Hello all, the journals today may be a little lacklustre as i am absolutely shattered after a hard morning in Kuala Lumpur - the capital of Malaysia. Its not the nicest city we have been to by far - polluted, crowded, smelly and the people are quite rude - spitting and snorting snot all over the street floors!!!! Add to this the fact that everyone has a major fascination with us it seems as they will not stop staring - really badly, like when we are just standing somewhere they walk past about 2 feet away and do not take their eyes off us for even a second!!! One family (when in Melaka) even asked to have a photo taken with us???!!!!! strange!!!!

This morning we woke up super early - 7am - to go to the famous petronas twin towers. Apparently they only issue 1000 free tickets a day and the queues start really early. We got there before 8am via the metro and were still WAY down in the queue!!! We ended up waiting for about an hour and a half - absolutely starving as we had no breakfast - and the tour only took about 15 mins max!!!! Straight up the lift to floor 41, out onto the skybridge that connects the 2 towers, a few photos and that was it. Just to add a bit more disappointment ... it was really hazy so the view wasnt as good as it should have been!! We were then going to go to the Batu caves via bus 11 - the bus that never turned up despite waiting for ages in the sweltering muggy heat!!!! We gave up in the end and booked our next bus to the Cameron Highlands.

The few days previous to this we spent in a smaller city called Melaka. It was about a 4 hr bus journey from Singapore. We then took a local town bus to our hostel which was a bit of an experience!!! That afternoon we just went for a wonder around the streets and in a shopping mall where we bought a new SIM card for you all to text us loads on - although apparently you are all above texting us eh??? Its been days now and not one text (no. is on the front page)!!!

The next day we took a walk around the old Portuguese Church - that is now in ruins - and went to the maritime museum, which was based in a replica Portuguese Galleon and charted Melaka's history of occupation by the Portuguese, Dutch and the British. It wasnt that bad to be honest but like most things in these countries it was all a bit rushed and shabby. Still it passed the day for us! My days seem to be always looking fwd to one thing and one thing only - and that is supper time when we can go to the hawker centres and eat good cheap food. Sarah on the other hand absolutely dreads them as they are mainly Chinese and Malaysian stalls and she hates all of the food that they serve up. This means that she has to pay 4 times the price for crap Western food. However, all is not lost, Sar has found out that she loves Thai food, and Thailand is only a week or so away!!!

I think that is about it so far. The only other thing i can think if is that we have found a new fruit that we both love!!! Rose apples, kind of a cross between an apple and a melon - they serve it at loads of stalls all cut up in little bags and you get a long cocktail stick to eat it with - kind of cute and really refreshing on these hot and sticky days!!

Oh and i just loooked at the photos and remembered the highlight of our Melaka stay - a long walk over kilometres and kilometres in the heat to reach the fabled destination that we have longed for during our long time away - TESCO!!!! Oh yes, we found a tesco in Malaysia!!!! We were so excited as this place saved us in our run up to coming away!!! We felt so at home even though they obviously sold all weird stuff!!!

Oh and I ate my first meal with chopsticks the other day, after days trying it in Bali, i finally managed to do it!!! yey!! .... But failed the next day when i was eating my pigs stomach soup and some noodle thing!!

Right then the highlands next for a cooler climate and some tea plantations!

x