We arrived in the crazy city that is Kuala Lumpur on Thursday after a relatively stress-free coach trip that took just four and a half hours. We didn't believe it was possible,but KL is actually more humid than Singapore and it was very hot, as again we were lucky in escaping any rain, with two days of beautiful sunshine.

On our first evening we hit the city to explore and were blown away by the dazzling lights and fantastic architecture. The Petronas Towers are the main focal point of the city and they didn't disappoint - check out the photo's, they are incredible. The sparkling pink observation tower was also a favourite with Jackie, naturally. After a delicious but inexpensive meal in the KLCC centre, next to the towers, we headed to the Sangria Bar (one of the only bars that wasn't holding a big Halloween party meaning it was free to get into) we patted ourselves on the back for being frugal then proceeded to spend what we would have spent on admission and some on a cocktail and Carling at Sangria Bar - at least we tried to be good!

It was an early rise on Friday to be one of the first in line at the Petronas Towers to get a free ticket to visit the sky bridge, 50 floors up, which is 170m of a tower that is over 400m high. Although we are glad that we did it for the view over the city, the towers were actually a lot more impressive from the ground. The best part, in fact, was the lift that travelled 10m a second, your ears popped as it moved.

The remainder of the day was spent walking around the entire city trying to find The Lake Gardens, we never did find that dam lake but we did find a nice enough park and accidentally stumbled across the national monument so were happy enough with that if not worn out from walking for over 3.5 hours.

Although Kuala Lumpur is beautiful by night, the daylight reveals a different story. As the city developed so quickly they haven't been able to catch up in destroying all of the old buildings. It is not unusual to see a brand new shiny tower block just metres away from a dilapidated building that looks as though it could fall down any minute. In order to cover the cracks they simply cover the nice buildings in lights - flashing lights, coloured lights, anything really so that the old buildings are barely noticeable. Other other observation was the blatant branding everywhere, brands such as Hewlett Packard and Cannon were plastered everywhere you looked, not the most strategic approach and a real shame when a giant KFC bill board gets in the way of your shot of the Petronas Towers.

We were ready to leave KL on Saturday for our three hour flight to Bali, eager to hit the beach. We sit here typing this from our hostel in the beautiful beach resort of Kuta...but that is another story, so we will leave it there and update on Bali very soon!

Hope everyone is well and thanks so much for your messages on the board, we do check it regularly.

Lots of love,

Steve and Jackie