Cameron Highlands

We are currently in the Cameron Highlands which are famed for their amazing hilly scenery, tea and strawberry farming.  Apparently they cover an area about the size of Singapore (thank you wikitravel).  We figured that if we stayed in Penang any longer we might never leave, so we should go somewhere else.  We took 2 buses from Penang starting at about 6am and arrived around 5pm.

Penang

We decided to get the hell out of KL and head to Penang which I understand to be the food capital of Malaysia.  We got off the bus and as per usual set about looking for somewhere to live.

Vipassana Meditation

We originally wanted to do a meditation retreat in Thailand when we were first there but ran out of time.  I had wanted to do something like this for a few years.  I met a guy at a house party a few years ago who was raving to me about this meditation retreat near Wales where you are silent for 10 days and just meditate.  Admittedly he was gurning like a bitch at the time so i took it with a grain or 2 of salt but it definitely stayed in my mind.  So I'd known it was something I had to do but I just hadn't wanted to take time off of work to it, but as fate would have it, it's something you can do in SE Asia.

Walking to the centre which is about 2/3 hrs out from KL.

Malaysia - KL

We didn't realise it but the wkend that our visa's ran out was a bank holiday and so everyone was legging it out of Bangkok for the break.  We were therefore forced to fly and bus it into Malaysia as trains were booked up.  We flew down to Hatyai in the south of Thailand and then got an overnight bus to Kuala Lumpur.  I actually managed to get to sleep on the bus and then was rudely awoken when we had suddenly arrived in KL at 4am.  Ouch.

Welcome to KL.

Koh Samet

As we had 15 days in Thailand,we decided to head to a Thai beach because it seemed silly not to.

Yes this really did happen.

Bangkok (again)

We boarded a bus at about 6.30am in Phnom Penh and started a 15hr bus journey back into Thailand to Bangkok.  I was sooo tired and then kept getting dive bombed by mosquitoes.  Not what you need at that time of day. We got into Bangkok at about 8.30pm in the end which wasn't as bad as I thought.  Immigration was painless and we got an ac minibus into Bangkok in which I actually had 2 seats to myself - Bonus.

Phnom Penh

We decided that we would miss out Vietnam and had head back into Thailand and down into Malaysia overland. We trekked back to Phnom Penh and spent only a couple of days here.  It's quite a busy crazy city.  The traffic is insane.  It took about an hour to drive just 10k through the city.  Mopeds and cars are forced to mount the pavement at peak times so as a pedestrian and a tourist to boot this took some getting used to.  It was almost like being back in India.  Andy almost got run over about a million times.