OK so we left Thailand by bus to travel to Malaysia, over the border to a place called Penang, the driver decided to play thai karaoke at the max volume for 6 hours solid. The bus arrived at the border town in the middle of the night and the travel agent had told us we could crash in the lobby of a hotel, when we got a tuk tuk to the bus office/hotel - it was a brothel and they wouldnt let us crash there, so we sat outside on the street, however, there were rats running all over the road, drunks stumbling past and prostitutes being picked up right in front of us - in the end we had to go and rent a room by the hour - just to get somewhere safe !! We finally reached Penang, & found ourselves trapped due to Chinese New Year, we met a crazy local called Jim who somehow was the biggest ladies man I've ever met but he helped us organise our train to Kuala Lumpur - which we finally got through the night on the night of chinese new year. We got to KL in the early hours and had to sit in the indian restaurant next door until our hostel opened, all i wanted was a plate of chips and for some reason i got apple juice, to which i said 'no order', i then got another one with no ice?! in the end i gave up and banged on the hostel door until someone answered. KL was nice, we shopped & went to the cinema, ate in HRC, bought some wicked converse and saw the only indoor theme park in the world. On our 3rd night in KL, our mum phoned with the saddest news that our Gran (our very good friend) was very ill and was not going to make it. We got straight into a taxi to the airport and managed to get on a last minute flight, following the longest flight of my life, we managed to make it to the hospital within 17 hours, and after a very brave struggle, and a week with us all by her side, she sadly passed away. We stayed another 10 days at home in England to support my Mum and to say goodbye to my Gran. But, as we knew we had to, we flew back out to continue our trip from Singapore. It has been very tough ever since, but we knew it would be what she would have wanted.