For people who don't use facebook I've put my pics up here - http://picasaweb.google.com/Nukulah

There are 3 files, one for KL, one for Brunei and one for Borneo. Enjoy!

I keep finding other things to do than sort through my photos! I'm going to try and get some up online tomorrow to stop people pestering me but for now here is a photo from each day of my trip:

All the first day consisted of was travel, and once I arrived I had a strange Malaysian dish for dinner. Nasi Lemak consists of rice (good), chicken and potato curry (good), cold anchovie stuff (hmm), half a boiled egg (ok.....) and some peanuts (wait, what?)


The next day I spent in KK, investigating options for trips to the mountains and shopping at the markets. In the evening I went to watch the sunset at a viewpoint up in the hills behind KK.


This day I spent in the mountain national park. It was kinda wet and coudy, but here is a pic of me at the start of the path to hike to the top of the mountain.


This was the day of my trip to an island just off the coast of KK. I spent a big chunk of the day lying on the beach!


On my last day in KK I went to the bird sanctuary and then the museum complex before watching the sunset and checking out the fruit and veg night market. These kids escorted me to the bird sancturay!


My next stop on the trip was Brunei. On the boat I met two Canadians and a German so we stuck together for our time in Brunei. In the evening of the day we arrived we went to the mosque as the sun was setting. It's a pretty impressive building at the best of times but that evening it looked even more spectacular.


We had a day visiting the tourist sights the next day - we went to a local waterfall, got a view of BSB from the top of one of the tallest buildings in the city and then went on a boat cruise to see the water villages, mosques, palaces and monkeys. Heaps of kids in the water village waved at us and called out hello.



We had a quieter day the next day and went to the mosque to have a look inside.


The others left early the next morning and I jumped on a speedboat to a place called Bangar to go for a hike up to a viewpoint in the middle of the jungle. It was hard work but totally worth it!


My last day in Brunei was quite slow. The weather wasn't too good and Chinese New Year was in full swing so I checked out some of the shopping centres and wandered the city aimlessly. I also went for one last roti and blueberry juice before flying to KL.


Had an early start to my first day in KL and went to the Petronas towers. I also saw a lion dance to celebrate Chinese New Years and in the evening I went to the KL tower.


My last full day in KL was alternated with shopping a tourist sights. I got a bus out to a cave system and climbed to the top to see some Hindu temples and crazy monkeys, and I also had a look around Chinatown until the rains started.


I had an afternoon flight back to Hanoi and spent the morning trying to cram all my stuff into my bags. I have make many shopping! Notice the jar of marmite - possibly the most exciting thing I bought!


The day after I arrived back I discovered that I had provided a feast for some bed bugs in KL. Both legs and arms are covered in these minging red bites:

Today I had a fun experience in a pharmacy trying to get some sort of treatment for the bites. The local pharmacy staff don't speak English and my phrasebook didn't tell me the translation for bed bugs so I had problems getting them to understand what was the cause of my bites. In the end I gave up and headed to a pharmacy in the Old Quarter where they spoke a bit of English and knew what bed bugs were so now I am stocked up with creams and tablets. Fingers crossed the bites go soon as I don't want to scare my students!

Also: This made me laugh hysterically:- http://uk.news.yahoo.com/blog/editors_corner/article/11975/

I'm back!

It actually felt cold when I stepped off the plane in Hanoi last night! I kinda missed the tropical heat. I did notice it was there to a lesser extent in HCMC when I had to change planes there so maybe a weekend there is in order soon. This next term I am woring 3 day weeks so I'm going to make the most of having time off to see some of the country. If I can find some cheap flights to HCMC I'll head there to have a look around as it looks like its a bit different to Hanoi.

I got the bus to mny new house yesterday. This was no end of fun to dea with at the airport. The taxi mafia were waiting to ambush me as soon as I cleared customs, and once I'd finally shaken them off I went out of the airport to get the bus there were heaps more waiting to try and rip me off. Itwasn't clear where the local buses went from so I headed towards the otehr buses figuring they must all go from the same place. There more people tried to hustle me onto various shuttle buses but I managed to shake them off by telling them that I was heading to Kim Ma. Pretty much all the shuttles went to Long Bien and the Old Quarter and I guess they asumes I would be heading there as thats where the majority of tourists go. I tried to ask some of them where the normal buses went from but thy told me "no bus. Take this one then taxi." It seemed unlikely to me that the buses wouldn't be running but I went back in to get some impartial info from someone who wasn't trying to get me to use their bus or taxi and established that the buses were infact running. She told me to go past the shuttle buses and fnd the bus there but there wer no signs or bus stops for local buses. I did spot some people lurking under a bridge thing across the road and eventually established that this was where the local city buses went from after finding one of the passengers who understood what I was trying to ask about the bus. I guess they don't want tourists to get the local bus for just VND5000 when they can fleece them for so much more with taxis and shuttles!

