Sandakan

Sandakan is the first city we flew into in Borneo, and we returned twice afterwards. We stayed in a smashing little hotel, spotless, with large-screen TV and a DVD collection (including a 'Gigantic Monster Movies' category). There's not a great range of things to eat in the town, but who cares when you have scones!

Sandakan

Taman Negara National Park

Some photos of our adventures in the jungle.

Taman Negara

Penang

We spent 1 rainy day in Penang..

Penang

Langkawi

Langkawi

Birds Nest Drink

How could I resist? - bird's nest drink in a can.

I bought it and scurried back to my room as quickly as possible - thinking it's probably at it's best drank very very cold. Trying new drinks is a serious business - I keep tasting notes. As I opened the can, poured and drank, I wrote..

7% bird's nest

Oh no, Oh no

bits - brown bits

v sweet - can't finish

It doesn't taste of much other than sugar really - what flipped my stomach was the bits floating in the liquid. The transparent bits are ok (I'm used to that with Malaysian drinks), it's the brown bits that got to me. I hope you can see what I mean from this photo:

For reference, here's a swiftlet nest - the sort harvested for bird's nest soup (and I guess, this drink). Yum.

Luckily I had a couple of cans of beer handy too, as the taste needed washing away urgently.

Rose flavoured Soya

You can find a lot of odd canned drinks in Malaysia. Why settle for sprite or coke, when you can have delights like this:

The pink milky liquid looks like a stomach remedy, and tastes like rose-flavoured rubber. Best of all, the label says 'with Selasih', which I'm guessing are the little black tapioca blobs at the bottom - they're gloopy as they slide down the throat, but are also crunchy in the middle.

This drink is one of many wonders made by 'F & N Seasons'. We've been speculating what this stands for. Carrie reckons 'F***ing Nauseating', while I suspect it's 'Foul & Nasty'.

Funnily, I quite liked it, but couldn't get Carrie to try a sip. She said even the sight made her want to heave.

Malacca

Malacca is an old port on the straits between Malaysia and Indonesia. Everyone has settled here - Chinese, Portuguese, Dutch, British - and the city is great for a wander around - all sorts of shops, galleries, crafts, and great food.

Melakka

Tioman Island

When we first arrived in Malaysia, we spent 2 weeks on Tioman island. We lived in a 'chalet' (more like a garden shed, but only £6 a night), Carrie wrote up her thesis, and I learned to scuba dive. There's amazing coral reefs all around the island (sorry, no photos of that, or the fish and turtles, as I've not got an underwater camera).

Tioman