Another nightmare getting from the airport. Once the taxi driver said he knew where we were staying, we got in the cab, he drove out of the airport, then asked where we were staying!!! After a couple of wrong turns and the meter continuously going up he stopped to ask another taxi driver where he was going!

We finally arrived at the Red Shield House hostel (Salvation Army). It is right next to the Taj Palace and Tower hotel (THE place to be!). James refused to pay the full price (Rs895) of the taxi as the meter had only said Rs750!! After a brief arguement the taxi driver gave in!! We decided not to have a drink in the Taj Palace after Kevin and Megans experience ( www.blogabond.com/megankevin ) for having 2 drinks for about Rs2700!!

The room is very basic but we do have our own loo and shower. But for Rs600 (7.50 pounds) per night cant really expect much more!!

We had a brief walk round to look at the Gateway to India. It was closed to a concert! But next door was the Mumbai International Boat Show - with a stagering 3 boats on one jetty!!! But still drawing a massive crowd - not quite up to Southamptons standards yet but you gotta start somewhere! There were a couple of mid size bayliners but no 4 million sunseekers!

Swami Vivekananda statue

We had dinner at a chinese and headed back to the hot hostel room!

Feb 24
Had a lie in as both of us didn't get much sleep due to the fact the hostel window was none existent so heard the honking of the cars for most of the night and boiling hot because the fan didn't work properly!
Had a productive morning though by booking up some more of the trip ahead!!

Then took a walk around. Tried to get on a boat trip but then missed the boat! But we found a nice little sports bar to have a bite to eat in and a few drinks instead.
Went to the cinema in Bollywood!! (Sorry Megan not to see another bollywood movie!) But watched Ghost Rider. Had good seats in the gallery that cost a little extra but worth all Rs300 (about 3.50 pounds!)
Back to the sports bar after witha few more drinks to watch Man U vs Fulham!
Played pool for Rs100 per game! (1.20 - well expensive) Trace potted the black ball too early, as usual, but really liked it as the ball came out the end like the white, so didn't completely ruin the game - Hoorah!!

written by  James & Tracey on February 23, 2007 from Mumbai, India
from the travel blog: James & Tracey World Tour
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Getting to our hotel was a lot less complicated than previous adventures. The taxi driver actually knew where he was going! The Hotel room is a lot nicer than the previous room, plus we are right around the corner from Raffles - Maybe a Singapore Sling before bedtime in the Long Bar yet?!!

Feb 26
After a bit of a lie in, we headed out to the humidity of the streets. Went on underground to Orchard Road. James got the spending off to a good start with buying a new watch, then some swim shorts, a new camera lens, and Then I bought a new watch too! Oh, and we also had to invest in a couple of umbrellas as we forgot about the unpredictability of the weather and terrential downpours!!
We walked to the Botanic gardens (in the rain!), as it was free to get in and we'd done enough spending! Looked around the Orchid gardens too.

Orchids in the botanic gardens

The greatest!!

On the way home we stopped off for a drink and was horrified to find out the beer has gone up from 50pence in Goa to 4 pounds 50 p here!! We finally arrived back at the hotel at around 8pm.

We went for a quick drink around the corner from the hotel, which was as expensive as earlier, then decided to buy a couple of cans from the 7/11 store to take back to the hotel room!

Below our hotel room are 24 hour restaurants. We were amazed to see many people still eating when we went to bed at 1.30am!

Feb 27
After the late night we had a late start! Went back to orchard road so James could get the camera lens sorted.
We then headed back to the river and to the Esplanade and theatre building. We had lunch by the river (lunchtime special 1 for 1). Drinks still Capital city prices.
After another long walk around we headed back to the hotel for a rest .

In the evening we headed for Lau Pa Sat, a little place to eat! We had satay on the street, followed by dinner in a market type place.

Satay in a Chinese food market

Feb 28
Started the day off well with no rain, but it didn't last! We walked to a place called Bugis street - little market thing a bit like Dewsbury market!! James bought more things!
We had lunch at a food hall. James tried the local delicacies (didn't know what they were) and didn't finish them as they were gross!!

We went up a cable car to Mount Faber and then across to Sentosa Island.

The two of us on Mount Faber

Shark up close and personal

For dinner we happened to stumble upon a restaurant, and ordered something we didn't have a clue about, but it all turned out well in the end. It was a broth on gas stove, half with spicy broth and half with chinese thing! We just added our food to let it cook, although we didn't know what most of the food we were adding was!!

written by  James & Tracey on February 25, 2007 from Singapore, Singapore
from the travel blog: James & Tracey World Tour
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The resort we are staying at is amazing! Little chalets with 4 poster bed and views of the rainforests! The room is around 20quid per night and includes dinner and breakfast!

