West meets east

Geography can be a funny thing - when you go far enough west, suddenly you're in the east. And, as both Phineas Fogg and ourselves discovered to our detriment, time travel is possible. As the international date line is crossed you travel 1 day ahead in time, essentially losing a day. So our planned 3 day stay in Japan was first shortened by a day due to an airline blaps, and then one of the remaining days vanished into thin air, leaving us with 1 day in Tokyo! True to form, the heavens were hurling down the rain when we landed at Narita late in the evening, and we were soaked by the time we reached our hostel. Fortunately for once the rain gods were on our side and we woke to bright sunshine the next day, and began exploring the immense city of Tokyo.

One of the first things that comes to mind when thinking of Japan is the country's technosavvy, so we were pleasantly surprised by the many temples we saw. We spent the day walking from temple to high-tech showroom to the lovely Emperors Palace gardens to malls displaying the height of fashion. The day ended in the only way it could, with sushi and saki!

Next stop Malaysia. When we were harassed at the airport by many taxi drivers we had visions of India all over again. But nothing could be further from the truth - except for those taxi drivers, the Malaysians were the friendliest, most helpful and most sincere people we have met on all our travels. Except for an unfortunate incident with bedbugs, we had a fantastic time there and will definitely be going back. We started in Kuala Lumpur, admiring the shining Petronas Towers, and viewing the city from the worlds 3rd tallest communications tower. Then we bussed to the coast, to the remote Firefly Resort. Thousands of fireflies congregate in trees on the banks of the river and start flashing in unison, resulting in the most impressive natural Christmas trees I've ever seen. From there we headed to the island of Pangkor, one of the less well known beach resort type islands, and therefore much quieter. There we chilled on the beach, snorkelling and kayaking for the last few days of our holiday. Unfortunately all good things must come to an end!