Michelle can walk on water....

We're off to Kuala Lumpur tomorrow but Michelle has promised faithfully that she will leave a post from there!

The middle of nowhere

We are now in the middle of nowhere it seems...a place called Cherating. We asked the bus driver to stop there on the way to Kuantan but it seems that he didn't understand English (a rarity in Malaysia) as he drove on to Kuantan forgetting about us! We managed to get the driver coming back to stop in the right place for us...

The cultural centre up the road has closed for 2 months as it's the off season but they are going to do a show for us in an hour or so for the hardy tourists coming here in off season. It seems as if the whole place has shut down except for a couple of places to stay and a couple of restaurants. It seems so strange to me as the weather is still very good - surely they could entice tourists here with just a vague bit of marketing?

Anyway, at the cultural centre they allowed us to have a go on the blow pipe for shooting little arrows. Michelle didn't fancy it but I managed to hit the target once out of four - it was only about 10m away! When used properly it can apparently kill animals very easily....

Would you let your wife loose on your hair...

....armed only with a pair of nail scissors? Well it didn't seem like there was a lot to lose really and Michelle did a great job! Here's the after (top) and before photos...

Around Terranganu

We spent much of the day in Terranganu at the museum that claims to be the largest in Asia - much of it is outside. We're not really museum people (for long periods anyway) but it was interesting enough...here's Michelle posing on a traditional Malay ship...

Trespassing - well almost!

Our next stop was Kuala Terrenganu for a couple of nights. We were only planning on a one night stay but the room was cheap, clean, air conditioned and had an en suite bathroom and hot water! That was all the encouragement we needed to stay an extra night...

We wandered around and thought this building looked interesting to go into...there was a d
oor slightly ajar which we thought we could go through but we decided against it in case we weren't allowed. It turns out that it was the Sultan's palace and no-one is allowed in except for special occassions so it's a good job that we didn't go in!

Happy birthday Michelle!

Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday dear Michelle,
Happy birthday to you!

Michelle had her birthday on Kapas...we weren't able to get her what she asked for for her birthday - a nice bottle of white wine! So we're saving that for when we get to Kuala Lumpur which is where we are off to tomorrow.... If you can get wine here it is excessively expensive and we're not sure if it will be any good but only one way to find out.

As we're travelling we didn't really do presents for our birthdays but I did get Michelle a second hand book that she'd expressed interest in with the title of "adultery". I must be the only husband ever who has bought his wife a book with that title on her first birthday after their wedding!! (It is a fictional tale based in Devon...)

Kapas

Next on our travels was the island of Kapas further south down the east coast of Malaysia. We were told that there was only one place still open (which of course was a lie - it was just there was only one place left that would give that travel agency a commission!) but we went over for a couple of days. There were 2 other couples staying when we arrived but they left the day after we arrived, to be replaced by one retired couple.

We'd realised that there was a place round the corner that did much better food so we told them to go there and we had a good chat with them...now settled in America they lived for 10 years in Kentish Town - just down the road from where we were living before we came here...

Last Long Beach Images

It was very quiet on Long Beach as it was the end of the season (and it has been all down the East coast of Malaysia) but we liked it. Here's a last couple of images, including one of Michelle early in the morning before we caught the 8am ferry back to the main land.

Michelle insists that I have now caught up with her and am now sleeping for as long as she does, which is probably true, but I'm still better in the mornings!

We did have a couple of beers at the beach side bar (which the image is meant to demonstrate!). We spoke to the barman from Banladesh who was an aspiring cricketer, but he said that Bangladesh cricket is all about having enough money to buy influence to get into the team. They'll never get anywhere if that's true...

Update

Sorry it's been so long since we updated! We have been in places without internet shops first and then to a place where internet places seemed to only open in the evening when we were doing other things.

So, from when we last updated...

On our last day on Long Beach in Kecil on the Perhentian Islands we took a short boat trip to Besar (meaning big, Kecil meaning small) where we found a beautiful beach. Hopefully these pictures will do it justice.

