The nexy day we made our way to Kuala Lumpur, malaysias capital city. We were staying in china town again and the hotel was a lot nicer this time (the last one had a mouse in it which had me and gem scremaing and the whole corridor ended up in our room trying to seek it out!) Kuala Lumpur is a huge modern city and the people are more 'in your face' and a bit pervy, they will say anything to get your attention! Our first meal we ate at a restaurant called old chin...

We travelled 8 and a half hours in the mini bus to the thai/malaysian border and got a ferry (yey!) to the island of penang. We were staying in chinatown which was quite grotty and had rats and prostitutes roaming the streets at night! We ate a lovley indian meal in little india when we arrived- i had tandori chicken, cheese ana and salad/sauces and a strawberry yoghurt drink then on to a bar to watch the football. Liverpool won amy yey! At 12 it was my birthday ...

We were pretty tired after another tedious journey on the train 9the novelty of the sleeping berths had worn off at this point!) Gemma slept and I caught up on emails then we met nick and Chris for lunch in Ricky's café (aw Ricardo!!) I had feta salad and a papaya shake- delicious! Then gem and I caught a taxi to the shopping centre in Bangkok which has 8 storeys! To get to it we had to walk through the slums by the river and walked through some local people...

We arrived at our hotel 'hotel serenity', it was lovely, much nicer than we were expecting but I think we are getting used to having a private room so will get a shock when we have to share a dorm with 8 others in Aussie! After checking in the group of us who are now very good friends, wandered round Chang Mai which is far nicer than Bangkok and much cleaner and greener but not as big or busy. We found a restaurant that claimed it was the second best in Chang Mai...

Today we met our guide- sunny is his name, he's sweet and smiley. There are 10 people in our group, 7 girls and 3 boys then 2 are joining us tomorrow from austrailia. Everyone is really nice and we have bonded well. Yesterday we went to the weekend market in nagkok, it sold everything including eels, fish (alive ones squirming about in buckets), toads (one of which escaped and hoppped off which im glad about cos they are a delicacy in thailand), it was quite dist...