Ubud is a really beautiful artsy town, and is the cultural and artistic centre of bali where quite a few expat artists came to live and work, so there are loads of art galleries and museums everywhere. I got minibus with Helen and Pag [Am and Ulrika wanted to head straight for the Gili Islands], and we drove past loads of beautiful rice paddies and literally hundreds of handicraft shops and art stores with people painting outside and mini art warehouses with hundreds of buddhist/hindu/some form of religious statues outside. We stayed by the Ubud Monkey Forest Sanctuary so there were always cute little monkeys roaming around the pavements and climbing on roofs, and it was right in the centre of the town. The first day there we went to such a nice little restaurant that was really traditionally decorated with loads of balinese art on the walls where we just sat for hours, and in the evening we went to see a traditional balinese dance show at Ubud Palace which helen and pag massively hated because it was quite dull and samey and went on for an hour and a half so they kept leaning behind me and looking at each other and mouthing 'this is SHIT!' to each other.. We went for a wander around town after and discovered the biggest gem of our entire holiday: Cafe Wayan - a massive gorgeous open-air restaurant set behind a bakery in a kind of dark jungle-like setting with low tables spread in little alcoves lit by candles and with the MOST INCREDIBLE and diverse menu of all time. We went there for every single meal and every night we stayed until it shut which was at a non-specific time, basically whenever we decided to leave that was when they closed for the night.

The second day we arranged to see the volcano, Gunung Batur and some public baths, we made friends with Woody, an 8-yr old fisher and a gang of young Indonesian girls, and got hassled by children trying to sell us things on a bridge. The final day we rented bikes to try and explore more of Ubud because we definitely hadn't seen enough of everything on offer but it didn't really get us anywhere because mine and helen's bikes were shit and we had to walk them whenever we encountered any kind of uphill slope. And pag kept riding in front of us on his mountain bike and skidding really close to us like a moron going 'woah dude check out my skid!' and being such an attention seeker. Ubud is apparently the place to go for spiritual tourism so our aim for the day was to find and sample what a real yoga class on Bali would be like so with the help and hindrance of our bikes, we did a yoga lesson at the Yoga Barn. Pag was the only guy in the room and he absolutely loved it even though he was completely crap and made me and helen wait behind at the end because he wanted the yoga teacher to check out his headstand! Ubud has so much stuff to offer like botanical gardens, batik/ craft/ cookery courses, loads of amazing art museums, beautiful surrounding countryside etc. - but we ended up doing very little because we spent most of our time just hanging out together and enjoying each others company in a fantastically charming and relaxing town.

I took a flight from Sandakan to KL where I bumped into Amelie, which was very weird and small-worldly, and we got different flights to Bali. I was picked up at airport by Paget which was AMAZING, just literally the best most indescribable feeling seeing your boyfriend after SO LONG apart [was probably one of the highlights of the whole trip]! We took a taxi back to the amazing hotel which he'd booked because he'd arrived the day before, walked into the lobby of some absolute beauty and luxury of a place where a nice uniformed porter gave me a cold towel and took my bags to our room [literally so far removed from every other place I'd stayed in throughout Asia!], and when I got to the room pag had arranged for our bed to be decorated with flowers - SO SWEET! We went to the beach that night with a picnic and it was so nice just feeling the sea breeze in paradise under the stars and catching up.

Bali is the only hindu island in Indonesia and has such a strong cultural heritage. We stayed on a part of the island called Kuta which is like a big brash commercialised european beach resort town with western clubs and restaurants, where families go, and where people, namely lots of americans and australians, fly over to party there for just a week. So it's reeeally touristy and there's a totally different vibe to most of the places in Asia I'd been, and is totally different to anywhere else on the island - and you could visit Bali, not go near Kuta, and have a completely different holiday experience. But even so the Balinese people are still highly religious and spiritual in Kuta and there's still such a rich culture evident in the quirky arts and crafts you can buy and all the dainty little handicraft and art shops, and there are religious offerings put out on the floor everyday outside every shop (which we were confused about, we thought we'd arrived in time for a festival or something). We pretty much beached every day for a week, so it felt like travelling had temporarily stopped for a nice relaxed beach holiday.

