some of the finished product. Their visitor's centre is cantilevered out over the side of one of their fields, and we stopped on the balcony to admire the view and enjoy the finest Cameronian Blend with some jam and scones.

From the Perhentians we all headed back together to Zubin's parents house in Kuala Lumpur which, to be honest, we didn't want to leave. I could quite happily live out my next 6 months of travelling in that house. James and I hadn't realised quite how much we were missing the comforts of home, but the delights of a home-cooked meal, a fantastically hot shower and the amazing hospitality of Zub and his parents certainly served to remind us.

Food formed a big part of our stay – I think on average we were eating once every 3 hours, which means James and I are both now back up to our fighting weights again. Malay food is absolutely delicious – we enjoyed local specialities including Char Kway Teow (flat noodles with chicken and prawn), Pau (giant dim sum buns filled with pork, chicken, or bean paste) Lam Mee (the birthday noodle dish), Pork Char Sui (Malay style pork) and Banana Leaf Curry (curry served on banana leaves which you eat with your hands). But the absolute highlight had to be the Malaysian mangoes, which were the yellowest, sweetest mangoes we've ever tasted. I am not sure UK mangoes will ever taste quite the same – fortunately we can buy a version of the real thing in Tooting Bec, so I think my Saturdays will soon be spent making pilgrimages there to satisfy my mango cravings.

But we did a lot more than just eat whilst we were there. Zubin gave himself over to being our tour guide and chauffeur for the duration of our stay, and we definitely saw the best that the capital has to offer. A highlight was the Islamic Arts Museum, built by a reclusive local millionnaire who has spent a fortune creating miniature models of the grandest mosques of the world, including Mecca and the Medina. It made me realise just how little I know about the Middle East, and also how interesting it would be to visit – our previous experience of Islamic countries being limited to Morocco. But that's for another trip.......

We did the obligatory tourist thing and went up the KL Tower, to see the cityscape as the sun was setting, including the magnificent Petronas Towers. The area around the Tower has been turned into something of a 'tourist attraction' and as part of our ticket, we also got to ride in F1 simulator cars, and I went on a pony ride around the car park, much to the amusement of the boys. I think they were just jealous as they were too heavy to ride themselves.

On Wednesday Zubin's parents, Rada and Jessie, very kindly took us out for a morning's sightseeing whilst poor Zub had to work. We had a guided tour of Putrajaya, the new administrative district, which was created by the former president, presumably as a sign of his great wealth and power. It currently covers some 46km squared. Rada talked us through all the different government departments – there are many, a brand-new building for each one, all lined up along the same road. And at the top of the road stands the Presidential Mansion, giving the big man a great view of his domain. The mansion looks more like an Ottoman Sultan's palace, or a mosque, so grand is its exterior (and presumably its interior too). The mosque is actually next door, and there is also accommodation onsite for all government employees – flats for the administrators, and large multi-roomed homes for the big cheeses, making it very clear to all when you've made it.

No visit would have been complete without a big night out, and Zubin did us proud. We started with martinis at the SkyBar on the 33rd floor of the Traders Hotel, which had an epic view across to the Petronas Towers. The bar was amazing - comfy booths with amazing views around an indoor swimming pool (sadly not for night-swimming) – and they had an 80s night on whilst we were there, much to my delight. We also met up with Eil, who has recently moved back to KL, so it became something of a Hertford reunion! After that it was on to Rootz, a new rooftop superclub, where all the young and beautiful people hang out. KL seems to have adopted American 'bottle service' style clubbing in a big way – you have to buy a bottle at the door in order to beat the queues. To James' eternal shame we duly bought our bottle of Smirnoff, which Zubin held aloft as we headed inside. Once inside we enjoyed dancing to the best of R&B from now and the recent past, including some classics from the uni years, which went down very well. However, the highlight of the evening was a conversation with some Kazakh girls that Eil and Zubin met over the course of the evening, who then joined us to share some late-night Chinese food (because 3 main meals a day no longer seems to be enough!). Of course the conversation turned to Borat, as Todd (quite genuinely) said,

'The only things we know about Kazakhstan in the UK are from Borat, but obviously that's all made-up. So tell us one thing we should know about Kazakhstan.'

Kazakhstani girl (after a thoughtful pause): 'We eat horsemeat.'

Amazingly, we managed to keep straight faces at the time, but have since been quoting it to each other ad nauseum. Hopefully it will be more or less out of Todd's system by the time he gets home, although James and I are still laughing about it.

