Malaysia - Borneo

We arrived in Kota Kinabalu, the capital of the state of Sabah, and had a bit of a lazy day.  We hadn't gone to sleep until 2am and were up at 6am to pack our bags that morning.  We checked into our hostel, lazed about and then went for dinner and a cocktail with the Turkish guys.

The next morning we all made our way to a tribal village where we were shown the skulls which are still hanging in one of the long houses.  These skulls were 'collected' by the last head hunter of that tribe.  They told us that when you wanted to ask a girl to marry you, you first needed to go into the jungle, find a rival tribesman, cut of his head, and then present it to the parents of the girl to show that you were capable of looking after her.

We all got to try using a blow dart, I was even allowed to shoot it at a balloon which the guy was holding between his legs.  Luckily for him, I didn't miss.  We got a musical show and were invited up to play with them.  They also taught us how to make fire before we headed back to town.  The guys had to head back to KL and so after dinner they headed to the airport while myself and Kay went back to our hostel to try and make some plans for our short time in Borneo.

We decided that we wanted to go to turtle island and stay the night at a turtle conservation but the next day we couldn't find any agencies that could offer us the trip. We booked a bus over to Sandakan, which is close to turtle island, in the hopes that we could book something over there.  There was plenty to do in Sandakan and around so even if we couldn't we would still have plenty to do.  We arrived in Sandakan pretty late and checked into our accommodation, lucky for us, we had a whole 8 bed dorm to ourselves.  We must be the only lunatics that opt for a fan only room in that heat.

The next morning we went in search of somewhere to book the turtle conservation.  The first place we went to were looking for over RM700 (£140) each to spend one night there.  We were a bit hesitant and told the lady that it was a bit much and we would need to have a think about it.  She, very kindly, told us that if we went to the pier we would be able to book the trip directly with Crystal Quest, who run the conservation, and we would be able to get it for much cheaper.  She was not wrong, we managed to get both of us staying for one night for about half of what the agency wanted.  

We went to a nice Chinese place on the waterfront for dinner and spoke to a lady who had been travelling for 18 years (jealous!) and she gave us loads of tips about booking cheap hotels and flights. 

We made our way the next day to the orangutan sanctuary which is just a short bus ride outside Sandakan.  Twice a day they leave food on platforms for them and if you are there during these times you'll get to see loads of oranguatans.  After we'd had our fill of the amazing creatures, we went across the road to the Sun Bear sanctuary.  It wasn't so easy to spot these tiny bears, but a nice lady that worked there pointed some out to us and also showed us some on a telescope.

We went for a walk along a canopy walk way in a huge big forest close by after lunch and then caught the last bus back to Sandakan.  

There were only 12 of us taken to turtle island the following morning,  they only allow a small number of people of the island at any one time, which is nice.  The island was like paradise, the sand was soft and white and the water crystal clear.  We had some free time after lunch to lie on the beach or go swimming, so we rented some gear and went snorkelling.  After dinner we were shown a video about the conservation centre and what they do which was really interesting.  Then we played a game...the waiting game.  We were called a little after nine to go down to the beach so that we could watch one of the turtles laying their eggs, they only disturb one turtle each night.  The ranger takes the eggs away straight away, but the turtle isn't aware that this is happening and still tries to cover them over once she is done.  After this we were taken down to the water to release the baby turtle that had hatched at the centre that morning.  What an amazing experience that was!

We woke up early the next morning to have breakfast and then we were ferried off the island and back to Sandakan.  We caught a bus back to Kota Kinabalu that morning and from there a flight down to Kuching which is in the state of Sarawak.

When we booked our flights to Borneo, we booked one flight into Kota Kinabalu in Sabah and the next flight out of Kuching, Sarawak.  What we didn't know at the time is that there is no way to get from Sabah to Sarawak overland without going through Brunei.

Thankfully, the flights in Malaysia are super cheap!

Our first day in Kuching was spent walking around the town and doing some shopping. Even when my bag is bursting at the seams, I still always manage to find room to squeeze one more thing (or two) in.  

We took a local bus the next day to a place called Bau, from here we were planning to catch another bus to the fairy caves but when we got there the next bus wasn't leaving for another two hours.  This wouldn't give us much time at the caves if we wanted to catch the last bus back to Kuching so we opted for a taxi instead. It didn't really cost much, about £8 for him to drive us to the caves which we twenty minutes or so away, and then wait an hour for us to explore the caves and then take us back again.  The caves were so pretty, well worth the million steps up to it!

We caught a boat ride down the river at sunset which was also very pretty.  A stunning orange and red sunset was a fantastic backdrop for all the unusual buildings in Kuching.