Dinner was served on the veranda - A tapas style dinner and lots of it. Felt awful because we ate loads at lunch and looked as though we left lots of it! But there was a table for 6 full of food!
We played table tennis, table football and cards (James won at all of them!)

No wonder she lost!

March 2
Up early for breakfast - which was rice and fish things! (again far too much food!)
We walked the 3km to the waterfalls. We swam in the lower waterfall, but the upper waterfall was closed for swimming so only took photos! The pressure of the waterfall was enough to try and take my swim suit bottoms off!

Under water fall in Kota Tinggi

We went to the town to try and get the internet, only to find there is no internet access there at all!!

Dinner was served, again extreme portions. We had the broth thing again, but with loads more food to put in it! This time it had burning coals through the centre of the broth with flames coming out of the top, which made the lid very hot!

written by  James & Tracey on March 1, 2007 from Kota Tinggi, Malaysia
from the travel blog: James & Tracey World Tour
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The Hotel we checked into was meant to have views of the Petronas towers, I guess it would have if there wasn't another building in the way!!
We headed out to the town - there was a really long table with food on, so we had a try! I think the forst mouthful was shredded ginger and really hot, so didn't go much on it!!
Walked around a bit more and saw a dragon dance!
We went into an Irish bar to have a drink and try the Guinness out - big mistake! It tasted like it was from a tin and cost about 4.50 pounds!!! So wont be having another one of them.

Managed to see the Petronas towers in the nighttime, but we left the camera in the hotel!

March 4
Up for the free breakfast at the hotel and checked out by midday into a guest house about 100m down the road! Spent time uploading photos and catching up with internet stuff - whilst we waited for the rain as James not wanting to go outside in the sun because its poisonous!!

When the rain came we went outside with our umbrellas!We bought a new SIM card for the phone as the one we've got doesn't seem to be working! This seemed to take ages cos the woman we bought it off didn't speak english and we needed to register it with her so had to wait with her whilst this happened!
We could then phone people and book stuff! We booked an elephant sanctuary tour and 3 days diving on a tiny Island that isn't even on the map in the lonely planet book!!

We finished the day off going into town and having a couple of pizzas.

March 5
Had our free breakfast - only toast and tea this morning.
Our plan for today was meant to be going up the Petronas Towers, but we found out from the guy at the guesthouse that it isn't open on Mondays! So instead we still walked to the towers, and kept on going to find the perfect spot for a picture without other skyscrapers blocking the view - there are so many of them here. And boy we walked for ages in the sweltering heat.

Petronas Towers

Searching for somewhere to upload photos in this city is also a bit of a nightmare, but we finally found somewhere after the 3rd place of asking.
Trace (me) had hair cut at a place for RM12, plus got a free comb - the woman didn't speak any english but kinda got the gist - although I now think her vision was a bit off as the right side is slightly longer than the left, oh well what do you expect for 2 quid!
After the thunderstorm which went on whilst we were in internet cafe we decided to go for something to eat -then realised it was midnight - no wonder we were hungry! But it didn't matter all the restaurants are still serving food and busy. We had Shark fin and crab soup for starter - a local delicacy and delicious!

March 6
We were met early by our guide for today - Winston. He took us by a/c van to a set of caves with a temple in - Batu caves. Took lots of photos of monkeys as they were all over the place. Trace had a coconut to drink.

Winston took us to a little village for a chinese lunch, where we had pigs trotters, wild boar, steamed egg all served with rice and chinese tea.
Next stop was the elephant sanctuary. We had to watch a video for half an hour about them saving elephants, before we could actually meet the real ones! All the ones we saw were orphans and we met 6 of them, plus 3 babies. They had a shower as they were all dusty. We then got to feed them melon, papaya and banana all with skins on - either by giving it to their trunk or placing it into their mouth - which was really slimy!

Elephant dunking us in the river

March 7
It was an early start (for us) leaving the guesthouse at 7.30am and walking to Petronas Towers to get tickets for the sky bridge. When we got there a few more people had the same idea. We had to queue for about 1 hour, then wait around until we were called to watch a video and go up to the 41st floor (took 40 seconds in the lift!). We were then allowed on the sky bridge for 10 minutes - good job we didn't pay, cos after all that waiting we only had 10 minutes!! But we still managed to take a few more piccies.
We spent the rest of the day - afternoon and early evening travelling by bus once again from the west coast of Malaysia to the east coast - Kuala Dungun.

written by  James & Tracey on March 3, 2007 from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
from the travel blog: James & Tracey World Tour
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After a stroll along the beach with all the locals fishing, we walked for half an hour to find a Pizza Hut! I don't think they have ever had a ginger in their town, as there was a certain amount of pointing, giggling and subtle photo taking.