Last night I had to switch my aircon over to heat - after nearly teo weeks of fans and aircon tog et through the night without melting this was very strange - but its still not been particularly cold today. I went for lunch with my new housemate Zoe and it was eaten on midget plastic chairs by the side of the road and it was wa

I'm waiting for the city to come back to life after Tet and for the shops to all open again so I can go and get myself sorted with some bedding. Right now I am using my sleeping bag liner as I have no sheets. Thankfully I have a pillow and a duvet but I need to get linen but nowhere is open at the moment. I might venture out tomorrow and see if any of the places in the old quarter are open but they may well be closed until Monday.

Right now I'm sorting through my photos. I didn't realise quite how many I'd taken! Once I've sorted them I'll stick some up in various places but right now here are a couple of my favourites:


This is the mosque in Brunei. We went for dinner in the evening then headed to the mosque and got there as the sun was setting. This made the cky a cool colour alongside all the different colours of the mosque.


It also looks pretty cool changed into black and white!


A monkey!!!


Petronas Towers at night

There is an insane storm going on right now! There is so much rain it is running down the road in streams and the thunder is directly overhead rattling the windows each time. For a change I made it back to the hostel before the rains properly set in! I just hope it's gone by tomorrow morning as I don't want a choppy ride down to Brunei on the boat

I made it to the bird sanctuary today, and got some nice views of the mountain on the way. The set up at the place is a bunch of boardwalks through mangrove swamps and over small ponds. Sadly I didn't have and insect repellent to ward off all the mozzies that lived in the swamps and ponds. Thankfully I had my coat to cover up my arms and apparently mozzies aren't such big fans of after sun lotion so I didn't get too bitten in the end. It could have been a lot worse. I saw a few birds, including a kingfisher and then when I was done sweating away and swatting off the mozzies I got a taxi back into town. I went to a random street restaurant to get some chicken and rice.

(cool thing number one about Asia - when you get hungry just find a ransom street cafe and they will serve you a rice or noodle dish pretty quickly. In Vietnam its often Pho or Bun Cha but here you can get chicken rice, or various sorts of curries. It's all there for you to choose from and then they just whack it on a plate and serve it to you. It's cheap and tasty, and usually quick, and it's fresh as despite being ready when you get there its only recently been cooked and so is still fresh. I guess its the noodle/rice-based version of McDonalds!)

Next up I headed out to the museums. It was a grim walk in the heat but once I was there it was amazingly air conditioned. I had a look around the main part of the museum then I went to the Islamic civilization part before walking around the heritage village. Like the museum of ethnology in Hanoi its a selection of traditional reed houses, usually on stilts. Unlike Hanoi, its surrounded by jungle and water and therefore more mozzies!

The museums were near a Sikh temple and the state mosque so I went to check them out - I went into Sikh temple as some guy there showed me and and told me all about the place, but I just passed by the mosque as there was no-one about and I didn't want to do something wrong or end up somewhere I wasn't supposed to be. Instead I jumped in a taxi and headed to the shopping centre

(cool thing number two about Asia - taxi's are air conditioned and cheap. Sweet!)

I had a look around some of the shops and picked up a few things to decorate my room with as well as some shoes and a pretty top. I also went to Starbucks and indulged in a caramel hot chocolate. Vietnamese places don't really know how to make a decent hot chocolate so I enjoyed the decent Starbucks version very much!

When I was done with the centre I went over to the market for a look around and then I grabbed some random chicken on a stick thing from a street stall and then saw that the sun was starting to set over the ocean. I went to a cafe on the waterfront and got a drink whilst watching the sun set. It was pretty clear today so the view from the top of the hill would probably have been better than it was when I went up there a couple of days ago but I really couldn't be bothered to go up there and then come back down and head back to that part of town again. I guess I've seen the sun set into the ocean plenty of times in Brighton to not feel like I missed out on anything. Once the sun had disappeared I went along the sea front a bit to the place that offered massages and reflexology. I'd got a few leaflets about other places throughout the day but this place had beds facing the sea front and looked really nice so I went there and got a shoulder massage and some reflexology on my bright red feet (my amazing rainbow flip flops don't like getting wet and have now dyed the soles of my feet bright red!) and it was so good and so cheap!

