For the journey to Kuala Lumpur we were on a 'luxury' coach, which was very nice. Air con, (which is standard in every vehicle in South East Asia, but unfortunately just that little bit too cold) comfy reclinable seats, even a film playing from a tv at the front of the coach! We were both wearing our linen trousers and had hoodies to hand, both because of the air con and due to being up early in the chilly Highlands to catch our ride. Upon arrival in KL, it was clear that these were the last things we needed - it was absolutely roasting!

After trudging our way through the streets with our bags, we were getting hot, sweaty, and a little agitated from the heat. Our savour appeared in the form of KL's monorail system, a modern air conditioned 'sky train' sent from the heavens to whisk us to our hostel! We jumped on for the 20minute ride to our stop taking in views of the city along the way. When we arrived at our stop, much to the dismay of Nikki we didn't head straight for where we were staying, instead, we found ourselves standing among the locals in the midday heat outside a TV shop for one very odd (but completely exciting in Andys case) reason - wrestling. You see this shop played nothing but various WWE events on it's 30 odd TVs (meaning you could watch up to 10 different events at once!), and all day everyday you would find locals stood watching. As Andy hadn't seen any WWE for a while and as most of the events cost £15 a go to watch on Sky, we stayed for around 15minutes whilst Andy took in a version of wrestling heaven like a kid on Christmas eve! It was actually pretty cool to be there with the locals and have a common interest albeit one we didn't think we'd share in a million years.

We had booked to stay at the 'Hostel Cosmopolitan' which was sat 4 storeys up. It was a spacious, clean, cool (both temperature and atmosphere wise) environment with a TV, free internet, books, various leaflets and maps, breakfast, and 2 resident cats who we of course came to be very good friends with!

Other than a few sights that KL has to offer, the only other thing to do is shop. Never have we ever seen (and we've both been to New York!) so many shops in one place. There are huge extravagant shopping malls everywhere! In each one of these would be goodness knows how many floors of thousands of shops - from clothes to books to electronics, you name it, they sell it (there was even a Topshop in the main one). One of them even had a full size rollercoaster inside it, ridiculous! Now baring in mind we're travelling, although we window shopped for a good few days the extent of our purchasing was - a book, magazine, toothpaste, deodorant, and a box of 6 cupcakes! We didn't really compare to people with their Gucci, Louis Vuitton and Sony bags who had clearly spent a fortune! Still it was fun to have a browse albeit very tiring, going from one mall to another all day isn't as easy as it sounds! As that made up a lot of our time there we'll list the sightseeing things we did during our 5 days in the city rather than a day by day account.

• We took a local bus to a place just outside the city called Batu Caves. This is a large Hindu site where they have several caves and one main one which serves as a place for people to go and pray, and where thousands of people descend during various religious holidays. Once a year in January and February you will find around a million pilgrims here during a festival where many people pierce their cheeks with all manner of objects from knives to TV aerials to replica swordfish (you may have seen this on TV before)! To get into the main cave you have to walk up 272 steps which is made all the more difficult by the few monkeys around who won't hesitate to grab anything they want from you!

Before the ascent we ate to give ourselves some energy and were spoilt for choice! As Hindus are usually vegetarians, there was a huge restaurant serving many different types of curry, naan breads and chipatis - all veggie of course, no meat on the menu! Once we started the climb we found it was quite steep but when we stopped for a rest, all we had to do was turn around to see some really nice views with the city centre off in the distance. Unfortunately the main structures of the city (the Petronas Towers and the KL Tower) were obscured by what guards the cave. Standing just in front of it, is a Hindu statue of monstrous proportions! Standing 43m high, it is the highest of it's kind in the world and a brilliant piece of work. Unfortunately the inside of the caves weren't as nice as the outside. Although the cave itself was naturally beautiful, there weren't any temples or 'rooms' you could enter and there was a lot of litter (probably from the monkeys) and a lot of graffiti (probably from humans resembling monkeys). But, it was a nice place to see that just needed a little bit more care.

• We headed off on our own little walking tour to take in a couple of the sights. Our first port of call was the KL Tower which is the 4th highest telecommunications tower in the world. The tower also sits within the small and only piece of rainforest left within the city. It has been left there to try and counteract the many cars on the roads, and to try and keep the air quality within the city at a decent standard. The area is still home to troops of monkeys, birds and other wildlife although we didn't need to go any further than the visitors centre at the entrance to encounter our first primate! A resident of the centre was a smallish young monkey who had been abandoned by her mother. Needless to say the lack of fellow monkey friends meant she was very hyperactive and wanted to play all the time. Seconds after seeing her for the first time she had already leapt onto Andy and on to Nikki's shoulder to try and grab our water bottle! We sat and played with her for 5/10minutes with Andy at one point having to wrestle his earlobe out of her grip! Although she did eventually calm down enough for Andy to be able to cradle her and give her some water, which was very sweet.

