Kuala Lumpar

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Hello! This is the first time I've logged back on since arriving in New Zealand to discover the updates I did on Tioman haven't - well - updated. Humph!!! How fed up am I??? So I'd better get on and re-do them - just aswelll it's raining outside eh??

So we flew from Siem Reap to KL. The airport was very little and we discovered our baggage was overweight. We were flying the equivalent of Easy Jet and the baggage allowance was somewhat less than any other airlines. Ah well after handing over $20 we carried on our way!! Until that is the employee who took our money off us, reappeared saying he no longer had our money. "Not our problem' said I, "we gave it to you", but all he could say in return was 'i haven't got it now'. Still I refused to budge and he gave up and walked away!

Our plane was so empty we could choose where to sit, but we still managed to sit near the wing, so we didn't get to see an awful lot! Of course this meant collecting our luggage and getting through immigration was a breeze. We then caught a connecting coach into the city, and everything was exceedingly cheap and easy to do.

Our hotel is a little bit dismal, well ok very dismal, but at least it's a room, or should I say oven!! The shower in the bathroom is well, umm, let me see just a shower head with about an inch of pipe attached to it - think we will do better by washing from the sink! But we don't plan to be long here and as long as we can get clean who cares!!

We are stopping in the China town area of KL which has meant lovely fresh food for our meals. It's been good fun watching the world go by from the street cafes and China town really comes into its own in the evening, it's definately the place to be.

The next day saw us hitting the sights of KL. Our first stop was to the Menara, the worlds fourth highest telecommunications tower. The lift whizzes you upto the observation platform in about a minute and the only way you notice you're going up is by your ears popping. The views are fantastic and we stopped up there for ages trying to take it all in, it was brilliant! Afterwards we headed for the Petronas towers which we didn't realise had a huge mall underneath it. Every top fashion has a shop there and for that matter in every other shopping mall in KL. I even found a M & S - well they do come in useful at times!!! We then headed to the aquarium, which was exceptionally good. Towards the end there is a 90metre walkway that passes you underneath and through the tanks. We then returned back to our little hotel via a fantastic tea shop that is opposite. Here we sampled (many times) and purchased rose bud and mint teas. We were shown how to correctly prepare tea (which is an artform in itself) and then sampled the wonderful tea that followed. Have rearranged my suitcase to accommodate various teas and implements we then caught the 10.00pm bus to Mersing for the onward ferry to Tioman.

We loved KL it is a fantastic vibrant city and so totally different to everything we've seen in the last few weeks.

Next stop Tioman!!

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