Singapore
After the hustle and bustle of Hong Kong, Singapore seemed pretty tame. It's nice, all very orderly and efficient but not really that exciting - or not if you're on a budget like us anyway, oh poor us, i know we have your sympathy. Did love the orchid gardens though.
We stayed in Little India, probably the least tame part of town. Due to a bit of a booking problem, we ended up staying in a dorm. An 18 bed dorm. It was clean enough and I suppose we were lucky that our bunk was at the end of a very long row of bunks so we didn't have anyone's feet by our heads but they are about the only positives. Once the noise from the bars outside had died down, the dustmen came round to wake us up at 2am and then the last people in the dorm came rolling in at 4am. Lovely. Not to mention the big burp the guy in the bunk opposite me did before he went off to sleep.
Malaysia
After a very long train journey we got to Kuala Lumpur and within an hour we had bumped into a couple who we kept bumping into in New Zealand and Australia. How bizarre and how bad for my detox resolution. I'll update you on that now. Eoin caved in one day three, unable to resist the free beer on the plane on the flight to Singapore. I gave up on day 6 when we were out with our friends...the last three nights we've been very good - that is actually due to the fact that the place we stayed in the jungle was entirely dry, not a drop of alcohol sold there.
Jungle
Ah yes, just call us Tarzan and Jane. We spent the last three nights in the jungle in the middle of Malaysia. We felt like proper travellers - a train, three buses and two boats got us there in twelve hours. Plus, for the first time in the whole trip, we had to carry our bags on our backs, couldn't wheel them along the pebbled river beach thing..I could barely walk under the weight of mine, in fact, an old man had to push me up a hill when I attempted to carry it again today.
Never mind, it was all worth it, the jungle was great - we went walking with monkeys playing in trees over our heads and met loads of wild pigs on the paths (it's a great life for a pig in this Muslim country). We stayed in a little tin roof hut and tried not to freak out when we heard something climbing on the roof in the night. There were bats flying through the restaurant at night and strangely, a massive tame porcupine that ate there one night.
Toilets
Sorry, can't not give you an update on the toilets, both sit down and squattie variety never seem to have loo roll here. They are, however, all equpped with a hose. Hmm, I really don't get it, how does one dry off after a hose down?
It's great being back in Malaysia, I haven't been here for eight years and I'd forgotten what a gorgeous place it is. People have been lovely to us - there's always people saying hello to us everywhere (I swear I had to say 20 hellos when I staggered into our jungle resort under the weight of my backpack) and the food is great. We're leaving for Cambodia in the morning, I hope it's worth leaving Malaysia for!