I headed back to the hostel past the supermarket and discovered marmite which was possibly the shopping highlight of my day! They only way to get it in Hanoi is to pay a gazillion pounds for a tiny jar imported from the UK but bigger jars are available here and are pretty much the same price as back home!


I've now gotta pack my marmite and all my other crap as I'm heading to Brunei tomorrow. The boat goes at 8am so I'm not gonna be up for packing in the morning!

I spent today on a sandy beach on a tropical island! It looked kinda grey today when I got up but the sun was shining over the islands so I decided to make my way over anyway. I'm glad I'm did! There were some good views of the mountain on the way over and then it all clouded over and couldn't be seen for the rest of the day. There were also grey clouds hovering over KK all day yet sky above the islands was sunny and blue!

I went for a walk through the jungle bit to get to a place called sunset point and the noise of all the insects and birds was incredibly loud. I then climbed down to sea level and clambered over some boulders and walked across mini beaches tog et back to the main beach. At some points I ended up wading through the water but it was nice and cooling to do that. i love my rainbow flip flops from America s they are so durable - regular flip flops from places like Accessorize would be trashed by now but my rainbows are still going strong despite all I've put them through! They were perfect for my adventure along the coastline this morning too.

Once I got back to the main beach I hired a beach mat and got some freshly squeezed orange juice and soaked up the sun for a bit. I cooled down with a dip in the sea every so often and was surrounded by little fish each time. Even just at knee height the fish swam round if you stand still! I decided against snorkelling as seaweed creeps me out too much. I still saw heaps of fish though as they all swim about under the jetty, and there is also a submerged walkway you can stand on to see them. They were so pretty!!

Despite excessive use of factor 40 sunblock I still got slightly burnt but generally I avoided any major lobster effect. Most importantly of all my feet are still a regular human colour rather than an alien red that pretty much glows in the dark! This is a major achievment for me! Liz can attest to the fact that my feet went a horrific colour with the sunburn in New Zealand but today it was my lower leg that got a bit of the burn going on, as well as the hard to reach parts of my back and my wrists - I guess I forgot to put suncream on my wrists as that part doesn't usually burn but the sun was pretty fierce today. It;'s not bad sunburn though and it should be gone by tomorrow morning.

Soon after I got back into KK the heavens opened in another tropical downpour - the weather right now seems to be clear and dry in the mornings and then the clouds roll in in the afternoon/ evening and sometimes the rain comes along too. As a result, tomorrow morning I am heading to the bird sanctuary as its possible to walk there over the hills with some views of the mountain in the distance, then in the afternoon I'm going to go to the mosque and the museums as it doesn't matte if it rains there! I toyed with the idea of heading back to the mountain to see if the views are any better but really it seems unlikely it will be clear tomorrow, plus its a lot of money and effort to get there so I'm just gonna stay in KK. I might also go to this place along the seafront that offers massages with a view over the sea - they are pretty cheap and I feel like indulging! I'll probably also get some shopping in. Today I went to the Air Asia office and paid my RM5 charge for checked baggage in anticipation of accumulating a bag before I fly out of Brunei. There are a couple of things I want to buy here, plus there are some things I want to get from the supermarket here that are impossible to find/incredibly expensive in Hanoi, like decent drinking chocolate. I also saw timtams in the supermarket here! I doubt those will make it back to Hanoi as I won't be able to resist once I've bought them.

I'm heading back out into the downpour now to get some food and go and browse the covered markets and part with some of my money!

Today was spent up in Kinabalu national park!

Yesterday I met a guy at the hostel who was heading there this morning too so I tagged along with him and we managed to find some private transport for only RM16 each. He is originally from Germany but has been living in the UK for the last few years and he's a very cool guy. He looks ever so slightly like Dave Gorman, and he has braided the hair on his chin - it reaches his waist!! - but despite the slightly kooky appearance he was an interesting guy to chat to on the journey to the park. On the way there the view to the summit was clear but soon after arriving it clouded over. This didn't stop me heading off to explore some of the walking tracks around the base of the mountain. I'm not equipped to climb the mountain, nor can I really spare the time this time round, but I'd like to think I'll get back in the future to get to the top. The tracks around the base were pretty cool though and a good way to spend a couple of hours. I encountered 3 crazy Aussies at a random viewpoint and we all headed up to the botanical gardens together. They also invited me to join them for lunch which was cool. After lunch it was starting to drizzle a bit and visibility was fading but before leaving the park we arranged a car to take us up to the official start of the climb to have a look. There wasn't much to see except cloud but I do have a photo of me getting rained on at the start of the climb. I'll try and stick some photos up soon when the computer at the hostel is free for a long time but I don't want to be the annoying person who spends FOREVER leeching the free internet right now. Soon after this it started to tip it down so we collected a couple of Koreans to fill our car then headed back to KK.

