You've got a leech where?!...

We had a good few weeks where OB has been really busy, all staff have been on-course and extra instructors brought in, that is all staff other than the 3 mat salleh. While everyone else has been rushed off their feet with back-to-back courses we've spent our time training for the course we're supposed to instruct: KTJ. They are malaysian participants who are studying A-levels and hoping to go to university overseas so pretty smart people, I was a little nervous about instructing though as I've done very little work with people of my own age before. Training included a lot of theory based stuff like WI briefings, admin, debriefings and first aid as we've got a pretty sound knowledge of the practical side of things having been on-course a lot. To familiarise ourselves with the trekking route we would be following we followed a course on HTM. The group I followed was pretty average with no remarkable events. However the watch that Libby followed had one incident. I heard about this incident like this: We were sitting in the van waiting to return to OB. I overheard this conversation in the front of the van between two instructors explaining why we were taking a female participant back to the medical bay: "pacat masuk..." which prompted my shocked response of "leech entered where?!" Libby then proceeded to tell the story of how a participant in her group had come to her hysterical because she thought aforementioned creepy crawly had gone somewhere it shouldn't have! You know Libbys response, "It'll drop out when its had enough"! Sound advice. Alistair appears to be making it a thing that he doesn't trek, he claims its not deliberate but I don't know...this time it was a recurring ear infection. 

 As we weren't on-course we made the most of a free weekend me by going to visit Xiao Wei in Penang, Alistair by going climbing with Amri an ex-instructor in KL and Libby by going to Aishahs house. I am always told that Penang is like the New York of shopping but for food, epecially chinese food. My days it certainly lived up to expectations! Thats pretty much all we did for the weekend; went to temples or ate food, a weekend well spent I would say! Penangites love their food so much that the place we went for breakfast we had to wait 10minutes to find a seat and twice as long queuing to order food! It was most definatley worth it though, dim sum is an incredible creation. Xiao Wei's family were great and allowed me to stay at their house despite only a days notice and took us to the best places to eat :) 

I have recently learned a lesson in life, a very valuable lesson. You shouldn't lock people in the shower. I may or may not have been joking around and locked one of the shower doors while Mera was showering and genuinely forgot to unlock it, my bad. That resulted in Mera breaking the lock, stronger than she looks! And me getting a right telling off, apparently its not quite so funny when you're the one locked in. 

So the course that we had been told right from the start that we would be instructing was upon us and before it had even started it was stressful. When we went to sort our equipment store we were told there wasn't enough equipment so we would have to share. There also wasn't enough actual store rooms so they would also have to be shared adding extra problems. Then the name lists changed last minute. Thankfully once the participants arrived we got a bit more settled in and relaxed. The course was 7 days with 2 big expeditions, one trekking and one round-island kayak. I had the task of doing the Knotting & Campcraft lesson where we teach the participants everything about how to survive the night of camping, from pitching tents to toilets and cooking to tying knots. Its a long lesson where its difficult to keep everyones attention. Luckily for me the participants were eager to learn and very cooperative so the lesson  went smoothly. I even got compliments from the two instructors who were observing for the structure and content of my lesson, a small proud moment :) 

For the trekking expedition I got more praise from the staff as my watch, called Gayong (no laughing), were first to complete the route and were the fastest group that I've ever followed for that route! The participants impressed me a lot during trekking showing a lot of determination, keeping good pace the whole way and working incredibly well as a team by encouraging the two watch members with injuries. Unfortunately we didn't get to camp in the jungle that night as I got a call from MJ the Course Director instructing us to return to OB asap. Know why? 'Cause the haze we'd had for the last few days had reached hazardous levels so the participants were getting sent home that night :( Not going to lie I think Libby, Alistair and myself were pretty gutted that we wouldn't get to finish the course, especially considering it was supposed to be our last course at OB! We made the most of the night before they went home with some good craic, they were shocked  to find out I was the same age as most of them, younger than some! I'd go as far as to say that they were some of the best participants I've worked with all year, just a shame they had to go home early because of the stupid haze!

Mumma Katie...

