Malaysia:

Once I'd finished walking the causway to Malaysia, the border process was fairly smooth and I was at once thrown into the usual collection of hustlers and taxi touts wanting my business. Once at the large bus station, I eventually found the right bus I needed to take me to Mersing on the East coast and was then treated to my first 2 1/2 hour backpacking wait for it to leave. Like airport departure lounges, its amazing how quickly the time actually goes and before I knew it, the tedious 4 hour bus ride had begun. I made the mistake of talking to a scruffy looking Norwegian behind me but quickly realised he was a wild eyed mental case who was living on income support but somehow travelling over here. Thankfully he got off in Mersing and wasn't coming to Tioman Island.

The boat to Tioman cost 35RM and took 2 hours and I had been planning on getting off at Air Batang but after getting chatting with some others, it was decided that we were all getting off at Salang at the top end of the island. It turned out to be a good choice as I spent the next few days drinking way too much with my new backpacking buddies and enjoying snorkelling and walking around the place. The island was purported to be one of the most beautiful in the world some years ago and I'm please to say it was all rather pleasant.

Despite the island being fairly cheap and meeting loads of fun people, going through a bottle of Vodka or Jack Daniels each night does little to make the budget last longer so after about 4 days, in order to save my liver, I headed back by ferry to Mersing and a 5 hour wait for the next bus to Malaka on the West coast.

Rachel and Skip had recommended a nice guest house in Malaka called Kancil Guest House run by a chap called Doud. As the owner was away for a few days, the place was being looked after by a Mr Miyagi lookalike called Mark who was an entertaining chap to say the least.

Although there wasn't an awful lot to do in Melaka, it was a pleasant enough place and luckily the hostal wasn't too busy, so I hung out with a few of the other guests in the garden and probably spent too much time in the local Hawker markets eating great Satay for about 70p.



After 3 or 4 days of that, I decided it was time to get myself up to KL to see a shipping agent about a bike.