It was so much cheaper doing it this way than doing one of the proper tours and I'm glad that did it this way as most of the tours hit the park in the afternoon when it was absolutely hammering it down. Although the views were often shrouded in clouds it was still an awesome day, and given that I was up in the mountains exploring the rain forest in the rainy season I'm just thankful it was dry for most of the day.

When I got back I headed to the post office to try and send my police forms but the place had already closed for the day so I'll have to try and do it tomorrow. I headed towards the water front to check out some of the markets here and found an amazing fruit and veg market. They have everything you could ever want and they're so much more organised than the random markets in Hanoi. I also didn't get harassed at all whereas back in Hanoi I have had people shoving things into my hands to try and get me to buy them. I picked up some rambutan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rambutan) and mangosteens (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mangosteen) and got a kilo of both combined for a ridiculous price like a pound or something. Sadly pineapples here are sold whole - I will have to wait until I'm back in Hanoi to get the prepared pineapple as I really can't be bothered to attempt to cut up a pineapple.

Right now it is raining in a lovely tropical style and it doesn't seem to be letting up so I'm going to have to brave the streets to go get some food. I hope the rain has cleared by tomorrow as I want to head over to the islands near by and find a nice beach to chill on, and maybe go snorkelling to see some tropical fish. That won't be much fun if its raining!!

today i walked past a branch of the British Council and now I'm thinking that in a year or two I might investigate jobs there. I could easily live here for a year!

One last thing - my Vietnamese number doesn't work here so if you send me a text and don't get a reply its not because I'm ignoring you! I've got my British SIM card in my phone right no but I have hardly any credit on so if you have a truly exciting piece of news you can't wait to tell me text me on that number. No guarantees I'll reply though!

I've escaped into an air conditioned net cafe to cool down so I thought I'd bore you all with an update! Also the keyboard at this place is better than the one at the hostel so my typing should be better this time.

I forgot how opressively hot Malaysia is. It's taking me some time to get used to it. I did remeber to buy some sunblock this morning so hopefully I won't get burnt. i even remembered to apply it to my feet today! I thought I got a touch of sunburn at the airport yesterday but I think it was just where the straps of my bag were rubbing, thank god. Whilst killing time at KL airport yesterday I ventured outside to sit by a random water fountain for a while but I didn't last too long before escaping back into the air conditioned terminal. Also I was sitting on some concrete steps which were stupidly hot and not at all comfortable. I'm glad didn't get sunburn as that would make carrying my bags around very uncomfortable.

Today I have been walking around Kota Kinabalu trying to get used to the heat and humidity. There was a cool market but I resisted the urge to buy anything. There were a couple of things I eyed up so I might buy them from the night market if they're available there. I saw some pretty fabric butterflies I might buy in pink and red to decorate my room back in Hanoi. All the furniture there is dark wood so I think pink and red will go with it and I'm now on the lookout for pink or red things. I did see a really nice pink pashmina at the market but very similar ones are available in Hanoi so I don't think I'm going to bother buying one here.

I also trailed around the city today trying to find an ATM that would give me money. I tried out a couple of banks and they kept saying incorrect pin entered as pin numbers here are 6 digits long. That souldn't be a problem as its the same back in Vietnam and yet my British card with only a 4 digit pin works fine there but it seemes to cause problems here. I went to find HSBC thinking that had to accept my card but it also failed there. I was working my way towards a phone place to call my bank and ask what was going in and I stopped at evey ATM I found on the way. Eventually one worked and I was able to get at my money which was a relief. I walked back towards the centre and came across a park and the city hall on the way which were cool, and then I headed down to the water front. I checked out ferrys to Brunei and the islands near KK then walked along the sea front for a bit before the heat got too much. I escaped into a shopping centre full of shops like Esprit, Roxy and Quicksilver and was actually slightly overwhelmed by all the shops. i'm used to the random little shops in Hanoi. Even the shopping centres there are full of random shops selling a selection of unrelated goods but here they are like carbon copies of the ones back home.