Sailing! I finally got to go on a whaler course, and an awesome one at that. It was 2nd Boys Brigade Subang Jaya here for only 5days doing round Island on the whaler. 17 kids to each boat, some were as young as 13 but most were 16-17. This was Outward Bounds first childrens/youth whaler course and it didn’t go too badly, some may be too young but there were enough people on each boat to make good time. There were tough conditions and 2 out of the 4 boats needed towing a little but 2 didn’t. I got to helm one of the boats for a whole 10 minutes! The participants were excellent though, they showed so much discipline and teamwork throughout the course. One participant forgot his name badge one morning so one of their teachers told his whole watch to do 10 press-ups; amazingly the other 3 watches who weren’t required to do the press-ups voluntarily did them! When doing the press-ups they would count “one sir, two sir, three sir…permission to get up sir”.

 The next wee while we just did odd jobs around OB and prepared for instructing the 7 day programme KTJ by doing lesson plans, mock lessons, debriefings and first aid. Down time was spent playing snool, cycling to Biriyani’s, and getting a little bit more running done. We went out with some of the staff to play bowling where I played pretty well for the first game; I was winning for the first few shots but the second game wasn’t quite so good: I think I may have set a new record for “the most balls bowled without hitting a single pin” => 10, such a pro!

I supported for Pack N Paddle, one of the OB run courses although all but like 2 kids were sponsored by Vale! The size of the course was cut so there was a greater staff:participant ratio therefore our participants were always finished early and had everything done efficiently. Our course involved a 3.5km kayak to Teluk Sekadeh, rappelling the same morning then trekking in the afternoon. The kids were great, all aged 12-14 and so full of energy. They are all local Malays so were speaking Malay to me which was confusing at times but it helps me learn and I was proud of myself for actually understanding a lot of what they were saying! Some of them were adorable and took to calling me either Mr Katie or Mumma Katie, not sure why! We had solo camp where they are supposed to stay in a tent by themselves for one night, however being so young they weren’t that great at it! Most of the evening they were wandering around the jungle talking to each other but when it came to me and Shuek doing the final check before bed, some of the tents were empty. What we found was that all the boys were sharing about 3 to a tent, one boy preferred to sleep outside his friends tent than inside his own one 5m away. The girls on the other hand all slept alone in their tents, what can I say boys are just wimps!

 After course I joined some of the staff down in the field playing with kites, you may laugh at grown men playing with colourful little kites but its quite a part of Malaysian culture. We lost two kites when their string snapped and they disappeared over the jungle. Din and Fendy even made their own kites with some bamboo and a parang(machete).

 I don’t normally like the fact that OB does short courses like 1-3days but in this instance I’ll let it slide. It was a 2 day course where the objective was simply to have fun, which isn’t what OB is about, its about learning, however this was a worthy cause and it was a fun course to be on and we all finished course feeling like we had made an impact. It was a course for children and youths who were directly affected by cancer, either survived it, fighting it or terminal. We basically facilitated a few activities/games and then went to the hotel where they were staying to participate in other activities. We did rafting, wall climbing, kayaking and belay intro at OB. I was impressed how strong these people are, they pushed themselves to complete the activities as best they could, they had great fun racing up and down the climbing wall and cargo net. The instructors went over to the hotel at night to join them in being taught how to play the harmonica, by the World Champion harmonica player! The second night we went along for dinner and disco with a pirate theme, so Alistair, Libby and myself dressed up as pirates again, this time we thought better of bringing real swords to a public place. I got a little emotional saying goodbye to them, one sweet little girl came up to me thanking me so much with a tear in her eye and gave me a kiss on the cheek :)

