It was Patrick's choice of what to do in "Singapore". "You like game" he said. "Sure why not, what sort of game" I replied naively, Nu Ing's and Cheu's eyes lit up at the suggestion, and I thought, well it must be a good game. We jumped into Patrick's showroom condition car, and were soon heading for the fast road from Singapore to JB. My stomach was still churning out the most disgusting toilet filler, and kept cramping, from salmonella, picked up in the raw egg whites used to bind the green coconut iced birthday cake I'd had delivered as a surprise at Raffles the night before, but I didn't want to spoil my Singaporean friends night out for me by whinging. I had to remember that, time was short, and I had to pack, as much in as possible, it would have been too easy for me to suffer alone on the 'throne' in the Supreme Hotel. So, mind over matter prevailed, as we pulled up in a dirty shabby street of filth in JB. The half-working neon lights flashed out pictures of 'dancing' squirrels, and red lights spluttered in the hot and humid polluted night sky, euphemistically called 'the haze'.

Soon we were all sitting down outside one of the many dubious looking 'restaurants' and being handed menus. It then began to dawn on me we weren't playing a game, but eating it! There was practically everything on the menu that you'd pay to see at the Night Zoo in Singapore and a 'blank' against 3.9, which means 'dog' in Chinese and restaurants don't want to offend westerners, but, here, well they didn't really need to bother since the a la carte had taken care of that. My stomach began to churn, and I gingerly sought the toilet. It was as usual in the kitchen, a corrugated iron box, with greens and crates piled up beside the steps. Inside I could just make out the wet hole and floor and two footprints for guidance. Balance is key to a successful visit. You have to be dextrous to manage with shorts, for men it's easy. But, for women, you either must have very baggy shorts and pee down one leg, or if like me you are unfortunate enough to have a 'stomach' or worse, you have to get your shorts off. This is a dextrous exercise, if there isn't a hanger on the door. You must carefully wrap one shorts leg around the other then tuck it in without tripping or getting it wet on the piss and water slippery floor, of course still worse would be plunging your foot into the hole. However, I managed just, and sloshed the hole with a bucket of water, and without slipping managed to manoeuvre and extricate myself out of the corrugated iron box, knowing that I would inevitably have to repeat the exercise several times that evening! "Heaven help the blind," I thought.

By the time I had got back to the table, the others had ordered plates of 'mouse-deer', 'stuffed bear paw', "3.9", "squirrel" and something else equally hideous and repugnant in my eyes. "Mmm, well I think I'll just have either the plain boiled rice 'nasi puti' or, mmm 'mei puti' noodles. My friends were shocked that I hadn't wanted to try the 'game' so I opted for thick flat noodles that came with the same brown gravy that accompanied all dishes! What had they used for stock? I watched the others enjoying their dishes, and ate only the noodles that had avoided the gravy. Eventually, they dropped me back at the 'Supreme' hotel and I waved to the receptionist as I hared up the stairs to my room and into the western loo with paper. I drank copious quantities of bottled water and took charcoal tablets and lay sweating and burning up on the thin and ripped sheets all night, clutching my stomach. We had arranged to meet the following day, and to go to Meleka.

My first trip to Meleka was in 1992 before the fast highway was built from Singapore. It had been a long arduous drive in a 'mini -bas' booked up the day before in Chinatown in Singapore. So, I wasn't surprised when my driver turned out to be Chinese, and the other occupants a couple from Hong Kong and an odd Australian lady dressed to the 'nines' complete with white sling-back sandals just the thing for hanging over open latrines and trekking through the jungle to meet the Orang Lees people and observing snakes in the rubber plantations. Then, there were very few 'decent' hotels in Meleka apart from the Ramada, and having spent my previous nights sharing 3 rooms with 12 people, it was the least I could do to award my body some comfort for the next two nights. I went further than my normal body awards and booked a 'facial' neck and shoulder massage, but was unprepared to have my nose picked and plucked to eye-watering precision, and my spots I never knew I had squeezed from my face. When my eyes stopped watering, I made my way to the kampong houses on stilts and along the rickety streets lined with antique shop-houses and past the odd temple or two. I purchased two little tea-cups tokens of endearment of past colonial rule. I ventured into the square where the old Dutch church stands, and up to Fort Formosa, saw the grave of a woman pirate, and where St Xiavier had met his death.

The Dutch, Portuguese and French had all had their turn in conquering the town and had left their mark, for whoever controlled the Straits held sway over the major trade route. However, it was the good old British that had had the final say, and although the Brits had brought their law's, language and railway building expertise to Malaysia, they had in the eyes of the Malays betrayed the people during the Second World War, by pulling out of Malaysia and retreating to prop up the fallen Singapore. Leaving the Malays to the fate of the Japanese, and for this they have never been forgiven, and on independence from Britain, one of the first things the Malaysian Government did was to ban English, but eventually they relented and re-instated English as they realised that they were losing out in an international English speaking Business World.