We only needed to walk through the forest for a minute or so before arriving at the base of the KL Tower. With a viewing deck at 276m, the panoramic views are apparently unbeatable. We say apparently, because we didn't actually go up the tower! Tickets to go up were really expensive, so we just enjoyed the tower itself from ground level!

We then headed towards the world famous Petronas Towers. The buildings really are amazing, connected to each other by a skybridge on the 41st floor (not even halfway up!). Tickets are on a first come first served basis so you have to be up at 6am at the latest to queue for them, again we decided against this! The skybridge itself is the only thing you can do inside the towers, although they do sit on top of yet another huge mall! We just sat there in the sun taking our souvenir photos before making our way back to the city centre as we knew we'd be heading back here one evening where the towers are even more spectacular looking.

• On our final day we did the ultimate thing in any tourist's itinerary - the hop on hop off bus tour of the city. This meant we could get to see parts of the city we hadn't been able to get to before and served as an ideal mode of transport for the day! There were headphones for each seat and every now and again a voice would speak to give you a little bit of information on what we were passing by. We didn't actually 'hop off' until around lunchtime as we were enjoying just sitting in our seats getting a guided tour of the city. We did get out in Chinatown and ate a very un-chinese meal at 'Kenny Rodgers Family Roast', an American chain of restaurants started by the country and western singer! Not very cultural but it meant we could have a decent meal of a jacket potato, beans, macaroni cheese and salad - heaven to us as we found KL hard to eat in. Everything has meat in it (apart from the dedicated veggie restaurants but you have to make a trip just to get there), so you can't stop and have a quick lunch without resorting to Pizza Hut for example. So whenever we saw a Kenny Rodgers we made sure to stop and eat! We did also eat at KL's Hard Rock Cafe one evening, both as a treat and because they had a huge veggie burger on the menu - something we couldn't pass up!

The next place we got off was at the Royal Palace where the King resides. It was only a 5minute stop but in that window we were lucky enough to see a changing of the guard, which consisted of 2 guards on foot and 2 guards on horses swapping with 4 new soldiers and 2 new horses. We were really pleased we managed to catch it as some people head there just to see it. Also, we were informed by the mysterious voice on the bus that the Palace was originally built by a miner (back in the days KL was a tin mining town) to house his 15 wives and many many children!

Then it was back on the bus before getting off for a walk around the Lake Gardens, specifically the deer park. This housed different types of deer including the smallest species in the world, the Mousedeer. They were the size of a cat and very timid. We were very lucky to see a baby Mousedeer which was absolutely tiny, you could have sat him in the palm of your hand!

After the little respite in the park we then got back on the bus for the final leg where it took us to the Petronas Towers. As mentioned earlier, the buildings must be seen at night during any trip to KL so we spent our evening here. With a couple of hours to kill before it got dark we ventured into the mall underneath the towers. We were pleasantly surprised to find it wasn't all Gucci and Tiffany's (which was all you could see from the outside!) so we didn't feel out of place! Low and behold we also found a restaurant that was both cheap AND vegetarian, somewhat of a rarity in a KL mall! So we were able to have a nice meal before heading outside to sit and watch the water fountains dance while the sun went down. Obviously the darker it got, the more the towers began to claim their place as the prettiest buildings around. We sat relaxing until it was completely dark before walking back around to the front of the towers for more photo opportunities. When the lights are turned on and there are no clouds in the sky what stands in front of you is quite stunning. Not something we ever throught could be said about a steel structure!

This brings to and end the extent of our stay here. Finishing it off with what is arguably the best sight in the city was a great way to do it. Kuala Lumpur is a huge city of contrasts. Only 150years ago it was a tiny tin town, and since then the growth and change has happened at a pace faster than anywhere else on the planet. What we found frustrating was that you had these awe-inspiring structures and megamalls that have cost billions, yet a minute down the road you will find old buildings with rubbish through the streets. We found ourselves wishing they had spent half as much on the modernisation, and the other half on bringing up to standard the places that needed it - where all the locals lived! Even just hiring locals as street cleaners would solve two problems, making the city look nicer as a whole (rather than concentrating on the few 'streets of gold' where they expect foreigners to stay) and mean more people are employed. However unless either of us are elected as KL's next Mayor it doesn't look as though these policies will change! Still, we enjoyed our few days here and are pleased we were lucky enough to see the things we did.

Now for an even bigger contrast and another new country (woohoo!) - Indonesia. More specifically the relaxing island that is Pulau Weh just off the north of Sumatra...