The first day we just went for a walk on the beach and happened to bump into the girls sunbathing and it was so lovely to see them again and also Helen, especially because I hadn't seen any of my home friends in too long. Me and Pag found somewhere really nice to stay off the main shopping road where there were loads of nice little boutique shops, and also major brand surf shops like roxy, and then wandered down poppie's lane which is full of shops with crude stickers, crude t-shirts and wooden cocks with different functions (bottle opener etc) and packed with backpacker accommodation (not cheap), little restaurants, and loads of massage/beauty parlours.
So our days would be mainly spent shopping, eating or tanning on Kuta beach which is insane - the waves are so strong and high so the sea isn't really fun to swim in because of the strong current, and you are constantly being hassled by people wanting you to buy henna tattoos, icecream, a bow and arrow (?weird), surfing lessons, or to get a massage/ manicure/ foot scrub from them. We met some funny characters though like Horas, the Indonesian surfer who told us his life story about how he ended up on Bali and told me I looked like I regularly do shrooms because I have 'mushroom eyes' and had such a manic laugh. And we met Mama Loco (picture) who was a very small lady who pumiced pag's feet and was completely mental, also sitting and chatting with us about random things. As well as hanging and clubbing with the girls (mainly at Skygarden where they also did an incredible sushi buffet), we also had such a relaxing week doing couply things like getting massages together (except that both times we went, I got a massage and pag got a facial and then a full body scrub because he was jealous of my tan and they made him put on these tiny black binliner panties which was truly the most hilarious thing ever).

I was only in Sandakan to catch my flight to Bali but it was a nice little town to wander around in. I travelled there with Simon and Rose and met up with the guys for a lovely dinner by the harbour, and then we sat in the lounge of our hostel eating popcorn and watching Slumdog Millionaire. I spent basically a whole day by myself doing nothing but santanning on the roof of the hostel, watching the simpsons at the hostel with people and getting ready for seeing the girls again in Bali and also HELEN and MICHAEL! who I hadn't seen in over 3 months.

The next destination was Sepilok which is home to one of only three orangutan sanctuaries in the world. I stayed at a place called Uncle Tan's and had to walk from the bus stop [VERY tricky with a big packpack and completely fucked up legs that were swollen and kept shaking with every step] with an Austrian guy who told me he'd scaled up and down Mount Kinabalu in just one day and didn't seem to be feeling any side effects. Twat. The hostel was incredible - it included 3 buffet meals in the price with constant tea, coffee and snacks, internet, hammocks, basketball court, and ping pong table. I shared a dorm with an english girl Holly and met 2 guys Hitesh and Peter who I hung out with and taught 'arsehole' to [which had been pretty much The card game of the trip that me, tom and shapiro played constantly], and we were joined by a couple Simon and Rose who it turned out had bought shapiro and robbie's tent off them.

I got a shuttle bus to the Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre and met the boys there. The centre is a home for semi-wild orangutans who have been orphaned and need to be trained to go back in the wild. There is a feeding platform where they are fed milk and bananas and where a gang of little monkeys try and steal their food, and there is also a video to watch about the centre and walks through the forest you can do to see other monkeys.

I CLIMBED A FRICKIN MOUNTAIN!! that was 4095m high which is HALF THE HEIGHT OF EVEREST and it was the hardest and best thing I have ever done in my whole entire life!

I remember driving to Kinabalu National Park and catching my first sight of the mountain and completely losing it, just freaking out hardcore. The guy driving me, Eddy, was really safe and laughed at me loads and he kept making jokes about how I'd get a certificate for climbing regardless only it'd be black and white, the special coloured certificates were reserved for those who actually reached the very top. He let me stop to take a picture of Mount Kinabalu on the drive because I realised that I had never actually seen a mountain in my life before. But no pictures can ever do justice to its magnitude, how completely daunting and impressive and magnificent and FUCKING HIGH it is, so I was completely overwhelmed and terrified. I was meant to be with a middle aged group of Hong Kong people but they decided to do the longer but easier Mesilau trail up so it was just me and my guide Jonny the whole way. The first day was 5 hours up to base camp and that was unbelievably difficult, imagine five whole hours solid of continuous uphill - absolute death. My legs were in total agony and I kept stopping having to catch my breath partly out of exhaustion, partly because the air was getting thinner and thinner. It was a beautiful walk though, really scenic and I saw pitcher plants, orchids, little mountain squirrels, incredible bonzai trees nearer the top, and apparently I passed through four different climate zones. Then I had dinner with people from my hostel I'd met the night before, the 3 miners, a maths teacher Roshan, an aussie couple and dutch couple. It was incredible being above the clouds for sunset and the views of Sabah were unreal. I went to bed at about 7pm but I was in a room with the Mesilau group and they finished dinner SO late and woke up in the morning SO early and talked really loudly about their action plan for the day it was the most irritating thing ever.

