Singapore
12th May: Travelled to Singapore today, its always great to fly with Singapore airlines we were able to get emergency window seats so plenty of leg room! We had booked a room in Bugis at Hawaii hostel sounded good but the place was a bit of dive. Its really expensive in Singapore so we decided to only stay 2 days you can eat reasonable in the foodcourts at the shopping malls but it was straining our budget!. We had a wonder around Orchard Rd and ate there. Clare was not feeling well so took it easy and watched a movie in the cinema.

13th: Slept late today.We visited the batonical gardens really beautiful here you can wonder around for hours. Later we went to China town shopped at the stalls and had dinner in a food court. We went down to Clarkes Quay that night and had a few drinks by the river really well set out here but sooo expensive!

14th: Off to the Asian civilisation museum this was really interesting and well set up. That evening we went to stadium cove for walk about. There was a Rally demo on something to do with the new Mitshibitsi Evo and Jacky Chan was there in his Evo we did nt see him thou! The cove was nice but not much happening.
On to Kuala Lumpar tomorrow.

Kuala Lumpar
15th: Travelled to KL by train arrived at 2.30pm total of 6hrs travel.Hopped on the metro to Puda Rd, we were staying in the Pudu hostel this place was OK room was large, clean, lots of amenities with shared bathroom. It was near china town were all the markets set up and the bus station was across the road. Once we got ourbearings we spent the rest of the evening in chinatown looking for bargins had dinner here as well. KL is around the same Bangkok in regards to costs but wouldnt come close to the impression Bangkok left on us!

16th: Headed to the Petronas towers the tallest buildings in the world but there are closed on a monday so maybe tomorrow. Visited the lake gardens these were not great maybe in the evenings on the weekends when there are more locals out the atmosphere might be good but as a day trip its not worth it. After we went to Batu Caves the main cave is huge and holds many Hindi shrines and at certain times of the year thousands of hindi's come and worship here. It was a bit disappointing inside there was mass concrete everywhere , rubbish and junk littered aroundthe place.

Outside there were monkeys everywhere and i tried to take a few picture but everytime i got a monkey to sit still along came the alpa male trying to "sow his seed" so it was no wonder the females were always on the move! That night we ate in the 2 dragon hostel the food was'nt great and there were cockroaches everywhere trying to climb up your legs as you were eating!!!.

17th: Slept late again so missed the tickets to the petronas towers! Went shopping for the day(mostly window shopping). That night we ate in the Gin-Ger restuarant in central market a small bit more expensive but really nice and lovely decor inside. Worth the extra few bucks!
Off to the Cameroon Highlands tomorrow.

Cameroon Highlands
18th: Bus to the Cameroon Highlands left at 9.00am and arrived at 3.00pm. Checked into the Cameronian inn, got a great room here we looked at a few but they were'nt great but 1 room is detached from the main building and is newer and clean. We took it easy for the evening and had dinner in our GH.
19:After breaky we joined a tour that would take us around to the various sights. We visited the BOH tea plantation this was interesting as you got to see the tea process from start to finish, after we went to the highest peak to take in the views, trek to a mossy forest and then onto a village tribe where i had a chance to try the Chiefs blow pipe he uses for hunting!. Over all it was a good day but there was alot of filler time stopping for pictures and the trek consisted of 15 minutes.

TAMAN NEGARA
20th: Today we got a bus to Taman Negara it left at 10.30am and arrived at Kuala tahan village at 8.30pm, we had alot of waiting around at different places for other buses to arrive with passangers and this delayed us a few hours!
Due to it being a bank holiday weekend the place was booked out but we eventually found a cabin at Durian G/H. The cabin was clean and ensuite and cost 8 euros per night. We had dinner on one of the floating restuarants on the river these are a bit rough and ready but the food is fine.

21st: After breaky we got a boat over to Taman Negara reserve, once we had our entry permit we were off to the canopy walk, the canopy walk was 600m long and reached 45m in height in places. We then treked up Bikit Tersek and down the far side that takes you along the river back to were we started from. It took about 4hrs and along the way we had a swim in the river thats orange in colour from minerals in the surrounding mountains. We didnt see much wild life but the tropical rain forrests more then made up for it. We had some eats on the river and strolled around the village. There was some really lovely accomadation on the reserve if you wanted to give yourself a treat.

