Kuala Lumpur - On the way back...

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We spent our last morning in Koh Samui packing the bags, dashing down the street to get some last minute goodies and relaxing by the pool. So nice! We've all really enjoyed Samui and all it has to offer. Maybe we'll be back one day.

Just a short taxi ride to the airport (albeit a rip off @ B400 considering it only takes 5 minutes) and we are checking in just as a massive thunder storm erupts around us. The rain and wind came out of nowhere and was severe enough to cut power and drive water right into the check in area. Glad we weren't just arriving! The airport is probably the cutest we've ever been to. Just a little departure lounge, complete with free refreshments and wifi. No walls again - so I'm not sure how they keep out people who aren't meant to be there??

Another excellent flight on Firefly, this time with clear skys and a window seat I was able to see the countryside slipping by below. Very interesting and it would have been great to have a map to get my bearings.

Arrived into Subang airport, and grabbed a taxi to the Park Royal hotel in Bukit Bintang again. Ravi the concierge remembered us and took it upon himself to teach the girls some Bahasa Indonesian, telling them that he would be giving them a surprise test next time he saw them (that made them fear running into him and from that point on were on "Ravi watch" whenever we entered the lobby). Our room this time around was in a different location and was much, much noiser. Not good!

We headed over the road to Times Square to find somewhere to eat. Not an easy task it turns out. Times Square doesn't have a food court like Pavillion so we ended up at a funny little local restaurant, whilst the girls bought subway and ate it with us.

The next morning we decided to flag our original plan to spend the day in Melacca and get on the Hop On Hop Off tour bus instead. We hadn't seen that much of KL and found this to be a brilliant way to get an overview of the city. They toured all the historical / touristy sites but we didn't get off until we got most of the way around the route tho' as the girls weren't interested in looking around old buildings. By lunch time we'd hit the convention centre and after a terrible lunch from the food court we headed to the adjacent Aquaria (aquarium). I'd debated whether I'd go in as I've just about had my fill of aquariums, but it really was very good and well worth the money. Why they have some animals on display tho' is beyond me - the conditions they are kept in was really sad.

Waited forever for the HOHO bus to come along again and in hindsight it would have been a much better idea to go on the monorail from this point on due to the horrendous traffic jams around Bukit Bintang at this time of the afternoon. We must have spent an hour going less than a kilometre but as we wanted to go to Chinatown we didn't feel there was much option but to suffer like everyone else.

Chinatown was very good despite it being extremely hot and really crowded. We did some fabulous shopping here in both the market and adjacent shops. Ashleigh spent most of her remaining money on little trinkets at a store selling beautiful ribbons, paper, boxes, bracelets, candles etc. I got my handbags, wallets, sunhats, sneakers and belts really cheap making it very worthwhile. The kids were tired after an hour or so and actually said that they were sick of shopping!!! Yeah, if it's not for them!! Caught the monorail back to the hotel and had Macca's for tea.

Our last day was spent doing the final shop - Jordi wanted some more nintendo games, Ash wanted some DVD's and I could have easily bought some more shoes if I had no husband or kids telling me I had too many already!! Spoil Sports!! The girls were keen to get on the indoor rollercoaster at Times Square so we paid for them to get in (very, very cheap) whilst Steve and I headed for the nearest coffee shop. Brilliant! They had a blast, but I think the fourth time on the coaster made them both feel sick for the rest of the day unfortunately.

The flight home wasn't until 11pm, but as I wanted to get there with plenty of time to spare considering the traffic we had encountered the day before we hailed a taxi, negotiated a fare and was on our way by 6:30pm. Typically, there was no traffic and in fact it seemed that we were the only vehicle on the road. It was good to be checking in early tho' as Air Asia are unbelievably inefficient in this process. They only had two desks open for two flights and the queues went for miles after us. Some people were getting really stressed out about missing their flights.

The flight home was pretty rough compared to our upgraded version going over. We fortunately had a spare seat between us, but none of us got much sleep. I think the girls have been spoilt in the past being small enough to lie over us and sleep relatively comfortably. Sadly, that's not possible now they are both adult sized! All in all tho' it was a fantastic trip for a very cheap price and no-one is complaining.

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