Kuala Lumpur

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Hello again everyone!

After a 5 and a half hour bus journey, we arrived in Kuala Lumpur from Penang. It was 6pm and walking around confused for an hour meant we didnt check into the Arenaa Mountbatten hostel on Jalan Yap Ah Loy (Jalan means street) until just after 7pm! That evening we went to Jalan Petaling - the big street market and had some cheap yummy dinner and then went to see the Petronas Towers all lit up which was fanastic and got some great pics!

The first day in KL, Sophie and I got up very early and jumped on a bus to Sunway Lagoon water park where we went on rides, saw lots of animals and went swimming in the huge pools and wave pools. On the second day we went to the deerpark, orchid park and walked around the giant Midvalley City Mall. We went to a club called the Beach club in the evening and drank a lot... The next morning Kevin, Kristin and Vinny checked out and went to Singapore early as they thought they would be meeting a friend there and Sophie and I stayed in KL as there was still so much we wanted to do! So Sophie and I left Arenaa Mountbatten hotel and went to KL's Reggae Mansion, similar to the one we went to in Penang but a lot bigger and nicer with a Skybar on the roof hosting a fantastic view of the city and the KL and Petronas Towers, huge courtyard and lounge area, 40 seat cinema and a cheap but great restaurant.

Some facts about KL:

. The petronas towers are 88 storeys high and are the tallest twin structures in the world.

. Batu caves has 272 steps

. Kuala Lumpur means 'Muddy Estuary' as it was established at the confluence of the Gombak and Klang rivers. Masjid Jamek sits on this very locations.

. Malaysia's national flower in The Bunga Raya or Hibiscus and even the street lamps have hibiscus flowers on them making them not only pretty but patriotic too!

We went on a city tour of KL that was organised by our hostel. City tours are the best way to see the sights of a city if you only have a short amount of time to do it in. We learnt the hard way in Penang and Langkawi having to miss things out because we got so lost that we ran out of time. Doing a tour, even though you think it might be more expensive usually works out cheaper and much more efficient. Our tour took us to see 8 places throughout the city and included entry fees, transport, lunch and a witty tour guide and only cost us 55 ringgit (11 pounds) whereas doing it ourself would have probably cost the same or more and taken 2-3 days to do it in.

We saw, the chinese temple, little india where 90% of the residents are of Indian descent, The city gallery - home to the tallest flag pole in the world, The war monument - sculpted by an englishman who apparently didn't know what Asians looked like so made them look European instead, The grandpalace where a yellow flag flying told us that the King was currently staying there. We then had lunch at a typical malay restaurant and saw the area called "Malay Village" and then we went to the Batu caves where we climbed 272 steps to see the wonders of the statues, bats and darkness that was there. Our tour guide told us we were his quickest group which made me feel nice and fit and to be honest what normally takes 20 minutes to climb took us about 5 minutes!! We also saw the "Dark Cave: which is the most researched ecological cave in the world and the home of the trapdoor spider (look it up on youtube if you want to know why quite rightly Sophie decided not to go in here). I didn't chicken out and went and had a look around the cave but luckily didn't come across any giant spiders!!

The next day we got up at 6:30 to see if we could get tickets for the Petronas towers' Skybridge which is strictly first come first serve with only a number of tickets sold each day. We lined up for over an hour and when we got to the front they only had 11am tickets available and by this time we had to be on a bus to Singapore so unfortunately we saved our 50 ringgits and took pictures and got on a bus instead.

Singapore was good, very hot and pretty expensive so we were quietly relieved that we were only staying for 2 days before jetting off to Cairns, Australia. In Singapore we went to the famous Raffles hotel and drank Singapore Slings as well as going to the first ever night safari park which was brilliant seeing all the animals which are normally nocturnal actually awake and doing things. We also went to Universal Studios and that was great fun too!

Now off to the Land Down Under!!

xx

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