Hi from Kuala Lumpur. The border crossing into Malaysia was easily the most pleasurable we have had - the border guards were even smiling - which is a first.

KL is nice - a very clean city, and you can even breathe the air. A relief for me I can tell you since the bronchitis has cleared up nicely while in Phuket & Ao Nang. Cal is also back to his old self after his gastro induced hospital stay. Now it is poor old Janie's turn. Nothing life threatening - it just looks bad (check out the photo). She has a black eye from of all things trying to give Cal a kiss goodnight. He chose the moment she bent down to suddenly leap up, headbutting her on the eyebrow. She went down for the count, and the resulting black eye is pretty impressive. Will post more photos as it matures - I don't think it is as black as its going to get.

Anyway accidents aside the KL Hilton is unbelievable. We have reached a new height in luxury. While the hotel is just outside the city proper, it is right beside the train station and monorail. This makes it simple to get there (we took a bus from the airport to the train station and then a train to the hotel). This morning we walked to the monorail station and caught that to the city. We have only really managed to go to the Petronus Towers, where they run organised tours to the skybridge 40 storeys up. It is spectacular so I took some photos. We also went to Times Square, and Janie & Cal are shopping as I write this blog. There is a reasonable amusement park in the centre (Cosmo's World for those that care). Earlier on Cal and I tried out some of the rides - the roller coaster isn't bad. We looked OK in the photo they take just as you go into the loop-the-loop so I purchased that. Again I will put it on when we get to our scanner.

No doubt Janie will want to tell you all about the food etc. My overall impression of KL is that it is very much like home - except of course we just walked past some policemen outside, and they were toting automatic weapons, so the need to take the police seriously seems a constatnt thoughout south-east asia. The road rules here also seem fairly sensible. As I said earlier it was madness in Phuket, but it did improve once we got to Ao Nang - the taxi ride from there to Krabi airport didn't even invoke any white knuckles.

By the way - thanks everyone for posting the messages, we really enjoy reading them (even the ones from Andrew whinging that he is at home). We wish we could share this experience with all our friends and family, so hopefully this site has gone a little way toward that. In answer to Wendy's question, yes we leave tomorrow but arrive back home on Thursday morning.

Anyway, cheers for now.

Shane