In order to reach Kuala Lumpur we had to endure our first experience of an overnight sleeper train and in traditional backpacker style we decided only the cheapest bunks would do…… after clearing Singapore customs we made our way to carriage L2 and towards bunks 25 & 27 (top), each carriage consisted of about 40 bunks about the size of a camp bed all in a line with only a curtain to save your modesty! We found the experience hillarious particularly when two elderly malaysian women boarded about 50 mins into the 8 hour journey and occupied the bunks below us, lets just say the bodily noises they were producing were not pleasant ones. We managed to fall asleep very quickly, twice in fact as you have to get off 2 hours into the journey and clear Malaysian customs.

We woke up to the trains announcement of arrival in Kuala Lumpur a little after 6am and rather easily managed to negotiate our way around KL Sentral (yes we know how to spell, its spelt with an S over here) and find our hostel only one MTR stop away. The Reggae Guest House was a very nice, clean little place located in China Town and adopted the taking shoes off outside policy so everyone was walking around barefoot (actually made it feel quite homely).

The MTR made it extremely easy to go off exploring during the day and we enjoyed the obvious tourist stops such as Petronas Towers but also managed to find fantastic little markets hidden away from the street where Joanna felt compelled to photograph every food cart we passed. The Petronas Towers at night were amazing to see and a complete contrast to the filthy streets that mostly made up the parts of KL we saw….. it is a very unique place to travel.

We decided Kuala Lumpur would be the place to arrange our Chinese visa and about time too as Jo had become increasingly worried that we would even be “accepted” meanning our flight from Beijing would be useless and we would be stuck in Thailand forever……. She was very careful filling out the application form taking extra care not to enter any details that may upset the chinese authorities, anyone would think she had committed a crime there years earlier! Luckily her dark and mysterious crime ridden past in China went unnoticed and we walked out later that day with our visas!

Five nights in KL were done and next stop is Phuket……