The old rule that you should eat local and as fresh as you can proves to be true once again. Every country has it's own specialty which is usually fresh and in abundance. If you go to England, the best thing that you can get that is fresh and local is things you need for English Breakfast. Sausage, bacon and free range eggs, all sourced from local farms is what in my eyes make England amazing. You don't go to Sheffield to eat fish, you go to have an amazing scran. Simmilarly when you get to Kota Kinabalu, you dont come here to eat meat. You come here to eat fish that was as Craig said, ''crawling on the sea floor the same morning'' and the fruit that grows in the rainforrest which was picked unlike the 3 week old bananas we get in England a few day before hand. We found this restaurant on the sea front which serves sea food. You can pick the fish that you would like and they cook it for you according to your taste. We tried some squid, we got 500 grams of the freshest squid I have ever seen for a Fiver! You can pick all sorts of fish which I don't even recognise and I am going to attempt to try every single one of them that they have. Squid with some fresh ginger and chilli Just in case we didn't have enough heat already some fresh chilli in oil Having a dinner overlooking the harbour in Kota Kinabalu Nestum prawns Traditional malay dish prawn tom yum The fruit is amazing here as well, you can buy freshly cut strips of papaya, mango,watermellon, dragon fruit and weird tropical fruits for 1 ringitt each (25 p) or have a fresh juice. Fresh litre of pineapple juice for less then 2 Pounds. Because is so hot, you just end up snacking on fruit all day as it's light and refreshing. Don't think I had this much fruit that I had over the weekend in the whole year. Bring on healthy bowels and a good shit! Dom x

On Friday, we have decided to go to the beach. We asked where the nearest beach was and the lady at the hostel said that there is a beach in the city where all the locals go. So we were all buzzed up, thinking, ooh if the locals go here it must be free of tourist and really nice. Well, there were no tourists at all, and there were no locals, in fact there was no one swimming in the sea when we got there. Instead, there was loads of rubbish on the beach, canals flowing into the sea and a massive truck on the beach. So I just thought, you know what, I am gonna give it a miss. Just to put it to perspective, just next to it was a 6 star hotel where the beach was just as the same, with the same canals pouring in the sea just 100 metres away. I know why when you book a holiday in exotic country in like a million star hotel they tell you not to go out of the complex. It is not because it is dangerous at all, it is because they don't want you to know that you are paying 300 Pounds a night to bathe in the same sea as the locals. Just because the sea and the beach is clean in the hotel complex, it does not mean that it is so perfect. What an idea, these business men that own these massive hotels have, let's just fence this little piece of beach and scare people of looking beyond the fence and we can charge these suckers whatever we want. Job done. Over the weekend, we decided to try the other other approach and go to the beach which is popular with tourists. Well hello there the most amazing beach! We went to the island of Sapi, the smallest island, about 15 minutes away by the speedboat. It is one of 5 islands that form the Tunku Abdul Rahman national Park. Well you can tell that Im a Slovak because as we don't have a sea I could not understand how you can have a national park which is not on land lol.The Island is quite small, I think it is only 1.5 k in diameter and so it was really crowded. It only really has one beach and a peer and literally 50 meters from the beach is the jungle. We met this couple on the boat and this guy said that you can go on a trail around the island, and to my question whether it is is safe he just nodded. Well so off if went, Craig in his flip flops and me carrying half of the things I currently own in my backpack. We haven't even walked 10 meters when we have seen this giant lizard, you know like the little ones you see sometimes in the summer, just that this one was almost a meter long. I thought ok, another 10meters gone and there was some weird bird like animal, and then there it was - two wild boars just chilling there, waiting for us. The guy said that you can only see them usually early in the morning and that they were not dangerous but frankly I would rather see a wild boar as a part of my boar sausage and mash. What can I say, we turned back and didn't go for the trail. Later we found out that if you see a wild boar at this time, it is likely that he will attack as he is hungry and that if you see a pair, you can basically kiss goodbye any sunbathing for a next few weeks as they dont allow that in the hospital. So next time that I will attempt a jungle trek, I will get equiped and maybe get a guide or at least go with someone that knows what to do( anyone got a number for Bear Grylls?) On Sunday we went to the Mamutik Island, and that was absolutely stunning. It was much more quiet and there was a bit more privacy. The sea was almost green with the water so warm that you could stay in there all day (compare that with the pneumonia catching Atlantic)and the temperature of the air about 40 degrees. I was surrounded by the healthiest and most vibrant green colour of the rain forrest and as I was just chilling in the sea, I though that life cannot get any better than this. Craig started his placement on Monday and what a great way to chill before the week. Since it only costs 30 Malaysian Ringgits to get there which is about 6 Pounds, I might go there on my own a few times and work on my tan lol. Think after 4 years of hard work at uni I deserve a bit of lazying around (arguably with the hard work) Dom x

