Laos We were picked up in the morning by a minibus from our hostel that took us to the Thailand/Laos border. It was a 7 hour journey and unfortunately Jess and I were last to be picked up and so were stuck with the 2 seats in the front, one of which was fold out and had very little cushion! We stayed the night a mile on from the border in little wooden huts high in the hills. It was the first night since leaving home where I have been cold and I was happy to snu...

Singapore/ Chiang Mai When I arrived in Singapore I got a taxi to Jess' cousins apartment. The apartment was very modern and had a fully working hot power shower! In the evening we went for dinner and a walk around Marina Bay. It seemed like a great (clean) city so I am looking forward to returning there in a couple of months. At midday on Friday we flew to Bangkok where we took the mrt to the big train station and got the night train up to Chiang Mai. The slee...

Borneo 5 Mantanani island was stunning! The camp was right on the beach and we slept in bung houses which had 3 level bunk beds and were completely open. The first evening we took a walk around the village and bought a fresh squid for dinner. The cooks cooked it in it's own ink and fried it like calamari. On the second morning we had a session on coconuts. We found out how to climb the trees like the locals, were taught about their many uses and how to weave th...

Borneo 4 The past couple of weeks we have stayed at camp Bonkud. It was a really nice camp in the middle of a village and, unlike Camp Tinangol, the project site and school were right next to camp. We slept 2 people to a tent which was comfortable in the evenings but you couldn't enter the tents in the day because they got so hot! The first evening we were given another local dance by the villagers who ranged in age from 12 to 17 and we subsequently saw them pe...

We went to Mamutik island (off Kota Kinabalu) on Sunday and it was so pretty, with sand like a Caribbean beach! We spent the day swimming, sunbathing and eating before heading back and going out for dinner all together for our last night in the capital. Our coach picked us up nice and early on the Monday and we headed back to Camp Tinangol for a last couple of days on the construction site. On Wednesday we had a 7 hour bus journey to Batu Puteh on the Kinabatanga...