God I'm hungry - another 8 hours in the bus to get from the West coast of Malaysia (the Penang island) to the East coast (Kota Bahru). It did give me some time to read again and I'm now well into the 2nd Ramses book. So yeah, Malaysia. Everything is more modern then Thailand again (and I'm happy for that!!). I find many different cultures here though, as opposed to the other south-east asian countries I've been. Many Indian and Indonesian people here - which makes it a colorfull and diverse country.

Tomorrow I'm off to the Perinthian islands for a couple of days. These 2 islands are supposely (argueably) the most beautifull ones of Malaysia (and we want to check that out!!). I will go for my advanced PADI certificate here - should be cheap enough and many beautifull things to see. This means I will write you all again from Kuala Lumpur (KL) where I should be arriving on Sunday or Monday. Be good now! Floris

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Yep, just about to go back from the beautifull Perhentian Islands on the East coast of Malaysia to Kota Bharu. From there I will take a bus tomorrow (monday) down to Kuala Lumpur. It was a 1 1/2 hour boat trip to the island, in which the water got bluer and bluer with the minute. When finally getting to the island just about everything turned out to be full (where have the quiet "Blue Lagoon" days gone??). And there it was again - you meet some people. That one good thing of travelling - you keep on meeting people (although at times I prefer just being by myself). So yeah, I ended up sharing this great hut right on the beach with Kareem, Neil and Richard - all from England (tough luck with the football guys..).

Didn't get too much rest though, as I spent 3 days diving, getting my PADI Advanced Open Water certificate at Turtle Bay Divers. It was great! Saw sharks (black tip's), Blue spotted Stingrays, Mantras (really incredible animals - all black with a long tail they just float on the bottom of the sea). Then quit a few Barracudas, a big turtle and (yes) Dolphins!! This is really rare - even the people diving there every day hadn't seen any for months! Didn't notice too much of the Nitrogin Narcosis illness at my deep dive (30m) so that was good.

The evening before the last dive it got kinda a bit too late (but thanks anyway for the Whisky Kareem!!) - I didn't have any money left as around 90 US $ dissapeared from my backpack "mysteriously". Fortunately I had just spent some cash paying the diving course, otherwise I would have really missed out on a lot of money. So anyway, that was a great evening but not when you have to dive the next morning... guess I'll take it more easy next time.

Tonight the game is on (NL-YO) - I'll watch it in one of the bars here - 0:00h local time (could have been worse). Was just reading "De Telegraaf" on all the preparations Rijkaard is making. Let's do it this time! Floris

Tonight is the one of those big nights - even (non-dutch) people in the hostel are talking about the football. Holland - Italy tonight. I'll be watching the game from the roof terrace - with a view over Kuala Lumpur - of the hostel I'm staying in (beers are nog that expensive fortunately). The people in the dorm I talked to today will be watching the game as well (incl. New Zealand, Canada & England). There are also some dutch people though. But enough about the football; what about Kuala Lumpur (or "KL" as it is generally known).

KL is not too big of a city - mainly consisting of an old center (Chinatown) and the new economic center ("Golden Triangle"), dominated by the (arguably) tallest building, the (Twin) Petronas Towers (see the first picture on this page). The towers are really amazing - a mixture of Western and Arab architecture. Besides the towers, there's quit a lot of influence from the English colonial period, although also the Dutch and the Portugese had their saying in KL.