People I've met so far (and where they're from)

Two Girls in Singapore with nowhere to stay (Sweden)
Lara (Cologne)
Viki (Singapore/India) and Debbie (Taiwan)
Ruza (Nepal)
Girl with all the fruit in the Explorers Guesthouse, KL (Melbourne)
Matthew (London, Enfield)
Viktor (Barcelona)
Kim (Switzerland)
Elwin (Munich)
Spanish Guy (Spain)
Thai Guy (thanks for showing me the Chinese temple)
English Guy (nice roomate in Penang -  thanks for telling me about the overnight train)
Liz and Tom (Brisbane - thanks for lending me the computer! Catch up in about 5 months)
Boern (probably wrong spelling) -  Amsterdam
Sarah, James (both england), Mike and Chris (Canada and USA), Olivia (USA)- Kuta, Bali
Sam - Switzerland - Ubud (met again in Chiang Mai)
Linda and Barb (Canada) on the ferry - Kelly, the northern lads, Jo (UK)- gili islands
Rintaro (Japanese surfer dude) - Japan (Fukuoka) - Lombok
English lads - Bangkok
Lovely Scottish girl and Polly (UK) - Bangkok
Swedish and German lads - Bangkok
Akane - (Japan) and Simone (France)- Bangkok
Will (USA), Sean (UK) and Yoshi - Bangkok
Stacey (UK), Julia (USA) and Louise (Canada) - Chiang Mai
Monica (Canada) Jackie (Miami) and Olia (Ukraine) - Pai
Guy and Michel - Pai (Sweden and Austria)
Kim and Aimee (Chiang Mai - kayaking) from UK
Jeremy (New Zealand) - Luang Prabang
Anthony (Australia), Kenda (USA), Johanna (Canada) and Renee (Holland) - Hang Xai

Jungles

I've walked through Jungles before.

In Peru I followed the enthusiastic Luis through jungles looking for monkeys, macaws, wild pigs and caiman. We had to wear wellies as the jungle floor was flooded in several places, but Luis, armed with a machete and binoculars, took specific care to tell me about everything, show me everything I might find interesting and also try to improve my Spanish (limited success).

In Malaysia it's a bit different. The guides walk us silently an hour and a half into the highland jungle where we encounter one bug, a little waterfall and some (very) big spiders that I have to point out to the rest of the group.

After viewing around four dead and alive giant raflessias (also elegantly named the 'corpse flower' or 'meat flower') our guide sits on a log, lights up a fag and asks "you have any questions about the Raflessia?". Somehow I get the feeling that he's not really bothered.

It might be different in Temana Negara, by far the biggest ecological park on the peninsular, but here I'd say they haven't quite got the whole eco-tourism thing down yet. Part of the point of it is education, but I get the feeling that in Cameron it's less about education and more about making a quick buck.

On Sunday after lounging about with an iced chocolate malt in one of the Tana Rata cafes, I decide to go for a walk through town to see if there's anything else. Tana Rata is tiny, I reach the town limit in half a mile and after exploring what I thought was a tiny tea garden I realise I'm walking one of the several surrounding jungle tracks.

Now, I know this is a bad idea. For a start I'm dressed in a silly summer dress and carrying a plastic handbag with a picture of Disney's Stitch on it. I've bought myself some watermelon, and am now walking into a forest stuffed with insects holding a bag of fruit salad. I have no first aid kid, no way of calling for help and no map, but once I've walked a fair distance I keep going a bit further, and decide I've come too far to head back. I get a bit nervous when a local man shows up behind me hunting with a blowpipe. It's a modern-looking plastic one, and I wonder how long it will be before I'm stuck with it and crash to the floor like a wounded hippo.

Luckily, I bump into an Irish couple and band up with them. Thank God, because the ensuing path is vague and overgrown. It often has a thin path with a steep drop over one side, and only insect-filled vegetation to break your fall. It also starts to rain. Lots. My dress and hair plaster to my body, and I quickly reach saturation point, with only a brief respite from the rain from random banana trees close to the path. Eventually, after about 3 hours of wrong turns, puddles and hurdle logs, we find the path back.

The lesson? Never enter a jungle without a raincoat. Don't do it by yourself. Don't take a bag of fresh fruit with you.

Befriend Irish people; they are lovely.

