Now to Malaysia (5th to 7th Nov)

Left Koh Samui early in the morning (I caught the first jeep at 05:00).  This meant it was a very short night as we only got back from the Thai boxing at 23:45 the previous evening.  We then caught the ferry at 07:00 arriving at the Thai mainland 90 mins later and boarded the Truck for the drive south towards the border.

We stopped for lunch about 100 km north of the border and then went quickly through the border mid afternoon after changing any remaining thai currency we had.  We went through a couple of rainstorms, but they had stopped when we got into Malaysia.  The main problem was that they would not release the Truck until the insurance had been sorted out and that took a couple of hours, so it was nearly dark before we set off towards Kuala Lumpur (KL).  The time advanced 1 hr and we were now 8 hrs ahead of the UK. 

We had planned to have a bush camp on the way to KL, but in view of the time it was decided to find a hotel in Alor Star, a town a couple of hrs into Malaysia.  We then all found some food (most of us at a Pizza Hut where there was appalling service).  We left the next morning just after 08:30 (Eamon and me had to be woken as I had not changed the time on my alarm clock!!). 

We then drove until we reached KL mid afternoon.  The dorms in the hostel (Classic Inn) were very narrow and with facilities limited a few of us upgraded to double rooms.  We only had time to orientate ourselves and get some food before we planned how to use the next 2 days in KL.  We are located (as usual) near the centre and the shopping really does need to be seen to be believed here (The hostel is at the back of a huge retail development complete with indoor rollar coaster and amusement park.