Most guidebooks helpfully classify types of accommodation into three categories: top-end, mid-range, and budget. This is most certainly an oversimplification: it fails to take into consideration that the budget category alone is home to a universe of different types of abode, ranging from the flea-ridden pit of hell, to the bog of eternal stench.

After eleven months of sleeping, almost exclusively, in some of the cheapest digs in Asia, I have begun to consider myself a somewhat of an expert in the subject, and yet I still come across hostels that have the capacity to surprise me.

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I admit it:  I have become increasingly bad at keeping my blog up to date with all my activities.  Here is the fundamental problem with blogging: I spend so much time trying to find interesting things that are worth writing about, that I have no time to actually write about them.  That, coupled with a particularly nasty case of food poisoning (I’ll spare you the details, but I have learnt to not eat pork from bus stations in the middle of nowhere), has made updates hard.

To save time, I will give you a quick update on my recent activities. Apologies for brevity, but rest assured there will be more detailed posts to follow.

Peninsular Malaysia

When I left you last I was discovering the dubious joys of leeches and recovering from a hefty hike in the jungle. Following on from the exhausting excursion we made our way to Penang – via a rather lengthy stop in a town called Temerloh (bad bus management once again).  Penang was charming and laid back, and we managed to find ourselves one of the nicest hostels we have stayed in, The Old Penang Guest House.

A great deal of our time was spent meandering around the beautiful colonial town, relaxing with other travellers and sampling a vast array of excellent food. If ever you are in Malaysia, Penang is a must for the food alone.

After a little bit of research into how to get to Thailand, we decided it would be easier and cheaper to fly. So we packed up our bags once more and headed to KL, with a relaxing stop off in the Cameron Highlands.

The appeal of the Highlands was initially the temperature. It was cool. It was grey and it was drizzly. It was almost like home.  A fact that was further augmented by the main exports of the region: tea and strawberries.  Unwilling and unable to affford any more jungle trekking experiences, we whiled away the hours enjoying tea and scones in the many tea house in town.

Sooner or later we had to head back to KL – and to the insufferable heat.  We have been to a lot of very hot places, but I swear KL is hotter than hell.  Luckily we only had to endure one night, and managed to board a plane to Thailand with relative ease (relative being the operative word – I don’t think it could technically be called easy).

And with that we were in another country, sipping Chang beer, touring temples on bikes, getting robbed, throwing up,  getting used to another currency, new scams and a whole new, hectic vibe. But that’s a story for another day.

We had a hard time chosing between Daniel’s Lodge and Father’s Guest House: our guide book recommended the former whereas we had personal recommendations for the latter. For reasons I can’t remember, we went with Daniel’s and I can’t say it left a lasting impression. Our ’room’ was very cheap (RM 20) but it felt a bit like it had been built on Blue Peter - plywood, PVA glue and plastic bags all featured as construction materials.  On the plus side, they showed Ghostbusters I and II in the TV area at night. The showers were hot and the location was central (always true in the Cameron Highlands), and if we’d had enough money to buy beer and play pool we would have enjoyed spending time around the camp fire in the funky bar.

Score: 5/10

As far as I know, Old Penang isn’t in any guide books (yet) because it has only been open for a few months. If you want to stay there, and I recommend you do, you’ll find it on the right-hand side of Love Lane (when coming from Lebuh Chulia), near the junction with Lebuh Chulia. The dorms aren’t the cheapest in the area at RM15 per night (we’ve seen some as cheap as RM7), but it is still one of the best places we’ve stayed. It ticks all the right boxes:

 - exceptionally clean and fresh
 - helpful and friendly staff
 - air-conditioning in the dorm (winner!)
 - free coffee and tea
 - DVD collection shown on a plasma TV
 - lovely seating area where we could sit and chat
 - hot water showers
 - great location

Really, there isn’t much to complain about! If I ever go back to Penang, I will definitely stay here again. 9/10