Perhaps Carlsberg could use this football pitch for "possibly the best football pitch in the world"?

Long Beach

Michelle paddling on Long Beach where we are staying...Michelle is a deep brown already...I'm more of a reddish/white but hopefully it will go brown eventuially!!!

Our apartment is just right of the pole in the photo, at the end of the bay and truly and Allan Hawkey throw from the beach (sorry again Allan!)

Me relaxing in a hammock outside our appartment where we will have stayed for 5 days. On the 3rd night the electricity failed so we had to use candles and the trusty torches we brought with us to get around...and of course that ruled the air con out!

One of the better speedboat pics...

Various animals

We've had the on-going battle with mosquitoes - which we seem to be losing so if anyone knows any great preventative measures let us know...and then we've had the odd cockroach, although not many so far.

But best of all have been the geccos or lizards...

I'm not sure how you define them - I don't think a gecco can be 5 foot long! The largest of these monsters just strolled past our front door as we were reading outside without a care in the world. I've since checked the photo against the plants and buildings in the photo and the length of it head to end of tail is probably about a foot shorter than me! We also ran into another one of similar size as we walked the 10 minute walk through the "jungle" to Coral Bay on the other side of the island...we thought they couldn't move quickly but when it saw us it ran way quicker than we could so it's just as well that it was scared of us!!

Botanical Gardens - Ferringhi

Various monkeys and some nice plants...!

Pictures...Penang/beach

I now seem able to upload images so here are a few from Penang...Batu Ferringhi

Michelle on the pool table again...

Michelle (with beers) in the hawker market where we spent 100 Ringits on some great food but Michelle has suggested that I ate about 5 meals!

The beach where we went parasailing and jet-skiing.

Champion's Tophy

I see that we've collapsed twice and are about to go out...I guess it's not really that surprising given our recent run. The bowling looks awful and yet it's our batting that is doing even worse...we need a dependable Thorpe like character in there but we just don't have one unfortunately, no matter how hard Collingwood tries. Yardy seems to be a good find though, at least for a squad place in the World Cup.

Fingers crossed the test team play a little better in Australia...

Kecil

We're now on the Perhentian Islands off the east coast off Malaysia (the island is called Kecil) after a couple of less than glamourous stays in hotels in Butterworth and Kota Baru. The hotel in Butterworth was our most expensive to date and yet the most infected by insects....the one in Kota Baru had a dead cockroach in it but the only live one we found was when inspecting the cheaper accomodation floor. It ran at Michelle and she let out a minor shout and did a dance like a string puppet to get away (that's the best way I can describe it!).

We're now in a very nice apartment overlooking the beach - the only slight downer is that because it's low season the electricity is only on between 6pm and 10am. But it's a good view and we haven't been worried by insects so far....Malaysia seems to be crawling in them! The speed boat ride over here was quite good fun...but not very condusive to the photos that I was trying to take! Still struggling with putting photos up so will try again soon - sorry!

We're going to stay here for a few days as it's beautiful, and we'll probably do a day trip or two to other islands around here or to do some snorkelling.

Beckham

I heard on the radio that 70% of people in england agree that McClaren should pick Beckham...glad I'm not alone then!

Am going to look and see what the story is about Reading now...I heard a guy at a bar slagging them off like they'd committed a cardinal sin!

On the move again

We're (hopefully) leaving Penang tomorrow and going over to the East cost of Malaysia...will have to see if there is transport available when we go tomorrow as we haven't booked anything.

Still not able to upload photos unfortunately but we've done lots of relaxing on the beach...eating nice meals at hawker stands and at restaurants, parasailing, jet skiing and drinking! We also saw lots of monkey close up at the botanical gardens...will put up pics as soon as possible.

We're now going to Bali on the 24th and arriving on 25th Nov, that about 3 weeks later than originally planned in case anyone cares....!!!

Malaysia

We have now got to Penang...we actually arrived on the evening of the 13th...we then spent the evening somewhat unexpectedly getting drunk with an Aussie couple called Linda and Dave in Georgetown. They were married but they had another considerably younger woman with them and they appeared to go around together with the younger woman and the wife also having some romantic link...it was all a bit weird.