We took a bus and then a boat to get to Bako National Park.  The boat ride there was very good, the guy driving the boat pointed out a proboscis monkey sitting in the trees and also a crocodile. I was glad we saw those things because we didn't see anything on our trek.  It was a lovely, albeit tiring, trek through the rain forest. 

On our return, we showered and packed our bags ready for our flight to Singapore the next morning which will be our last country in South East Asia.  These last 5 months have a flown in.  I know time flies when you're having fun but I just wish I wouldn't go quite so fast.

Malaysia - peninsular

We left Railay around 10am and were put on a long boat to Krabi, from here we got a mini bus to a place called Hat Yai which is close to the Thailand / Malaysia border.  We had been told that there was a lot of trouble going on in the very south of Thailand.  A bit of a civil uprising of sorts,  but it seemed nice even if we did have to go through an airport security type process just to get into a shopping centre.  

From Hat Yai we got our overnight bus through the border and onto Kuala Lumpur, where we arrived around 5am.  Thankfully we were dropped off close to our accommodation and after more or less pleading with taxis to take us the short distance with our bags, we finally took their advice and just walked.  We were able to check-in almost as soon as we arrived and went for a wee disco nap since we'd not much slept on the bus.  

I woke around lunch time and found a million small bites all over my back! We were thinking this must be bed bugs.  We usually sleep on a bed bug sheet just to be safe, but we had been so tired that we'd just collapsed on the bed.  This had been, thankfully, our first experience of bed bugs while being away.  We put our clothes in to get washed and asked to be moved to another room.  We saw later that they had put someone else into our old room! 

We took the monorail to Little India which is an area of KL where I'm sure you can guess is full of Indian restaurants and shops.  We had some lunch here and bought some lovely Indian sweets from a stall.  From here, we took the monorail again to see the Petronas Towers.  We had decided against paying the £20ish to get to the top viewing platform and instead settled for taking photos from the bottom and thought we would come back that night to have a drink at one of the sky bars close by which would give us a great view of the towers at night.  Unfortunately though, I had been feeling not very well after waking from our nap, and by this point in the day I was feeling very unwell.  We headed back to our accommodation and shortly after I started to be sick.  I spent the rest of the evening back and forth to the bathroom hugging the toilet.  Sorry, I'm sure that was too much information.  Thankfully I woke the next morning feeling better which meant we could spend the day shopping in china town.  We had only been in Malaysia for two days by this point, but I was already sure I was going to love the place.  The people are by far the nicest we have met.  They are unbelievably friendly and so helpful without wanting anything from you in return. 

That night we took another night bus to Kuala Besut where we got a speed boat in the morning to Perhenian (small) Island.  We were dropped of on Long beach and Kay set of to find us some accommodation.  After checking in, we spent the rest of the day lying on the beach or swimming in the crystal clear turquoise waters.  One of the restaurants at Coral Bay, which is a few minutes walk from where we were staying, shows a film every night on a projector.  That night they were showing Horrible Bosses 2 and so we settled ourselves down on the couches and watched our first film in over 4 months.

The next day we did a snorkel trip around the island.  We were taken to Shark Point first, where myself and Kay unfortunately didn't see any sharks, but everyone else on the boat had! Gutted!  One girl said she saw one so big that she freaked out and came back to the boat early.  We stopped at another place after and saw some amazing fish, so big and colourful, it's times like this that I am so unbelievably thankful that I bought an underwater camera.  We were then taken to a spot where we saw turtles which was such an amazing experience.  Lunch came next which was followed by yet more fantastic snorkelling sites.  We had dinner and then want back to the restaurant showing the films so that we could have dessert there and watch The Hobbit 3.

The following day, I had a very relaxing day while Kay did another scuba dive.  

We then arrived in George Town very early, having 'slept' on an overnight bus.  We headed straight for our hostel, dumped our bags and then went in search of some breakfast.  George Town is famous for its hawker stalls and it wasn't long before we found one selling Roti Canai which is Roti with eggs.  Some nice local men, who were also having their breakfast there, helped us to order this and also a hot chocolate each.  We sat with them and they spoke to us about the Malaysian economy, which was a bit deep for 7am.  When they went to leave, they told us they had paid for our breakfast.  Our breakfast was so cheap, about 40p each, but even so, it was very nice of them to do that.

Even though we hadn't really slept, we decided to take a map from the hostel and walk around the area we were staying in to see what there was to see.  We stumbled upon a festival sight and after talking with some guys who were working there, we found out that it was a world music festival that had been on the previous night but that was also on that night too.  They told us that we should take the train to Penang Hill to get the panoramic views over the city.

