Ubud

22nd January - 28th January

After our gruelling rescue diving training we headed back to Bali and decided to head for the hills, chill out amongst the rice paddies with the aim of doing nothing but eating well and reading a good book.

Ubud itself seems to be very spiritually inclined, even by Balinese standards. A Hindu temple on almost every corner and most of the old houses were indistinguishable from the temples. Here's a more ostentatious example...
...and one of the more basic doorways...(for those of you who don't know, the swastika is an ancient Hindu symbol)

The pavements are strewn with offerings that the Balinese put out every morning. Sometimes just rice but often flowers in banana leaf baskets with incense.
This lady goes through the offerings ritual for the entire street...
We did take a few trips around however, the first to the local monkey forest. More like a jungle with some frightening sculpture...
No photos of monkeys this time, they steal everything and if you fight them for it, they'll bite you. Here's a more tame variety...

Another of our jaunts was a walk around the local countryside (read rice paddies)....

We witnessed some back breaking work done by the farmers. This crafty lady however was making a killing selling coconut milk to passersby...

......and proceeded to rip us off with the old "no change" routine, what was to become a typical Indonesian encounter.Bali is beautiful but towards the end of our travels we are tiring of the bullshit, hassling and scam artists plaguing tourists. Where else can we go but back to Malaysia for some lazy and familiar comforts as Bali waves us a goodbye...

Gili Trawangan

13th January - 22nd January

For us, Indonesia began on a remote island off the coast of Lombok. In the early dawn fisherman walk out into the sea and spread their nets while their wives wait patiently underneath the shade of a palm tree. While they sit, they supportively nudge their sisters with advice and remedy while their children play in the nearby sand. Behind the main street, sits a quiet village where not much happens but everything happens. There are two mosques that seem to be competing for the loudest and longest sermon while we sit quietly and listen to the call to prayer. Horse carts and bicycles are the main mode of transportation for both tourists and locals down the 2 km main drag. There are no roads, just dust and gravel.

An elderly lady sits crouched on the asphalt with baskets and bowls at her feet, feeding our hungry bellies with fresh gado-gado and tempe curry. She takes out a triangle-rolled palm leaf and opens it up to reveal rice that’s been cooked the old-fashion way, for hours and on low heat. The flavors of her dishes are a different mixture of peanuts, spices and coconut milk that we have not had before. We visit her everyday. “Good morning” and “Thank you very much” in Indonesia Bahasa always gets a smile from her and others not expecting.

The sunsets are sealed with color and the mist on the mountainside facing us makes us awake and silent.

Kuala Lumpur

6th January - 9th January

Kuala Lumpur is a tall city, filled with skyscrapers that seem to have taken root midst historic districts and local markets. At first sight, or at least from our guesthouse window, KL feels like a familiar city, smelling of sewer and infested with all kinds of underground creature and crawlers. After we've had enough of the morning traffic noise, we boarded the monorail and headed to the Lake Garden district.

But first, we passed the old train station, an old gothic building with Islamic features and curves.
The National Mosque can house 15,000 worshippers and stands magnificent and serene.

A fountain near the mosque.

No monkeying around for Tommy-on the way to the gardens!
After many hills and stopovers, we reached the Lake Garden. The Hibiscus and Orchid Garden was a haven for the specially delicate flowers.
Finally, the Butterfly Garden was the real highlight. Thousands of butterflies scattered a jungle-covered area filled with fish and turtle ponds, tropical flowers and trees while children ran around in a flurry.
This indian-leaf butterfly resembled a dead leaf so well that it took us a minute to spot it.
Onward to Indonesia! First stop: Bali and then Lombok. See you soon.

Malacca

23rd December - 4th January

Recommended by a fellow traveller as a quiet and historic town in Malaysia, we boarded a long-day bus to Malacca and arrived on a Friday evening. Also much recommended (and we thank Dan from the bottom of our hearts) was the Sama-Sama guesthouse where owners Soon and Gabby were the most gracious of hosts.

The 6-day floods had finally moved on and the weekend markets opened their doors and stalls to the Christmas shopping masses that shuffled at a painfully long pace down Jonker Walk, known as the antique street in Malacca's Chinatown.

Here is a view of Jonker Walk from the historic Cheng Ho Museum, which outlines Chinese explorations of Africa, Latin America, California and South East Asia years before Columbus was even born.

The next day Tom spotted a Morris Minor parked on Jonker Walk. What a sighting!

Malacca's personality begins with the holiday inspired rickshaws and their kooky drivers. Many are decorated with fancy plastic flowers, religious icons and are mostly connected to a boom-box with speakers and CD players so the customers can enjoy quality booming 80's techno music. It's all too kitsch.A famous Portugees Settlement, dating back to the 1500's, hosts a massive Christmas celebration with a mass, carols and loads of Portugese food stalls. In the evening, we took a town bus and got off where the crowds began to appear. Tom was a bit bored during the mass but the carols were wonderful, sung by a school chorus. As soon as the ceremony ended, out came the canned snow (soap suds in a spray can) and silly string and before we knew it (as the foreign novelty) we were attacked by the giggling youth wherever we went.

