Malaysia

We cycled up into Malaysia over the causeway and spent the first night in JB in the first hotel we found, because it was getting late and the motorway wasn't the safest place to be. We set off in the morning along Highway 3, which is the only road we'll be on for however long it takes us to get up the East coast.

It took us a while to get to the next town Kota Tinggi in the heat of the day and we rolled in about 5. It had a good vibe. Malaysia is somewhere between Singapore and Indonesia in terms of many terms. Much cleaner than Indonesia and calmer and wealthier and more organised.

They have a big bazar in every town every night in August for Ramadan. They break their fast as the sun goes down (7.20pm here) and shop in the bazars before, so we started busking at the one in KT and we must have been the first buskers to ever play there. The people were very generous and one guy even bought us a hotel room! Which we swapped for his uncles house out in the countryside when he came along and gave him the money back. Still he bought us dinner. The uncle was a great guy. 65 years old, 8 children, 20 grandchildren, a widower, youngest son only 11. We stayed up late watching Man City vs. Bolton. There's more Premier League here than in England. It's the main sport.

This morning we got to Mersing which actually has westerners in and it was a bit touristy. we were here earlier and the bazar was bigger and we did even better - all the stall holders gave us food and the people were lovely. we're staying in a fleabitten chinese hotel without any stars but we can live off busking for the first time since australia so that's good news. Malaysia will work out well!

We're on the coast now and it's much cooler.