We needed to make the most of our couple of days in George Town, so we went back to the hostel after that so we could make a plan for the day.  We decided to go on the Hop On Hop Off tourist bus which would take us to the bottom of Penang hill and other sights in the city.  

From the bottom of the hill you need to take a short train ride up a very steep hill to the top which is 700m up.  The views of George Town were amazing and the breeze up there was very welcome.  We made it back down to the bottom of the hill just in time to catch another bus.  We only went one stop to a massive buddhist temple which was up on the side of the hill.  On the way up the many many steps to the top, we stopped at a bit where they had hundreds of tortoise in a pond.  There was actually far too many of them for the size of the pond, but it was fun getting to feed them.  We decided our last stop of the day would be a bit out of George Town where there was a market, the traffic was really bad though, and by the time we got there, it was shut.  We headed back to the hostel and had a BBQ for dinner and then opted to have an early night.  We were supposed to go the the festival with the others from the hostel, the guy running the place had told us not to buy a ticket and that we would all just go with some beers and sit outside and listen to the music, but we were just so exhausted by this point that we couldn't bring ourselves to go.

The next day we went to a mall close by hoping to get the lens on Kay's camera fixed.  We finally found a shop that could fix it but he was looking for quite a lot, so Kay decided to wait and see if they would do it cheaper in KL.  We planned to go to the National park that afternoon but the traffic was so awful because of the Thai water festival that by the time we got there on the bus it was starting to get late.  Kay went to a beach close by to do some sunbathing and I went back to George Town to do some sight seeing in the area where we were staying, which is a UNESCO world heritage site.  

We ate some lovely food from the hawker stalls for dinner and then watched the first episode of the new series of Game of Thrones back at our hostel.

We woke up super early the next morning to catch the first bus back to KL as our flight to Borneo was leaving the following morning.  

We arrived in KL about lunch time but had so much to accomplish that we just dumped our bags at the hostel and headed straight out.  First stop was try and get Kay's camera fixed.  We went to a massive electrical mall and asked every shop there, but none could fix it, none of them even had a new lens she could buy.  We went to another mall to the Nikon shop to see what they could do, but they advised that she would need to send it away and it would take two weeks to fix.  We eventually found a place that had one in stock that she could buy, it cost almost as much as the camera, but needs must.

We went back to china town, not before getting on the wrong bus and going in the wrong direction for 15 minutes, and then got conned into buying some iPads.  They were crazy cheap (£130) but we thought they were fake which was why they were so cheap.  Turns out, we had actually signed up for a mobile phone contract and it took almost two hours to get them to cancel the transaction and give us our money back, all this eating into the very little time we had already.  

After finally getting our money back, we had a very quick dinner and then we went to our hostel to get showered and ready to go out to yet another sky bar for a drink and a view of the patronas towers lit up at night.

All this had taken so long that we made it to the bar at 11.30pm, last orders was midnight.  It was just as well anyway with the drinks being £10 each!

We met some lovely Turkish guys and ended up going for a couple of drinks with them after the sky bar.  We told them we were headed to Borneo the next morning which drew blank stares.  Even though I'm not convinced they were entirely sure where we were going, they asked if they could come with us?  Thinking they were joking, we told them that of course they could.  

They actually came to the airport the next morning, bought tickets and came to Borneo with us!! 

The first of many very cheap internal flights in Malaysia! 

Railay Beach, Krabi - Thailand

I wasn't hugely upset to be leaving Pai.  The place is so pretty and has a definite charm to it, but we had been so unbelievably sick, I don't think I've had a bug like that since I was a child, that I was starting to get a bit fed up with Pai and the four walls and uncomfortable bed that had been my home for too long.  

We left Pai and did all 762 turns in reverse to get to Chiang Mai, and from there we boarded a sleeper bus to take us to Bangkok.  We had hoped that once we arrived in Bangkok in the morning, we would be able to get a train to Surat Thani and from there, another bus to Krabi.  Unfortunately, when we arrived at the train station in the morning, having said our goodbyes to Jess who was meeting with a girl we'd met in Laos to continue her Thailand adventure with her, we were told that the 8am train was already full, and that there were only seats available on the overnight train.  Having not really slept on the bus from Chiang Mai, we couldn't face another sleepless night and so opted to spend the night in Bangkok and catch the train the following morning.  