March 8
At 9am the phone rang and it was our lift saying they were at the jetty, where were we? Our info had definetely said 9.30am. We hurried down to the jetty to be greeted by the grinning Malay guys who were going to take us on our diving expedition. We got on to a twin 60 hp boat. We went straight out of the harbour and out on to the open sea with a very faint island on the horizon - 28km of bouncing off the waves, we arrived at our Island Tenggol.
Most people would agree that their ideal spot would be on a small deserted island with white sands, turquoise sea and palm trees.

View from our hut on the beach

Sunset over Bay

March 9
We arose early to attempt to eat the four dishes they presented to us for breakfast (who eats that much pasta for breakfast, everyday?) The day was spent relaxing in the sun, nipping out on the speed boat and diving. The first of these dives we left our small island and went across to an even smaller island which was 30m x 10m. We dived down to 32m and came back up for a safety stop in which I saw a baby Tiger Shark about 1m long. (he was the only one who saw it - Trace)

OK

Just do it!

The resort staff asked James if he drank alcohol, James said he did and was told to "wait there" - I think he was hoping for an ice cold Tiger beer, well he got the ice, but also a bottle of cognac to help himself to.

March 10
Again we attempted to eat a ridiculously big breakfast which would be ok if they didn't feed us anything else, but as they fed us 3 course meals at any given opportunity we were still full from the day before.
After breakfast it was that sad time where we had to roll off the island (which was 3km x 2km in size and the guy had bought 2 hectares for the price of 80 000 pounds - this is very tempting)
We went on the mad speed boat dash across the large rolling ocean waves to the town of Kuala Dungun. (Trace - if you didn't need the loo before you went you certainly had to check your pants when you got off!)

written by  James & Tracey on March 7, 2007 from Kuala Dungun, Malaysia
from the travel blog: James & Tracey World Tour
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Whilst we sit here and type this, the Karaoke wails are starting, life definately isn't so perfect!

March 11
Today has been a bit of an uneventful day. As we couldn't get the bus tickets we wanted, we have had to spend the day in a pretty rubbish town.

However, we have used the time to wait in the doctors waiting room for many hours. It turns out I (James) have an ear infection probably from the swimming pool at the Best Western hotel yesterday. They have given me 4 different types of medicine and have been told that I cannot dive or swim until this has cleared up - that sucks as our plan is to go up to Phuket in Thailand to stay by a beach, swim and dive in the sea.

The rest of the day we spent chilling in our room, until our tummies overtook and we went out for some food.
We ended up at a bizarre chinese restaurant next to the sea. It was like a very large canteen with the menu very brief descriptions of the meals in English but prices in foreign language. But they did serve Tiger beer!

written by  James & Tracey on March 10, 2007 from Kuala Terengganu, Malaysia
from the travel blog: James & Tracey World Tour
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March 13
We got to the pick up point with 10minutes spare - or so we thought, infact we were an hour and 10 minutes early. It seems yesterday the train left on time and the time on the computer while using the internet were all hints that we had crossed a time line, but we never picked up on it. Until we then had to wait for the bus for that extra hour, oh well!

written by  James & Tracey on March 12, 2007 from Hat Yai, Thailand
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If it wasn't for the strength of the pound all these crooks would have us bankrupt by now, but fortunately the money we have been ripped off isn't that much.

We found a nice hotel just up the road for 10quid a night - bargain - so we decided to stay for 2! To give us time to figure out where to go next.

March 14
As there is not much going on in Phuket town we decided to catch a bus to one of the beaches. We were meant to go to Kata but ended up in Karon as there were no signs in English. As it turned out the dive shop we were going to look for in Kata, was actually just where we got off the bus in Karon - very lucky!
We preceded to book 5 more dives for the weekend - 2 on Sat, 3 on Sun. We wandered round the town of Karon, which is where we had agreed to meet Dan on Monday. This is very much tourist central, as for the last week we have been the "only whites in the village" and now the only Thais are the ones selling stuff to the thousands of Germans, Ozzies and English.
We found our hotel and it was really nice so we decided to make it our home for a whole 6 nights!
After all this hard work we decided to relax and have a few cold beers/cocktails and food in one of the many bars near the sea front.

