Selamat from Malaysia (thats hello in malaysian).

Okay so back to where chris left off last time...

On Monday we hopped on a speedboat and went around the spectacular islands off the coast of Krabi. we stopped at a lagoon and did a spot of snorkelling where they feed the fish around us so they were everywhere. the variety of fish was amazing and the shapes of the coral was cool for us geography geeks. we did see one from finding nemo (the fish in the tank that came from the ocean - cant remember his name)! after that we skooted round to maya bay. the island that 'the beach' was filmed on. i have never been in a more beautiful location. that place was heaven on earth. the water was so clear, blue and warm and the sand white and felt like flour under your feet. around the lagoon was some awesome cliff faces with beautiful limestone. it really has to be the most beautiul place i have ever been. just take the massive amounts of tourist and speedboats away and i would move there and even consider a diet of fish - it would be worth it just to wake up there. if its good enough for leonardo its good enough for us...

we later did a bit of sightseeing around the islands then went to phi phi don. an island that was largely destroyed in the tsunami, this place was buzzing and if i ever come back to thailand i want to stay here. there was no cars, just men and carts pushing your luggage, a total other way of life, just bars, restaraunts and scuba shops, to laze out on that island with a nice cold one. ummmm. its awesome. we had lunch here and dandered around, did some bartering with the market sellers and relaxed on this lovely island before whizzing off to another lagoon for more snorkelling followed by going to bamboo island - a desert island with blue water, white sand, rocks and plants - bliss. we then returned back to krabi - which we had thought was beautiful before and chilled out. needless to saw we all got pretty toasted that day and the sunburn is just getting better now. but this day was amazing. it was my favourite so far!!!

on our last full day in Thailand wewent kayaking through a national mangrove park which was class. they took us through the mangrove forests and pointed out the wildlife and the monkeys (the cheeky beggers that kept trying to board our boats) we then paddled through a beautiful flooded limestone estuary/maze of limestone pillars and rainforest. this was cool and the scenery was lovely - if only we had more time to appreciate it, we had to paddle so hard to keep up with the leader that after 3 hours of constant pulling our arms and back were aching. we stopped on a little sand island and had fresh pineapple and watermelon. lovely.

after lunch we were taken to an elephant sanctuary where we got to go on an elephant trek. we had a girl elephant who took us through the park and into the river. she was lovley and so well behaved. they seemed well looked after and once we were off we got to feed her cucumber and pineapples. she then went off to the river for a nice realxing bath where she totally submerged herself and spewed water around. this was awesome.

on wednesday we were on a bus for 8 hours! tho luckily it had air con so we were happy. 4-5 hours to get to the thai/malaysia border. we got off the bus here and had to walk across the border ourselves. check out of thailand, walk a few hundered yards then check into malaysia. this was a kinda cool thing to do and we now have more stamps on our passport.

a few more hours down the road and we crossed the longest bridge in south east asia to the city/island of penang, where we are now. it is not very touristy but the area we are in is a world heritge site called george town. there is a reall mishmash of cultures here including loads of chinese and indian. today we got up and went to the botanical gardens where the geek in me was busy looking at all the lovely orchids and lilys growing around and kept looking for an alien i recognised (but didnt find any - i think thats a good thing). we then went to a silk shop where we saw these women skillfully decorate beautiful silk sheets, scarves and dresses. it was lovely to watch and a large piece of silk would take at least 4 days to make. it was such a skill and all us girls bought a lovely scarf each. next we went to the temple of the ten thousand buddas. a temple where there are literally thousands of bhuddas everywhere. the temples are stunning and the architecture was amazing. they really know how to use colours in these countries, everything is so bright and beautiful. our final place to go this morning was the snake temple. the temple was built for some guy (yes my history here is great) and the snakes all came to the temple and now live there. it wasn't quite the indiana jones style i expected but was something to see. there were snakes lazing about in the trees which didnt look real but there was signs saying they were poisonous so no chance we were taking the risk. there was opportunities to hold a python and get your photo taken looking like medusa with little snakes also in your hair. however me and chris whimped out of that one. touching them was enough. one step at a time. this afternoon we have had a relaxing afternoon chilling out on the rooftop of the hotel reading a book and having a snooze which was nice. tomorrow is another 6 hour drive to go to the cameron highlands - the home of the biggest flower in the world.

my stupid camera is being crap and has decided to die on me - grrr - so may need to buy a new one in KL or singapore but will put photos up when we can.

love yas

Claire and Chris