Rain and plains

Well, I wrote that last post at about 2 in the morning somewhere in Singapore, so I'm surprised to see it is relatively coherent. We are now in Oz, in a sleepy crayfishing port about half way between Adelaide and Melbourne called *ahem* Port Fairy. The journey here was a long and knackering one!.....
So we finished up in thailand and got on a southbound bus through Malaysia. It took us as far as butterworth where we had to get on a ferry in the middle of the night bound for penang. Here is a highly professional shot of the skyline from the ferry. We stayed in a right dodgy little hostel but luckily found a wonderful curry for us dinner which cost about 10p, or something. The next day we headed up to the Cameron Highlands (as Zoe pointed out - how scottish does that sound.)
The Cameron Highlands are the home of Malaysia's TEA plantations. That's right, TEA. It was a pilgrimage as you can imagine. Here is a picture of some TEA. Some highlights of the tea region were 1) finding out what tea looks like in real life. 2) Having scones 3) bumping into the PG tips lady.
We also did some pottering around the jungle . I wore a cagoul and zoe was in her glastonbury poncho. One thing I should mention about Malaysia is that it rains ALL the time. This is OK, but we fear our tans have been washed away.
Unfortunately I haven't had a chance to upload any pictures after this point thanks to the Australian internet, so I will have to just use old-fashioned words, and put the photos up later.
So, we got a minibus thing to Kuala Lumpur which we loved. It was raining most of the time but we like big tall buildings so we spent some time walking around the towers, and eating underneath them. We also visited the Malaysian national space museum/planetarium thing which was hilarious, funnier than the mappin museum (as was, I understand they've done it up recently). It was basically a load of exhibits made of eggboxes and sticky back plastic. I wish I could show you the pictures of the black hole simulation, and the zero gravity room. You are going to love them.
Actually we fitted quite a lot into KL I have just remembered we also went to a bird park and saw peacocks. Then we spent the evening in a bar full of American GIs and local women of dubious profession. It was very enjoyable though, there was a Malasian band on playing things like Smoke on the water and Mustang Sally.
And then (you can see why we're knackered) we got an overnight bus to Singapore where we stayed in colonial luxury with Jeanine's Anthony for a couple of days. There are some good photos of this too, mainly of martinis and singapore slings etc.
So where are we now I hear you cry. Well we flew to Adelaide, hired a car and have been on the road ever since. We're aiming to get to Melbourne at some point in the next couple of days where we're seeing some friends of Zoe's and I plan to visit Ramsey street.
We have seen several dead kangaroos so far but no real ones, driven hundreds of miles, stayed in some very quiet coastal backwaters (can you have a coastal backwater?), and listened to a lot of dire radio. It's fun being in the middle of nowhere though. Tonight we've ended up in a sort of posh tourist town where families come to surf during the summer holidays - ie now - so it's a bit busy and we had trouble getting a room. Today we saw a blue volcano but more on that when I get the pictures sorted.
Hope you're all having fun in the freezing cold, ho ho.
Lots of love,
Zoe and Rick.