We didn’t really want to stay in Temerloh, but we’d had a bit of bad luck with buses and ended up having to spend a night in this arse-end-of-nowhere town.  There isn’t really any backpacker accomodation here,  so we had to make do with cheap hotels: New Ban Hin was the cheapest Google could find at RM 45 for a double room. To be honest, I didn’t like this place at all – it was expensive compared to hostels, the decor was shabby, the bathroom had poor plumbing and made the whole room smell damp,  and the building generally felt like it was going to fall down. In it’s defence, I think all local hotels are of similar quality – we looked in Swiss Hotel at the other end of town and it was also a dump and it cost RM60 per night – and at least we got air conditioning and a TV thrown in. Moral of the story – make sure you are leaving enough time to get to your destination and miss out the nowhere towns. 3/10

A private room with a shared bathroom in Traveller’s Lodge will cost you RM 35 – a reasonable price considering that the rooms are very well presented, the shared bathrooms have hot water showers and there is a sociable atmosphere about the place. The downside is location: Traveller’s Lodge is tucked away in a fairly soul-less area behind the magnificent Melaka MegaMall. That said, the main tourist attractions are just on the other side of the mall, and we found the 15 minute air-conditioned walk through the bustling shops quite refreshing.

Melaka seems like a more expensive place, so we maybe can’t criticise the price too much, however we’d have preferred somewhere closer to the action or in the more interested China Town area. 6/10

We spent one fairly average night in Teresk View Motel, Kuala Tahan prior to our trek through Teman Negara National Park. We stayed in a 4 bed dorm with en-suite for RM 15 per night per person – a reasonable rate, although cheaper accomodation is available in the town. The room was clean but had the unpleasant damp smell we’ve come to expect from rooms with en-suites in this part of the world! The fan was mounted on the wall in a position that mostly failed to reach the occupants of the lower bunks, but cooled the top bunks adequately.

We weren’t enamoured, and decided to stay elsewhere after our jungle trek. 5/10

I have learnt something new: leeches move like Slinkys. And when they sense you approaching they stand to attention and wave backwards and forwards, like a finger beckoning you towards them.

They don’t look like the large slimy slugs that TV has led me to believe. Instead they are nimble and lithe; they are contortionists that can climb, wriggle and burrow, finding any and all means possible to break through the barrier of your clothes to the feast beneath (so not too dissimilar from most men in that respect).

If you’re lucky, the first you know about a leech attack is when you look down and see a circular blood stain spreading outwards on your clothes. Testiment to the leech that has been and gone. If you are less fortunate, you will actually find one of the little bloodsuckers latched on, it’s black body pulsating with your heartbeat as it gorges itself on your vital fluid. When this happens you are faced with three options:

1. You can pull the sucker off. This is not advised, as they have a vice like grip and tend to leave teeth behind to get infected.
2. You can be compassionate, let the little guy have his fill and drop off naturally, and then squish the bastard as he crawls away.
3. You can burn it off, although this carries the inevitable risk of singed leg hairs.

I learnt all these fascinating facts and more, during a 14 kilometre, 2 day hike through Taman Negara National Park, Malaysia: the world’s oldest rainforest.
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I have now uploaded almost all of our photos from Singapore and Peninsular Malaysia. Have gander in the gallery.

Our first impressions of Footloose Homestay were not great – it is situated in a shabby house on a back street a fair distance from the centre of Johor (although within walking distance of the bus station – handy for getting to Singapore). We quickly discovered, however, that the friendly and helpful owner made up for any shortfalls in the presentation of the homestay. For the life of me I cannot remember his name, but he really made us feel at home and made a point of offering helpful advice on everything and anything. Having use of the kitchen was nice – we bought some bread and made ourselves toast and tea for the first time since we left the UK. We paid 30 RM for a private double room with a shared bathroom, which is a pretty standard fare.

Plus points: friendly owner, good atmosphere, good price
Negative points: distance from JB center, a little shabby
Score: 6/10