Kuala Lumpur

Where we stayed - Impiana Hotel & Spa

From Penang we caught a 'Super VIP' bus down to Kuala Lumpur. It was less that $40 for the four of us to travel in absolute luxury, and boy, it was awesome! The chairs were electronic and you could adjust them to your liking, you could even enjoy a gentle massage if you so desired. We each had individual tv screens with numerous channels and also nintendo games (much to the kids delight)... If ever you get the chance to go on a Super VIP bus, you soooo have to do it!!

We decided that since we were coming to the end of our trip we'd splash out and stay at a really nice hotel. Luckily for us, we got a superb rate at Impiana. It was so good infact, that instead of staying 3 days like we originally planned, we ended up staying 10 days! The King of Malaysia even graced our hotel with his presence. It was quite surreal seeing the police and bodyguards crawling all over the place, and as for the red carpet, well you can only imagine how impressed Mia was with that!

We really didn't do too much in KL. We spend our days splashing in the pool, playing in the awesome park at KLCC and wandering around in the blissfully air conditioned shopping centres. We ventured up to the viewing deck of the Petronas towers and enjoyed the stunning views of the city, but the most enjoyable thing we did was spend time in the awesome food courts!

Batu Ferringgi

Where we stayed - Some right old shit hole!

What a disappointment Batu Ferringgi was! We'd heard that this place had Penangs best beaches, so we thought we'd head there for a few days of relaxing. WRONG! This place is a right old dump.

The township basically consist of one main road which has 4-5 star hotels which we couldn't afford lining the waterfront side of the road and crappy old dilapidated buildings which we didn't want to stay in lining the other. The beach is nothing to brag about, it is full of people trying to get you onto dodgy looking jet-ski's or horses and there are idiots zooming up and down the beach on quad bikes like it's a main highway...

If you are after a nice beach holiday, don't come here. Go anywhere, but here... We lasted less than 24 hours in this town, and even then it was a total waste of our time. The only redeeming factor of this place is that we found an Indian restaurant which served the best Indian we've had outside of India, oh, and the troop of monkeys we saw walking along the power lines whilst we waited for our early morning bus out of Batu Ferringgi.

*** Sorry there are no photos, it was just too crap to justify using up important space on our memory card ***

George Town

Where we stayed - Sunway Georgetown

From Ao Nang, we booked ourselves onto a rather full and rather cramped minivan which would take us all the way over the Thai/Malay border to Penang. It was a long, boring trip and nothing exciting happened. The kids coped amazingly well, despite the 10 hours of travel. They're such good little travellers, we are so lucky!

Georgetown is alright, I suppose. It's nothing like what I thought it would be though, it's more Chinese that what I had imagined. We visited numerous temples, all of which are elaborately designed and decorated and all had the hugest incents burning I've ever seen. We also wandered around a museum dedicated to Penangs first settlers (the name of which escapes me at the moment).

Malaysia has quite the melting pot of ethnicity's. If you sit and watch the people on the streets, it isn't long before you'll spot a Muslim women in full burka walk along side ladies of Chinese decent who are wearing skirts which can be mistaken for belts. Yet, on the surface, they all seem to live in relative harmony.

Since Penang is well know for it's street food, it comes as no surprise that our evening meals always came from the vendors lining our street. We sent Alain out into the torrential rain to get our supper and he always returned with mountains of freshly prepared delicacy's, much to our delight.

Ao Nang

Where we stayed - La Venice

Ao Nang is a nice enough little town, it's main road is lined with tourist shops, travel agencies and restaurants galore. There's not really all that much to do there though and the beach is pretty yuck, but it is the jumping off point to the beautiful islands that surround Krabi.

We chose to do the '4 Islands' half day tour by speedboat, which included a spot of snorkeling and an awesome picnic lunch (which consisted of thai style chicken/chili stir-fry and rice, a tasty fresh fruit platter and cake). Unsurprisingly, we visited 4 islands, all of which were absolutely amazing. They all had the clear sea green waters, glowing white sand and swaying palm trees which we are now accustomed too. Thailand's beaches are just the best... *sigh*

If you look closely in this photo, you can see the huge school of fish swarming around Alain, as he is so SEXY !!!

Phuket - Patong and Kata

Where we stayed: Patong - Baumanburi Hotel & Kata - Kata Poolside Resort

We had a mammoth 28 hour journey to reach Patong from Siem Reap in Cambodia. We took two taxi's, an overnight train, the metro, two buses and finally a tuk tuk to reach our final destination. Boy, it was a loooogggg trip, but the kids handled it really well, we extremely lucky they are such good travellers!

We spend Mia's 6th birthday in Patong. All she wanted to do for her birthday was stay in a nice hotel (hence the Baumanburi), go for a swim in the pool and buy a drink from the bar which you could swim up too, go to Macca's for lunch, then have a picnic dinner... She's got simple tastes, our girl (bless her).

Well, what can you say about Patong? It's busy. It's full of tourists. It's full of shops. It's full of bars. It soooo wasn't for us! After 3 days in Patong, we headed further south to beautiful Kata. This part of Phuket is lovely... Even though it was still relatively busy, it somehow still seemed quite and peaceful. We had a great time in Kata just chillin' at the beautiful beach, which had crystal clear water and soft powdery sand. In the evenings, we dined at some fantastic restaurants which served the freshest fish and seafood. We enjoyed Kata so much, we extended our stay by a few days, but who could really blame us? It was a little piece of paradise...