May...hem

If you see a 6ft long monitor lizard, a relative of the Komodo Dragon, what are you going to do? Run towards it? Thought not. Unless you are one of the instructors at Outward Bound! Shukri followed one the whole way down the beach and disappeared for a while, there was a slight concern that a role reversal had occurred, no worries he appeared safe and sound. Having a few days off allowed me to do my PADI Open Water Scuba Diving course which means I can dive up to 18m anywhere in the world! I did it locally from Marina Island with Syafirul, one of the instructors. Alistair was supposed to do it with us but got an ear infection with the most inconvenient timing, although he did his a few weeks later. We completed the course in two and a half days ‘cause we are such pro’s! To be honest the visibility wasn’t the best, although we did manage to see some cool purple and orange fish, an abundance of sea urchins with flashing lights and a few other things. The main thing was the experience though, it is such an odd feeling kneeling on the sea floor being unable to see your hand and then removing your breathing apparatus to prove you’re good enough! Alistair and myself got a bit bored and weren’t too sure of the rules of snooker so we’ve invented our own game. It is a combination of pool, snooker, drinking games etc. It is played with the same basic rules as pool and snooker. The key rules are that the rules are decided at the start of each game, so generally a game will involve forfeits for potting the wrong ball, a ball leaving the table, hitting the wrong ball first etc. Common forfeits are crawling under the table which hasn’t been swept in 10years, running round the table with the ball above your head shouting the other persons name, dribbling around the table 3 times, you get the idea. An important ingredient is to be high on energy drinks or vanilla coke. That is SNOOL. My next course was one of the best, Nilai University students. The course was a week long including a kayak round Pangkor and trekking HTM. The participants were good craic and because it was a challenging course you could see bonds forming among the group and people changing. Camping at Teluk Sekadeh I actually woke up “cold” in the morning! But for the first time in months I got that nice cozy feeling when you’re cold and put on a jacket to warm up: bliss! You guys probably find it strange that I miss that dreich weather where its cold and wet and blowing a gale, sometimes constant 30+°C heat gets a bit too much! There were strong winds and big waves so we postponed departure slightly. I was the MC for the informal closing ceremony which is always great when you can read Chinese names…nah I’m joking I think I managed ok! I had even more time off so I arranged with Alia, my awesome Malay friend, to go to her house in Ipoh for a few days and go to Penang for a night. When I arrived we went to a school concert that Alia’s cousin Ainan Tasnin was singing at, she is a recording artist in Malaysia! We got a train at 2am to Penang! The train was so uncomfy and had far too much air-con it was freezing but at least we got a few hours sleep and saved ourselves time and money on accommodation. For the next two days we basically wandered around seeing what was about, eating food and taking stupid pictures with the Penang street art. We visited all the classic tourist sites like Fort Cornwallis, Penang Hill, the street art, and the hawker food. This was Alia’s first backpacking experience so she was well excited to be staying in a backpackers and talking to people travelling from Germany and New Zealand and laughing at them thinking roti canai was a pancake! Back in Ipoh we just jalan-jalaned and had to make a run back to Lumut because my visa had run out and it had to be sorted that day. Thankfully Alia drove me back, I got the visa sorted and then went back to Ipoh in time to pick her sister and mother up from work. Next morning we continued Alia’s swimming lessons at a local outdoor pool and she is getting pretty damn good at swimming, must have a good teacher…. hehe

Vietnam, The Return!

I worried a lot about the next part of the trip; the border crossing from Cambodia to Vietnam. Did I have the right visa? Would I get across the border? Would I get the right bus? Would the bus drop me in the right place? The bus was 11 hrs long from the Khmer capital to Ho Chi Minh. In that time I almost missed the bus because my transfer didn’t show, we got stuck in a 5km long queue for a ferry which we bypassed in 5mins by each paying an extra USD2! The bus then got stuck half-on-half-off that ferry with smoke billowing into the bus, I almost got left behind at a toilet stop; the bus had started moving when I got on and my seat wasn’t fixed to the ground properly so I had an extra bit of swivel and bounce and squeak for 11 hours! Thankfully it all went right in the end, the bus even stopped in the street that I was looking for, the heart of backpacker area. Now I will tell you why Vietnam is awesome; the hostel cost me £5, I got invited out for a few drinks with my two roommates, we had a greek meal for £1, went to the local pub (hundreds of asian sized chairs lining the streets with alcohol being served from peoples houses), drinks cost 30p per beer and 60p per spirit and mixer! The next day I met Libby concluding my solo adventures but starting the next part of the holiday as the 3 mat salleh from Outward Bound. We spent time catching up and going to the War Remnants Museum which was quite harrowing as it has exhibitions on Agent Orange and some graphic stories and photos from photographers in the Vietnam War. The lifestyle of the Vietnamese is something else, we passed a park at around 6pm and there were hundreds of people there playing football, aerobics, badminton, roller skating, jogging, outdoor gym and the Vietnamese game which is like playing volleys with a giant shuttlecock! We met Alistair later on and he was buzzing from his time in Thailand. 3 mat salleh reunited for a week in Vietnam! We caught an overnight bus from HCM city to Mui Ne which is famed for its beach, sand dunes and watersports. Generally the strip where all the hotels are is just tourists but once we hired motorbikes to go explore we found more of the real Vietnam. A couple of miles inland there are some spectacular sand dunes, one lot are red the other white. I’m sure you’ve seen the pictures on fb. Sadly all the watersports were very expensive so we were spectators only. We all managed to get sunburnt despite wearing suncream and being used to exposure to the sun. One night in our dorm Alistair must of sleepwalked because he went to sleep in the bottom bunk and got woken up in the top bunk by our roommate coming in and asking him to move back to his own bunk! Luckily for Alistair we made friends with the roommate, Kat, and spent the next few days with her as we headed up to the hill station Dalat. The bus ride to Dalat was unforgettable, the road was in such a state of disrepair, I think only about half of the road was tarred, the rest was potholes! I still managed to sleep! Dalat was a little bit of a disappointment, it had been described as the Alps of Vietnam however the hills weren’t very steep or imposing and the town was fairly big. We still found some impressive waterfalls, crashed a wedding photo shoot and got a little too drunk after not very much; quite embarrassing really! Waiting for our bus back to Ho Chi Minh City a 9year old girl came up to us and just started having a conversation, she was practising here English for school. Incredible confidence from a 9 year old to approach 3 foreigners. She was a pretty cool kid, especially because she was a Phineas and Ferb fan. We stayed a night in HCMC where just wandering around the busy streets you would get offered cannabis from old men on street corners! Don’t worry of course we didn’t buy any! Libby got herself a new tattoo which she thinks says “love” in Arabic, poor soul, it actually says “Scotland”! We checked out Chu Chi tunnels the next day before we flew home. They are where the Vietnamese lived for years to avoid the Americans. Most of the tunnels are too small for western people to fit in, specially designed so as only the small Vietnamese could go in. The camouflage is incredible too, we couldn’t recognise any of the trap doors. The Vietnamese were brutal too, they set bamboo traps in the ground which to the Americans were invisible but once they stood on one they would fall through in to a pit of bamboo spikes! All in Vietnam was awesome again!