PERENTHAIN ISLANDS
22nd: Got a bus to the Perenthains today, on the bus we met an english couple who had been to the big island Besar and stayed on a lovely beach on the south coast called Talum Delak and highly recommended it. The taxi boat from the mainland took 1hour to get to our beach were we checked into Sumudra beach chalets. The scenery was amazing here the waters edge was 15ft from the balcony of our cabin the accomadation cost 8 euros per night! It was busy when we arrived but once the weekend was over we nearly had the beach to ourselfs. Had a walk on the beach that night and Flora chalets were having a BBQ and for 4 euros p/p you could have what you liked they had eveything here fish, squid, chicken, pork, beef and prawns along with salad and rice. Great value for money!

23rd: Decided to relax and take it easy today it was great to be back on a beach again! We checked out the local dive shops to decide who we would do our open water course with. We eventually went with Ocean Blue, Sally was an instructer there from the UK and as it was quiet it would be just the 3 of us for the next 4 days so she could give us as much time as we needed Clare was delighted with this as she was a bit nervous! We were supposed to start the course that night but Clare got the news that her Granny had passed away last night and was too upset so we left it till the next day.
Over the next 4 days we covered all the course skills and we are now quailified open water divers clare was a bit apprehensive at first but she got through everthing with fiying colours! We highly recommend Sally from Ocean blue the one to one really helped Clare I had a bit of an advantage as i had done the advanced open water divers course serveral years ago so it was not a new experience to me. The water viz varied a bit we had days of 3m and days of 15m we saw all kinds of sea life from reef tip sharks, puffer fish all kinds of angel, parrot and wrasse fish and the coral could take your breath away. The carry on of the clown fish was really funny to watch and some of them could be really cocky!
28th:Now that we are qualified we decided to take a rest after all the studing so we got a taxi boat to Turtle bay for some rest and beach time. We had lunch here and after we went snorkling the sea life is amazing in some of these bays and we even saw a shark! There is a turtle grazing area here so we headed over to have a look we came across 6 different turtles munching away on the sea bed floor they were amazing to watch and so agile in the water i managed to give one a rub on his shell, they most have been 2ft in lenght.
29th: We went for a dive with Steve from Ocean Blue as sally was sick this was the best we had seen yet the viz and abundant fish life was excellent it really showed Clare what diving had to offer! We leave tomorrow and it will be so hard, if we didnt have to meet friends in Sydney we would stay for another week and have met up with Ann&Jay who will be in the area soon. These islands have been one of the most relaxing and peaceful places we have been and would love to come back here sometime!

30th: Jumped on a boat back to the mainland and we had a wait of 8hrs before the bus to Kuala Lumpar arrived. Had some lunch and caught up on some emails, there was not much in the area so we had little to do but read our books. Bus arrived at 9.00pm and we were off!
31st: Arrived at K/L at 5.30am we had booked back into Puda hostel so we had to wait till 8.00am to get into our room, went straight to bed for a few hours. Went shoping for the rest of the day to get some new clothes for OZ as everthing we had was a bit scuffy. Bought some prezzies in the night market to send home.
1st June: Down to the post office first thing to send some stuff home its so cheap to post stuff here, afterwards we jumped on a bus to Singapore. We arrived at 8.30pm and as we were not able to find any other rooms vacant in any hostels we had to book back into the Hawaii hostel we had a look at a few of the rooms and we were able to get one with a window that was reasonable clean, the first time we were here the room we got was kip but this time the room was OK so we would come back again as long as we could pick our own room!! You also get a free breaky here consisting of boiled eggs, toast and tea.
2nd:After breaky we went into town to catch up on some emails and do some shopping. That night we went to the night safari it cost about 10 euros each but was well worth it you can get a train around or you can walk it. I have to admit it was excellent here we walked around and you would do it at an easy pace having a good look around in 2hrs, the sounds the animals and the bugs made were the best part of the night and Clare jumped quite a few times. After wards there is a show were some of the animals are brought out to demonstrate some of there skills! We both really enjoyed it and its well worth a visit if you are in the area.(Thanks Suzy for recommending it!)
3rd: Checked out of the hostel, We had a few hours as our flight was not till 8.30pm. We went to see STAR WARS TRILOGY part III at the cinema an excellent show that ties up all the loose ends! Jumped on the metro to the airport and relaxed there for the flight, if you have a few hours to waste before your flight this airport a great place they have free internet all around the terminals and TV's scattered around with seating were you can watch sport, movies and news in comfort. Singapore is the only airport we have been at that you can get some eats and drinks at a reasonable prize because usually you get ripped off!! Flight was on time so off to OZ we go!