Flashpacking in Thailand...

Hi all Su here. As Pete said Malaysia was great but was a bit of a flying visit. We are here in the wet season and along with the rain it brings the the heat.  It hasn't rained that much so far and if it does it's normally just 1 or 2 very heavy showers and that's it for the day, it's a God send really because it cools the air down a bit.  With the temps in the high 30's and humidity in high 80's we are in a constant sweat, it makes city living a bit sticky and the Thai beaches were calling, so what's one to do? 

After a 10 hour journey of 3 buses and 2 ferry rides with a few manic but speedy transfers in between we arrived on beautiful Koh Lanta and after a bit of haggling with the local travel agent we were checking into Paradise.  Nakara Resort to be more exact but paradise none the less..

  don't you think?

More Flashpacking then backpacking....

So needless to say after being here for a week already we are still here and will be for another week to come.  Its beautiful and at €12 a night who could complain??  Yes, that was €12 a night and it's €10 a night for our 2nd week!  When we asked at reception if we could stay for another week they somehow picked it up that we wanted a further discount and gave us one.  Much to our delight of course we're obviously getting good at this haggling thing without knowing it.   Here's our home for 2 weeks....

On top of all this we have a beautiful bungalow with our own loo which is a welcome change, air con, fridge, WI FI and TV with movie channels.  Great! Here's a picture of our room the mess in the corner is all mine....

 

Now if you're looking for party central this is not the place for you since we practically have the place to ourselves.  At it's busiest there may have been 10 or so people about at any one time and the neighbouring resorts are the same.  But if you want to sit back, relax, top up the tan, eat and drink to your hearts content this is the place for you! We even have our own resident dog lovingly named "Stinky" for obvious reasons. He hooked up with us, or should I say Pete,  on the way to the shops on our first night and has been mans best friend ever since, he even sleeps at our door at night, he's Pete's biggest fan...

The beach is a bit rubbishy which is the norm for monsoon season but the view is beautiful. Here's the view from the restaurant you can just about see the Phi Phi islands on the horizon.  So that's it for now, stay tuned for more.................

East coast Oz and onto Asia

It's still VERY VERY warm where we are now but at least the air-con is cooling us down so we've managed to get a bit of life into us and it's time to update the blog again. We've a lot of catching up to do so without further ado...

We made our way further down the east coast of Australia to Surfers paradise, Byron Bay and back again to Sydney. Surfers was a really nice place to kick back and enjoy one of the better hostels we've stayed in. It was run by an Irish guy who couldn't do enough for us so (and this is becoming a habit) we pottered around and didn't do a lot. This is quickly becoming the lazy mans guide to a round the world trip. Su, being the energetic one, did take a few photos. Here's one to prove that we actually were there:

After a short stay in Byron Bay, which was great, we then hit Sydney again and met up with our good friend Niallo, and my friend Massey and his wife Bella who I knew from my days in Copenhagen. We stayed 5 nights in Manly to catch up with Niallo again and had a right good booze-up. We then went out to Balmain and stayed with Massey and Bella in their gorgeous house. Even though they had to work they gave us a key and let us wash our clothes, have a bath, and basically gave us the comforts of home. How good is that!? Niallo even treated us to a dinner one of the nights. Free food! We were on a roll!

So we flew out of Sydney to Singapore, looking forward to seeing what Asia had to offer. Not without one look back while in the plane and managed to snatch one last glimpse of the sky tower through the clouds - the photo is a bit fuzzy but you'll get the gist:

We soon found out what Singapore had to offer, and it was this: THE HILTON! Yes! Su's wonderful parents had booked us in for two nights of luxury as a birthday present to Su and boy, did we lap it up! This was our room:

 

I can't imagine it getting much better than this on our travels so we made the most of it and hardly left the room. I know I know, there's no point travelling the world and not seeing the sights but have you seen the room above? And we're backpackers - there's no way we could afford to actually do anything in Singapore except eat and enjoy the luxury. We did make it to the swimming pool at one stage and we wandered around the hawker stands to buy cheap but very nice local dishes. Many thanks again to Larry and Rose for a fantastic 2 days! Su, of course, was in her element...

It wasn't to last though as we flew on to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia and stayed here:

Can you spot the difference? It's subtle I know. Here's the hallway outside our room:

Mountjoy eat you're heart out. Still, at 7 euros a night what can you expect? It was grand really. And Kuala Lumpur was a great place - we stayed in Chinatown and were right beside the China market where you could get everything from cheap knock-off Gucci bags to cheap knock-off Bolex (or is that Rolex?) watches. And of course then there's the Petronas towers - which used to be the tallest building on the planet. Tallest or not, they're still a sight to behold:

Really, photos don't do it justice. It's amazing!

We got a nice VIP bus to Georgetown in Penang. Su tells me that Penang is north-west of peninsular Malaysia. Our room here was 4 euros a day so as you can imagine, cats weren't being swung. We didn't even bother with photos. Our days in Georgetown were spent watching the European cup final, visiting Little India, drinking more beer, and chatting with the locals. It's really a melting pot of different cultures so we had a great time.

And that's it really! Malaysia was great and now it's on to Thailand and Koh Lanta. Su is going to do the next part of the blog so tune in!!