Cambodia: The Solo Venture

Since the three of us all know that we are hilarious we decided to play some April Fools! We fooled everyone hehe but apparently PT office staff managed to find out about Libby “going home”! I also got a wonderful rope burn during rappelling rescue training  After a week on-course the big travelling adventure was upon us. I was going to Cambodia on my own and Alistair to Thailand on his own for a Muay Thai camp, a week later we would both meet up with Libby in Vietnam. Leaving Alistair at the airport was quite daunting, for the next week we would both be in a foreign country alone for a week, knowing no-one and not understanding the culture or speaking the language. Our objectives were simple: Ali was aiming to be beaten up and I was avoiding it at all costs! I had an incredible experience in Cambodia and from what I hear so did Ali in Thailand. Almost immediately in the airport I got talking to people, it carried on from there; I met so many cool people. Although a lot of them were on similar itineries; travelling for a few months in Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia; everyone had different experiences and perspectives. The highlight of Cambodia was definitely Angkor Wat temples. They are stunning! When I visited there was a lot of restoration work going on so parts of some temples were out of bounds. I went in at 5pm one night to see the sunset from a hilltop temple, after waiting over an hour it was clear it wouldn’t be very spectacular; the sky was cloudy and the horizon hazy, but at least there was a decent view for miles across the surrounding jungles and plains. I was up at 4:30am the next morning in the hope that sunrise would be more impressive; it was! I sat just outside “the” Angkor Wat with the sun rising behind it and reflecting in the pool in front of the temple. I got some pretty good photos on my phone camera and attempted to take some on my broken compact camera, unfortunately the camera on my phone malfunctioned that night so I only have one photo of my whole week in Cambodia; the one I posted on facebook! Strangely the main currency used is US$ but you get change in Khmer Riel. I hired a motorbike driver for the day to take me round all the temples. He took me to a lot of smaller temples without many tourists. The most spectacular temple in my opinion was Ta Prohm, the set for Lara Croft’s Tomb Raider (which of course I haven’t seen!), it was set in the middle of the jungle with the jungle completely taking over the temple. There were trees growing over the top of walls and fallen rocks everywhere, it felt otherworldly when I left the usual tourist track through the temple to explore other parts. At nearly all of the temples, street corners and many restaurants there are young children selling souvenirs although I'm not sure how much they personally benefit from the money they earn. I got a bus from Siem Reap where the temples are to Phnom Penh the capital and the views from the bus were extraordinary. I wasn’t sure whether I was travelling through SE Asia or the Middle East at some points, the land was so flat and dry and dusty. The sunset over the dusty plains was quite a site too. I’m not joking when I say hammocks are probably more popular than chairs in Cambodia, everywhere you look people are chilling in hammocks; side of the road, their houses, in cafes, in tuk tuks! Most of my time in Phnom Penh was spent visiting the S-21 prison and the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek, although I’ve already covered that in a separate blog post. The rest of the time I just wandered the streets getting to know the city and how it works. One thing I didn’t understand was the food; normally its quite obvious what the local food is but here it just wasn’t so I ended up eating a lot of western food or expensive restaurant food, which was delicious but it was expensive and not really what Cambodian cuisine is like.