Highlight of the evening was keeping the locals off the pool table for 3 games of terrible standard pool between Michelle and I - I'm not sure that they thought we woudl ever finish.

Beer is very expensive here (comparatively) so we're going to have to ration ourselves...we have now found a Lonely Planet book so we can in theory find good places to go but so far it's been bad at recommendations! We trudged for a mile or so to go to a highly recommended guest house only to find it was over priced and not great...but we're happy where we are now. A nice room, decent private shower with hot water overlooking the beach.

So we'll stay here for a couple of days at least. We're looking into jet skiing and parasailing now...

monk festival

We were lucky enough to be staying in Surat Thani on the evening of the annual festival where monks parade down to the sea front in boats or trailers which are decorated as temples and the locals come to put money in the pots and be blessed by the monks. There was also a show of traditional dancers, singers and a thai band...

A bit of a shocker was the monks spraying water at you as you walked past them which was a little unexpected at first, but after walking up and down a few times, Ed made the suggestion that we could now have a 'wet T-shirt competition'.. I despair!

Ko Lanta

From Surat Thani we got a minivan to Krabi and then another onto Ko Lanta. We are staying at the Blue Andaman resort which is nice but we haven't had the best of weather so far (there are floods everywhere in Thailand at the moment). We're not sure how long we'll stay before we go to Trang and then from there on to Penang in Malaysia. We've been searching high and low for a Malaysia Lonely Planet or Rough Guide without success so I guess we'll just have to see how it goes...hopefully we'll find one in Penang.

On our first night in Ko Lanta we met a nice couple at the bar and drank with them all night...slight handgovers yesterday but we had an excellent meal at a nice restaurant in the evening to help us get over it! The couple told us they were paying 300 Baht for their room where as we were paying 400, so the next morning we were able to negotiate down to 300 - seems very low as we have a TV, nice big room, hot water, and a swimming pool, all 10m from the beach! We may well meet up with the couple we met again in Bali as they will be there at the same time as us.

Sorry about the lack of photos - this machine doesn't allow me to upload images from the digital camera - we'll update again soon hopefully.

The football

England v Croatia was televised here on some strange channel at midnight (we have a TV in our room in Ko Lanta) so with Michelle asleep I watched the game. We also watched the Macedonia game in a bar in Ko Tao. Doesn't look very good does it?!

I realise that many will not agree with this but why didn't Beckham play last night? From a brief check of the internet I can't see that he's injured. Fair enough if Maclaren wants to play Gerrard wide right as he's one of the best in the world, but with him suspended, and especially with Lennon injured, why can't we play one of the most gifted players we have? Instead we have the incredible blandness of Scott Parker and Gary Neville. Either of them should have been sacrificed to play Beckham.

Fingers crossed that England can pull it together, and that Maclaren isn't too proud to admit he made a mistake and bring Beckham back into the fold whenever Gerrard isn't available through suspension or injury.

Ko Tao beaches

We were lucky enough to get some excellent weather on Ko Tao...we also found a great place called Jansom Bay...it's private but for about 30p visitors can go there...we went there 2 days running as the bay was beautiful and there were fish everywhere. The photo above shows Michelle wading looking at all the fish but we also snorkelled...it was incredible how many fish there were so close to shore.

I'm suffering slightly from peeling now given all that sun on a very white body! Michelle seems to take the sun a lot better than me which is a little annoying.

I will try to get her to post something again by the way...

Mosquitoes

We've had quite a bit of a problem with them but we now have some Tiger Balm for soothing of bites and to put of the insects, two bottles of 95% Deet repellent, and Michelle. As this picture shows she has taken to killing them between my flip flops...it takes quite some skill!

Gourmet Chumphon

On our one night in Chumphon we sampled the local market but we couldn't bring ourselves to try this local delicacy! I got ushered away by an angry woman when taking the second photo..perhaps she thought we were from health and safety?