Trang and Ko Mook, Thailand.

From Langkawi we took a ferry to Thailand, although it was more like a floating freezer with propellers. Air conditioning set to 'freeze' was a common theme throughout Malaysia, leading us to seek out cheap, battered old transport without air-con wherever possible.

Immigration was hassle-free, but they only gave us 13 days in the country, down from the usual 15. Getting anywhere from Satun proved to be more challenging.

Langkawi. Malaysia-lite

Langkawi experienced an economic boom after being declared a 'duty free' island. With the normal tax rate on beer seemingly being about 800% in Islamic Malaysia, that makes the island an appealing prospect for drinkers, smokers, or lovers of anything imported. It also makes the island an extremely popular destination, and correspondingly expensive to visit. You'd have to drink a lot to recoup the money required to get to and stay on the island.

Penang and the new year

We said farewell to Melaka as we packed Caleb's essential possessions into his car, and farewell to Caleb when he dropped us off at the Kuala Lumpur bus terminal.

My own experience and all the advice about buying tickets says to avoid touts, but after wandering around a dozen or so ticket counters looking for a bus to Georgetown, Penang and ignoring the persistant tout who was following us around we were finally told at one ticket counter to follow her in order to get the next departing bus.

A Melakan Christmas

Staying with Caleb was awesome. Not that it inspired awe, like a snow-capped Mount Fuji or a whale shark swimming overhead, just that I've been around Americans too long and I've started using the adjective for want of anything else between great and fantastic.

Kuala Lumpur to Melaka

We're still not used to using Couchsurfing for surfing rather than hosting, so after sending out a bunch of requests way too late we made our way into town. The bus terminal was poorly signposted and the tourist information was on a 2 hour plus lunch 'hour', but with the assistance of a friendly tout and an uncle who wanted to show off a baby we found a bus into town.