To get back to Phuket town we realised the buses had stopped, due to us spending too much time in the bar. Instead of bartering a "tuk tuk" taxi James managed to get us a lift in a spacious air con van, from a tour operator who had dropped his clients off and was returning back to base in the town. For his hospitality James gave him 1.50 pound - Bargain!! (By the look on his face we dont know if he thought this was generous or a joke!) So we quicly walked away and into the nearest shop.

March 15
We got up and packed our rucksacks once again - which we are now becoming experts at! We left the hotel with a clear idea of where we were going and how we would get there - for once, except unlike the day before, we had big rucksacks to carry in the blistering midday sun across town to the bus stop next to the stinking fish market.
After our local bus journey on what only can be described as an open back truck with bench seats and cost us a whopping 40p each, we reached the coast, and our new home.

The prospect of staying somewhere for a while, without having to figure out how to travel to the next place, where to stay and pack the bloomin rucksack is good!
After settling in we went for a stroll down to the beach front. Which is where the tsunami hit in 2004. It seems as though they are in full swing back to getting every penny out of the tourists.

For our evening meal we decided to eat in the Cafe/restaurant of our hotel, as it has a soup and salad bar, which looked well nice! Trace had swordfish - cooked to perfection. I had Duck in BBQ Orange sauce - the whole meal was lush!

March 16
Went downstairs for a buffet breakfast, which again was well tasty - I'm going to enjoy staying here! I had scrambled egg with shrimp and a full brekkie - with cereal at long last -Spot on!

Trace went to have her legs and stuff waxed. It was the most painful experience of my life!! They dont use hot wax here and think it hurt more putting the cold sticky wax on than it did ripping it off - ouch!

We headed on a "tuk tuk" (not like the ones in India - here they are more like mini trucks and have 4 wheels) to the next town along, Patong Beach. My goodness we thought Karon Beach was a tourist trap - this place is awful! It has loads of tacky bars and touristy shops galore. James a bit gutted as the Billabong T-shirt he bought in Singapore (from a "proper shop") is now every where we look and fake! Plus much cheaper, so it looks like he's wearing a rip off!!
Anyway getting sidetracked. We headed here for the dive shop. After being in the shop for over an hour trying on boots and fins and looking at dive computers. We had to make an exit to the internet cafe to take a closer look at finances then thought "sod it", went back into the shop and bought fins each, boots each and a dive computer!
After this we went to a nearby bar for a stiff drink! We wandered the streets for a bit looking in the artwork shops, trying hard not to spend any more money on paintings.
We headed back to our hotel for a quiet drink and food.

March 17
It was an early start as our pick up was at 8.30am for diving. We were on the boat by 9.30 am. We had a crazy instructor with us - she also found the tiniest things to show us in the water. most of the time we just nodded our heads and showed the "OK" sign but didn't have a clue what she was pointing at!
James wore the Dive computer for the first time - and it worked!
The first dive was great. James' ears were better than ever and we saw an 12 foot long Shark! Well....... we all thought it was a shark as it had a fin and was huge, made our hearts pound when it swam round us, but to our disappointment on the surface they told us it was only a Guitar Ray ( a cross between a shark and a ray). Whatever!
The second dive we were by a wall reef with loads of fish and coral. This time we did see a shark! It was a Bamboo Shark - granted it was only about 50 cm long - It was still a Shark!

By the time we got back tothe hotel (around 4.30pm) we were shattered and passed out on the bed. Only woken by the phone ringing (thanks Malc!) We were then ready for dinner. We tried hard to get in the spirit of St Patricks day by having a few drinks and watching Ireland whip Italy's butt! We tried very hard to stay awake for the England match but woke up when it was all over so don'teven know the score - or do we want to know?

March 18
Another early start, pick up at 8.30 am. Today the dive boat was full of Japanese! We had three dives today all slightly different with loads of different fish - scorpion, lion, stone, yellow trumpet and more!
On a wreck james spotted a tiny Snake/eel thing. It was about 10am long and about 3mm wide and the same colour as the stuff it was lying on. I think he was showing off as now he had found stuff to de-fog his mask he could actually see stuff!
We are now getting better with our air and not breathing too much, we can last much longer than some of the others on the dive. Both of us are coming up with the same amount of air. James is a little greedier as he starts with a 15 litre tank and I only have a 12 litre, but it means we can see much more!