Once I'm ready to brave the heat again I'm going to head back to the hostel to sort my stuff out and fill in soem tedious police forms to send back to the UK so I can get a police check for my work permit application in Vietnam. I'm going to go check out the hill on the edge of KK later - apparently its a good palce to watch teh sun set over the islands then I might go to the night market.

Tomorrow I'm either going to go to the islands nearby or to Kinabalu national park. I've looked at going on a tour there but they seem quite expensive and need a minimum of two people. I should be able to join a tour but apparently it is pretty easy to get a local bus to the park really cheaply so I think I'm going to do that instead. The advantage to a tour is that they fit a lot in and include some hot springs and a canopy walkway thing but I'm looking at going to a place in Brunei that has a canopy walkway so I might just go for the local bus option. That way I could do what I want and go where I want to go.

It's quite nice being here as I no longer stand out and get stared at all the time!I guess there are a lot of tourists who come here and they're used to us, plus the country is just more used to the whole idea of Other Countries whereas Vietnam is only jsut opening up. Also the locals here are of a similar build to Westerners and I no longer tower over everyone I meet. There is less hunger too so people don't look like walking skeletons the way a lot of people do back in Hanoi. Apparently the average yearly income in Vietnam is somewhere between $100 and $200. There are a growing number of wealthy Vietnamese - foreigners are no longer the richest people in the country - who have a lot of cash to splahs around (for example the 5 weeks IELTS course where I work costs $650, and there are 7 different levels to progree through to get there so if you come in at a complete beginner you end up having to do eight courses to get the IELTS certificate ready to study abroad. That's a lot of money) and so that means that there must be a lot of people who are earning little to nothing each year. These are the people who get up stupidly early to cycle for 2 or 3 hours each day from their shack into Hanoi with a bicycle loaded with goods to try and sell them in the streets, and the people who walk the streets all say trying to sell things like fruit or snacks from their baskets. I guess little money means little food which is why they are all so tiny. That's not the case here though so walkign the streets is fairly hassle-free. I also don't feel at a disadvantage not speakng the local language as eveyone here speaks relly good English. It makes a change to be able to understand everything that's going on!

Right, I'm ready to brave the heat again now so its time to tear myself away from the air conditioned heaven I'm currently in.

What a crappy journey! I left the hostel at 4am and headed to the airport through an eerie mist. The streets of the old quarter were empty - they look very strange when there are no motorbikes and hawkers clogging up the streets! The only place that was busy was the flower market near the house I lived in for the past month - I don't know if this was jsut because of Tet or if its like that every morning at 4am. To be honest, I doubt I'm ever going to find out as I'm really not a morning person!

When I checked in I discovered I had two hours in transit in HCMC - no-one bothered to tell me this when I booked the ticket! I got some Pho as that was the only thing available and then got on my first flight of the day. Vietnam airways provided a meal - more noodles - and on the next flight I got yet more noodles. Noodle overload! HCMC airport seems far more modern than Hanoi and had a bunch of duty free stores with international brands. The most exciting thing I found there was some Cadbury's chocolate! It was kinda pricey but I gave in and bought it.

When I got to KL I had 3 or 4 hours there - the only way I could get some time int he city would be to take the speedy but incredibly expensaive train. All teh otehr cheaper options took so long so I gave up and killed time at the airport. There were chains like Starbucks and Burger King that I haven't seen since getting to Vietnam - I guess I jsut took it for granted that they were all over the place back home. I feasted on BK - it tasted sooooo good!! - then made my way round to the scrum at the Air Asia terminal. It's basically Asias answer to Easyjet and check-in was jsut as mental. The flight over wasn't too bad - the palne was half empty so I had a row to myself, plus I got some rice and chicken thing. I eat rice and chicken quite often back in Hanoi but it tastes quite bland compared to the Malaysian version. I remember it from last time and I think I'm going to be eating it a lot while I'm here as it's so good!

Kota Kinabalu is very strange after Hanoi - there are no motorbikes, people obey the rules of the road and give way where necessary, plus poverty is less obvious. They also drive on teh same side of teh road as back home and drive cars that are popular back home. That combiled with the neon and the amount of signs in English make it seem like a tropical cross between an American and a British city. There are no funny symbols in their alphabe either so signs in the local language don't look so odd and it's just generally far more Western than Hanoi. I didn't realise hiow used to Hanoi I got until I left! I just hope I don't have go through all the adjustment again when I get back.