Todd, James and I were up before 6am (poor Todd, still jetlagged after 30 hours of travel to get here!) in order to travel cross-country to Kuala Besut, the mainland gateway to the Perhentian islands. Our driver was a wannabe Michael Schumacher, and we travelled on increasingly winding roads, never below about 70kph. At times it was a white-knuckle ride, but he got us there safely, half an hour ahead of schedule. He also seemed to know all the best stops for photo opportunities, so we were able to capture the morning mist rising over the forest, which was pretty spectacular.


Once at Kuala Besut, we caught a speedboat across to the Perhentian islands – Perhentian Besa and Perhentian Kecil (literally, 'Big Island' and 'Small Island'). The speedboat itself was fantastic – 45 mins cutting through waves at high speeds. Our destination was Long Beach on Kecil, but as this was the last stop we had a great mini-tour of the other beaches and the town on Kecil island. The town was the destination of a couple of engineers who had joined us on the boat with a couple of trip switches ready-mounted on plywood, some copper wire, and a lot of tools. Clearly this is the practical side of island living.

This was the first time we hadn't pre-booked accommodation, and so we joined the hordes of backpackers trudging from hostel to hostel along the beach, trying to find the best deal. In the heat of the day, still wearing our backpacks, this was not a pleasant task, and we quickly wised up to the fact that leaving one person with the bags, whilst the other two scouted for somewhere to stay, was a lot easier! Unbeknownst to us before we arrived in Malaysia, our visit coincided with the Malay school holiday, and as a result, rooms were few and far between. We had a bit of a race against two other British couples who'd arrived on the same boat as us, and whilst we managed to bag the last two air-conditioned rooms on the beach, it did mean that Todd and Zub had to cosy up in a double bed for the first night. Not that they seemed to mind too much.

We quickly found Bubu, the best place on the island for food and to watch the football – at nearly £100 a room per night it was too pricey for us to stay at, but we certainly made the most of its facilities, becoming regular customers over our 3 days there. The boys were very happy about being able to enjoy so many matches, and even I came around to it, although I did manage to fall asleep sitting upright about 10 mins into the USA-Slovenia game.

The weather was a bit hit and miss, and so we missed out on any real sunbathing on the first day. That said, there's something about tropical rainstorms that makes them fascinating to watch – at least for the first few hours. The novelty starts to wear off a bit after that. Fortunately on our second day we awoke to glorious sunshine, and baking heat even at 9am. We made the most of the weather and the crystal clear warm water – some would say a little too much, as we were all burnt by the end of the day. The boys had decided a midday swim was a great idea, and so all sported various shades of red on their backs. As a native, Zubin had eschewed any kind of suntan cream and so was more sunburnt than the rest of us put together – so much so that by the time he went back to work, people wondered what on earth had happened to him on his few days off!

James and I also put our new PADI qualifications to good use and did our first 'fun' dive, whilst Todd and Zub came snorkelling. This was a particular achievement for Todd, who had only the previous morning overcome his fear of open water and allowed Zub to teach him how to snorkel. James and I were the only two divers in our group, and had a great dive where we saw blue-spotted stingrays, more triggerfish, some parrot fish and a couple of little Nemos (technical name: anemone fish. I prefer Nemo myself). It was fantastic to just be able to enjoy the experience of diving, and it's starting to feel a lot more 'normal' being underwater now. It also gave me the chance to try out the underwater camera (thanks Jo Fitz!) which was a lot of fun, although more challenging than photography above the water, as everything seems much closer and larger than it actually is.
We also had another Gap Yah encounter, this time at 5am, when our drunken neighbour staggered home and woke up her room-mate and half the island shouting:

“Harriet? Harriet! I've lost my Blaaackberry Harriet.”
Pause.
“My Blaaaackberry, yah! On the beach! The BEACH! I lost it on the beach. I need you to help me look for it.”
Pause.
“So I'll meet you there ok? No there, ok? There! OK?” (This continued for about 5 mins).

Eventually Todd went outside to tell her to shut up, only to find her semi-naked and being pulled into clothes by a tired cabana boy. We have no idea whether she met her friend Harriet, or if she found her Blackberry, nor do we care. Kind-hearted, forgiving citizens that we are, we made sure we made as much noise as possible as we were leaving at 7.30 the next morning.

Speeding over the 8km bridge that links Penang to the Malaysian peninsula, staring in awe at the bright lights and skyscrapers, we felt like total country bumpkins. Travelling from Thailand to Malaysia is like leaping forward in time 50 years. One minute you're on a dirt road lined by open markets: durian fruit, flies on meat and kids dancing with no shoes, the next you're cruising down a freeway wondering where your next Starbucks is coming from.

