24th March 2010 The Vietnam War remains a big part of this country’s recent history for a lot of people, us included, so this morning we wanted to visit the War Remnants Museum. The War Remnants Museum primarily contains exhibits relating to the American phase of the Vietnam War. It really brings home the ugly truths about war through the pictures exhibited in a series of eight themed rooms. There is no doubt that the museum puts a Vietnamese slant on the war, but it is still a sobering experience, bearing witness to man’s inhumanity to man. ...

23rd March 2010 …in more ways than one! We elected to take it easy today and just get used to Saigon. We started the morning with a trip to the market round the corner for some fruit and yoghurt for breakfast, then onto the larger market down the road for a wander about. You feel quiet conspicuous wandering through the tiny pathways between the stalls. We’re in an area where you don’t see many westerners, so we stick out like a sore thumb, and the alleyways really are tiny. ...

22nd March 2010 We had thought that it would be easy enough to get to the airport in Kuala Lumpur, which is some 60kms from the centre. After all, we had booked the shuttle bus, which we had been told ran on demand, and paid for our tickets. But of course, this is Asia, they do things differently here. We arrived at the bus terminal just across the street from our hotel at 11am to be told the bus would leave at 11.30am. No problem, still plenty of time so we sat down to wait. At 11.30am a man shouted for the bus to the airport, then led us out of the bus station across two streets and had us waiting on an island between two roads for the bus. By 11.45am the bus still hadn’t arrived, it was hot and noisy waiting for it, so we jumped in a taxi to KL Sentral so we could take the train instead. ...

21st March 2010 Directly opposite the old railway building in KL, which is a beautiful building in its own right, and only a short walk from our hotel stands the National Mosque. The National Mosque is Malaysia’s principal mosque and one of the most prominent buildings in the city. Reputed as one of the more beautiful mosques in South-east Asia, this uniquely designed mosque embodies a contemporary expression of traditional Islamic art, calligraphy and ornamentation. ...

20th March 2010 It’s a good job that the room situation is now ok since we’ve spent a lot of time here today. When I woke up this morning it was with a bad stomach which has persisted for most of the day. The few times we’ve ventured out I’ve felt quite unwell and too hot and had to return to the hotel. On the plus side though, the hotel sent up a plate of fruit and a box of chocolates to apologise for the problems with the room :D. ...

19th March 2010 KL has some very big malls, full of the latest designer gear and some of our UK high street shops. In a change of pace, today we visited the Suria KLCC mall below the Petronas Twin Towers (having tried and failed again to get up to the skybridge). It turned out to be a day of cool air-conditioning, away from the punishing humidity of KL. We took a wander around the mall. One name stood out, so we simply had to go and take a look in Marks and Spencer. It was just like being at home, albeit a lot quieter and with a different type of clientele. While we were there I was able to pick up a pair of light trousers. I’ve been looking for a pair since Oz with no luck, so to be able to pick up a pair for the same price as the UK and in a short length suited me and I can finally stop the ‘great trouser hunt’! ...

18th March 2010 Ok, so maybe I was a little premature when I said yesterday that our room seemed clean. We pulled back the sheets on the bed to go to sleep last night and there was an unidentified ugly stain on them. Of course, since it was now 11.30pm, when I rang down to reception to complain I was told housekeeping was shut and they would change them in the morning. When I asked what we were supposed to do in the meantime, the only suggestion they had was to change rooms. So, yesterday we checked into 608 but last night we slept in room 908 two floors above. ...

17th March 2010 Today we took the bus from Melaka onto Kuala Lumpur. We took a taxi to the central bus station in Melaka and managed to get onto one of the many buses leaving for KL at 11am. We arrived in KL at about 1pm and checked into our hotel. A sparse affair, even for the deluxe room that we’ve booked, but clean and comfortable never the less, with a great view of the KL Tower and the tips of the Petronas Towers and even tea making facilities - bonus! ...

16th March 2010 We awoke this morning to more activity across the street in the food market. A really bustling little place with people calling in for breakfast as they start the day. I am finding Malaysia quite different from Singapore. It is certainly not as clean and well ordered as Singapore, especially in the old part of town where we are staying. The streets have open gutters and pavements are few and far between, meaning you have to have your wits about you when walking about as there are loads of cars on the roads. ...

15th March 2010 We took an early bus from Singapore’s Golden Mile Complex to get to our next destination, Melaka in Malaysia. We were at the border about an 45 minutes after leaving Singapore and passed through immigration and customs with no problem. On entering Malaysia, the predominant landscape was palms, a lot of which seem to be plantations, although I’m not sure whether that’s for palm oil or coconuts. Most of the journey was on a long straight motorway although we did stop at a food court for about half an hour. ...

