We made it to the Langkawi cable car, where we waited an hour in line to board the cable car to the top of the mountain. If you ever see the guy in the cowboy hat below, yell at him. He enjoys trying to push in line! Once we reached the top of the mountain, the views were spectacular, if a little hazy. The highest point was 710m above sea level. We saw all of Langkawi and some of Thailand, and it was a few degrees cooler (but not much) which was welcome.

We spent most evenings on the beach enjoying $1.30 beers and cheap and delicious food. It’s not a bad place, but it’s not as pretty as it could be.

It’s a very relaxed place, and runs pretty much on Malaysian time. “Later” could mean in a few minutes, a few hours, or even tomorrow. 3pm might be closer to 4 or 5.

We found this out when we went on an island hopping cruise. 25 ringgit – about $8 – for 4 hours. It involved a boat ride to one island with a giant fresh water lake, where we spent one hour, another boat ride (on the same boat) to another island where there was a beach, and a transfer back to where we were staying. Followed by more beer.

Tomorrow, to Kuala Lumpur!

Our lodgings are at some cool little chalets. Owned and run by two brothers, they’re very new. There are a few teething problems (lack of insulation makes the aircon pretty useless) but they’re new and clean and the two guys couldn’t be nicer. They drove us the few hundred metres to the main beach, Pantai Cenang, and showed us around. They also showed us a little short cut through a kampung (village) to walk there, and it’s beautiful. Even the cows are friendly. I like this place.

It’s hot. Really hot. Humid, too, but not too bad because there hasn’t been any rain for six weeks or more. It’s the dry season, and it shows. All the grass is brown and there’s no water anywhere. The reduction in the number of resident mosquitoes is a huge plus, though.

Plans for Langkawi: the cable car, Restoron Siti Fatimah, perhaps an island hopping trip, and… who knows.

We’re here! Our evening flight from Adelaide took us to Melbourne, where we transferred to the international terminal and waited five hours for our Air Asia X flight to Kuala Lumpur. The flight was delayed about half an hour, which wasn’t too bad. The flight was as expected: long, but not too long, and uneventful. I’m glad I paid extra for increased leg room. Travelling without it would have sucked! Entry to Malaysia was painless and before long we were on board another flight, to Langkawi.

Our lodgings are at some cool little chalets. Owned and run by two brothers, they’re very new. There are a few teething problems (lack of insulation makes the aircon pretty useless) but they’re new and clean and the two guys couldn’t be nicer. They drove us the few hundred metres to the main beach, Pantai Cenang, and showed us around. They also showed us a little short cut through a kampung (village) to walk there, and it’s beautiful. Even the cows are friendly. I like this place.

It’s hot. Really hot. Humid, too, but not too bad because there hasn’t been any rain for six weeks or more. It’s the dry season, and it shows. All the grass is brown and there’s no water anywhere. The lack of mosquitoes is a plus.

Plans for Langkawi: the cable car, Restoron Siti Fatimah, perhaps an island hopping trip, and… who knows.

The plan is as follows:

• Malaysia
  • Langkawi, Kuala Lumpur
• Taiwan
  • Taipei
  • Taichung
  • Tainan
  • Kaohsiung
• Macau
• Hong Kong

All that over about 18 days. Short and sweet? I’m already thinking we’ll need more time in Hong Kong. I’m going with a friend from university and her friend, and we’re meeting up with friends in Kuala Lumpur, Macau, and Hong Kong. It’ll be epic. Stay tuned!

Oh, and the very nice university people have let me back in. I’ll be studying journalism/international studies, so hopefully I’ll learn how to make this blog interesting and meaningful and better. I start 3 days after I get home.

We looked at museums and galleries, bars and hawker centres, memorials and zoos. We walked, and walked, and walked, sweltered in the heat, visited friends, and got thoroughly sick of the place after a few days. It’s nice, but we’d all been there before and the only new experience for most of us was the zoo. Still, we did find an escalator that went around a corner… that was pretty special.

And so, to home. Depart Singapore late – around midnight. Arrive in Darwin at about 2am. Customs and immigration was completely painless. Contrary to my thoughts that they’d swab two young guys coming back from three weeks in South East Asia for every disease and substance known to man, we were directed through a set of blue doors nobody else in the queue ahead of us had been directed through and found ourselves in the terminal. Easy. Darwin airport isn’t a nice place to spend 4 hours. It’s crowded, and boring. At length we boarded our flight to Melbourne and I actually managed to sleep.

I arrived home, in Adelaide, at about 5pm. What an adventure!

We’re all desperate to go back to Koh Tao, not purely for the diving but for a combination of the lifestyle and the diving. Some of us are already planning a dive master course there late next year. We’ll see.