In the evening I drank planter's punch and sank long cold G&T's, and went to watch the 'son et lummiere' by the Sultan's Palace…………"Meleka" and the nomadic Orang Lees nearby who lured monkeys with tame ones tied up and 'blow-piped' their quarry. These were the people who burnt the houses of the dead and buried their people standing up, and who would later dig up the bones of their dead ancestors when they moved on…. And there I was three years later being driven along the fast highway from Singapore to Melaka in Nu Ing's 'showroom' car, speeding along a metalled road that sign-posted the nearest shopping 'Kompleks' and where McDonald's, KFC and the local 'Sugar Bun' had spawned. Meleka was almost unrecognisable when we got there, it had been turned into something that resembled a theme park, complete with an 'olde pirate ship', museum, trinkets, hotels souvenir stalls, decent toilets and tourist 'you are here' signs, it had come a long way from the thin blue sheet run off a duplicator that had only 3 printed tours on it. The Kampong was still there and this time I visited one of the temples I had previously hurried past, and took solace in the Old Red Dutch Church where although Meleka had moved on, here time had stood still.

My piano music talent had been learnt with 'two fingers' donking out a tune at home, I had tuned my violin to the piano, and played chopsticks, and watched more talented people play it for real, and had imitated them. I asked the pianoist, if he knew 'chopsticks' - I asked him to move up on the piano stool. He got up, and offered me the stool. I began my recital…. Chopsticks, the first bit of the Funeral March, the fleur de lys a couple of items I'd learnt from watching people.. I was well away, when suddenly, I thought of Hamimah and Ishak in the bar waiting for me. I got up, and as I did there was 'clapping' - a half-moon of people stood around me clapping and calling for more!! 'Easily pleased or what!!" I smiled. As I sit polishing off my last sling, the manager came up to me, and asked me what I was doing the following night, and would I be free to come and play again! Unfortunately, the following night I explained I would be in Kuching. I was flattered to have been asked.

I felt ridiculous carrying a suitcase into the jungle along with my heavy video camera and batteries. My jungle guide didn't have to say anything, his look gave it away when he saw the case 'typical stupid tourist'. One of the boys heaved it up onto his shoulder and carried it lop-sided to the long narrow boat that was waiting to transport me into Niah. I kept apologising and tried to explain. The boat moored up, I got out and the heavy case was lugged to the warden's office, where I signed in. I was allocated the 'VIP' lodge.

The lodge was without electricity, or water, I was tired having flown from Singapore, and then straight to Niah. I dumped my stuff in the VIP lodge, and 'Stephen' my jungle guide went to get some candles and water.

I struggled through the jungle for about 2kms it was very hot and humid, and I was lugging the video camera, which kept saying 'dew' and cutting out! I couldn't abandon it. Finally we reached 'Carter's Camp' at the entrance to the vast cavern of Niah. It was my first experience of a huge bat and swiftlet cave, I climbed up and up inside the chambers, the swiftlets noise was like something out of Alfred Hitchcock's 'The Birds'. Our conversation centred on bats, newspapers, Manchester United and the swiftlets and birds nests and the poles that the birdnest stealers used to get the nests, and on how much they'd fetch, depending on the colour of the bird's spit.

When we finally got back to the VIP lodge, I opened my suitcase to get my mosquito defenders - smoke coils. net and 'Jungle Formla' and to my amazement I found bags of Singaporean fruit - mangosteen, jackfruit, logons, a huge jar of Palm Beach East Coast hot chilli sauce and a bag of still warm banana fritters 'Pisang Goreng' made for me by Hamimah's mother that morning. They were so kind. It was a lovely surprise to have a bit of my friends' thoughts with me.

I breathed in the night air, the noise of the jungle was constant, the heat unrelenting, and then the rain, thunderous rain, never ending rain, heavy rain and the bats flew in and out, and lizards crawled up the walls of the lodge. 'Stephen' made supper, and we ate by candlelight - I tuned in my world radio and heard the devastating news that a bomb had gone off in Warrington. England was so far away. I was in the middle of nowhere, tucking into rice and something else and drinking bottled water. 'Well, this is really fantastic, the rain forest is so beautiful, we've got nothing like it in the UK, you are so lucky' I gushed. Stephen looked at me and smiled "but you have Mr Bean' he said. He was very taken with the chilli paste, as I was, and since there was little point in taking it from hotel to hotel, I gave it to him as a parting gift, and he took a rattan bracelet from his wrist and gave me it in return as a reminder of him and Niah.