You know before you go travelling, everyone tells you that yo will experience a culture shock. You really don't know what that means until you get here. Everything is different here, the food, the buses, the smells, the way of life and all of that is amplified by the heat and the tiredness from the travel and jet lag. For some reason since we have got here it affected me much worse than it did Craig. I watched him eating duck noodles for breakfast, eat little chicken tails on a skewer (basically chicken arse kebab) and stuffing his mouth with everything that looked a bit edible. I, on the other hand, fell sick the whole time. This was getting worse when I was walking around town as the smell here is so pungent. There is a mixture of canal and stale water smell, smoked fish and food from the street food and generally dust and smog from the big city. The food that I was so excited about made me wanna throw up and I though, where the hell am I? Can I really stay here for 8 months? I was really low until.... Well my life got fundamentally better when I discovered this amazing bakery where they sell dohnuts for 1malaysian ringgitt each which is about 25 p. lol I then went to the supermarket and stocked up on some toast and real butter and guess what, feel great!:) Remind me never ever ever to bitch at those turists that come to a foreign country and all they want is english breakfast. Sometimes is not that they dont want to try new things but simply that people need time to adjust to the new things. As I am getting less tired and less jet lagged and I am just eating food that I know, I am already feeling better about travelling and I am starting to see all the reasons why I wanted to go and what I want out of it. The idea of some malay food now seem more likely and slowly I will make tre transition. However If I feel like some KFC or McDonald or a pizza, guess what, I will go and I won't feel bad about it at all! Dom x

Let me tell you one thing. After flying with Emirates, I never want to fly with ryanair again. Unlimited food and drink just somehow makes the 14 hour flight much better. The food was surprisingly really good as well, a lamb curry that was better than half of the takeaways in Sheffield and chicken with pesto that could even beat remos' on a bad day. As everything was free and we were kind of used to it we were a bit shy at the start asking for drinks. But at the end we went from: ''uhm can I please have if you dont mind(and only of it is not awkward) a can of heineken?'' to ''one Heineken stewardess and chop chop''. lol We flew to Dubai first where we had 3 hour stop over and then we got to Kuala Lumpur. Can you judge a country by its airport? I don't know but if you do, I couldn't possibly distinguish Dubai from Manchester, on both you have McDonalds, Costa, and the same clothes shop. So is it even worth going to Dubai on the way back if all I will see is the same thing? Hmmm.We finally got to Kota Kinabalu after spending some time in Kuala Lumpur. The woman working behind the Emirates desk at manchester airport made me (the slovak) book a flight from malaysia within 3 months of my visas as she said ''they will not even let her in the country''. Well let's just say that they didn't even look at me in Kuala Lumpur before stamping my passport to let me in the country. Thanks to that ''lovely'' woman that just obviously wanted to make our trip as hard as she could, we started our trip stressed as hell as we had to find computers with printer on manchester airport. So anyway, lesson already learned: Check whether on enetring the country they will require you to have a flight from the country. If it says that they do then book the bloody thing and if not then argue with her. That is the whole point of backpacking, you don't fly to places, and you don't have a 100 % plan. But in any cases, don't argue with the officials abroad, and always get to the airport in plenty of time! After 27 hours we finally arrived to Kota Kinabalu, our home for the next 6 weeks! Dom x