Everyone has to get up at about 2am and scale the mountain in the dark for 3 hours to reach the top by sunrise and this part is the most difficult bit. There is no path for you to follow, it is freeezing cold because you are so far from sea level and up in the clouds, it is SO hard to breath for lack of oxygen when you get higher and higher (which meant that my guide wouldn't let me stop for breaks at all because it was best to just keep going), there is no sunlight for you to see by, only a stunning blanket of stars in the black night sky [which is why I had to wear my little balaclava and head torch combo!] and the hardest part is that you are climbing in the dark using ropes as your guide, pulling yourself up on sheer barren rock surface. GOD! it was literally insane, I have never done anything like it - there were times when I was getting to the top where I genuinely thought I would have given up because imagine, you've been climbing for like 2 whole hours with no real breaks and you still can't see the summit and your guide tells you you've got another 1.5km left which is another hours climbing and you've already stopped so many times to catch your breath because the air is so thin and the climb is so tiring and difficult because you have to scale up ropes on sheer rock cliff - and I just thought to myself, what is the point of carrying on because if I just stopped and sat here and waited for the sunrise it would be just as amazing because I'd still be on top of a frickin mountain. But then I realised that I didn't climb all that way and suffer all that pain to catch a bloody sunrise, I did it because I wanted to reach the top [and get a coloured certificate!]. So I soldiered on and made it and, no joke it was the best fucking feeling in the world, I literally cannot put it into words - the sunrise from the top of the mountain was sheer magnificence except I was too cold and tired to take any pictures so Jonny took them for me! And once I'd got back down to the camp, I just sat on my bed and cried because I was so proud of myself! (LOL, only a little though, and they may have been tears of exhaustion also..) It's just the weirdest feeling when you're looking up at the mountain and you see that the top is further beyond and above cloud level, and then thinking that you got to the top and therefore walked all the way to the clouds.. insane.
I had such a big breakfast with everyone but my guide moved me on pretty quick, then I took 4 hours getting down cus my legs were absolutely fucked up by that point. Sometimes I would take a step down and completely collapse on the floor, and Jonny had to help me down a lot of the way which prompted him to tell me that I should probably try and do more exercise at home..

My passport definitely filled up during the drive out of Bandar and into Kota Kinabalu - it involved seven border crossings which means seven new stamps and seven arrival/departure cards to fill out. So there's not that much to do in KK - it's the stop point for people on route to Kinabalu National Park. I met up with the boys, now just shapiro and robbie, and some people they'd met travelling, went wandering around the shopping malls, the waterfront markets which is probably the best thing about the city, and we also went bowling one night. I also booked my MOUNTAIN CLIMB! and the people in the tourist agency kept talking about me in chinese like about what they thought my fitness levels were and whether they thought I'd make it to the top, not knowing that I could understand every word.. I also met a bunch of people from my hostel also doing the climb the same day as me, including 3 miners from Tanzania and Australia in my dorm room, who were really nice and supportive and made me feel a lot less scared even though I was terrified. I'd not done any exercise in ages, I just assumed all the travelling would count towards upping my personal fitness levels but stopped kidding myself and started getting really nervous and worried.

I really wanted to go to Brunei just to see what it was like being in the richest country in SE Asia in terms of HDI (apart from Singapore). The reason why its so rich is because its tiny and because they were lucky enough to find oil, so the Sultan of Brunei is now one of the richest men in the world because of this. There is literally nothing to do in Brunei apparently apart from a few things in the capital but even thats pretty dire. I spent one day there and that was more than enough. It was weird walking around and seeing a country with money that it doesn't really know what to do with - so the city looks exactly like any other asia city but clean and new and sparkly and there's not a single old run down looking building anywhere, and the roads are so wide with little traffic and people driving big new fancy cars.

I walked to the big famous mosque which was actually really beautiful, and walked inside to find a group of men sitting around doing nothing. So one of them gave me a black floor length gown to wear to cover myself up and gave me a tour. Then he said that his friend had a boat and could take me on a tour of the floating village on the river for relatively cheap so I said ok. His friend's boat was painted blue with the chelsea flag on and we saw other boats dedicated to football like a man u one. I've seen a few floating villages in Asia before but the one in Brunei, Kampung Ayer, was SO different - about 50,000 people live on the water and all the houses look like proper houses, big painted fronts some with flowers in the window, they all have electricity, tv and clean running water, there are so many schools built on the water (picture) as well as police stations, fire stations, mosques (picture below), petrol stations (because everyone gets around by boat). And the area is huge with new houses built just in the 90s. We also saw the sultan's palace which is bigger than Buckingham palace and the Vatican, proboscis monkeys in their natural habitat (the ones with the big noses) and had lunch on a floating restaurant. I managed to get rid of my guide, who kept trying to make me have dinner with him, and went shopping and got an early night at the hostel.