We met up with Jess, Rheann and Rheann's friend Siobhan for dinner that night before myself and Kay hoped in a taxi to The Dome skybar.  This is the skybar which was used for filming scenes in The Hangover part 2.  We'd read that there was a bit of a strict dress code but with nothing but flip flops or hiking boots to wear on my feet, I put on my nicest dress and my hiking boots, jokes, flip flops, and hoped for the best.  I'd love to say it was "No shoes, no shirt, but I still got service", but I was politely told that there was no way I was getting in with flip flops.  Thankfully, some ingenious woman has started selling shoes from her shop across the road, this happens a lot I guess, and so I bought the ugliest pair of pumps you'll ever see, and off we trotted back to the bar.  Apparently, the hideous shoes are much more acceptable attire, and we were granted access to the lift which would take us up to the 64th floor.  The views from up there were absolutely breathtaking. They weren't demanding you buy a drink, which was nice, but we decided to treat ourselves none the less to a drink each, at a grand total of £28. We had just spent four days in Pai doing nothing, and eating even less, so I think we deserved a wee treat.  Only enough time ( and money ) for one though as we needed to be up before the roosters to get the train to Surat Thani.

We met a lovely Canadian on the train to Surat Thani who invited us to stay with him, his wife and three year old kid when we go to LA.  Seriously contemplating it, he seemed very genuine and said he would show us the sights around LA.  We took a bus from Surat Thani to Krabi and stayed there the night before getting a boat to Railay Beach the next day.

We got off the long boat and were advised, by some idiot, to head to the other beach about ten minutes walk away where, he said, we would find plenty of cheap accommodation.  This was complete nonsense, but we walked the ten minutes, with our heavy bags on our backs, and had to find this out for ourselves, the hard way.  I went for a walk and eventually found some nice cheap accommodation back on the beach we had previously been on.  We spent the afternoon walking around Railay, having lovely fruit shakes and booking things to do while there.  There was a big crowd of scots staying at our accommodation, it was lovely hearing the accent and not have to explain my name to them.

The next day we went on a snorkel trip.  This consisted of visiting a few different islands, some snorkelling and then a BBQ on a quiet beach.  After sunset we got back on the boat and went out to sea again so that we could do more snorkelling, this time at night, with phosphorescent plankton.  This was one of the nicest island trips we've done.  Railay beach and surrounding are just breathtaking! Swimming with the plankton was unreal, so so cool seeing it light up in the water. 

The next morning we got up bright and early to do some rock climbing. We were taken to an area at the end of our beach where we got to do five climbs each.  It was quite hard going at times but the view from 30 meters up was well worth it.  We had lunch with a lovely canadian girl who was climbing with us and then the three of us spent the afternoon catching some rays on the beach.   

We spent our last day at Railay exploring some of the beaches in the area.  We walked some ridiculous jungle path to get to Ton-sai beach.  We sunbathed for a while but as it was pushing 40 degrees we did the sensible thing and went for a long lunch. After lunch, we met a nice New Yorker on the beach and she spent the afternoon with us sunbathing.  There is a path over the rocks at the end of the beach that will take you back to Railay.  We decided this was a much better option as the jungle path was a bit of a killer and Sarah (NYer) had already been to Railay this way that morning and assured us it was much quicker and easier.  It probably would have been, if we hadn't got a bit lost, walked far too high up the hill, and ended up coming out at some random point on the beach, startling the couple sleeping in the shade.  We spent some more time sunbathing and swimming in the crazy hot water, which wasn't particularly refreshing.  Myself and Kay left late in the afternoon to walk to the view point which was up in the hills that we had been rock climbing at.  Sarah decided against it and made her way back to Ton-Sai, hopefully using the right path this time! 

We had expected a bit of a rocky path up to the view point as some Scottish people we had met at our accommodation, who had already been up, advised we wear "proper shoes".  What we were not expecting, was to have to scramble up the hill for about twenty minutes.  Our clothes and bags were completely covered in the red dust from the hill by the time we made it to the top.  It was worth it for the stunning view of all four beaches and the beautiful sun set.  

Our last time in Thailand this trip.  Feeling a bit sad to see the back of it, we've been here so much now that it's starting to have the familiarity of home.  But onwards to Malaysia we go for more fun and frolics.

Thailand - Pai

We had a very lazy day, spent most of the day by the pool. The weather in Pai is a bit weird, it's quite cool at night and in the early morning but by 10-11am it is sweltering. We walked down into the village and had strawberry shakes and myself and Jess also had muesli with fruit and yogurt. This is the first place we have seen nice strawberries, and not at crazy prices either. I went for my first unresearched wax today and thankfully she did a really good job. I've been too chicken before now to just rock up any salon and get a wax. You hear so many horror stories! While I was doing that, Jess went for a foot massage and pedicure. I suspect hers was marginally more relaxing than mine. 

When we walked back up to our accommodation we enquired at another place about rooms. Our place is nice but the wifi is terrible and the toilets are really far away from our dorm room. We got a private room closer to the town centre, better wifi, our own toilet/shower and tea or coffee in the morning, all this for less than we were paying. The only down side is that we now don't have a pool.   We will be doing things during the day from now on anyway and so probably wouldn't have time to laze at the pool anyway. 