Aside from the guilty excitement at finding a Starbucks, we were also excited about arriving in Penang as we would be meeting our friend Todd who was joining us for a holiday. We met him at our strangely named Hotel Mingood on our first afternoon, and soon found ourselves celebrating in what turned out to be a 7 hour drinking binge in a nearby pub. Todd drank me under the table. I blame J'had the bar owner, who joined us and insisted on gifting us a number of completely unnecessary but much appreciated pints of Guinness.

Penang is being remodelled as the Silicon Valley of the East - hence the skyscrapers and neon – but for most tourists the main interest lies in Georgetown in the north east corner of the island. This is where the British East India Company established a settlement in 1786 having been invited in by the government in exchange for help fighting off the encroaching Siamese and Burmese of the North. In a fine example of colonial negotiation, no contracts were ever signed by the British, and they did virtually nothing to help when Siam did push south into their territory.

The British were there for the same reason that the Indians, Portuguese, Arabs and Chinese were there before them – trade. Penang was the northern entry point to the Straits of Malacca that link the Indian and Pacific Oceans, and the island provided safe harbour against the monsoons and pirates that plagued the Straits. Nowadays there are less pirates, but 50,000 vessels a year and ¼ of the world's traded goods still travel past Penang.

The historical cross-cultural appeal of Penang has created an incredibly diverse population and a wonderful variety of architectural styles. In one furious day of sight-seeing we visited pretty much all of Georgetown's sights, and as we raced between colonial forts, mosques, Chinese clan houses and Hindu temples we heard Malay, Tamil, Cantonese and English being spoken.

Of this plethora of sights our two favourite buildings were the Khoo Kongsi (Khoo clanhouse) and the mansion of Chong Fatt Tze, 'The Rockefeller of the East'.

The Khoo were one of many Southern Chinese families that came to Malaysia to seek their fortune. Each family kept themselves to themselves, and the town is littered with temples, each built for a specific Chinese clan. As one of the more successful clans, in 1851 the Khoo constructed a large temple, around which the clan members built their homes and businesses, forming a large walled community in the centre of Georgetown, kind of like the Corleone compound in The Godfather. The temple and clanhouse / clubhouse is a grand building dripping with gold leaf and porcelain dragons, magnificent even in the rain as when we visited. Donations from Khoo around the world keep the temple gleaming, and these donations are recognised on plaques that line the walls of an anteroom off the main shrine. Reading the names on the walls we spotted a fair few who had become London barristers – apparently a traditional occupation for the Khoo family since the early 1900s!

Chong Fatt Tze was another immigrant from Southern China. Born to a poor Hakka family in Guandong province in South China in 1840, he eventually died a billionaire in 1916 having built a vast empire that included agricultural commodities, banking and even cruise ships (He got into cruise ships after being denied a first class ticket on a European liner on account of his race – he responded by buying his own fleet of ships). He built his home in Penang in what was at the time an unpopular traditional Chinese-style just so that his children wouldn't be able to sell it to anyone outside the family. We had a great tour of the building, and the guide explained many interesting Feng Shui features that we would otherwise never have noticed, including the energy centre of the building in an open central courtyard – stretch your hands out over it and feel your fingers tingle...

We changed our plans at the last minute, and bought a ticket from a local travel agent to get from Ko Samui to the island of Penang in Malaysia. Apparently it's a popular route for those looking to renew their tourist visas (so they can stay on the islands for another 3 months), so what we had thought was going to be a 2 day journey was actually billed as 12 hours and £20. Thrilled to be saving so much time and money, we paid up and arranged our pick-up for 0630 the next day.

We soon learned that local travel in Thailand is kind of like being kidnapped. You have very little idea where you are, where you are going or when you are going to get there, and are totally dependent on your captors, who seem to view you as a kind of self-loading freight that's best to be ignored as far as possible.

The mini bus driver arrived at 0615, and insisted we leave our untouched breakfast to depart post-haste. Half an hour later we were dropped at a different travel agent office in Na Thon - the main port in Ko Samui – where we were issued with completely new tickets and told to wait for 45 minutes. We wolfed down a second breakfast at a dockside greasy spoon before being hustled onto a coach which drove us to a completely different town to board a ferry. Funnily enough, the ferry was a 2nd hand Japanese ship complete with automatic toilets, original signage, and, I think, carpet which carried us over to Don Sak on mainland Thailand.

