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

I will be glad when Chinese New Year is done and the plinky music dies away! They still celebrate it here, just on a smaller scale than in Vietnam. There were fireworks last night at midnight plus some guys prancing around banging drums this morning before jumping on the back of a truck to disappear off somewhere else. Walked past the Chinese temple a few times today and there are a constant stream of people going in and out to pray, wave incense sticks and burn papers and fake money.

I have been trying to kill time until I can head to the airport but I've run out of things to do in this small town. I got a bus out to a mall this morning but the shops weren't that amazing - lonely planet reckons you can spend a couple of days exploring all the shops in BSB - I struggled to fill a couple of hours! I got a thai curry for lunch which cheered me up, but then it started to rain so my plans to head to the waterfall were scuppered. I feasted on a pineapple at the market then went back to chill at the hostel until the rain stopped. I headed back into the centre to check out buses to the airport and walked around but found very little to entertain me so I went to the Indian place and got a blueberry juice. I was too stuffed to have a roti so maybe I'll go and get one before heading to the airport.

I'm glad I didn't head out to the beach today (that was one of the options I had been considering to fill the day) as it wouldn't have been fun in the rain. Even if it hadn't rained I'd have just ended up with some stupid sunburn no doubt and sand all over the place. I am looking forward to getting to KL and having stuff to do. I think I'm going to go to the Petronas Towers tomorrow morning and then get some shopping in. Hopefully it will stay dry in the evening so I can go to the other tower and see the city at night, but this seems unlikely given that pretty much every night I've been here its rained. Some nights its not started til late so theres still a chance it will be fine I guess.

Today I went for more jungle adventures! I got up super early - the Canadians left at about 6am and I was awake so I decided to get up and get going very slowly before heading to the river front and getting a water taxi round to a tiny town called Bangar. The journey was pretty cool - down a river surrounded by jungle, out into the bay surrounded by jungle on 3 sides with open sea on the horizon then off down another river to get to Bangar. I'm impressed how the guys operating the boats know which river to go down - they all looked the same to me. Arrived in Bangar to find any sort of information about the surrounding parks unavailable so when a bunch of people stepped off the next boat with a tour guide I got him to point me in the right direction. He organised a private taxi for me - some old boy in his battered car - that would take me out to the park, wait for me to do the walk and then take me back to Bangar for $30.

The path through the park wound its way up through the jungle to eventually come out at a rocky outcrop where there are awesome views over miles of jungle and the sea in the distance. Something like 70% of this country is rainforest I think so the views were pretty unspoilt. It was a killer walk but totally worth it. There were a bunch of wooden stairs on the way up and after working my way up a bunch to then come round a corner and find another endless set of stairs I nearly considered turning back but I'm glad I persevered. Once the stairs ended it was a pretty easy scramble along to the viewpoint but the heat and humidity were an absolute killer. If you ever want to lose your own body weight in sweat, the rainforest in Borneo is the place to do it!

Back in Bangar it appeared that there was very little to do so I made my way back to BSB. I went swimming as the hostel has a swimming pool attached and it's only $1 and it seemed like a good way to cool down!

Tomorrow I'm heading to KL but my flight isn't until the evening so I'm thinking about getting a bus out to a shopping mall outside of the city centre as I've exhausted all my options here aside from the museums that sound kinda lame. I doubt the shops will keep me entertained all day so I might head back out to the waterfall place again as that's not too taxing as walk. I think I'm also gonna get another pineapple from the market and get a decent Thai curry from the Thai place we found yesterday.

So, Brunei.

Got here via two boats and a couple of passport stamping places. There were two Canadian girls and a German guy on the boat so we stuck together to get a taxi from the ferry terminal to the hostel in Bandar Seri Begawan. We headed out to an awesome Indian place to get some dinner - my new favourite dish is chicken roti! Next we headed to the mosque to see it all lit up at night. It looks really impressive and I have some pretty good photos with the sun setting near the mosque.

Yesterday morning we went back to the Indian place for more roti for breakfast, then we went to the market to get some fruit. I love the markets here- they have so many amazing types of fruit. They will also prepare the fruit for you so we got a couple of pineapples all pealed and ready to eat. Then we headed to a nearby park with a waterfall in it. We sat to feast on our fruit and saw monkeys in the trees nearby!!

We then headed to a food court recommended by a local guy Abdul. He's kinda like a tour guide here except he isn't trying to rip anyone off. He is an amazing source of information. He also got his friend who works in the place where the food court is to take us up to the 18th floor of the building for some cool views over BSB.

Abdul also organised a boat tour for only B$20 per person - compared to the tour agencies who charge $60 this is a pretty good deal! We saw the mosques and water village then sailed down the river some way to a place where the probiscus monkeys can be found! We spent a bit of time there watching the monkeys before heading back and sailing through the water village. It is pretty much an entire community on stilts - there are schools and mosques, and even a fire station all on stilts over the river. The government are maintaining it rather than trying to pull it down which makes a nice change to finding places like this in disputes with local governments who want to get rid of such places. We spent nearly 3 hours on the river and saw so much for the bargain price of $20 - if ever you come to BSB seek out Abdul at the youth hostel to arrange a boat tour rather than paying three times the price at a tour agency for a third of the time spent on the river.

This morning the German guy left but me and the Canadians went and had a relatively Western breakfast before heading out to another park at the edge of the city. This one had a hellish climb up seemingly endless stairs to the top where there was then a path around the summit, including a couple of rope bridges. It was a pretty nice place, but it was so hot and humid that it was really hard work. By the time we finished we were absolutely soaked in sweat - places we didn't even know you could sweat from were dripping! A cold shower never felt so good!

This afternoon we are going to check out the mosque and then escape the heat in a shopping centre. Unlike KK, there is no sea breeze here to cool you down so the heat and humidity is such a killer.b

I'm in Brunei! I'm about to run out of internet time tho so I'll tell you all about this strange little country some other time.