Hello from Kuala Lumpur!! Since we last updated the blog we have moved on a few hundred kilometers into Malaysia! I'll start from Friday... where we were just heading off to Penang Hill!

Friday 27th Feb (pm)

We took a local bus to Sek LokSsi temple, the largest temple in Malaysia which was a gorgeous temple with milions of Budha statues everywhere! After viewing this, we decided to walk to Penang Hill railway station (about a mile away) and took the train/ cable car thing up to the top! The cable car, we worked out, operated on a a very basic pulley system which was slightly worrying since it was a near verticle climb up the hill with us in this tram thing! Another slightly dubious mode of transport where health and safety was not considered a strong point!

Anyway, we made it to the top and enjoyed stunning views over George Town, and the rest of Penang. We decided to walk around for a bit, and it was then we noticed above our heads literally hundreds of cobwebs containing GIANT SPIDERS (we later found out were called Orb spiders and are poisonous) at this point we were terrified and Penang Hill rapidly lost its appeal, so we hot footed it back on the train thing at a rapid pace!!!

Saturday 28th Feb

We decided to go and see a different side of Malaysia so got up at 5.15am and caught a bus to the CAMERON HIGHLANDS. The supposed 4.5 hour drive which actually only took 3 hours, was very scenic as the highlands are about 2000 metres above sea level and in dense jungle. It was very green and mountainous and beautiful to look at when our driver wasn't hurtling around mountain passes at ridiculous speed...at one point one of our fellow passengers yelled out 'i'd like to get my family home alive please'! The driver gave him the thumbs up but lit up a fag and continued to hurtle us around!
Anyway, we arrived in Tanah Rata, at about 9ish and located a hostel called Daniels Lodge - quiet dodgy but only 45 Ringgits per night (9pounds) for an ensuite double. We had a look around and couldn't see too many bugs so after a brief risk assessment decided we hopefully wouldn't endure too many bites! We had a look around the town, which despite being very remote had a Starbucks!!Unbelievable!!

We decided to book ourselves on a tour that afternoon. As part of our tour we visited a tea plantation and factory which was fascinating (pictures to follow shortly) and then a strawberry farm, bee farm, local temple, rose garden which had beautiful ornate local flowers e.g. orchids etc... and finally we visted a Butterfly farm which was fab! I was in my element (chris was terrified), i got to hold a giant milipede (very exciting), a grass hopper that was bigger than my hand, a orchid mantus, and a horned frog as well as lots of butterflies! Loved that! :O) Chris spent the majority of the time resisting all urges to swat anything that flew into a 2 foot radius of him!
This was also where we saw lots of Orb spiders (behind glass) and our guide kindly informed us these were highly poisonous!! Great!

By the time we had finished our tour it was absolutely bucketing it down with rain in a sort of tropical storm which apparently it does every afternoon in the highlands! The temperature was much cooler in the highlands which was nice not to be roasting for a couple of days!

Sunday 1st March

Despite seeing all those bugs the day before we decided that we would brave a jungle walk, so took ourselves off, map in hand for a light stroll in the jungle! It was really cool we saw a giant millipede running around, and a huge lizard about three times the size of the ones we had seen in Penang! We discovered a nice waterfall and then decided we ought to head back and get ready to catch the bus to Kuala Lumpur!

Got a VIP coach from Tanah Rata to Kuala Lumpur at 1pm for 28Ringgit (5.50 pounds) which was another 5 hour drive! We arrived in Kuala Lumpur at about 6.30ish and headed to our hostel which is located right in the centre. We are now in the process of exploring Kuala Lumpur and will probably be here for the next few days, so we will write again soon...

Thank you for all your messages, we love reading them (special thanks to grandad - i'm very impressed that you used a computer for the first time in 80 odd years :O) Love you lots and hope the cars ok?!