We reboarded the coach on the mainland only to be kicked off after about an hour with four other foreigners, in the middle of nowhere at a little shack by a highway. A guy wearing a T-shirt and shorts wandered out, half-heartedly tried to take our tickets then sat back down to watch TV. When we asked him why we had been dropped of there, he told us we had to wait an hour for another bus. We waited an hour. Then the same guy got up from his table and told us all to load our stuff onto his tuk tuk (which had been parked outside the whole time). He drove us 10 minutes to another travel agent in the town of Suratthani. The 3rd travel agent issued us with another set of tickets, and told us to sit tight as she had to make a phone call. A couple of minutes later a young guy appeared who picked up our bags and piled Sarah and me into his Mercedes.

Our 'holiday from our holiday' in Thailand began and ended on Ko Samui. We arrived (the first time) exhausted from our intense temple-visiting trip to Siem Reap, in need of a break, a chance to recharge our batteries. I wasn't sure quite what to expect from it, having heard everything from “it's not the same as it was, it's just so commercial” (world-weary travellers) to “it's amazing, a real-getaway” (holidaymakers) and everything inbetween.

I have to say, I side with the holidaymakers. As we arrived at Ko Samui airport, I instantly felt like I was on holiday. In a film. Golf buggies collected us from the plane and took us to the 'airport,' constructed from wooden huts. All it needed was some calypso music and some men in flowered shirts and the impression would have been complete.

We were staying on Mae Nam Beach, a world away from the 24 hour bars, McDonalds and Boots of Chaweng Beach, home of the afore-mentioned gap-year kid (or so we believe, we didn't actually venture to Chaweng ourselves to find out). It really was island paradise: clear turquoise sea, simmering heat, the peaks of Ko Phangan visible across the water. Walking on the beach on our first evening, as the sun was setting, it was hard to imagine a more picturesque scene.

Our stay was divided into 2 parts: the first 2 days marked the beginning of our pre-detox, and therefore avoidance of anything other than salads and juices – although that didn't stop me enjoying a banana pancake on our first morning. The second 2 days (when we returned) marked the beginning of normal eating, and therefore involved consuming everything we wanted to after almost 2 weeks of abstinence. Thailand has allegedly some of the best cuisine in this region and so I've done my best to sample as much as I can in 48 hours. Like a stereotypical Brit-abroad, James has been craving chips, burgers and fried breakfasts (as you'll have seen from our previous post) so has been trying (and, let's be honest, mostly failing) to find decent Thai versions of these western delights. Perhaps we should have made a trip to Chaweng after all.......

My favourite part of the second trip (and one of the highlights of the tour so far) actually happened before we even set foot on the island. We were able to get a small boat directly from The Sanctuary on Ko Phangan direct to Mae Nam Beach, rather than the usual catamaran, and the journey was incredible. Early morning, the sun was shining, barely a cloud in the sky, the wind whipping through your hair just the right amount. I could have stayed there for hours. We even caught sight of some flying fish, fins clipping the top of the water as they went skimming along the surface like stones. Was amazing to see: I wasn't wholly convinced they even existed.

On our last day, we had built up enough energy to do a little exploring. Whilst our corner of the island was pretty perfect, we didn't want to leave without having seen at least a little more of it. So we hired a motorbike (last time for a while, we promise) and went on a little adventure to Hin Lat Waterfall, one of 3 waterfalls on the island, which involved a beautiful coastal drive en route. We decided to climb to the top, allegedly a 2km jaunt up through the forest. In fact it was more like 4km, and involved some scrambling up rocks and the like. James was in his element; me, less so. And then when we were about two-thirds of the way up, the clouds that had been threatening gave way to proper torrential rain. Within 5 minutes we were absolutely soaked, but pressed on to the top of the waterfall regardless. And it was worth the effort: the waterfall itself was pretty impressive, although unfortunately a little too muddy for swimming. James unleashed his inner explorer and went for a clamber around the rocks, and then we made the decent back down, passing a very-unhappy looking German couple en route. About two-thirds of the way down, the rain abruptly stopped, replaced once more by blazing heat. Such is rainy season in Thailand.

Yesterday I had the best bowl of chips in my entire life. And they weren't even that good. This is the upside of a week without caffeine, alcohol, carbs or protein, followed by 3 days without any food at all finally two days building our stomachs up enough to handle real food again. Everything tastes amazing.

Before we left the UK we had dinner with our friends Troy & Lindsey in their lovely house in Bristol. They're both Thailand veterans, and by the time we drove home we had in our possession one brown envelope which they had very kindly covered on both sides, in small handwriting, with recommendations. As we had to detour around the mainland we weren't able to use most of them this time round, but we were able to use one recommendation in Koh Phangan – The Sanctuary, a secluded health resort in the south-east of the island where they had done a detox fast. Apparently this kind of retreat is much cheaper than they are in the UK, and as we needed a bit more beach time and were keen to exorcise the last of the toxins from 5 years of London-living, we decided to give it a go.

