Malaysia - Taman Negara - Perhentian islands - Kuala Lumpur

After Melaka, we went to Taman Negara (a big Rain Forest in the jungle). To get there we took a boat for 3hs in a big brown river. Most of the restaurants in the village and some houses are floating in the river. As you can see on the first picture. In Taman Negara we did the Canopy walk. It's a 500 meters long suspended bridge in the middle of the Jungle. Sometimes you are 40 meters above the ground and it moves a lot... You can see a picture of Tina in one part of the bridge.

We also went to visit some nomad tribes. They teached us how to make fire and to shoot darts with a tube. Usually they eat monkeys and wild fruits. After we went to the Perhentian islands. It's a paradise of white sand beaches and crystal-clear water.

There Nicolas toke his Diving Open Water license (You can see him with the teacher :-) ) He saw some sharks and tortles. I've also done some snorkeling, I've seen a lot of fishes (parrot fish, nemos, baracudas etc).

On the last picture, you can see the famous Petronas Towers: The highest Twin towers in the World. 452 meters. We went on the skybridge where there is a wonderful view on the city.

Malaysia

In the 15th century Melaka was a succesfull trading harbour of silk, spices etc. It was attacked by the Portugueses in 1505.
Hundred years later came the Dutch and then the English.

You can see me showing a grave of an old dutch anchestor called Nicolaus!

It's a funny contrast to find old Europeans building in an Asiatic country.

It's also funny to see those old rickshaws all over the town. The owners can't see a tourist without trying to take them for a ride.

In the end of the day we went to have a beer in a bar with all the flags from the World Cup and I had to sign on the brazilian one. Nic pretended to be Brazilian and also signed it.

The food is delicious and also very cheap, we went to an Indian restaurant and ate a chicken tandori with our hands.

Also you can see me in the guest house that we stayed in Melaka. The owners are very funny, she is from Switzerland and the guy is from here (he lived 16 years in Switzerland).

Singapore

Singapore....what a contrast! Places like Little India, that make you think that you are really in India, High Buildings (really modern ones), that make you think about NY. Then, you have chinese markets or Victorian style buildings of the old administration from England, etc.

There we visited a museum about the POW'S (Prisoners of War). It tells the battle of Singapore in WWII. Japan took the city and forced 60 000 prisoners to build the railway to Thailand. 20% of the prisoners died in this work.

We stayed 2 days in Singapore then we took a bus to Melaka (Malaysia). We asked a man how to get to the bus station and he took us there in his car.
On the bus station a man asked if we want to change money, we didn't know the rate, so we asked to an indian family that was going to Melaka. They said that the rate wasn't good, that we should change the $ in Melaka.
In the middle of the trip we stopped to eat, the indian family offered us the meal, they were really nice and were taking care of us during the whole trip.

Australia - Brisbane - Byron Bay - Sydney

Now we are in Brisbane, where we've meet Thais and Silvia, brazilians friends from Tina that are living in Australia. We also met some friends from Thais really nice (specially Gus & Elaine)! Also my friend french Gwen from "Erasmus" (he's working for the French Embassy in anberra) came to Brisbane to travel for a week with us.

Gus toke us to a Brazilian BBQ that it was delicious!

It was so great to meet old friends in the middle of our World Trip.

After a few days, we went south to Byron Bay. Its a wonderful small city with many hippies. We did Body board and I had the opportunity to swim with Dolphins! It was so powerful.
In Byron we met a French girl called Isabelle and Mitsiu, our Japanese friend from the fruit picking (you can see all of us on the beach). During the night we made caiperinha!

Let's end our Australian trip with Sydney and the Opera house. In Sydney the weather was much more cold!

A friend of Gwen invited us to see a theatre that he was doing called The Lord of the Flies. That night we went out to some small bars in Kingscross, one of the multi cultural district of Sydney.

Tomorrow, a new adventure starts. We go to Asia ...

Australia - Mission beach - Whitsunday Islands

Now, we are back to the sea and warm weather!
After Alice Springs, we went to Cairns. It was a big change from dry weather to really humid one!

In Cairns we've rent a Campervan as you can see in one photo and travelled all the way down to Brisbane.

In the middle of this trip we have stoped in Mission Beach to do some tracking. Imagine my face when I saw the sign warning about the crocodiles! Well, everything ended up fine and we haven't seen any of them!

More down south are the Whitsundays Islands, there you can go for a boat trip. We went for 2 nights and 3 days in a boat race called Eureka 2, it was wonderfull!
On the 1st day, the weather was terrible: a lot of rain, also we've got a little sea sick........
But on the 2nd day, the rain stopped and we could walk on Whitsunday's island without problem and also we did some snorkling, saw a lot of fishes, even turtles and when we got back in the boat, some dolphins appeared!