We watched the sun set behind the mountains and then showered and put our faces on so that we could go out for some dinner and drinks. 

After our night out in Pai we checked out of Circus and into a hut further down the hill.  This was a private hut with our own bathroom and supposed better wifi, and cheaper so, winning all round.

We had a super lazy day which consisted of naps followed by food followed by naps. 

The next day we decided to rent bikes again and see some of the things on offer around Pai.  First though, we had the obligatory police stop 5 minutes into our trip.  Thankfully for me, they didn't know the difference between a provisional licence and a full UK divers licence and so, it wasn't long before we were on our way again, fine avoided.

Our first stop were some natural hot springs about 10km outside Pai.  The pools were ridiculously hot, much hotter than I would even make a bath at home.  This coupled with the scorching hot weather made the whole experience a bit uncomfortable. We did buy some eggs though, we were told we could cook them in the water.  The lady in the shop told us, or we thought she told us, that you could cook them in any of the pools.  We shoved our eggs and our legs back in the pool we had been in.  About ten minutes later we tried to crack our first egg, this was a bit of a disaster and Kay ended up with egg all down her front.  We decided then to take a walk further up the hill and around the springs.  It was here that we found the pool that was 90 degrees, the one we should have been boiling our eggs in...oops.  We left them in there while we applied some sunscreen, our first of the day, again, oops.  We removed our eggs after a further 5 minutes or so and carried on with our walk around the hot springs.  We found a cooler pool further down the hill which was much more bearable to have our legs in.  Since we didn't want another egg-gate, Jess cracked them open near to a bin.  Unfortunately they still hadn't fully cooked and so we didn't manage to have any eggs that we'd cooked at a hot spring.

Our next stop was a place called Pai Love's Strawberries where they were selling anything and everything strawberry related.  From jam to smoothies to sweeties.  We then stopped at another couple of view points on our way to a waterfall.  We had been told that because this was dry season, the waterfalls in the area had no water.  This one though, claimed all year round water, so we set off hoping to find somewhere nice to cool down and swim for a bit.  We took a wrong turn and ended up in china town, from here we drove up a crazy steep hill which I wasn't entirely sure our bikes would manage up. We did make it to the top and were greeted by another view point.  We paid the 20 Baht entrance fee and sat drinking our free green tea and admiring the view.  The toilets here were infested with huge daddy long leg type spiders and so we all gave it a miss.  Jess bought one of the lovely tea sets that they severed our green tea in, and while they were packaging it up for her, one of the monstrous spiders crawled out of the box and we all screamed like the girls that we are, much to the amusement of the Thais serving us.

Scary ride back down the steep hill was followed by us taking the correct turning for the waterfall.  The waterfall was pretty useless and the pools full of rubbish and so we did an about turn and decided our last stop would be the canyon for sunset.  We met a nice Japanese guy at the waterfall who had walked the 10 or more kilometres to the waterfalls and asked if we would be kind enough to give him a lift back.  I told him that we were going to the canyon but that I could take him as far as the main road.  I don't really like having people of the back of the bike and so I made him drive back down with me on the back.  

We rode to the canyon and as we were quite early for sunset, walked around it.  It was pretty spectacular even if I was a tad on the small side.  Some of the walk around was pretty scary, especially when the path narrowed and was a steep cliff edge of either side.  We had all brought sensible shoes with us but Kay, in her wisdom, decided her flip flops would be ok for the job.  She was wrong, she did thankfully manage it but some of the clambering up parts would have been much easier for her in actual shoes i'm sure.

After sunset, we drove back to Pai and returned our bikes to the rental place.  We tried to then book a bus to Bangkok for the following day but, unfortunately, it was already full and so we would have one more day in lovely Pai.  A yummy burrito for dinner was followed by us all passing out early after our long day.  

We had a long lie the next morning since we had no plans.  We got cereal from the 7/11 and then spent the morning in the reception bit, using the wifi and meeting other people staying at the same place, this included the friendly Japanese man from the day before.  The Japanese guy, Tacu, told us about some nice organic restaurants just outside the main village and so the four of us headed off to grab some lunch.  We bumped into another guy from our hostel on the way, he was on his way back from the hospital because his shoulder had dislocated, ouchie! He joined the four of us for a wonderful lunch where the four of them had salads and I had fantastic home made granola with fruit and home made yogurt.  

After lunch, Kay, Jess and I walked up to a huge Buddha statue on the hill.  The million steps to the top was torture but the view from up there was thankfully worth it. On our way back to the village we stopped at a gorgeous wee cafe type place where I had some arabica drip coffee which honey.  I've never thought to put honey in my coffee but it was actually lovely.  We stayed there for hours, using their wifi and lounging on the pillows and hammocks.  