The Sanctuary is very hard to get to. From Ko Tao we took a ferry to Thong Sala on the south-west of Ko Phangan, then a shared taxi round the roller-coaster coastal road to Hat Rin. This town's population ebbs and flows with the moon – it's the home of the 'Original' Full-Moon Party – but as we were only in a waxing phase there was absolutely no-one around. Even though it was a ghost town, we had to wait for over an hour at the docks before we could convince the only taxi-boat driver that there weren't going to be any more customers to share his boat with us. He eventually agreed to take just the two of us on his 'long tail' boat (named as the propeller is attached to the engine by an eight foot pool that swings out astern for maximum maneouverability) on the final leg of our journey up to Hat Thian and The Sanctuary.

We arrived on Ko Tao bright and early, filled with nervous anticipation about the 3 days of diving that lay ahead of us. We were picked up at the catamaran pier by our dive school and were whisked straight off to Sairee Beach (our home for the next 4 days) for a quick review of the theory we'd done some 7 months ago. Astoundingly enough of the diving knowledge seemed to have stuck for our instructor to be happy for us to continue. We then had a quick 45 min break for lunch before we were off on the boat. We'd already done all of the theory and the pool dives back in the UK last Halloween, but we opted to do a 'refresher' dive before we started on our underwater dives proper.

The refresher lesson was...interesting. I think we were both a bit nervous and I tried to do everything far too quickly, to just get it over with! The salt water felt very different to the nice chlorinated pool water, particularly when it went up your nose, and it took some getting used to. I also struggled to trust that the little regulator in my mouth would keep me alive underwater, and had to come up to the surface several times after forgetting and breathing through my nose rather than my mouth, getting a nice taste of saltwater! It was at this point I began to think perhaps the diving wasn't for me after all.....

However, the first actual dive was much better. We got used to the feeling of swimming underwater, surrounded by brightly coloured fish who were surprisingly calm around divers for the most part – since Ko Tao is second only to Cairns in terms of the number of PADI certificates it gives out, I guess this is hardly surprising! We even spotted a massive puffer-fish resting under a rock, which was pretty cool.

We had 2 more days of diving ahead of us, during which we completed 3 more dives at some of the best dive sites around the island. I veered during this time between enjoying what I was doing and being pretty much terrified – those of you who've been skiing with me will know my reaction well.

The diving itself was amazing, it was all the skills you have to complete in order to be designated an open water diver [which means you're able to dive to 18m] which I didn't like so much. The worst of all was the mask removal, where you had to remove your mask fully underwater, put it back on again, and then clear all of the water which was now inside your mask, in your nose etc. This was one of the last skills we did, some 10m down, and I was completely terrified. I came so close to bolting back up to the surface, but my instructor grabbed on to my arm, looked me in the eye, and managed to make me calm down and complete the exercise. Such a relief!! And with this completed, we were officially qualified divers. I felt very proud of myself, I have to say.

We were offered the chance to do a further dive at the end of our course, but we opted instead to give our ears a chance to readjust to living on land, and instead explored the island a little bit – up until this point we'd seen more of the underwater life on Ko Tao than anything above ground. The island is mostly famous for being a diving destination, but we hired a bike and travelled down to very southernmost point, which seemed to be more of a beach and relaxation destination. We spent an afternoon on Freedom Beach, which was absolutely stunning and which, amazingly, we had almost to ourselves. As the heat went out of the day we headed back to Sairee Beach to watch the sunset.

By coincidence, James's American cousin Dani was also finishing up 6 months of travelling on Ko Tao, so we managed to meet up with her for a celebratory drink having completed our dive course. Was really lovely to see a familiar face so far from home, and she had the honour of being the first person to see us as an engaged couple!

It was also amazing to be able to enjoy a beer with her, our only one during our entire stay on Ko Tao. We're heading next to do a detox on Ko Phangan, and as part of the 'preparation' we've been eating nothing but salads and drinking nothing but fruit juice for the best part of a week. It's been pretty depressing, especially for two confirmed carnivores, staying on islands where burgers and steaks are on every menu. I guess soon we'll discover if it was worth it.....

Battambang is billed by various guidebooks and traveller websites as “one of the must-see destinations in Cambodia.” Having been there, we're still not sure why.

