We arrived in KL late at night having flown through a thunderstorm landing in the rain. We went from the relative calm of the plane to organised chaos in the arrivals hall. There were people everywhere and along one side were bus and taxi stands with people shouting over each other. We decided to get the bus to KL Sentral which took about 1 hour. We had no problem getting to it as we got stuck in a herd of people being moved onto buses. Once at KL Sentral we manged to catch the last train of the night at 11.30pm to Pasar Seni. We only had a short walk then to our hostel but neither of us felt that comfortable walking around the quiet streets in the dark and were relieved to get into the gorgeous hostel.

The next day we had a relatively lazy plan. We walked over to the lake area in the city centre past the National Mosque and ended up at KL bird park. This was fun though. We saw more peacocks in one space than we have probably ever seen. There was also a crazy large pigeon with red eyes that started doing some kind of threatening dance at David banging its head on the floor and calling loudly. Before we had finished though the thunder started and we headed for shelter at the cafe where we were then stuck for over an hour due to the torrential rain. Once it finally eased we quickly finished the park and then headed for the National museum in case the rain came back. It proved quite hard. KL is not a fan of building footpaths or any kind of path across large busy roads. We did get there though and read about the early days of Malay kingdoms and the Malay emergency in the 1950s when guerilla communists caused numerous terror attacks and spread fear throughout Malaysia resulting in a curfew at one point when people could only leave there house between 12-2pm!

In the evening we took a stroll through the night markets (Shirley you would absolutely love these!).

The next day we had planned a complex way to get to the Batu caves just outside of KL. I went to check this with the receptionist who looked at me and said "why not just get the train direct?" Yep we can be that silly sometimes and he was right it was cheap and took us right up to the start of the caves. It seemed to be the place to come with your family for a Saturday afternoon. Batu caves are made up of three large caves within which are several Hindu temples. Surrounding it outside are several more temples, street stalls of food and souveniers but also a 43m high gold Murga statue, which apparantly is the highest in the world. The thing that attracted me though were the numerous tiny monkeys around the base that were bouncing around, stealing bananas and eating them high up on the outside cave walls. We climbed the 272 steps and entered the cave. The first thing we found was a chicken and then several temples. There was a large sinkhole in the ceiling creating a beautiful pattern as water slowly fell from the top and caught in the sunlight.

We didn't stay too long but on our way back to the station we stopped for cold coconut juice. The way the guy chopped the top off with his massive sharp meat cleaver was plain scary. Next to him I found a man making swirly dough shapes and then frying them so we gave them a go to. They did taste great but one each was plenty given the amount of oil you could taste in them.

Back on the train we decided to head to Little India and try a vegetarian restaurant that had been recommended. We had the name and the street. We walked up and down the street numerous times but couldn't find it. Almost giving up we finally stumbled across it and it was full which suited us fine as a sign of a sensible place to eat. Unfortunately the service wasn't good and it took us an hour and half to eat in the end but the food to be fair was tasty. I had a rice pancake with vegetables within it served with various sauces and David had a "quick meal" with chappatti, two types of rice, savoury rice pudding and sweet apple rice pudding.

After this we headed back to relax in the hostel. At this point David decided to go and get a haircut. Sometime later he returned looking slightly flustered but with shorter hair. Interestingly the price was lower if you were balding (David was very happy paying the full price!). It was a normal haircut to begin with but when David thought the guy had finished he put the apron back on and slapped lemon scented fluid on the back of his neck where he had been shaving his hair, almost bringing tears to his eyes. This was followed by a bottle of pink, clove-smelling liquid being poured onto his head and rubbed in. He quickly left me reading to go and shower.

The next day we had a relaxing morning at the hostel before grabbing our bags and heading out to find the long distance bus station. We both felt overwhelmed by the crowds we had to negotiate on the pavements and the degree of traffic and fumes and looked forward to a smaller town. We had booked tickets the previous day and ended up on a VIP coach which meant there were only three seats instead of four. We therefore snuggled down for our 4 hour drive to the Cameron Highlands.

We hope everyone is ok back home, more soon!