14th March 2010 Sentosa is a popular island resort in Singapore, just a short journey from the city centre and visited by some five million people a year. Attractions include a two-kilometre long sheltered beach, Fort Siloso, two golf courses and two five-star hotels, not forgetting the Resorts World Sentosa, featuring the new theme park Universal Studios Singapore. We took the MRT down to the Harbourfront where we got off at the Vivo Shopping Centre. With it being Sunday there were loads of people milling about the mall and also wanting to go across to Sentosa. We then caught the monorail across to Sentosa. There is also a cable car which goes from Mount Faber across, but this is currently closed for renovation work. ...

13th March 2010 One of the things on our ‘must do’ list for Singapore was the Singapore Botanic Gardens and the National Orchid Garden so this was today’s destination. The Singapore Botanic Gardens are home to a great diversity of tropical plants set in verdant landscapes and covering a large area at the end of Orchard Road in the city. It is a tropical Eden, rich with 150 years of history, where time seems to stand still. A wonderful place away from the hustle and bustle of Singapore’s shopping streets, ideal for a rejeuvenating walk in a peaceful setting. ...

12th March 2010 The hotel that we’re staying at does provide breakfast, but since it’s very much a cereal and toast meal we’ve been missing our daily fruit fix. That changed this morning as we’ve discovered a fruit stall at our local food mall where we can get a large plate of mixed fruit so we can start the day right. After our fruity breakfast we had to go back to the Vietnamese embassy to collect our visas. This time we took the bus all the way there as we knew where we needed to go. We were a bit early so had a quick coffee in a local shop near the embassy. We were only in the embassy literally 5 minutes before emerging with our approved visas for a month in Vietnam. ...

11th March 2010 Another week, another zoo, a different city, a different continent. One of the must-do attractions here in Singapore in most of the guidebooks and websites is Singapore Zoo. Set in a rainforest environment, this outstanding open concept zoo is particularly notable for its primates, especially its free-ranging orangutans. From the moment we stepped into the zoo, we were encompassed in an enchanting environment giving us the experience of walking amid a tropical rainforest. ...

8th March 2010 Anna and Sofia kindly dropped us at the airport this morning so we could catch our 9.30am flight to Singapore. We were really looking forward to this next part of our trip into Asia, somewhere where neither of us had visited before. The flight with Singapore Airlines was excellent and the service far superior to anyone else we had flown with. The food was lovely and Ed actually ate all his airline meal for the first time ever! ...

10th March 2010 The current plan after Singapore is to travel by train to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia then to fly out to Ho Chi Minh city in Vietnam. Vietnam is one of the few countries we need a visa for in advance so this morning we caught a train out to the Vietnamese embassy which is about a thirty minute train ride from the centre. We were slightly wet by the time we arrived at the embassy because it had been raining hard all morning, but we were able to fill in our forms and leave our passports in order to (hopefully) collect our visa on Friday morning. ...

9th March 2010 Singapore Airlines run a hop on, hop off shuttle bus around the city which has reduced rates for people who have flown with them (you simply show your boarding pass). We thought this would be a good way of getting our bearings. We headed off and sat at the bus stop for 45 minutes with no sign of the bus at all, so we gave up and of course as we rounded the corner having decided to walk saw the appropriate bus go sailing past not just us, but also the place it was supposed to have stopped so even if we had been at the bus stop it wouldn’t have passed us. ...

5th & 6th March 2010 Friday was another day of jobs, an hour in the Post Office filling in customs forms for our stuff we were sending home, shopping for a mozzie net, then packing ready to leave the next morning. The following morning we were off to Brisbane. After managing to get completely lost and going all the way into the city then back out over the Story Bridge we eventually arrived at Nathan and Anna’s in Cooperoo. The weather was pretty awful by now, with even more rain so we spent the afternoon chilling before enjoying a wonderful evening with the now famous Morris pizzas - yum yum. ...

7th March 2010 We were lucky enough not to be awoken by the six o’clock Sofia alarm this morning, unlike Anna and Nathan, but once we were all up we decided to drive up to Noosa. Noosa is a small town located about 75 miles) north of Brisbane on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. The town and surrounding area is popular with holidaymakers who visit for its sophisticated cafes, bars and restaurants, beaches and national parks. Unlike the Gold Coast, Noosa doesn’t have shedloads of high-rises and has protected its natural environment avoiding over-development by creating significant areas of national park. ...

4th March 2010 Steve Irwin. Love him or hate him, he is undisputably one of Australia’s icons with his cries of ‘Crikey’ and ‘you little beauty’ when talking about a highly dangerous snake or crocodile, which is probably about to take his arm off. Even on leaving the UK, a trip to Australia Zoo was high on our list. Australia Zoo became famous in the 1990 when the Crocodile Hunter and his wife Terri took over management of the zoo. Formally known as the Beerwah Reptile Park and owned by Steve’s parents, the park grew from four acres to seventy acres with over 1000 animals. Steve Irwin died on 4 September 2006 after being fatally pierced in the chest by a stingray barb while filming in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. This year the zoo is celebrating it’s fortieth anniversay and continues to build Steve’s dream. There is very much a focus on conservation and education in the hope of ensuring all animals, but especially crocodiles and Australia’s native creatures such as Koalas survive for generations to come. ...