Our Malaysian adventure began with a double dose of China town. In the historic fishing town of Malacca, at the southern tip of the country, we spent one night exploring the city's lantern-lighted canal and its miniature art-shops and cafés. This Chinese-decorated area served up ice cream with sweet corn, red kidney beans, dark treacle, coconut sorbet and strawberry sauce. It was quite an awakening for my English taste buds. The contrasting textures of the individual ingredients were not appealing to me, Sam on the other hand really enjoyed it- but if you happen to come across one on a menu somewhere I recommend trying it as it was an interesting experience.

Then China town in Kuala Lumpur was set up quite similarly but just with hundreds more options. Here, stalls selling every meat under the sun, were scattered along the busy roads and the even busier side alleys. We managed to discover loads of tasty places to eat, but this was no fluke, as the place was heaving with gastronomical gems.

But, alas! for every ying there must be a yang: for our accommodation we slept in a box room with no window, dirty sheets, under a table fan that failed to cool the 34 degrees heat.

From these little pockets of China we took a bumpy mini bus, driven by a man who thought he was in a James Bond high speed chase, to Taman Negara. This is the country's jungle land and to get into the heart of the trees and animals we hopped on a three-hour boat ride down the Tahan River.

During our journey on this long, well-cushioned gondolier, we spotted water buffalo, kids playing in the vast water and birds chasing each other above bays of sand, however this was only to be the start of our wilderness experience.

In the centre of the woodland there were floating boat restaurants, mini marts and lots of local guides. Despite this, Sam and I decided to go it alone. After hiring a broken tent and picking up a very basic map, we set off into the leafy layer.

We had been warned the biggest danger for trekkers wasn't the tigers, elephants, Cobras and bears (all inhabitants of the jungle), but was walkers getting lost - some for weeks.

With this in mind I took my first steps in newly bought rubber shoes (for £7) and nearly stood on a long, strangely-coloured centipede.

Instantly the sudden spike in heat and moisture hit us as we left the safe haven of restaurants behind. I have never been so hot in my life. I was wearing long trousers and socks after hearing from two gap-year boys, who we played contract whist with until the early hours of the morning, had been nearly eaten alive by leeches. The Brighton boys, who were full of youthful energy and enthusiasm, said they looked down at their bare legs only to find scores the long blooding drinking insects.

There was no way I wanted to fall into the same trap.

The noise was also very different to anything I had heard before. Sometimes insects sounded like they were doing impressions of war sirens, other times there were screams, but always a constant loud humming consumed the air.

Feeling hot and scared I decided this was one of the bravest I had tried so far. Before we set off I overheard three Germans saying on their trek they had seen a brown coral long snake which a guide confirmed must have been a Cobra. This was something I wished I hadn't heard.

There were also big spiderwebs, home to even bigger spiders, but by this time the spiders didn't bother me: it was the unusal insects I'd never seen or heard before that caused me the most alarm.

Sam had it a lot worse than me though, he not only carried our six bottles of water but also our tent and all our food for the night leaving me the luxury of just carrying our camera which frustratingly ran out of battery at the start of our walk.

In the end, though, the most interesting animals we discovered on our little excursion into the unknown were three friendly Swiss: Raymond a teacher who worked for five months of the year and travelled for the rest, Prisca a friendly girl who believes in the power of Rekki and Phillip a carpenter who takes six weeks off a year to explore the world. We met them just as the last light was shining into the wooden hut that we had to sleep in for the night, after we discovered the poles for our tent were broken.

They brought cards and whiskey which kept us entertained until midnight. It was after they had gone to sleep that me and Sam heard a lone elephant walk straight past our little hut. We heard it approaching for about a minute then it strolled on past and kept going. At this point I was very pleased we were not in a skimpy little tent that could have easily been trampled on.

We were next awoken by a large, fat rat scavenging for our bread. In the dark it sounded a lot bigger than it probably was.

For our final day in the jungle we hired a boat and went across the rapids. This was a welcomed relief from the trek, no danger (or hardly any) - only fun.

From here we joined up with the Swiss again and got a seven-hour train trip to The Perhentian Islands on the the north-east point of the country.

Here me and Prisca spent an hour searching around Coral Bay and Long Beach for the perfect room while the three men sat and drank beer on the island's white sandy beaches. It was worth it though, as we managed to bargain our way to a cheap room at a very fancy hotel. This place had a private beach with its own reef, a lobby and welcome drinks.

It was amazing for snorkelling here. Sam saw a Stingray and shark while I saw some awe-inspiring fish and it was all surrounded by beautiful little hills, with clear waters, soft sand and palms trees.

At 5pm, every day, there is an international volley ball game on Long Beach. This game is a lot harder than it looks. I was amazed at how talented everybody else was but apparently lots of them had played it since being a child. After two hours I'd managed to achieve a serve that would at least get the ball over the net and some kind of technique to hit the ball up into the air.

Sam and I spent a few days in this utopia before catching a bus to Thailand. We left Malaysia with a renewed sense of positivity, agreeing that nothing was impossible, leading us to a long forgotten care-free perspective.