Perhaps we should have been put off when we learnt that the main thing to do was actually to get the speed boat from Siem Reap to Battambang, and enjoy the spectacular scenery of the north-west of the country. However, the late-coming rainy season meant that the river was too low for the speedboat to travel, leaving the only alternative a 16 hour slow-boat journey. We decided on the (much less scenic) bus.

On arrival, we were expecting a gorgeous riverside town, or, at the very least, another Kampot. Instead Battambang appears to be a fully functioning Cambodian town, complete with market, a riverside of sorts, and lots of GAP-year kids (mostly girls) wandering around, scratching their heads and wondering how they came to be there.

We sought refuge at the fantastic Sunrise Coffee Shop, where we whiled away an afternoon eating breakfast burritos, home-made sandwiches and strawberry milkshakes. Coincidentally, we did also bump into a friend we met on the Halong Bay trip in Vietnam, so our sojourn gave us time to have drinks and dinner with him whilst we were there.

We also went on the bamboo train, the other “must-do” attraction here. It's definitely a tourist gimmick, but one that I quite enjoyed nevertheless. Essentially a giant tea tray made from bamboo, the 'train' is placed on wheels and operated by what looks to be a lawnmower engine. The entire thing can be put together and dismantled very easily – which helps, as there's only one stretch of track and so one bamboo train has to give way if you meet someone coming in the other direction. We travelled at surprisingly fast speeds considering our mode of transportation, and got to see a bit of the countryside – although after a few kilometres your journey stops and you are offered a 'tourist break' [chance to buy overpriced Diet Coke from locals] whilst the train driver takes apart the train and get it ready to go back in the direction you've come from. We attempted some comedy conversation with the drink shop owner, who told us that he had 5 daughters, in response to a question about what crop he was growing. Or maybe we just didn't understand him. On the return journey we had a near miss with a couple of cows, but otherwise it was uneventful.

So I wouldn't put Battambang on the list of “must-see” destinations in Cambodia, but it was a good enough place to chill out before moving on to Thailand.

Angkor Wat and its surrounding temples are The Main Event in Cambodia – the country's Cash Cow - if you didn't know that before you arrive in town, you realise soon after. On the bus ride we saw more big hotels than we'd seen in the whole of Cambodia thus far, and the centre of Siem Reap is packed with tourist-friendly restaurants and bars.

We stayed close to the centre at 'Hotel 89' - easily one of the best hotels we've stayed at thus far [thanks again to Emily]. The level of service was unreal: They fixed us up with breakfast each morning, helped us get a tuk tuk driver to take us round the temples, found us a local gym we could go to, organised a massage for Sarah after a hard day of touring, booked our bus tickets on to Battambang and even gifted us two cotton scarves as we left. The icing on the cake came after our first day looking round the temples though - we disembarked from our tuk tuk at dusk, hot, tired and covered in dust, and were welcomed back by a shiny bellboy waiting at the hotel entrance with a silver tray bearing two damp hand-towels and ice cold water. Not bad for $18 a night!

Angkor was top of my list of things to see in Cambodia, primarily as it gave me an opportunity to pretend to be Indiana Jones. I didn't have the hat or whip but I did manage a modest bit of adventuring – climbing up onto the roof of one of the ruined temples and running around until Sarah spotted me and told me to get down. Whilst Angkor Wat is obviously the most famous temple, there are actually around 40 temple complexes in the area outside Siem Reap, created by the Khmer empire over a period of a couple of hundred years by successive rulers as they roamed the area. The buildings they left behind are a mix of temples, tombs, shrines to their parents, entire state capitals, and even ceremonial hydraulic works. A lot to see!

You can visit the temples by bus, or even by bike, but the best way is to hire a tuk tuk for a couple of days as some of the temples 30-odd km away from Siem Reap. We had a really nice driver called Chandy (who Sarah kept on referring to as 'Chun Li' – obviously she's never played Street Fighter). He had just re-enrolled in college so whilst we explored each temple, he sat waiting in his tuk tuk revising English Literature in the 30 degree heat.

Outside of each temple is a forest of stalls selling food and drinks from ice boxes, postcards and beads - most manned by very persistent small children. As they see you pulling up they all sprint from their stalls to mob you, and don't let up till you enter the temple or leave on your tuk tuk. They've all learned the same stock phrases, so in the few metres from tuk tuk to temple you have the same conversation over and over...
'Hey Lady! You wan' cold water? Coca cola? One dollar OK? One dollar. Cheap price'
'No thank you. I've got some water already'
'Maybe you wan' more. Very hot today.'
'No thanks, I'm ok'
'OK maybe later'
'No thanks'
'You think about it. See temple, come back, maybe change your mind.'
'Maybe'
'OK later, you wan' water you buy from me OK?'
...and then on leaving the temple...
'Hey Lady, you say “Maybe”! One water one dollar'

We went through this routine at every one of the 17 temples we visited.