To the Hills!

The bus to Tanah Rata is your standard Asian wide-seater with frosty air con and charmingly lurid patterned upholstery and frilly curtains. It would be a nice ride if it wasn't lurching up forest-shouldered mountain paths, dodging oncoming traffic whilst our driver chain smokes in the front seat, giving me a steady choking waft of cigarette smoke and cheap floral air freshener in alternate bursts.

I'm heading to the Cameron Highlands, the favourite mountain retreat of English colonial settlers in the past, and nowadays knackered Malaysians and backpackers.

Mostly I'm in it for the tea plantations. As a celebrated tea nerd, I get very excited when we get our first glimpse of one of the Boh estates from the bus - The sections of tea bushes are trimmed to look like little clouds and run ramshackle all over the hills in a green brickwork.

The Cameron Highlands are much cooler than the rest of Malaysia, which is why you can grow tea and strawberries here. There's also some good trekking to be had through the jungle, and you can go and see the world's biggest flower, the Raflessia, whose latin name means "fuck-ugly massive warty flower".

It's also a welcome respite from Kuala Lumpur; the atmosphere is more laid back. As the bus travels up the hills I see people selling Durians by the roadside. There are some schoolkids looking very smart in pale blue shirts and sky blue ties who wave at the bus as it goes past. The Guesthouse is also relaxed, with free locally grown tea. Immediately I book in an extra day. "Take as much time as you need" -  and I could do with more of this sort of thing.

Meet the Peeps

So far, I'm not really liking Kuala Lumpur.

The city is clogged full of smoky traffic and seems to have this combined meat and shit smell that wafts at you every now and then. Every road is lined with taxi touts (who will refuse to turn their meters on) and Chinese guys selling knock-off sunglasses and t-shirts for tourist rip-off prices.

This is not helped by the fact I have been feeling quite lonely and irritable. I usually hate my own company, and this trip is no exception,so I decided yesterday that I need to put some more effort in with other people.

The hostel is mostly full of unsociable gits who spend more time inside on their smart phones than anything else. That being said, I have made an effort to introduce myself to my dorm-mates and on Tuesday I went out for some fabulous Dosa and mooched around Chinatown with Lara (from Cologne). Talking to Lara was great because we could compare prices for things (so you can tell whether you're being ripped off or not) and it also feels a lot safer around the more shady areas. I find that I only really get cat-calls and leers if I am by myself.

Lara left yesterday, so I ventured out again and once again ended up in an Indian restaurant. It is quite clear from this food pattern that I will not be losing any weight on this trip. I ordered a Thali, and was soon invited to join Viki (an Indian from Singapore) and Debbie (from Taiwan) for dinner. They had both travelled extensively, and scrutinised every aspect of my travel plan. Viki gave me some good advice for places to visit in the South of India, along with a powerful mantra (written down) to say every evening in order to get my dream job.

 I then went to a nearby Reggae bar for a beer, in the hopes of meeting some people. Through the sweet smokey shisha haze I met Ruza from Nepal, in Malaysia to trade in gemstones. I think this was the same Reggae bar that Pete went to back in the dark ages when he went backpacking, as there were notes written all over the bare bricks and Bob Marley pictures.

Today I met Anisha and Sanjay, some South Africans coming back from the Hindu Thaipusam festival at the Batu Caves. It was comforting to know that they had been feeling some of the frustration that I had with KL, but highly recommended Thailand to me (which made me even more excited about that). Sanjay declared that "once you're there, you'll never want to leave."

Take it Easy

Yesterday I got the bus into Malaysia.

There's a big difference moving from Singapore to Malaysia, the former being a very rich country, and the latter blighted by economical and environmental problems.

The most easily noticeable problem on crossing the border are the vast plantations of palm oil which stretch as far as the eye can see for the good 100 miles of road. Malaysia is also a bit of a building site, with half-finished and seemingly abandoned construction going up pretty much everywhere.

I reserve my judgement on Malaysia, as I've only just got here.

Already I've decided to book an extra day in Kuala Lumpur  mostly because my sleeping patterns are so out of kilter hat I need to take it easy for a while.

Last night I went out for dinner with Lara, a German girl staying in the same room as me. When I explained about my sleeping being off (not being able to sleep at night and then long sleepy stints in the late morning and mid afternoon) she stated the obvious -  I am horribly jet lagged.

