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Hello!
Just a quick blog entry! It's been ages since since my last one - way back when in Thailand. Fortunately Rhi has been a bit better with her blogs and photos, although we've both been a bit slack since arriving in Malaysia. Too much to see and do (what a shame)!
After a coll couple of days in Ayutthaya, we got the night train to Chiang Mai, a very cool city, with plenty to see and do, both within the city and in the area surrounding it. I've put some photos up, so you can see some of the stuff we did. As well as exploring the city (and the famous night market), we also went to the Elephant Nature Park, where 'unemployed' and abused elephants are taken. It's kind of a glorified donkey sactuary, but that doesn't detract from the experience of washing and bathing an elephant for the day! Another activity day saw us out on zip lines through montane forest. Again, very cool, although there didn't appear to be much in the way of wildlife, other than the occasional leach. Too many tourists I guess. We also met up with Aungkana (for those who don't know, she was a Thai PhD student at Sheffield), and she took us to a buddhist temple and Chiang Mai university. All in all, Chiang Mai was a really fun place to be!
But on the 29th of August we said goodbye to Thailand, and flew down to KL in Malaysia. As we would be back here for the end of our trip, we decided to only spend one night there, and get the bus to Penang the next day. Unfortunately, the next day was the day before Merdeka - Malaysia's independence day! so getting a bus to Peneng was out of the question. Getting a bus anywhere was actually nigh on impossible, but we did manage to get some of the last tickets to the Cameron Highlands - a hill station 1500 above sea level, with cool wet weather - a little like England really (other than the altitude). To reinforce this feeling, Tea and strawberries are sold in most shops, and many of the houses (and multistorey flats) are mock tudor. Nice! It was a cool place to go walking though, and we saw a fair few interesting birds on our hill walks!
The day after Merdeka (the 1st of September), we managed to get ourselves a bus to Penang. We had 3 nights in Georgetown, and a cool place it was too. One of the oldest colonial towns in Malaysia, there are plenty of old British buildings to see, as well as a large number of Chinese temples and Baba-Nyonya (wealthy chinese-malay merchants) houses.
From Penang we flew to KK on Borneo and... didn't too much really. We visited the Sabah museum and had a nice drink at the waterfront watching an amazing sunset, but with hindsight, we probably should have gone straight to Kuching... which is were went after our 2 nights in KK. Having 5 nights in Kuching gave us ample time to both explore the city, kayak dow the Sungei Sarawak and stay the night at Bako National Park! Bako was extremely cool, and we saw monkeys, monitor lizards, a viper, a bearded pig and lots of birds (although usually these were flying away before I could work out what they were).
From Kuching we flew to Johor Bahru back on the peninsula, and got the bus to Singapore from here. And now i'm in Singapore, ready to head back to Malaysia (Pulau Tioman) tomorrow! But to hear about Singapore, in my last (and most likely final) installment of blog, you'll have to tune in next week! I have to go and eat some dinner!
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