Kuala Lumpur 7-11 December

We booked our bus south to KL and were impressed when it turned out to be a super-flash executive job with seats that are about 5-feet wide and massage you as you travel the 6 or so hours south, all for about £7 each. Arriving at the bus station, somewhat out of town, we boarded a local bus to Chinatown, again the hub of Backpacker digs. As we drove along the highway, we were both scanning the skyline for a glimpse of the Petronas Towers, the former tallest buildings in he world that KL is so famous for.

Following Yankee Bob's advice, we checked into a hostel called The Monkee Inn. It's cheap, includes breakfast, has comfortable beds and a DVD lounge where everyone hangs out watching films. It's also pretty new so everything is clean. I'd recommend it to anyone on a budget in KL for all those reasons - obviously there's a time constraint on the 'it's new' bit, so don't go there in ten years and say I lied about it being clean and new!

KL is a great summary of Malaysia in that it has a little bit of everything that makes up the country. There's a Chinatown with a crazy bustling street market on Petaling Street and great authentic food stalls selling claypot Chicken and Rice, there's a Little India, and also the ultra-modern area's in KL City Centre, punctuated by the Petronas Towers and huge shopping mall at their base with shops ranging from Chanel and Versace to Marks & Spencers and Topshop. There are Churches and Mosques and Temples and all the things that make Malaysia the multi-cultured country it is.

On our first day we took a bus out to the Batu Caves, a Hindu pilgrimage site just outside the city that features a huge cave complex over 100m high that has been turned into a number of temples of worship, reached by a long staircase of 272 steps that rise up into the limestone cliffs. A giant gold statue 50m high guards the entrance to the steps and the whole effect is awe-inspiring. Less impressive are the multitude of souvenir shops at the top of the steps, selling a whole range of tacky crap and generally ruining the ambience! Every year there is a festival where Hindu's flock to the caves and carry big containers of milk to the top as an offering, some carry these containers by attaching them with hooks through their skin. Some of the images of this are impressive, but I fail to see why anyone would buy one in a neon red plastic frame with 'Batu Caves' in gold writing. The walk to the top was good for the calves - something I had to keep reminding Janine as she cursed the fact that she has 'lost all her fitness since the summer' - and the caves themselves are impressive, you could fit a 10-story building into the main one and still have room for the souvenir stalls.

That evening we made our way to see the Petronas Towers lit up at night, via a trip up the giant adjacent KL Tower. They charge tourists through the nose to go up it, but once you reach the top the views of the city are impressive as the tower stands on a hill, and you get a video tour guide to narrate them. Once back on firm ground we continued the walk through the business district, past a number of big western style bars full of businessmen letting off steam over a beer that cost more than our daily budget (being a predominantly Muslim nation, alcohol is very expensive in Malaysia!) and eventually arrived at the Petronas Towers. It's difficult to describe how impressive they are, having seen them scaled by Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible, they don't disappoint in the flesh. At night they're lit up and shine like two giant beacons against the night sky. The Malaysians are rightfully very proud of them as a symbol of their emergence as a modern nation and when we asked a security guard to take pictures of us in front of them he was more than happy to help - plus the way he directed us like he was David Bailey led us to think he'd probably done this a million times before. We got the obligatory hilarious touristy shots of us 'leaning against' the Towers and made our way home on the Metro.

The next morning we got up early (8am is early when nobody is making you get up) to make our way back to the towers and get in line for a ticket to the Skybridge. They only have a limited number of tickets per day and they run out fast, so you have to queue in a snaking line before you can pay your 10 Ringgit (£2) and get your allotted time to go up. We had a couple of hours to kill and spent them wandering around the shopping mall and the gardens behind the Towers (complete with their own swimming pool and childrens playground the size of a small town) until we were eventually herded up to the 41st floor to take in the views from the Skybridge.

Having received the awesome news earlier in the day that we had free accommodation in Singapore, we decided to splash out on dinner at Nando's, looking every bit the greedy Europeans with our set meal for 4 between the 2 of us. Totally worth it.
We spent our final day in KL by heading over to the World Trade Centre where the International Motor Show was in town. Neither of us are petrolheads but were swayed by the fact that they had a replica of Bumblebee from the Transformers films! It was impressive, but would have been better if they had a replica of Megan Fox from the Transformers films! The motorshow itself was interesting, lots of expensive cars with tiny Malaysian women draped over them, but we were most impressed by the magic show performed by some American dude that had apparently also performed at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas (Tom Jones was probably busy that week), and so what if it was mainly aimed at the kids, we didn't care, he was awesome!

Our last night in KL was spent watching films in the hostel and playing cards with a group of guys that turned out to also be from Eastbourne, what are the odds!