Burma, Whaler and Music Festival!

For the end of February we were asked to join an international school course for their expedition. None of us were particularly happy about this as we thought it would be just the usual spoilt kids who moan all the time and don’t want to be here. We were very wrong! This was a school from Burma(Myanmar) and the kids were brilliant! Due to the country they had grown up in they weren’t spoilt because Burma is only just opening its doors to the rest of the world with its McDonalds and Playstations etc. The course was a lot of fun and the kids put on a great performance at the end of course BBQ with everyone dressed up in traditional Myanmar dress! Since we didn’t do a 25day Classic Course when we arrived we were going to have whaler training! This has been my favourite training! After 6months we were finally getting to go sailing on the whalers! The plan was to head down from OB to Pulau Rumbia on day one and then back up around Pangkor to Syawal on day two and back to OB on day three! On day one there wasn’t much wind so we had to row most of the way, around 20km. I think everyone out of the 9 of us was seasick apart from myself and Alistair so we pretty much had a continual rowing shift while everyone else tried their hardest when they felt reasonable enough. The bay we were anchoring in should be pristine with a lovely view out to sea however due to the currents and stupid humans dumping rubbish the whole shoreline in the bay was lined with plastic, bottles, slippers, tubs, balls, fishing net etc it is really quite upsetting how much litter there was. It made me realise how much rubbish there must be floating in seas all over the world, this was only one wee bay. I have never seen mosquitoes like the ones at this campsite, it was insane, and they were really small so they could fit through the window net on the tent so we had no ventilation all night! Day two we got the tides and wind just right! We sailed all the way up with the tide in our favour and as soon as we turned around the north of Pangkor the tides also changed to continue to be in our favour! It wouldn’t be a proper training session if there wasn’t some sort of disagreement so in true training style with Syawal in sight there was debate as to whether we should stop for lunch meaning we may lose the wind and would drift further away from Syawal, or whether we should just press on for another half hour and reach the campsite and then eat. We pushed on. Syawal also has a lot of nyamuk(mosquitoes) but not quite so bad thankfully. We set off a Chinese lantern out on the mother boat when it got dark which was nice seeing it float of into the distance and blend in with the stars before burning out. Day three was an easy hour cruise back to OB! Unfortunately we all had two back-to-back corporate courses next each 7 days long. Not the most exciting courses we’ve been on, but hey at least I finally got to do HTM trek! A very uneventful two courses! Far more exciting though was Future Music Festival Asia (FMFA)! A one day music festival that included acts like FUN, Rita Ora, PSY, The Temper Trap, Bloc Party and Prodigy! We were at the barrier for them all!!! All of them are amazing live! Hannah even got the guitarist from FUN’s guitar pick!! This was a really fun weekend down at Sipang, Malaysia’s Formula One circuit! Only cost £28 for a ticket as well, well gid! Shortly after, we got a visit from our Desk Officer Chris Hitch from Project. It was nice to see him again, we expected some practical jokes since last time we saw him there was a fish head left in his tent! He also commented on the amount of time that we spend eating or thinking about food or having conversations about food! Of course we took him to Biri’s! Libby was on course so we went over to Pangkor as well so Chris could see her. He said he normally cooks a meal for the volunteers one night, so for us he also cooked a meal, on the boat! It was an amazing meal too! Homemade roti, a tasty salad and the normal rations spiced up a little! Damn I’m speaking about food a lot again, maybe Heloise and Chris have a point…nah! I’ll repeat Ali’s quote again: “Malaysia is food”!