In trying to decide which were our favourite temples we developed a series of evaluation criteria. The ones we enjoyed most were;
1.partially overgrown
2.partially ruined
3.labyrinthine
4.intricately decorated
5.NOT covered in scaffolding

So whilst our visit to Angkor Wat at sunrise was a real highlight, we actually prefered Bayon in the Angkor Thom complex with its complicated structure of enclosures and carved faces, and Preah Khan's tumble-down stones dissolving into the forest...

Kampot sits just east of Bokor National Park – a huge forested area sprawling over a range of hills that look out over the south coast. At the turn of the 20th century one of the park's summits was colonised by the French as a retreat from the intense Cambodian heat, and turned into a holiday town complete with a post office, church, hotel and casino. The town was abandoned to the Khmer Rouge in the mid-70s, and terminally damaged in 1979 when the hill-top became the site of one of the Khmer 's last stands against the Vietnamese. Having scaled a sheer cliff face to reach the town the Vietnamese occupied the post office, and attacked the Khmer-held Catholic church a couple of hundred metres away. After the battle, the remains of the town lay abandoned for some 30 years, given over to local wildlife including tigers, bears and porcupines.


This neglect ended in 2000, when the hill was bought by Sokha Industries, a Japanese conglomerate that seems to own at least half of the tourist offerings in Cambodia (they even own the tourism rights to the Angkor temples). Sokha is now in the process of revitalising Bokor's status as a playground for the rich by building a new casino and 5* hotel on the mountain, serviced by what is probably the best road in all Cambodia. This project seems to employ most of the local population in all manner of tasks, from checking every square inch of the new road with little hammers, to bulldozing the forest and turfing the hillside leading to the casino. We're not quite clear as to what effect this turf will have on increasing revenues, but clearly someone seems to think that green grass is integral to the 5* experience. The turfing process was incredibly interesting for us to watch (no really): a daisy chain link of 25 people stretched up the hillside, passing down wicker baskets of earth and passing up small pieces of turf, in a human chain. We've never seen anything quite like it.

We took a day trip into Bokor to get to the summit, and trekked up through a 2km stretch of the forest, guided by a 'ranger' in full park keepers' uniform, armed with an AK47. It seems that this was more of a gimmick than anything else, as the most dangerous thing we saw were butterflies! However, the walk itself was pretty hard-going, involving scrambling up steep rocks and avoiding the creepers that threatened to trip you up at almost every step, all in super-humidity. I have never seen a human being sweat as much as James did during the climb. It's left us both excited about proper trekking in Borneo, although I for one am not sure James will survive it without an IV fluid drip.

Not content with three days relaxing by the beach, we decided we need a bit more relaxation time by the Teuk Chhou River. Kampot today is a 'sleepy' (read: shitty) riverside town which used to be a favourite hang out of the French during the Protectorate days. As a result there's a smattering of colonial-style architecture on the banks in the town centre, and a lot of French food (including delicious baguettes) on offer.

We were actually staying some 8km out of town, deep in the forest in what can only be described as a bamboo tree house on stilts, built out over the river. It was called Utopia, which was a pretty appropriate name. Within 20 minutes of arriving, we were both curled up in comfortable bucket chairs, banana milkshakes in hand. Bliss.





















A little later, we decided to take full advantage of our riverside location. The tree house had steps leading straight down into the water, and huge tyre inner-tubes for you to sit and float in. I say float, but as the current was slightly stronger than we anticipated, crossing the river to the opposite bank involved a serious upper arm work out! Once there, James spent a gleeful half hour jumping from a rope swing attached to a palm tree – I was too much of a chicken, so I watched, arms folded, and told him to be careful about 20 times!

Utopia was idyllic but somewhat rustic. Just how rustic, I found out on our last evening: heading into our room, I surprised a large rat taking a stroll across our bedroom floor. Fortunately it was more scared of me than I was of it, although this didn't stop me from letting out a horror-film-leading-lady style scream, much to the amusement of the guest house employees. I refused to be alone in the room again, just in case, and insisted that we slept with the light on to deter the rat from making a return journey. James had to wear his free BA flight mask to bed. We also blocked up the rat hole we found in the corner of the room. This seemed to do the trick, although I did still spend half the night listening to the sound of little feet scurrying around the outside of our room, trying to find a way in.

