Right - after a flying stop in melaka a pretty town on the way to Kuala lumpur we headed up to the space age city of Malaysia where so many of the buldings look like they came right out of futurama.

Melaka was fun as we didnt do anything apart from chill out after the hustle and bustle of the previous few days. We had a lovely picnic on the roof of our hostel which had a pagoda type thing with pillows to sit on - then we headed down to the lounge where we sat and vegetated in front of the tv watching a classic girly film - The Body Guard!

Next day we were so excited to be moving on to Kuala Lumpur as we were meeting up with some great friends of ours who we hadn't seen since New Year's eve - for those of you who have been following the journal all the way through - you will know the ugly mugs anywhere :)!!! - yep it's Si, Chris and Steve - unfortunatley we dont have a stu as he's going home earlier than the other three but he will be missed loads! We were very excited to see them and once hugs and introductions of holly,lex and zoe (the lads mate from fiji) had been exchanged we set off for a night out to catch up :). Ever ones for getting into some kind of mischief, we ended up in a kareoke bar where classics like uptown girl (courtesy of si and chris), A whole new world, (courtesy of Round and Lex), Kung Fu fighting WWHOO CHA (courtesy of Si and Bennett) Your So Vain (courtesy of D), plus too many to list from Steve were belted out lol! Ended up having the microphone taken off us - yep it was shocking ha ha!

Next day was rather eventful as on the way to the petronas towers holly was victim to a motocycle snatch theif who took her bag which had her passport and travellers cheques in it - however we didnt let it get us down - we sorted it out and ended up going up the tower about 2pm. Great view of the surrounding city but kuala lumpur is rather dusty and lots of smog about so we reckoned the space age city would have looked better from the tower at night rather than during the day. Not a lot else to see in Kuala lumpur but we had fun with a few DVD marathons during the evening and lots of bartering for t shirts/ dvd's/ cd's and bags at the markets which are very lively and very colouful - the street sellers are such characters and we all had lots of fun haggling the prices of things down - si the male shopaholic in the group came away with quite a few bags :).

Leaving Kuala Lumpur we headed up through Malaysia on an overnight train to Penang - an island on the north western coast of Malaysia for a few days of sun sea and sand. After the ferry crossing the bus journey took us through a few pretty towns and into a small village with a gorgeous beach. Mainly we just lay about on the beach and ate soaking up the sunshine but Holly and Round went horseriding along the sand - it was such a great adrenaline rush to be in the saddle again - really good fun and a very relaxing few days. The sunsets were spectacular and the night markets were very interesting - every time the police came around every fake dvd or cd would be snatched out our hands with the sellers saying "wait wait" - then they would pack up wait for the police to leave and unpack and carry on selling - very funny! Actually didnt want to leave the beach paradise but we had so much to see that we had to move on - this meant our longest journey yet over night for 16 hours - destination? Bangkok Thailand!