Promenade Hotel Kota Kinabalu

As for Penang, you should visit Penang Hill, Kek Lok Si Temple, Batu Feringhi-watersports and night markets and most importantly, the local foods, it's famous for that.Langkawi would be a good bet from penang too. Boat ride would take almost 3 hrs from penang.Depends on the weather, the sea could be choppy. You can put up a few nights there and enjoy the beach.

... the back. Great fun!
We then headed to Palau Mamutik for some relaxing on the beach. We went snorkeling and saw lots of amazing fish. They would come right up to us and one liked Sarah so much that he gave her a wee bite on her leg. Her response was to scream her head off! Elliot thought this was hilarious, until of course he got a bite on his leg as well and then raced for the shoreline!
We were sensible and found a nice spot in ...

... Aiden and another Sarah, an Irish couple who doing an around the world trip. After supper and a lovely sunset (the food was really good too) we all settled down for a few hours of disturbed sleep, ‘waking’ at 2am for the next leg.

At 3am we started up the section above Laban Rata in the dark with our head torches on, climbing a series of steep wooden stairs before moving onto scambling up rocky slopes assisted by fixed ropes. You can ...

... else are foreigners supposed to do when it's pouring? Anyway, the McD's was really tasty, better than the US or Korea, I thought. Flying to Langkawi Island KL has two airports. The international is a comfortable 20 minute train ride from downtown, while the domestic is an hour bus ride outside the city. We were lucky enough to be the last passengers on the bus, so it left right away. Running late, we were feeling good until the delays started happening. The ...

... and ice was becoming apparent instead of puddles! Normally after 3000mts, oxygen levels begin to decrease and i could certainly begin to feel every foot step, becoming that bit more difficult. My guide having an ever increasing competitive nature, began to egg me on to be the first to the top again. A feat i thought quite ambitious considering we were one of the last of 200 other hikers to leave base camp! We in fact and quite ...

... on! Some people chose to have their stuff carried by these amazing people who walked up and down the mountain about 2 times a day to carry up to 20kg, men and women! A lot of the path consisted of steps and rocks, and about three quarters of the way up there was a very noticeable change in the landscape - only certain plants could grow here and it was immensely rocky and misty, we eventually made it to 'Laban Rata' at about 4pm - just in time for dinner which was ...

... along the beach, flashing his money to his mates and into the sunset. We didn't see him after that, we reckon he either went on a bender or got killed by the competition. Who knows? We spent an afternoon back in Manila, where there were hundreds and hundreds of girlie bars. We were there literally one afternoon and everning and every person on the street comes up to you with a list of girls, it was mental. Every club, bar, even some restaurants had a ...

... the pier in the morning and book a boat to Tunku Abdul Rahman Marine Park. We visited two islands in the park: Pulau Manukan and Pulau Mamutik. These were small islands that hardly need long hours to explore but the scenery here was great. We spent 5 hours here before heading back to Kota Kinabalu.

We had late ...

Placeholder Entry - I thought I'd go through and fill out the blog with placeholder entries, for the benefit of those looking at this while I'm on the go, so they can see where I'm going. Obviously if you stumble on this blog after I get back, you won't see ...