The road to Sihanoukville is a blue-grey tarmac patchwork with red clay hard shoulders, running Roman-straight through palm-dotted paddyfields. From Phnom Penh it's a four hour bus ride straight south-east, until the tarmac gives way to gravel and swerves south to avoid the mountains that rear up before the coast.

Concrete, corrugated iron, timber and palm fronds are the building materials of choice for the few houses that line the road. Most are built up on stilts in the traditional style, creating a shady open-sided living area under the house. Here, whole families rock in hammocks or lie prostrate on wooden sleeping platforms, whiling away the heat of midday. Their dogs and cows play chicken with the traffic.

Each house has farmland out back and some kind of roadside commercial venture out-front. Everyone's working an angle - mini-diners selling noodles, ice boxes full of fizzy drinks, women selling fresh pineapple and mango, and rows of pepsi bottles filled with petrol for over-ambitious moped riders. This seems to be a very popular trade, but i've yet to see anyone actually stop to fill up their bikes.

The men manning the stalls have an interesting strategy for keeping cool – exposing their bellies to the air by rolling up their t-shirts and tying them at the back. Leathery-faced farmers wearing crop-tops.

Sihanoukville – named after King Sihanouk - is the main beach town on the south coast of Cambodia, but as it's officially off-season now the restaurants and hotels were nearly empty. We checked into a nice hotel a short walk from the beach, with a pool and all of four other people staying there. Empty sun-loungers, empty bar, bored staff playing Beyonce and Rihanna 24/7 (I've only heard Celine Dion once in Cambodia thus far. They still love their ballads over here, but prefer more modern pop versions).

Luckily for us - but not the farmers in crop-tops - the rainy season is the latest it's been for years. Roads are dusty and the fields are parched – slowly turning the dull straw colour of well-worn cricket pitches. We get a few good hours of sunbathing in each morning before the wind kicks up and the clouds turn mean. There's a lot of thunder, but not much rain yet.

We arrived in Phnom Penh after an all-day bus journey from Ho Chi Minh City, tired but excited about exploring a new country. Checking in to the Velkommen Inn [thanks Emily for the recommendation] we headed almost straight out again, ready to take a look around.

The few streets lining the Tonlé Sap river in Phnom Penh look and feel as you'd imagine a French colonial town did in its heyday: wide boulevards lined with palm trees, gorgeous period buildings, their balconies overlooking the river, the cool breeze a welcome relief from the heat and humidity. Our first stop was the French Correspondents Club, a classy bar and restaurant with a great location on the riverfront, which used to be the haunt of expat journalists and is now the favoured stomping ground of flashpackers and holiday-makers alike.

We weren't sure what to expect from our first land border crossing of the trip, from Vietnam into Cambodia. Having read all sorts of horror stories about crooked officials demanding bribes in exchange for Cambodian visas, we were fully prepared for a difficult entry, even purchasing e-visas in advance, just in case.

In fact, the most problematic part of the border crossing was actually exiting Vietnam, largely as a result of their novel approach to getting people out of the country. We took a bus from Ho Chi Minh direct to Phnom Penh, and shortly after leaving the bus conductor collected in all of our passports. When we arrived at the border, he then threw the 30-odd passports on the desk of the border control guard. The rest of the passengers (all Vietnamese) proceeded to huddle around the guard's desk, waiting expectantly for their passports to be processed. As a result, anyone wanting to get through had to push through a gaggle of men in their 30s and 40s acting more like 15 year old boys on a school trip than businessmen and holiday-makers.

The border guard seemed to take a perverse pleasure in taking as long as possible to stamp our passports, letting through many other people in small groups every time he'd processed one or two belonging to our group – there was no concept of a queue here, it was every man for himself.

Why we couldn't have just queued up and gone through one by one, passports in hand, like you do in any other country in the world, is beyond us. Instead, each time a person's name was called by the bus conductor, it was repeated by the excitable gaggle stationed in front of the desk. That person then had to push through, rugby-scrum style, in order to collect his passport and get back on the bus.

Our passports, being foreign and therefore the most complicated, were processed last, and although the guy did take a long hard look at my passport photo (I do in fact look like a Russian spy in my picture, so this is hardly surprising), we were at last allowed to leave the country.

So then it was back on the bus, where we drove 500 metres down the road.....only to arrive at the Cambodian border entrance, where we had to get back off the bus to do it all again. This was easy in comparison – we kept our passports throughout, and the e-visa worked like a charm. We even made it back onto the bus before most of our fellow travellers, ready for the onward journey.