Tom got especially teased by groups of young girls and didn't really stand a chance to defend himself. Since we usually spend Christmas in Leeds with the Lyons', this year we decided to not try and imitate a home Christmas and instead opted for a Nyonyan (Chinese and Malay mixed cuisine) meal at a nearby restaurant.

Malacca has many beautiful temples, varying from Chinese Buddhist and Taoist...

to Indian temples, like the famous Sri Mahamariaman Hindu Temple with its fancy big-bellied deities...
...and the Kampung Kling Mosque, which is one of the oldest mosques in Malaysia. Instead of a conventional dome, it has a three-tiered roof rising like a pyramid and is just one of many examples of the mixture of East-West architectural influence.

Here Doggo, the resident guesthouse pooch joins the call to prayer with some tuneful howling..

Malacca also sits on a quiet river and occasional long-tail boats whizz through.

New Years was also spent in Malacca since this wonderful little town easily kept our cultural interests, our appetites and our thirsts satisfied. Here Zhenia and Christine from Zurich get started on the Thai whisky, though Christine will fiercely deny the rumor.

From left to right, Marco of Germany(via Indonesia), Sean of Portsmouth and Dan of Toronto. The party came out onto the streets as a few fireworks shot into the sky on the stroke of midnight.
The two of us, our first pic of 2007.

Marco and Zhenia enjoy a giggle.

A picture of the New Year's gang. If you're concerned, Tom isn't smoking but merely posing for his new year's resolution: to look tough and mean.

The Jungles of Cameron Highlands

21st December - 22nd December

2,000 meters above sea level in central peninsular Malaysia sit the Cameron Highlands. We decided to take a break in the high mountains for a couple of days before continuing south for Christmas.

The first day pissed it down but the second proved to be a bit more welcoming so we heading out for a jungle walk...but first we found an enormous scorpion on the sidewalk; this bad boy was a good 7 inches long.

Tally, Ho! Come on George! Come on Timmy, lets go rescue Anne from the wicked Skunk Ape of jungle mountain!

Deeper in the jungle, the sunlight began to shine though the canopy creating a beautiful effect with the mist.

A birds nest fern hangs enormously at the top of the trees and is a common sight in the tropics.

The mountain paths were difficult, to say the least, especially after a week of rain. We slipped in the mud several times and had to almost get on all fours to get under some of the fallen trees. At times we wondered whether it was wise wondering off without a guide and only a rudimentary map.

That was until we reached the top and found ourselves surrounded by school kids from Kuala Lumpur on camp for the Christmas holiday.

After an hour we finally made it back down, here Zhenia poses next to a stream.

While asking for directions back to town Tom got stuck discussing the merits of Arsenal and Thierry Henry with a local hiker.

Georgetown or Pulau Penang

17th December - 20th December

Our first stop in Malaysia was the island of Penang, which literally translates from Malay as "Betel Nut Island". Given to the British by Sultan Kedah in 1771 in a deal for protection from foreign invaders, Georgetown was founded by Sir Francis Light and became a thriving trade port for the East India Company. The Chinese and Indians came as merchants and labor workers and never left. Now the island's colonial days are over and the world praises it for it's ethnic and religious diversity and it's absolutely superb cuisine. Infact, it is quite common to run into a Hindu temple, a Chinese Temple, a Mosque and a Church on the same block. Similarly, the ethnic groups have also build gastronomical bridges with cuisines of South India, China, and Malay.

Here's Tom with a delicious mug of massala tea, enjoyed by everybody on the streets...

...while Zhenia digs into her vegetarian set consisting of popadom, roti canai, lentil dall, chutney, alou gobi (something similar anyway) and a big heap of rice - all for one US dollar.

A close up of ABC (Air Batu Campur), a Malay desert consisting of crushed ice flavoured with various syrups, sweet corn and red beans. Zhenia, of course, demolished this in no time and refused to let me publish the evidence.

At a fruit market Tom holds up a Jack fruit, which smells mildly better than its sewer-smelling cousin, the Durian fruit.

A view of our street in Chinatown. The streets are usually quiet and look lost or asleep in some old time.

Once an old colonial building this music shop in Little India counts Jesus and Ganesh as it's sponsors.

We spent the rainy days sitting on the porch of our guesthouse - here I am looking very pleased with my new shirt I found in a Thai thrift shop for pennies.

On one of the warmer days we decided to get out of the heat and spend the hottest part of the afternoon in the Indian cinema watching the latest Bollywood box office hit. No subtitles but who needed them? Lots of singing, dancing and the wafer thin melodramatic plot was easy enough to follow. A sensational riot of funabration.....ness...

Lastly, at Batu Ferrenghi, a beach coast on the island, we spotted two 4-ft Monitor lizards sunbathing on the rocks.