About dinner time we walked back into the village and headed for dinner at a place that Tacu had recommended to us.  Just as we were about to order, himself and the other guy from lunch both walked in having had the same thought.  We all had some yummy pad Thai and the the three of us headed off as we were getting eaten alive by Mosquitos and wanted to get some dessert at a small bakery we'd read about on trip advisor.  The boys were heading off to a party which their American friend had been invited to.  We all decided that this was probably the same party we had been warned about that morning by other guests at our accommodation. Apparently there is a ladyboy who owns accommodation close to ours and she often invites unsuspecting male tourists to eat with her, plies them with alcohol and has her wicked way.  Hopefully, they managed to save their friend before it was too late! Haha!

We ate a silly amount of cake at the bakery and fell into bed full and content.

The next 3 days were an absolute write-off.  We all caught a sickness bug that floored us for a few days.  We managed to get our bus changed for 3 days later and only had to pay for the cost of one ticket as they managed to sell 2 of our original ones for us.  

Heading south to spend some time on the beach before heading to Malaysia. 

Chaing Mai - Thailand

We arrived in Chaing Mai bright and early but, as it was so early we weren't able to check into our accommodation and so had breakfast and then went for a wee walk upto the moat which surrounds the city centre.  We checked out things to do in Chiang Mai and made a plan for the next couple of days.

I had read about a woman's correctional institute where the inmates are taught to do Thai massage and then are able to work in a spa connected to the prison.  We walked down around lunch time to see if we could book ourselves in for a massage in a couple of days time.  When we arrived we were told that they didn't do bookings and that the massages were offered on a first come first served basis.  The next available appointments were at 3pm so we changed our plans for the day and booked ourselves in.  We went back to the accommodation, checked into our dorm and then chilled out for a while since we'd slept on a bus the night before. 

Just before 3pm we headed back to the prison for our massages.  I am ridiculously ticklish and have never really enjoyed any massage so I opted for a foot massage while Kay and Jess went all out and got Thai massages.  The place was very professional and the ladies all very nice and friendly.  I kept wanting to ask my masseuse what she was inside for as she was so sweet that I couldn't imagine her doing anything illegal. My foot massage was great, lasted an hour and only cost £3. I wouldn't say that I am very high maintenance at home, I've had my nails done a handful of times, I think one facial and again, a handful of massages.  In south east Asia it's a different matter, when you can get a pedicure or massage for a few pounds, it would be rude to say no.

We went to see a couple of temples on the way back to our accommodation and then got ready for dinner.  We had the most amazing food for dinner, I had a delicious banana curry while Jess had young coconut curry and Kay had Kaow Soi.  Full bellies and an early night for us.

The next morning we were up at the crack of dawn to get ready for our day at the elephant sanctuary.  We had originally picked to go to a bigger place called Elephant Nature Park but they were full for quite a few days and so the lady at our accommodation recommended this place ( Elephant Retirement Park ) and I am so glad she did.  Our day started with a bit of a meet and greet and some information about the sanctuary, the people working there and, of course, the elephants.  They had four elephants at the park that day, one was 25 years old, and pregnant and there were three young ones between the ages of 2 and 5. We spent the morning feeding the elephants and getting big slobbery kisses and cuddles from them.  Then came an amazing lunch of pad Thai, fried rice, chicken wings and watermelon. Yum.  After lunch we got to get into the water with them and splash around until we were all thoroughly soaked through. Next was the really fun bit, mud bath!  This was followed by some more time in the water with them so we could get all the mud off ourselves and them.  This place was so wonderful, they rent elephants from other places in order that they can give them a better life away from mistreatment or being made to perform tricks for tourists.  They can only rent the elephants as the law in Thailand says that they must be passed through a family from generation to generation. They, really sadly, didn't have enough money to keep the older pregnant one last month and so had to give her back.  She spent the whole month in a cage, pregnant and in a cage.  This makes me feel sick but thankfully they managed to get her back this month.  They are a relatively new place and I really really hope that they succeed and they manage to save more beautiful elephants from abuse.  

We went back to the same place for dinner because it was just that good! I spoke to a couple outside who had looked at the menu and were about to walk away.  I told them they were making a huge mistake and they should definitely eat there.   They weren't disappointed and neither were we.  We asked if they did cooking classes and we told that if we went back any day between 3pm and 5pm, and they were quiet, they would show you how to make your dish and give you the recipe.  