I keep forgetting that I only got here on Saturday, and I zoomed around Singapore in two days, trying to get a good look at everything. This was really stupid considering I have quite a lot of time for this trip, so all I have done is knacker myself out. Hence booking the extra day here, and if I need it I'll book another.

My new philosophy will be- stay as long as you need to stay. It's one more point on the traveller's learning curve.

Raffles

What day is it? Wednesday? Lord I need to be taking note. And get a watch before my phone dies and I am without time or date.

On Monday I played the good tourist and went to the Raffles Hotel in Singapore to have the famous Singapore Gin Sling. Once I had finally slunk past the smart porters with my backpack and grubby shoes, I headed for the long bar to try the tradition of chucking peanut shells on the floor, and perhaps get slightly bladdered before heading back to the hostel.

This was not to be the case, as the cost of the cocktail ($30 SD) was more than the entirety of my eating and drinking so far. $30 is more than my accommodation costs per night. It is also just under what it costs to get into the night safari at Singapore zoo (if your budget calls for a toss up between the two- pick the night safari -  hands down), so you have to understand that this mark-up is atrocious.

Still, make the most of it. The cocktail just tasted pleasantly fruity and I enjoyed the dark wood paneled oldy wordly feel of the bar, with it's mechanical wafting hand fans on the ceiling, and the crunch of peanut shells underfoot on the mosaic-tiled floor.

I decided to account for my losses by eating as many of the complimentary peanuts as possible.

Touchdown Singapore!

I'm liking Singapore - It's a kind of easy-to-use friendly place for the first time traveller; the train from the airport is easy to catch and inexpensive, English is spoken by the majority and is sign-posted on everything, the city is laid out in a grid system that makes it very hard (though not impossible) to get lost.

I know people generally live in fear of hostels, but this one has a clean comfy bed, good security and tea and toast on offer any time you want it. It's also in a pretty central location and costs less than 20quid a night. Bazinga.

Whoever tells you that Singapore is expensive is a liar. Well they are if you've been to London. Or Paris. My lunch cost me $3.50 (less than 2 pounds) for a generous bowl of wanton noodle soup. My dinner ( a masala dosa from little India) cost me $1.40. God bless the hawker centre! (If you've not heard the term before, a hawker centre is typically a grimy mall full of plastic furniture where loads of independent stalls bash out hundreds of tasty, weird, cheap and cheerful dishes.)

I've also tried a drink called 'Chandol' which is made of coconut milk and loads of sugar, and contains lots of what I think are pandan flavoured Tapioca 'worms'. I'm making it sound really gross but it was really nice, especially after burning my mouth off with an over-generous helping of spicy sauce on my dosa.

In addition to the cheap food, Singapore is ultra modern and incredibly leafy. I am really enjoying the leafy-ness of it. There are climbing plants clinging to the concrete walkways, which makes them look a little less 'crime against the environment' and random parks, trees and lawns all over the place. I was walked round some massive trees and spice gardens in the park surrounding Canning Fort by a nice old man, who also took it upon himself to read my palm. I was especially surprised when he did not ask me to cross it with silver for his services of showing me lemongrass and basil, and then telling me I had boy troubles last year.

The one sight I really wanted to see was the 'Super trees;' massive tree-like structures that will eventually become upright gardens. They also use and store solar power so that they can light up at night, and collect rainwater to irrigate the surrounding gardens. I really hope all new structures start to look a bit more like these (it makes me feel as though we're living in 'Avatar'). Unfortunately, this is the point where I have realised that my camera is totally crap. I'll have to imprint the image on my brain instead.

Oh and if you want to find them -  facing the  bay, they're behind the big hotel that's got the Titanic stuck on the top of it.

Schnee and Singapore

It's another reminder of how fantastically crap my luck is that the day I am leaving on the trip I have been planning for months is the day we have some of the most severe snowy weather on record.

The news is broadcasting 400 flights cancelled from Heathrow, and I keep checking the online info for updates as even though it's telling me my flight is operating, I don't believe it. I sit in the car checking everything on my Dad's phone, watching the snow build up and panicking that I'm going to be sitting in a departure lounge for the next twelve hours.

