Hey everyone!

So we are waiting at Singapore airport to fly home using one fo the 400 free kiosk-best airport ever! I can't believe it the last 5 months have gone so fast! So we jumped on the "Bangkok to Singapore" Sunday week ago and got the night train to the area Krabi at Ao Nang beach. This was our home for the next 3 nights! All the roads in the area were surrounded by fields of palm trees and random huge chunks of rocks. Fortunately this was when my body decided it had had enough of the running around and I spent 2 days in bed with the usual cold/sore throat/sore head. As you all know I'n not a big beach person and as we were basically at the equator if you sat in the sun for 10 minutes you would be burnt from head to toe. So I got to watch lots of movies on one of the two main English channels we have had the whole way around South East Asia (Star Movies-my friend! The other is BBC Worldwide-always up-to-date). Also got to finish all the books I had with me so that will lose a few kg's for the luggage home! On our last day in Krabi I ventured down the main street alongside the beach (which was affected by the Tsunami) and got a Burger King!!! whoop whoop!!! no rice that day! :-).

On Thursday we jumped in a couple of minivans for a long day of driving into Malaysia to Penang. Penang is an island off the coast of Malaysia so we crossed over the town of Georgetown on a ferry. Friday we had a bit of a lie in and then headed into town to do some shopping! You could literally buy a new outfit for every day of the year in Malaysia! I was tempted by alot of camera accessories as I went around to and Ryan by a Playstation 3 (he didn't get it though!). We ended up going to the cinema on the top floor of the shopping mall to see "Alice in Wonderland"-was pretty good-mainly due Johnny Depp's acting and the special effects!

Saturday morning we headed back to the mainland on the World's second longest bridge at 11.4km towards the Cameron Highlands. We were warned to take motion sickness tablets and I'm so glad I did! For about 2 hours we were twisting and turning our way up through the rainforest mountains. But it was worth it just for the 15C drop in temperature for a couple of days. Being in the country was lovely-flowers, vegetables and tea plantations everywhere. When we got to town we all headed to Starbucks!!!! (an absolute novelty I promise you!) Sunday morning I went on a 4-hour tour around the countryside. First we went to "Boh" tea plantation where we got to see how they produced the tea and also got to test the different teas. After that we headed to a butterfly farm which you can see from the photos was not just butterflies but also "king" grasshoppers and massive stick insects etc. We then took a walk around a local vegetable market and then onto a strawberry farm and a bee farm. We also got to walk around a rose garden with lots of other rare flowers. That night we all went out as a group for dinner to a western restaurant-although for some strange reason I choose to have rice again! haha!

Monday morning we were up early to walk to the bus station to get a "VIP special" bus to Kuala Lumpur. The bus was unbelievable-a massive coach with basically each individual chair being a lazy boy with adjusting legs and back along with big armrests! We arrived in Kuala Lumpur midday and headed straight in a taxi to see the Petronas Towers (KLCC) - now the tallest twin towers in the world since 9/11. We managed to get a couple of photos before the daily torrential rainfall. We headed out that night with everyone for the last dinner to a Reggae Reggae Bar.

This morning consisted of a 430am taxi ride to Kuala Lumpur airport! We arrived in Singapore at 8am and after collecting our luggage we found out we couldn't do the free 2-hour tour around Singapore which they offer to passengers with a transit of 5 hours or more because we had already exited customs to get our bags and they only allow one stamp on passport in 24 hours! So that was disappointing and due to bad weather we decided it wouldn't be great to go into town by ourselves. But Changi airport has apparently been voted top airport in the world for the last 6 years and it lived up to its reputation! We ended up checking into a hotel which is actually in the departure lounge and managed to get 6 hours sleep and a shower! There was an outdoor swimming pool too but didn't think that would be much fun in the rain. So we will be back to Belfast City if all goes well on Wednesday morning! I will write again when we get back!

Love Kimberly xo