Still alive! Even though there have been some floods and bombs around here, we haven't come accross to any bigger problems, so don't worry. Two weeks already behind of our trip, time really flies when you are travelling... What have we been doing?

From Singapore we took a night bus to Kuala Lumpur as planned on 1.1. after recovering from New Year's celebration. The bus was pretty comfortable, but I didn't manage to sleep too much. We arrived to KL at around 4 o'clock in the morning, and since all of us we pretty exhausted we just found a hostel and went to bed. Woke up at around 12 o'clock and off we went to explore the city. KL is also a nice city, and have to admit that Petronas Tower is much nicer than any of the skyskrapers in HK. On 3rd of Jan we visited Batu caves near KL. The caves were nice, nothing spectacular, but there were plenty of interesting wild monkies. Bus there and back costed 4 rgds, which is less than a euro, so compared to price it was a very nice attraction.

On the 3rd of Jan we had had enough of big cities already, so we wanted to get to a peaceful quiet beach to calm down. From reliable sources we had heard that Langkawi island might be such for reasonable price, so we bought bus tickets to get there. Again nigh bus because we thought that perhaps this time we could sleep a bit. When we bought the tickets the guy told that we have to be at the bus terminal at 11.45, so we thought to play it safe and were there at around 11.30. It turned out that it was not the right terminal for our bus and that we have to take a bus to somewhere which was leaving in 2 minutes. We still had our backpacks in a locker, so we had to run there, get the packs and run back to the bus. We made it in the bus, but then we realised that it is already moving, we didn't have the tickets anymore since a guy who showed us the bus took them, and we didn't know exactly where the bus was going. After a consultation with the bus driver who didn't speak much English, I found out that this was a different bus, but that the destination is the same.

The bus drivers are really driving like crazy around here so we arrived quite lot ahead of our schedule to a small town somewhere in northern Malaysia. Didn't know exactly where, but we managed to get a taxi to a ferry station where we could get to the Langkawi island =) The ferry station was very nice. Benches where we tried to sleep were made of metal pipes and were not very comfortable, in addition there were several dozens of rats running around everywhere. But we had to spend there only couple of hours so it was ok =) Finally we got to the ferry and arrived to Langkawi at around 9 o'clock in the morning after only 9-10 hours of travelling. Feeling so fresh and so clean, but still we walked to a nearby tourist information center to get some info about the place, after that we headed by taxi to a place which was supposed to be cheap and nice. And indeed it was a nice place, and pretty cheap. Our hostel costed 70rgds for a night for three persons (~5euros/person) and food you could get for less than 10rgds. For a nice beach place the prices were very affordable. After some pretty exchausting travelling it was very nice to calm down in a very nice not growded beach place. And of course I managed to burn myself rather well on the first day =)

From Lankawi we bought transportation packet to Phuket, which was supposed to be a direct ferry of about 7 hours. It turned out to be 1,5 hoursh ferry in the coldest and crappiest ferry ever, continuing with the car transportation which made even me feel worried about where would we end up and after that the worst bus ride ever. 8 hours in a crappy bus where some people had to stand for 3 hours. It was freezing cold because people here want to put the aircon to max if they happen to have one. It was raining inside because of the aircon. The music was so loud you could barely speak to your neighbour and it the driver was of course driving like a madman. Nevertheless we arrived to our destination in Phuket after 12 hours of travelling and were pretty exchausted. But like that was not enough, it turned out that most of the hotels are fully booked, so it took about two hours to find a hotel. But now after having have to change hotel twice in the morning because couldn't find a place where to stay for more than a night we found a very nice bungalow in quiet and close to nature area where we can stay for two nights. So now it really is time to lye on the beach and enjoy the holiday =) After two days we will continue to a smallish island somewhere around here.

Though sometimes the travelling hasn't been that easy, it still has been one of the best experiences in my life. Phuket is too much of a tourist place to my taste, but it still is pretty nice. Not very cheap though, compared to rest of Asia. I'll add pictures when I'm back in HK.