I'm in luck -  it seems that flights to that small area of "Europe" have just been cancelled; there are a lot of moody Hungarians lining up to moan at the BA service desk; but long haul is still going.

So I get two and a half hours to kill in Heathrow's Terminal 3 departure lounge - my flight isn't until 8.30pm but dad reckoned we could have gotten caught in a snow related M25 disaster, so we left 4 hours for the 1 hour drive. Terminal 3 is really boring. I have to wander around and try to resist the duty free tourist crap that's laid out everywhere, and have to tear myself away from the special edition giant Toblerones (with salted almonds!) and the tin shaped like a giant Oreo cookie.

I figure that it might be a long time until I can get any food, but not feeling particularly hungry I wander into Starbucks for as milky drink and a snack. I'm not really into Starbucks, not least because there's always one in every sodding town in the world, full of Americans supposedly experiencing the local culture. Further, I am not converted by a drink that I thought was going to be like a chai latte, but turned out to be some rank syrupy coffee concoction, and a lemon muffin that tasted like detergent. I would hope this is the last Starbucks I see for a while... but I know this is a vain hope.

So I kill time by organising my (very ambitious) Kindle list, because yes, I am that boring, and wandering around the bookshops reading Round-the-world trip guides that tell me I have packed/booked pretty much everything wrong for the following reasons:

I refuse to wear a hideous microfibre fleece

I have brought more than one pair of shoes

My clothes show too many elbows

I have forgotten earplugs (have a feeling this one will come back to haunt me)

Oh well... I'll have to just figure it out as I go -  but isn't that sort of the point anyway?

P.S- Arrived in Singapore after a 2hour delay because the airline staff couldn't get there (funny how all the passengers managed it) and then we had to wait on the tarmac for someone to bring out what I can only assume was a pretty massive can of de-icer. Pre-occupied at the moment with drinking all the free hostel tea :D

My one rule of packing.

I'm going to be back-packing around South-East Asia, India and Australia for six months, which is obviously going to take some serious packing.

It takes some thinking about; you have to consider the fact that any crap that you don't use, you have to carry with you. I've made the mistake of overpacking before; I took about half my wardrobe to Peru, along with a load of malaria tablets that I didn't need, books I didn't read and way too many pairs of shorts and trousers. You also have to think about the things that you really need, as in, the essential personal items you can't get anywhere else and can't be without for any length of time.

It's a hard one to work out - what really is essential and what isn't? Currently, all my stuff to pack looks like this:

However this is my first run -  tomorrow I'm having a cull of anything I can do without. It's most likely to be toiletries, seeing as they weigh the most and are the hardest to compress.

Being a girl does not make this easier -  we are on the whole more hygienic and therefore more high-maintenance than the average male, which means that we need more toiletries. Also my underwear and swimsuit come in two parts and take up more space. I have to think about the fact that shorts look rubbish on me, and I don't actually own a suitable pair for the trip. I have to take at least a brush (luckily, I do sport a boy-cut, so my hair is pretty low maintenance, but I'd rather it didn't look like shit).

This trip is exceptional. My usual one rule of packing for any scenario is:

"Always take more pants than you need."

But to do this for the entire trip I would need to take approximately 180 pairs of pants. I have limited my packing to 10 pairs, which should give me enough time to wash the crusty ones in a hostel laundry room before I have to resort to wearing them inside out. Running out of pants is my second worst holiday fear (after not being able to find somewhere to sleep), because you know the day you go commando will be the day you have to abandon your trousers when they get stuck in an escalator. 

Le Blog has begun!

My reasons for starting this blog are:

a) I am travelling round the world soon and the laziest and most convenient way to let everyone know what I'm up to is to write a blog. Also it will help me to rub it in their collective faces.

b) I haven't written anything substantial since university. My tutors must be very ashamed. The student loans company is shaking its head at my mountain of debt. This is an attempt to get of my lazy arse and write... something.

c) I need some cash. Apparently if you have a successful blog you can get some. Incidentally, if any philanthropic billionaires are reading this -  please give your cash to some worthy cause and stop reading stupid travel blogs online.

Oh.. and it's called "Foxy" girl around the world because 'girlaroundtheworld' was taken. I figure having 'foxy' at the front will at least be more interesting and maybe get some accidental traffic (cha-ching!)

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