When we left Penang for Kuala Lumpar it decided to chuck it down, the rain was so heavy and after waiting for a while we decided to just make a run for it to the local bus which took us to the main bus station. We found tickets for a KL bound bus no problem and waited in a rather unsightly bus station which looked like the extinct tricorn in Pompey. It also smelt of wee!

The bus journey was very smooth, Malaysia has really good motorways and good safe buses. So we cruised along in the rain for about 5 hours, to the left and right all you could see was jungle. There was something about the journey that reminded me of the motorway journey up to Wales (I think because it was raining!)

Anyway we got dropped off in the main bus station in KL central and walked to Raizzys hostel that we had prebooked. It was located in Chinatown, the hostel was OK we had a small box room with shared bathroom but pretty good for 12 pound a night. We went off to explore straight away, ate some beef noodles and went around the night market in Chinatown which was lots of dodgy handbags and watches! The following day we went shopping for some bits and pieces, they have really good shops in KL, including the Times Square mall that is so big it has a rollercoaster inside! I also got my haircut as the Burma hairdo was looking a bit crappy now.

The following day we took a train out to the Batu caves which is very important to Hindus, they have a big temple at the top of over 200 steps inside a cave. At the bottom of the steps is a huge golden statue of a warrior person. I think the thing we found most fascinating about the caves were all the wild monkeys there. They were climbing up and down the steps and grabbing anything they could from unsuspecting tourists. I was armed with my umbrella again! They were so naughty, one of them was tucking into a flower garland stolen from the temple! We huffed and puffed to the top of the steps and went into the cave, you can walk by the temple and into another opening up some more steps and this was monkey HQ! They were everywhere, in the opening of the cave there was a steep cliff which had the most monkeys we have ever seen, it was crawling with them and some of them were big b*****s - I must admit I was a little bit scared of them as they kept sticking their teeth out and then walked around you rather intimidating!

We had one more day in KL and went to the Petronas towers, we were considering going up there to the viewing deck but it was over 20 pounds each. Instead we enjoyed viewing them from this lovely park in front of them which was very peaceful. Directly in front of the towers are some water fountains. Lots of families and tourists were sitting on benches and walking around so it had a lovely atmosphere. Underneath the towers is another shopping mall which had some fairly expensive shops inside, we nearly bought a small bag of popcorn for 7 pound! As it got dark the towers lit up in all their glory and the fountains changed colour to some music which was really pretty. We then spent about an hour trying to get the perfect Petronas picture which is really hard to get them all in the same picture - Kam was determined and climbed over the railings of a bridge to snap away before getting told off by a rather concerned local! We also had some food which was rather unsavoury chewy duck noodle soup.

KL was great, it's changed quite a bit since our last trip, its so multi-culural and it's interesting to have such a big Indian / Chinese mix. Only downside of KL was in certain areas it really smelt of old urine, especially around the area we were staying - and there was a big old rat in our hostel we bumped into one night ewww!

Next stop SINGAPORE!