"Welcome to Kuching, Kuching means 'Cat' so this iz 'Cat City, it has a population of… and this is the tallest building 11 storeys high" said the mini-bas driver. I'd heard it the first time. The 'mini-bas' driver from the airport, asked me what I was doing in the evening, and would I like to go to the 'disco', however, he still had a couple of airport runs to do before he could escort me to the disco. So, I said, 'OK, I'll come with you to the airport'. I was soon 'wowing the new Kuching internees' with my knowledge of Kuching, and they thought I'd been there for years.

The Disco was in the basement of the hotel. That was the first time, I had seen men dance with men and women stand at the sides chatting and giggling. In Malaysia it's not unusual for men to hold hands in public. But a man and a woman must be married to each other to do the same or at the very least betrothed. Kuching was a mix of shophouses, mopeds and mini-bases, and in 1992 McDonalds had also arrived. The mini-bas driver escorted me from the disco and to my room, and asked me where I had got my 'rattan' bracelet from, I explained it was a token from my Niah guide, he said he'd give me another one if I slept with him!! I said "Malam malam" and pushed him out in the corridor.

In the morning I was mini-bas'd again to the Holiday Inn Damai beach, a really fantastic hotel 'kompleks', brilliant for 'water-sports'. Next to the Dami Beach is the 'Culture Village' which boasts a selection of reconstructed traditional houses reflecting the diversity of the Sarawak population. I did all the 'touristy' things - 'House of Skulls', 'Fishing Village', 'Canopy walk' and chilling. That evening, I was invited to a 'Karaoke' at a chinese restaurant on stilts. I sang and sang and sang, and the diners made paper roses and gave them to me. However, the oyster omelette attached itself to my stomach. I was tired, very tired, and now my stomach was blighted with food-poisoning, and I was wearing a white skirt, white and yellow are not a pretty sight. I made it back to the hotel, and lay in the bath all night pouring water on myself to cool me down, I was so weak. In the morning, I discovered charcoal tablets at the 'drug-store'. They did the trick. I then sought more fun. It came when I finally got to the Tanju Aru Beach Hotel in Kota Kinabalu in Sabah.

I looked around for something to do and found it. 'White-water rafting' on the Padas River.

"I'm sorry Ms Kramer, but you have to be in group, no British group want to go!" - "Typical" I thought, those lily-livered Brits, in cosy couples, I was 'single'. "OK, any non-Brit group?" - the receptionist told me to wait. She rang up Patrick, and asked him if he and his friends would like to meet me, and decide if they wanted me to join their group. Patrick was from Singapore, and there was Cheu, and Nwee Ing. I took a taxi downtown to see them, they were staying in a cheap chinese hotel in KK. The lift was pokey and washing was hanging everywhere. Patrick was tall, with black bushy eyebrows and a full crop of black hair and a very big smile. They were delighted to meet me, and we went for a cheap chinese meal, and they agreed it would be a good idea for me to join them the following morning.

We were taken to Tenom on the train from Beaufort, the train is pulled by an old Perkins Diesel engine, and stops for chickens and goes so slowly you feel that the man with the red flag is standing at the front. It's exciting too, seeing the Padas river for the first time with it's white angry looking brown rapids. We got off the train and were soon being fitted up with life-jackets and helmets, and instructed on 'dos' and don'ts'. 'Don't panic if you fall out, fold your arms and put your feet in front of you. If you get into a 'washing machine' situation' hold your breath and crawl out. If you feel you are going, go, don't hold on". I was placed in the middle at the front, and Patrick sat next to me on my right-hand side. Patrick whispered "if I get bumped, I'll hold on to you". I think he thought that because I was the fattest in the group, I was a good insurance against falling out!

The first thing our instructor did was to tip us all out of the boat, it was then that I realised just how warm the water was, it was like a tepid bath lovely, I swam and swam and with all my strength hauled myself back into the raft. We paddled and bobbed over rapids, they all had names, but the first really big one, Patrick grabbed hold of me, I could not save him, I pushed him off, as he would have had me out too!! He was the first casualty, but followed the rules, and was soon back in the Raft. It was fun. Eventually we reached the end and had a picnic, before putting on our dry clothes that we'd stored in a waterproof drum in the raft. From that point on, Patrick and Nwee and Cheu became good friends of mine, and I leant that 'chit-chat' was used by Singaporeans to discuss what they did "Shopping, chit-chat, eat". The following year, we all met up again and went to Taman Negara on the West Malaysian Peninsula. But for now, my next destination was Sandakan "The Land Below the Wind".