Landing in Dumai from Malacca we checked in (to the best hotel in town we were later told, not bad for £15 a night including breakfast) and went for a stroll.

Now, we quickly realised 2 things. Firstly, nobody in Dumai seems to walk anywhere so that made us stand out but secondly, not many Westerners hang around in Dumai so we were something of a novelty that meant everyone wanted to say hello and wave, whether they were sat down or driving past in a car or on a motorbike.

This was exacerbated by our habit of buying bags of sweets so we could offer any kids we saw a bit of candy, after checking with the parents first of course. I think Pip quickly became know as the candy lady and had to pose for a lot of pictures with the local residents.

Dumai is a mainly dry town in terms of alcohol but at about 5pm, after 90 minutes of walking, we really fancied a snifter so following a bit of random Googling by the side of the road I confidently led us to a bar I had found about 45 minutes away. Turns out it was a full on nightclub so the staff were a bit surprised to see 2 Westerners turn up at 6pm, but they let us in so we ended up sat in an empty and silent nightclub, that smelt really strongly of tobacco (you forget what it used to be like in England), with 2 drinks that cost more than our hotel.

Pekanbaru was reached after a 2 hour van journey where I noticed the driver face timing someone, while driving, and secretly pointing the camera my way as they had decided to sit the big fella in the front seat.

Not much to write about Pekanbaru apart from some very helpful people in the A&E department of the local hospital where we had ventured to get some advice on how to acquire prescription drugs that were proving impossible to get in pharmacies.

Imagine our surprise to find there were no queues of patients and at any point there were between 18 and 23 medical, admin and cleaning staff hanging around the desk with hardly a patient in sight. A very different situation to what you might find in an NHS hospital he last few years.