The last of Perhentian and first of Langkawi

More monkeys! Oh, and a Hornbill. These were taken at the Proboscis Monkey Sanctuary in Sabah, Borneo

Nearly forgot to upload the monkeys! These were in the KL Bird Park

Photos from Georgetown and Kuala Lumpur!

Songkran! Can’t believe there is a drought at home (UK) but in Thailand they are chucking buckets of it around.

Here’s some photos to make Pattaya look sort of nice!

Koh Rong Island!

This island was everything we wanted from a tropical island. As close to the shipwrecked experience as you can get. At the moment there is still very little development anywhere on the island. There are five resorts with nicely built bungalows along the beach front and stretching up the hill and a few small fishing villages on the island but other than that there’s nothing. 

We took a hike into the centre of the island on the first day. Not only was is incredibly hot but the first half was a steep hill. The track was pretty well walked as it was the main land route between the fishing villages but it was still small and overgrown. After about an hour of walking in the heat we thought better about it and headed back to the beach for a cold drink (I know we are lazy).

The problem with taking a walk into the middle of the island is other than jungle there isn’t really much to see. The waterfalls dry up in the dry season, there are few animals to see and not many open areas to get a good view of the island. So other than a chance to take a wander into a real jungle and get some exercise there wasn’t too much for us to see.

This was the problem. Me and Pippa are not really beach sunbathing type people who are happy to sit by the water all day burning to a crisp. The nearby snorkeling wasn’t too great and we only found an ad for an organised trek as we were leaving so much of our time consisted of a bit of exploration then a swim in the sea! Which was great, but it didn’t take long till we started getting restless.

It was nice not having electricity or internet for a few days. The internet it did have was only from 6pm and was unreliable at best. Also, everyone on the island was so trusting, and if you didn’t have the correct change you could just pop back later and pay then. The locals were also friendly, and seemed to be adjusting to the sudden boom in tourism well. By this I mean putting up walls in their houses and painting guesthouse signs.

Tourism is booming and within a few years it will have ruined the island. The government has realized that people want an untouched tropical island and this place has that reputation so they’ve sold of 25 plots for resorts, are planning a ring road around the island and building an airport in the middle. Unbelievable.

Diving

We took an overnight trip out to the outer islands to do some diving. They have a reputation for having amazing visibility. We booked with a company called The Dive Shop, based in Sihanoukville. The dive itself was pretty good and the visibility was incredible. It was like diving in a swimming pool. The actual marine life that we saw was only OK though. A few large shoals of fish, some crabs, and a couple of Morey Eels was about it. The largest fish we saw on the trip was the barracuda the ship captain caught on the way back! But still we were happy and diving in 30°c water was amazing. The only thing that really let it down was the dive company. Their attitude towards safety left a little to be desired and compared to the quality of everywhere else we have been they were pretty poor. But even so they were still fun dives!

There are a few bits and pieces written on phones that we need to upload that are a little more creative than this! Its hard to think up what to write though in this heat. At the moment the power is out in town and I assume the internet shop I  am in right now is being run off the ill sounding generator I can hear droning away nearby. There is enough power to run the computers but apparently not enough to run the fans… I don’t understand the logic but oh well.

Some photos from our day trip to the Chu Chi Tunnels and War Memorial Museum in Saigon.

First batch of photos from our Bike Tour. Had to resize them on a useless computer so they may not be the best quality! Sorry

Our photos from Hoi An (and one of Hanoi)

A small selection of our photos from the boat up to Veng Vieng. A big upload would take too long!

Some of our photos from Ayutthaya! Not all. but there’s only so many photos of ruined temples you can upload!