Chinese New Year, Singapore and Pulau Kapas

In February we got a visit from Heloise the Educational Development Officer at PT. She was in Thailand and Cambodia so decided to come to Malaysia specially to visit the OB volunteers. Knowing nothing of Malaysia or OB we decided that we would teach her all we knew: food! Pretty sure she left feeling like she wouldn’t have to eat again for another week!! We also did pretty much nothing OB related other than tell her about it. We did however go around the island on the speedboat, eating sugar crackers, stopping only for a little snorkelling and to get some more food! After pestering people about getting time off to go down to Johor for Chinese New Year we were given 10days off. First stop Kuala Lumpur for two nights to meet up with some of the other PT’ers. Guess what we did…yup went out for a few drinks, went to the cinema and ate food! We also saw Clea from OB Sabah who we hadn’t seen since first arriving in Malaysia so it was great hearing about another OB. Next stop Johor (after worrying slightly that we wouldn’t get bus tickets as the station was literally full). Myself and Alistair took up the offer to celebrate Chinese New Year with Kelly, one of our Chinese friends, and her family in Johor in the south of Malaysia. Their hospitality for us was great especially since we were “ang mow” (white people) invading a family celebration! Kelly’s parents are amazing, they allowed us to stay at their house, fed us as many Chinese cookies as possible and showed us around Johor Bharu explaining the meaning behind all the New Year traditions. We were taught that “wot” and “fatt” both mean lucky in two different Chinese dialects although I can’t remember which ones! This caused absolute hilarity in the back of the car ie. “You’re fatt”, “Wot?”, “Yeah you heard!”, “You calling me fatt?”, “ Yeah!”, “You’re fatt!”, “Thank you!”, “Wot?!” yeah so basically it kept us amused for a good 15mins! We saw the traditional dragon dance and lion dance, kind of like the ones you’re probably thinking off when you think of CNY! They set off very noisy fire crackers and bang a drum to ward off the bad spirits(?!) It’s all very impressive! We had a number of home-cooked meals with Kelly’s family like cow intestines (surprisingly tasty)! My chopstick skills were laughed at and we didn’t quite understand the traditional salad tossing so while everyone else lifted the salad a little, myself and Ali literally tossed up in the air! We were also privileged enough to be given ang pow, the small red packets containing a small sum of money! Ang pow are given to young single people by those who are married and grown up. The money we made in the ang pow we were then made to bet with at a relative’s house! I made a loss of 1RM which is pretty good considering how pro these people were! After Chinese New Year we headed across the bridge to Singapore. Now Singapore is not a place that we like. Know why? It’s bloody expensive! By Malaysian standards anyway! However it has some very spectacular architecture, a boat sitting on top of three skyscrapers?! We found a 3 person slingshot bungee at the harbour that we splashed out on doing, there is a video but that is not for public eyes!! It was far scarier than the bungee jump I did as a fundraiser! There is no warning that they are releasing it, Ali was mid sentence when they released it and sent us spinning up skyward and then toward the ground, its so disorientating! Great fun, mind you! Oh we were sitting in an Indian restaurant one night when I went to wash my hands and some Indian lady comes up to me and invites me and MY SON to her wedding later in the month!! What on earth?! Do I really look old enough to be Ali’s mother/does Ali really look young enough to be my son?! Told you to keep the beard Alistair!! One afternoon I went to a “theme park” called Haw Par Villa. It was basically an area that has lots of weird statues in it, like gorillas, tigers, owls and anything else! It also has the “10 Courts of Hell” which is a disturbing display of statues depicting Chinese myth! I had great fun wondering around on my own taking selfies with the statues! Enough of spending away our money in Singapore, we took a bus back to Johor and then another to Kuala Terrenganu to meet up with the other PT’ers again but this time on Kapas a small island off the East coast. It’s a beautiful island that was almost deserted when we went as it was just the end of monsoon season when the whole island just shuts down! The place we stayed was so nice, a single building up on huts literally on the beach with hammocks everywhere and the jungle right behind! It was very rustic but the owner was lovely cooking everyone staying there a meal on the last night! It was nice to be able to chill on a beach and go swimming without a lifejacket on! Back on the mainland we stayed at Nick and Josh’s project for a night. Although I had to stay with one of the female teachers as Terengannu is a very muslim state. We had hoped to get a bus back to OB around midday but when we tried to book one we were told they were all full! Little did we know that all the universities started the next day so students were all heading off to uni! We finally managed to get a night bus leaving at 11pm to get in at 7am. So we had a full day in KT. KT doesn’t have very much to do! We wandered around a lot and then found a mosque called Crystal Palace which looks a little like the Disney Palace! The bus ended up getting in at 8am and by the time we got picked up from the station we had 20mins to shower ready to start work at 9am!