Our flight was aboard a Dash 7, operated by Berjaya Air, flying from Koh Samui Airport to Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport. It wasn’t as dodgy as it sounds, and we arrived safely in Kuala Lumpur and after painless immigration and customs formalities we were in two taxis to down town Kuala Lumpur.

I’d booked a few rooms at the Classic Inn, and was pleasantly surprised. It’s a very clean, friendly, well priced, and well located place. That night we had a curry from nearby, watched the end of the Singapore Formula 1 race, and got to bed quite late.

The morning brought a catastrophe: I was sick. Really, really, really sick. Think running to the bathroom every five minutes sick. So sick that I stayed in bed for three days feeling miserable. I’m not sure what caused it. We’d all eaten the same food at Koh Samui airport, the same curry in KL, and the same samosas that morning on Koh Tao. The only thing I did differently was drink a glass of lemon juice in the departure lounge. Anyway, everyone else met up with Kelvin and Abu and much merriment was had. Our Irish friend Brian even joined us after a day or two.

Kuala Lumpur is a bit of a blur, but after a few days I’d recovered and was ravenous. I found my way to KLCC, and to a food court contained within, and then found myself ordering two serves of nasi lemak in near perfect Malaysian. I’m more than just a pretty face!

Kelvin took us to the Batu Caves, and wisely waited down the bottom smoking cigarettes whilst we trudged to the top, dodging evil monkeys and runaway children charging down the stairs. It was hot, but well worthwhile. It’s a very spectacular place.

Finally, we were due to depart Kuala Lumpur and travel to Singapore by bus. We could have flown, but it costs the same and takes the same amount of time and is far less convenient. So, we booked a five hour passage with Transtar and left early in the morning. It was a nice bus – Wifi on board, computer games, TV, reclining seats, and so on. We even had a somewhat edible food service!

We’ve all quickly taken to our various dive courses, spending the days learning and diving and talking and eating and enjoying the beautiful scenery, both above and below the surface. Nights have been spent at a variety of beach bars and restaurants, with an eclectic group of people of all ages, backgrounds, and origins. It’s a lot of fun. The big group of us doesn’t scare people away, and in fact it seems to attract a lot of people traveling by themselves.

Yesterday was the final day of my SSI Advanced Adventurer course. I can now dive to 30m, at night, and use a dive computer to help me plan the dive… it doesn’t sound like much, but it’s a lot of fun and well worth the effort. We haven’t seen a whale shark, which isn’t so awesome, but I have swum with barracudas and giant groupers and a myriad of other sea dwelling creatures. It’s strange how much I like diving: I hate the beach, I’m not a fan of swimming in the ocean, and the sand shits me to tears. Somehow, this is different.

Last night we celebrated our various levels of qualification certification with a few drinks… this got a little messy and I suspect there were a few sore heads around today!

After emerging from three hours of sleep on Friday night, we left our hostel for the bus to Chumporn and the ferry from Chumporn to Koh Tao. The bus was intolerably hot and I wasn’t sure if I was dying or falling asleep. The air conditioner had broken and even the Thai dudes on the bus were hating life nearly as much as we were. It was six hours of absolute misery, and disembarking from the bus to the sweltering heat of a Thai noon was a welcome relief from the glasshouse.

We met a few cool people on the fery and we’ve been hanging out ever since, along with a few cool people spread between the various dive courses and refresher courses we’re doing. Our group of eight has swollen to a group of between five and fifteen. Last night we spent the evening eating on the beach, watching fireworks and getting to know our new German, Canadian, Dutch, American, English, and Kiwi friends. Good times… though better for others. Filer and Mark showed up at the hotel at 4am. I was home by 1, and up at 8… those guys haven’t emerged. Yet.

It’s hot. Really hot. The weather has been perfect: warm sunny days, and slightly cooler evenings with a nice breeze and thunderstorms on the horizon. Evenings are beer and food filled, with tales of the day spent diving. It’s awesome. Photos to come when I can be bothered… life here is all about maximum relax, minimum stress. Life is good.

We’re all here, having met over the past few days. It’s hot, humid, and crazy. We’re just far enough from the tourist ghetto to be relatively quiet and close enough to be convenient.

I don’t have any photos yet… Bangkok is merely a meeting poin for the rest of the adventure.

We leave for Koh Tao at 6am tomorrow… ouch!

Over the coming days, we will all meet in Bangkok. Early on Friday morning, we depart Bangkok for Koh Tao.

The trip wouldn’t be complete without a little drama, and it’s happened before we’ve left. An enormous plastics fire sent a plume of smoke over the Adelaide skyline earlier this evening: