Island Hopping 2011

We started out this journey by squeezing in four weeks around Malaysia and Thailand between the end of my cancer treatment and moving house.  This is a brief summary of our journey which includes some photographs that you have seen and some that you haven't.

We started our journey in KL on my birthday with the hospitality of Tom and Youngja where they treated us to a great night of chinese food, beer and trying strange fruits.

The following day we flew to Phuket but we had an aborted landing and it rained for our entire five day stay.

We moved to the really nice Nap Patong.  If we were going to be cabin bound then we may as well do it in style.  They had beautifully presented food and the best roof terrace that we have never used.

We moved onto Koh Phi Phi and the weather changed.  Our hotel left a little to be desired but it doesn’t matter when the sun is shining; you are out all day.

We had a wonderful boat trip around Koh Phi Phi Lay, “The Beach”.

You can see spectacular views on boat trips from these island; photos don’t do the justice because of the scale.

We caught the ferry to our favorite Thai Island, Koh Lanta and by chance ended up at the Escape Cabins which is our perfect retreat.

We were lucky as the good weather continued for our entire stay so we could enjoy the pool at the end of a hot day on the bike.  Escape to our cabin and watch complimentary DVD’s on our complimentary DVD player whilst sampling the local brew.

We had a ride on two ferries over to the other Lanta island and the mainland where we saw a bull fight.

And an elephant.

Alas, this was the end of our Thai experience this time, we were off by ferry and road to Langkawi in Malaysia.  Yuko, our host showed us the most popular Escape Cabin.

Langkawi turned out to be a great escape duty free island with wonderful sunsets,

Spectacular value for money boat trips,

with monkeys.

Plenty of them.

Next came the ferry to Penang; but alas it wasn’t the island for us, far too city like and commercial.  It didn’t help that our bad weather returned.

We did what we could and had a trip around Gorgetown in the rain and were “King of the Road” for a while.

And of course Bobo was there.

A change in weather when we flew to Borneo, first stop Kota Kinabalu in Sabah.  The sunsets got even better.

And better!

With beautiful Islands.  Sod the Tiger!

Next stop Sandakan with a lovely room, toilet water jets (don't turn it on before you've finished),

and naughty monkeys everywhere.

Last stop Kuala Lumpur; I get a stinking cold and feel dreadful for traveling home, but we still managed to have a great night out with Tom.  Next time we will go out for a little longer Tom, see you at Christmas!