We had a bit of a chill out day today.  We started the day by going to a yoga class, Kay's and my first ever, if you exclude the one at the top of the mountain in Sapa.  The class was wonderful, the instructor was really great, I can't wait to do regular classes when I get home.  After lunch we went to a cafe called Catmosphere for some tea and cake. This cafe has 19 resident cats which you can play with while in the cafe.  It sounds kind of gross but the place was spotlessly clean and the cats are so beautiful and obviously very well looked after.  I am allergic to cats and so took two antihistamines in the morning thinking that would do the trick, but unfortunately not.  I started to get itchy eyes and kept sneezing after a while and so I had to go sit outside.  I did manage to be around them for about an hour though.  Pad Thai and an early night for me while the Kay and Jess went to the night market. 

We spent the next morning at a cooking class learning how to make 4 different delicious thai dishes. I decided to make pad Thai, a chicken coconut milk soup, papaya salad and Khao soi curry. It was so much fun getting to make all these things and I can't wait to try out these and the other recipes from the book we were given at the end of the class. 

In the afternoon we took a bus to Pai, the journey consisted of over 700 corners on an uphill road. Thankfully it didn't actually feel too bad, it was my ears popping with the height that was bothering me rather than all the turns. We arrived in Pai finally feeling hungry after eating so much food at our cooking class and so ventured down into the town. Our accommodation was a wee bit away from the main strip but the walk only took ten minutes, but you do need a torch to see where you are going. Pai is such a cute wee place with lots of yummy looking street food and cool shops along 'walking street'. Our accommodation is called Circus School and you can in fact learn how to do some fire tricks here. The place also has an infinity pool! 

Glad to be back in the land of pad Thai and 7/11s. 

Sapa - Vietnam

 We arrived in Sapa at 5am but the bus driver was nice enough to let us all sleep on the bus until 6.30am when he chucked us off the bus. Sapa is about 5000ft above sea level but I wouldn't have known we'd climbed that high over night if it wasn't for the fact that a crisp packed had swollen up like a balloon in my bag. Some local ladies were waiting to greet us when we got off the bus. They wanted us to book a trek with them while we were there. We didn't want to make any rash decisions and so told them we would go to our hostel and have a think about it. We had breakfast and then got some info from our hostel on the treks that they provide. We decided between us that we would book a two day trek with them and myself and Kay would do a one day trek with the local ladies. Jess was coming to the end of her visa and so she would need to leave vietnam before Kay and I. Her plan had been to head to Loas and wait a few days for us there. 

We booked our trek with the local ladies, our guide Tam Tam was so lovely and we were very much looking forward to our trek with her in a few days. 

We then went for a walk around Sapa town and the lake. It was so unbelievably beautiful, you would think you were in the Alps with the surrounding mountains and french architecture. 

We had bought plenty of warm clothing in Hanoi but thankfully it wasn't that cold. The temperature would drop quite dramatically when clouds would come over the village, and particularly at night. 

We started our trek nice and early the next morning. There were about ten of us in total doing the trek. The first hour or two were a bit over cast but it wasn't long before the clouds lifted and we were gifted with the wonderful view of the rice hills of Sapa. We walked for a few hours before we stopped at a village for some tasty food. After lunch we walked for another hour or so before the majority of the group left to get the bus back to Sapa Town, they were only doing a one day trek. The three of us, two Israeli guys and our guide carried on for a short while to our home stay. There was another American couple already at the home stay. They made us some home made chips and gave us delicious plum wine to keep us going until dinner time. 

The temperature hasn't been very hot, maybe twenty degrees or so, so none of us had the sense to put on any sun cream. This resulted in myself and Kay getting a wee bit burnt on our faces and chest. One of the Israeli guys nicknamed me moonface because I had been wearing a headband which covered the top of my head which made my sunburnt face look like the moon, apparently! 

We had some time before dinner and so Jess, Kay and I went for a walk around the village. We stopped at a bar, yes they have bars in those remote parts of Sapa, and had a hot chocolate to heat us up a bit. 

Dinner was a mountain of delicious food which was followed by an early night, we were all pretty exhausted from our day of walking. 

The next morning we woke up early as Emelia, one half of the couple who were with us, was a yoga instructor ad had agreed to do a quick class with us. This was going to be myself and Kay's first ever yoga class and I was really looking forward to it. We all grabbed a towel and set them down outside. We did our short class which was brilliant, but a lot harder work than it looks! 

While we were all having our breakfast of pancakes and bananas, our guide came over to tell us that the lady running the home stay was very upset that we had used towels for our yoga that morning. He told us "she has to used those towels for over one year, and you have just got chicken sh*t all over them".

This started a hilarious discussion where we joked about how often they wash the towels we had used to dry ourselves that morning and that we were probably doing the next group a favour, since they would now need to actually wash the chicken sh*t off. I sincerely hope that something was lost in translation and that they don't in fact use the towels for over a year without washing them! 

