Well after a not so good start we ended up having a great day in Kuala Lumpur. We had a fantastic lunch in 'Little India' and met a lovely Malay couple who shared our table. From there we went to the Menara Kuala Lumpur Tower or KL Tower for short! It's 421m high and has an observatory deck which has views of the whole city. This was brilliant and it was really good being able to see the Petronas Towers from this high up. Later on that day we had a wander round Central Market and went for a great meal in Chinatown. We have certainly eaten well here!

On Friday we got to the Petronas Towers (again!!) at 7.30am to find an absolutely massive queue!! We later discovered that the first person in the queue had arrived at 6am!! When the desk opened at 8.30am the tickets were issued and we managed to get a 9.30am visiting slot - good for us because we had a bus to catch!! When it was time for our 10 minute slot on the skybridge on the 41st floor we had fun but the view from the KL towers was much better. We then headed back to our hostal to collect our bags, check out and we just managed to catch the 11am bus to Melaka.

Two hours later we were at Melaka bus station getting a public bus into the town centre. After again, getting the last room in our hostal we dumped our bags and went off to explore because we only had the rest of the day to see Melaka. Our first stop was the town square, from there we went to Chinatown looked round the chinese temple, Cheng Hoon Teng (Green Clouds Temple) which is Chinatowns most famous temple, dating to 1646. It's Malaysia's oldest chinese temple and all the materials used in its building were imported from China. That night we had an excellent indian with the locals, eating curry off a banana leaf with our right hand!!!! Great fun!!

The next day we were up at 6am to catch the public bus to the central bus station were we caught the 8am bus to Singapore. After crossing the border we arrived in Singapore five & a half hours later and walked to the nearest Mass rapid Transit (MRT) train system which ultra fast. clean, efficient and comfortable!! Alot nicer than the London Underground!! We found a really nice hostal in 'Little India' called the Prince of Wales which has cold beer on draught and a great atmosphere. Since we've arrived we've eaten a couple more fantstic curries and visited a brilliant Dim Sum restaurant in Chinatown. We've also visited the amazing Night Safari which opens from 7.30pm until midnight. Here a thousand animals representing over a hundred species - among them elephants, rhinos, giraffes, leopards, tigers, lions, hyenas, otters - play out their nocturnal routines under a forest of standard lamps. We got a tram around most of the safari but were then able to jump off and follow the walking trails which included a visit to the flying fox enclosure were we saw massive bats flying past us - bit scary but very funny!! We also got chatting to a lovely girl called Suman who looked after the fishing cat trail and was feeding the Mousedeer and the barking deer. She told us about a guy who dropped his camera into the Gharial enclosure and decided to jump in after it - extremely dangerous and not a very good idea!!! We got home at midnight after a very busy day but brilliant first day in Singapore.

Today we got the train to the Chinese and Japanese Gardens which were beautiful and very peaceful. The highlight was the Bonsai Garden, with hundreds of miniture trees and the lovely pagodas which we were able to climb to the top and enjoy views of the whole gardens. After the gardens we had a look round Chinatown, visited another chinese temple and then went to do some window shopping round all the amazing shopping centres and see the christmas lights to get us in the mood! Tonight we treated ourselves to a 'Singapore Sling' cocktail at the famous Raffles Hotel which was lovely and we're now off to pack ready for our 9am flight to Sydney. We wish you all a VERY Merry Christmas and a Happy new Year. Lots of love, Abbie & Jem xxxxxx