Again we were shattered so went back for a bit of a siesta (well I did!). We went downstairs for dinner as couldn't be bothered to walk any further!

March 19
Woke up at our leisure this morning - bliss! James went for his hair cut. Better than my experience in Malaysia, but not as good as I cut it! He now has a tan line - around his neck where the girl cut it so short using a razor blade.

We went for a walk along the beach front in the heat of the day - boy its really hot here!
We met up with Dan - old uni mate of James - and 6 of his aussie mates for lunch and few beers. They proved straight away they were a lively bunch and knew we'd have some fun over the next few days!
We went out for dinner. A couple of lads had the biggest prawns we've ever seen - they were more like lobsters!

Cheers Dan

March 20
We got in touch with Dan after breakfast to find out that 1 of the lads didn't get back until 11am, and another was still unaccounted for!
We spent the day at the beach, sunning ourselves - finally! James waited all day for the sun to lose a bit of heat, walked back to the hotel to get 1000Baht and his camera so he could go on a Jetski, only to find out the price had gone up by 500Baht and he couldn't afford it - Gutted!
We met the lads for evening dinner and found out the missing lad had got back at 2.30pm. They had been partying and clubbing all the way through the night and morning and couldn't remember where he was staying - nutcases!! The majority of our group all decided to try the giant prawns - they were well good!
After dinner we jumped into a Tuk Tuk straight back to Patong Beach, to start another night very similar to the one before. This time We left with Dan at 2am, leaving the other guys carrying on.

March 21
We spent the day with Dan on an organised day trip. We drove to a Temple with caves and monkeys. The monkeys were eating bananas out of the tourists hands. We then went on a long tail boat which raced us through the mangroves. The large engine that was propelling us was so loud you couldn't talk to the person sat next to you!
The next form of transport we took were sea canoes - which were inflatable more like a long thin rubber dinghy! A guide paddled us around the unusual Thai coast in and out of small and large caves. To get into some of the caves we had to lie flat in the canoe to fit through the gaps between the water and the cave ceiling.

How Close?

Floating Muslim Fishing Village

March 22
First job of the day was to pack our rucksack - we haven't had to do for a while! We checked out of our hotel and walked up the road 3 doors and checked into our new hotel.
All the lads left at midday to go to Phi Phi Island to continue their holiday, unfortunately we couldn't go with them as we have to get to Bangkok tomorrow. We won't be able to witness them causing carnage there!

We headed to the place where we could get ourselves a full massage. One hour later,a bottle of oil, some twisting and contorting and a lot of slapping, we emerged kind of ok and as good as new.
We got a tuk tuk to the art galleries at Patong, withthe intention of finding one we both agreed on in the thousands of paintings on offer. 2 hours later we emerged, after haggling, with 3 paintings. Trace was gutted as she saw a painting of a lion fish when she went by in a taxi a couple of days ago only to find afteran hour of searching for it, it to be half lion fish and half mermaid with her boobs out - not amused!

We got a tuk tuk back to Karon Beach and went for some food. We decided that we hadn't spent enough today so we shared a Thai green curry and a Lobster Thermidor. The curry was very hot and Lobster delicious!

March 23
Trace headed to the beach on her own to try and top her tan up a bit. James hid from the sun by going back to the gallery as the picture he picked had not been finished and they were finishing it through the night.
We went for lunch for the last time at Karon Cafe (where we stayed for a week) for a dirty burger and steak sandwich - Lush!

Taxi picked us up and we headed to the airport - our first plane journey in 4 weeks!

written by  James & Tracey on March 13, 2007 from Phuket, Thailand
from the travel blog: James & Tracey World Tour
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March 24
After a restless night - all the backpackers coming home in the early hours slamming doors and making loads of noise - pesky kids! We lazyly left mid-morning for the hustle and bustle of Bangkok. We walked to the Great Palace past tons of wannabe tour guides and Tuk Tuk drivers telling us it was shut - which we ignored thanks to the advice of the lady boy recetionist. When we got to the palace (after walking the whole way round!) we found out it was actually shut because the royal family were there and it wouldn't be open until mid afternoon!
We stopped off at the nearest piece of shade which turned out to be the entrance to the temple with the reclining buddha. This is where we had hoped to walk onto next - saved us a journey! And allowed us a chance to dry off from the huge amount of sweat dripping from us! The Buddha was enormous - it is the largest reclining Gold Buddha in Thailand and is 46m long and 15m high. Plus they have loads of other gold buddhas sat round a temple.

Reclining golden buddha

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