We started off for our second day of trekking but we unfortunately didn't do much today which was a bit disappointing. After we checked back into our accommodation and showered, we decided we would go for a nice relaxing massage. I generally don't find massages relaxing due to the fact that I am so ticklish. This massage was the least relaxing I've ever had, and that is saying something! Some crazy chickens decided to start making an absolute racket underneath the window which made me start laughing which in turn made my masseuse crease up too.  We had dinner and mulled wine and we to our accommodation to relax. Jess decided to risk overstaying her visa and so she would do the second trek with us and then leave for Laos that night. 

The next day was very chilled, we were all a but stiff from our hike/massage and so we spent the day walking around Sapa looking at all the nice things on offer in the shops. 

The following day we started our second trek with Tam tam at 9am.  We actually ended up walking with some other local woman, which was a bit annoying as we were all looking forward to spending time with Tam tam but it turned out that the other lady was just as nice. We walked all the way through Sapa village, getting some raw sugar cane on the way. I didn't much like it as it gets stuck in your teeth, it's also not ideal for a diabetic so I just tried a little bit. We walked up and up and up a never ending hill, but the views from the top were beautiful. From the top, it was then mostly down hill, which can be very hard going too, using muscles your not used to using. Tam tam had told us that we would be able to buy gifts and souvenirs at the village where she lives but the woman walking with us only had bracelets for sale. We arrived at her village about 2pm and she asked if we wanted to walk any further, we were all a bit trekked out and anxious to get back to Sapa with plenty of time to pack our bags for our night bus. She gave us all a free "silver" bracelet and sent us off on motorbikes back to Sapa. 

We had enough time to pack and get some nice things from the shops before we left for the bus. 

We had read that this journey from Sapa to Laos was supposed to be horrendous but we decided not to listen to the masses and just booked it anyway. The bus arrived an hour or more late and so full already that they really struggled to get our bags on. The had to remove a live chicken from underneath to make room for Kay's bag. 

After boarding the bus, they made some Vietnamese people get out of their seats to make room for us and made them sit on the floor. I would feel bad but I'm sure they paid only a fraction of the fortune that we paid for that bus and they weren't going as far as us anyway. It was pretty difficult to sleep as we were going around corner after corner to get down the hill. We were turfed off our bus early the next morning and put on another bus which took us to the border. 

Quite an uneventful crossing by the usual corrupt standard, Jess even got through with only having to pay a small fee for overstaying. 

Goodbye beautiful Vietnam, hello Laos! 

Hanoi

We arrived in Hanoi about 3pm and got a taxi to our accommodation.  After humphing our bags up 4 long flights of stairs we went for a late lunch.  As we didn't have much time in Hanoi, I went straight from lunch to find the hairdressers I had read about.  Even though they told me they were open until 6pm, when I arrived, the owner ( and expert colourist), was not there.  After looking at my hair and talking to the owner on the phone for about twenty minutes, the girls in the salon advised that I would need to come back the next day. Feeling deflated, I walked back to our accommodation to meet the girls for dinner.  

We had been told by a fellow traveller about a big store called The Big C, where she told us, we would be able to find lots of good cheap clothing.  We were starting to get desperate as we were headed for Sapa soon and the temperatures there would be in the high teens at best.  So, off we headed for The Big C, it ended up being a huge disappointment though.  The clothes were rubbish, and not particularly cheap!  We ended up getting some toiletries and snacks just so not to make the trip a complete waste of time.  I did buy some hair dye though and when we got back to our place, I spent the afternoon sorting my hair while Kay and Jess went for a walk to the lake.  

We took my new hair do and Jess' lovely new dress from Hoi An out for their first public appearances that night.  There isn't a particular backpackers drinking area in Hanoi but we managed to find a lively street not far from our accommodation.  We were first ushered onto tiny little chairs, with a tiny little table fit for children.  These typical Vietnamese drinking places only serve local beer and so we removed ourselves from our tiny pews and headed into the first bar we saw.  After having a couple of drinks and a dance, we met a guy from Liverpool who asked if we would go to the bar around the corner with him, and watch the end of The Devil Wears Prada.  A bit of an unusual request but since it's Jess' favourite film, we decided we would accompany him.  We ended up not really watching the end of the film and instead spent the thirty minutes talking independence and Margaret Thatcher.  We ended the night at a club close by where we danced until the early hours of the morning.

After checking out the next morning, we spent the majority of the day on 'Fashion Street' where we finally managed to get some warm clothes for Sapa.  We bordered a bus that night to take us up to the beautiful mountain village of Sapa to do some trekking.