From: Bexxoliver@hotmail.com

Sent: 1 October 2004

Subject: Email 12, Singapore & Malaysia

Hi Everyone,

Singapore: -

We have had another really great couple of weeks since we have left Bali! We spent one week in Singapore, which worked out to be the most expensive place to stay in so far. Here we stayed in a hotel, which worked out to be 15 pounds per night, which is cheap compared to England but from what we have been used to, expensive. However it did make a change from budget accommodation and it was nice to have some luxury including air conditioning and a bath.

Singapore’s highlights: -

We went to Singapore zoo to see: tigers, lions, rhinos, elephants and monkeys to name a few.

Visited the largest fountain in the world - The Fountain of Wealth. One evening we saw an amazing 3D laser show projected into the center of the water. We also walked around the fountain 3 times whilst touching the water, this is meant to bring good luck.

We have been to Chinatown to see the start of the Mid Autumn Festival. We also saw the world's largest lantern display and sampled some traditional mooncake.

After our week in Singapore it was time to move on to Malaysia. We booked our train tickets for the 9-hour night train to Kuala Lumpa the capital of Malaysia.

Malaysia:

We spent 2 days in Kuala Lumpur. During our stay we managed to avoid our first big tropical rainstorm by doing some window-shopping before walking to the Petronas Twin Towers.

We chartered a car and driver to take us to the Sepang Formula 1 track.

We got up early one morning to start our journey to Malaysia's National Park. In order to enter the Park we had to travel on a small riverboat, which took 3 hours to the center of the jungle. We spent a couple of nights here and walked along the world's longest canopy bridge at 450 meters long and 45 meters above the trees.

We took the 11 hour jungle train to North Malaysia for the boat crossing to the Perhentian Islands where we spent 3 days on Malaysia's beaches. We had a beach hut facing the sea, under palm trees with only a step away from the beach for only 2.50pounds each per night. A day was spent snorkeling around 5 different locations around the islands. We saw sharks, turtles loads of fish and we even spotted Nemo. Andrew went on yet another scuba dive (his 15th) to swim around the MV UNISTAR wreck, which sank in 2001.

We are going to spend our last day in Malaysia looking around the large central markets in Kota Bhura before moving onto Thailand.

Lots of Love

Andrew & Kathryn
xx