The bus got underway from Mersing and we were soon driving through lovely tropical countryside with palm trees and waxy-leaved jungle plants all along the roadside. After our early start we both dropped off to sleep, then alternated between dozing and reading as we carried on across Malaysia.

When we were awake, we enjoyed the scenery around us as we passed through hilly areas of tea plantations, flat areas of rice paddies cris-crossed with irrigation channels, and thick jungle alongside the road. I liked all the colourful local houses along the roadside with their corrugated metal walls and pointy roofs, and the road itself was in good condition, which made a nice change to the rest of Asia.

After a stop at a petrol station we finally approached KL on the motorway and then pulled off towards some huge bus station/shopping mall/multi-storey car park with roadways winding all around and through it like wild spaghetti. Our bus driver drove some insane loop around this massive structure and finally dropped us in the middle of it. We had absolutely no idea where we were but managed to find out from an information desk inside that we needed to either get a taxi or a shuttle bus into the city.

We made our way down to ground level and took a seat at the shuttle bus stops. In the end we had to wait another hour before we finally got on a bus and headed into KL. By this time it was dark, but we got a great view of the city skyline, occasionally lit up by massive lightning streaking across the sky, as we made our way into town. The massive Petronas towers looked particularly amazing lit up like two silvery rockets from an old science fiction film.

We were soon dumped somewhere around Chinatown, and gathered up our stuff to walk through the busy streets to find somewhere to stay. We took a walk down the covered Petaling Street through busy tourist market stalls, and around some of the nearby streets, checking out one or two places before eventually settling for the Grocers Inn down an alleyway off one of the Chinatown streets. We got a small, windowless room in the middle of the building for an alright price. I'm sure we could have found better but we had been on the go since just after 6am and couldn't be bothered searching around any longer.

After dumping our bags we realised we were starving, having not eaten since our pizza about 10 hours ago. We went out into the streets of Chinatown, taking our laundry with us to drop off at a nearby place, then went to a restaurant near our hotel on the way back where we got some tasty spring rolls, hot and spicy soup and Singapore noodles to share, washed down with the obligatory post-travel beer.

With our stomachs full we went back to the hotel to catch up online as we hadn't had any internet access on Tioman Island. After uploading some of our blog entries and making some Skype calls home we called it a night and finally got off to sleep.

Once we got up the next morning we loaded up a big bag with yet another lot of surplus guff that we had accumulated from tourist markets and the like, and set off to find a post office in KL. After a couple of false starts we were on the right track, and headed through Chinatown, past Central Market to the Dayabumi Complex, where we found the central post office at the base of a big white Islamic-design skyscraper.

Here we packaged up our souvenirs and paid for them to be sent by airmail, before nipping upstairs to the letters section and sending a massive backlog of postcards all in one go. With that taken care of we headed back across a canal to the Central Market.

Inside this big two-storey blue building, which was pleasantly air conditioned, we found loads of little souvenir craft shops and the like, as well as a food court. We nipped up to the food court and got some tasty noodle soup with beef meatballs then had a look around the craft shops. After that we went across the road from the market to one of the stops of the hop-on hop-off bus which ran around the city.

We had to wait ages but eventually one of the buses turned up and we got on. Unlike most of these tour buses, this one didn't have an open top, but instead had an upper deck where half the ceiling was see-through windows. However, for some inexplicable reason all these see-through windows had been painted over or covered with stickers. To make matters worse the sides of the bus were plastered with gigantic adverts, which spread over the windows of the upper deck meaning we had to peer around a monstrously sized sticker of a child's head to see anything of the city.

Nevertheless, we were tired after a long day and late night the night before, and the bus provided a welcome alternative to walking around the city in the heat. From the Central Market we drove through the city to the Istana Negara or national palace. The bus stopped here just long enough for us to nip off and get photos of the domed palace at the top of a pristine lawn behind a high fence, as well as some snaps of us with the mounted guards on either side of the gates.

We got back on the bus just before a torrential downpour began, then continued along the highways of the city through Little India, with its colourful buildings to KL Sentral. We drove around and between this massive modern transport hub, a meeting point of roads and rail lines which even has check-in desks for the airport where you can check your luggage before getting a train to the airport. Quite a cool idea as long as your luggage makes it out to the airport as well.

From there we carried on and got off at the next stop, the National Museum as it was only £1 each to get in and we couldn't see much from the bus windows what with the giant heads and rain streaking down the glass.

We spent an hour or so wandering around the museum which was pretty interesting, covering the history of Malaysia from prehistoric times right through its turbulent colonial history until its independence and current status. It gave us a good sense of the country and its mixture of cultures and ethnic groups, as well as having some cool big swords on display.

Once we'd looked around the museum we waited for the next bus to turn up. This one had less giant heads obscuring the windows but it did have Noisy Australians. These are unavoidable, especially on tours, and we were surprised the previous bus hadn't had any. We had to strain to hear the interesting bus commentary over their own inane commentary on everything they could see out of their eyes, not to mention one of them repeating the guide every time he said 'thank you' in Bahasa Malaysia, which of course the other Noisy Australians found hilarious.

The put up with these idiots as we drove through the tropical botanic gardens, past a big big park (the park was big; I can't comment on the size of the birds as we didn't visit) and on to Dataran Merdeka or Independence Square. We got another few minutes to jump off the bus here which was all we needed to get some snaps of the big grassy field where Malaysia's independence was declared and celebrated in 1957. It used to be a cricket ground and had a mock-tudor club building on one side, a smart brick building with islamic domes, arches and spiral staircases on the other, and an immensely tall flagpole at the far end.

we got back on the bus and relaxed as we drove all around the city, between some tallish but not incredible buildings. That is until we approached the awesome Petronas Twin Towers. We had to get off the bus here to get a closer look at these futuristic behemoths. We spent a few minutes just craning our necks to see the top of the shiny metallic towers, again designed with lots of islamic symbolism but managing to look super-futuristic. After taking a few snaps we went for a wander through the gigantic shopping mall beside the towers, out to the modern landscaped gardens on one side with a view of skyscrapers all around, then back in for a coffee and some cake.

After gorging on too much cake, we left and waited out in front of the towers for the bus, then got on for the last leg of our journey. This took us through the downtown area of KL including the main shopping and nightlife areas, then back to Chinatown. It wasn't a long distance by any means, but due to our impeccable timing it took us an hour and a half to get back to the area around our hotel, thanks to the rush hour gridlock which siezed the city's streets. As we crawled through the traffic we considered hopping off the bus a few times, but laziness got the better of us, and it was actually quite fun watching our driver try and get through and around the traffic, even running red lights and driving down the wrong side of the road in his frustration.

When we eventually got off back in Chinatown it was around half 7. We walked to the nearby bus station and booked some tickets for a bus to the Cameron Highlands for the next day, then walked back to Petaling Street for a look at the market stalls. Lucy was keen to buy some sunglasses as hers had snapped, and my watch had broken the day before so I was on the lookout for a cheap replacement. Petaling Street was the perfect place to buy these items, as 50% of the stuff on sale is knockoff sunglasses and watches, with the other 50% being knockoff clothes.

We wandered the stalls trying on stuff and comparing prices before taking a break for some dinner at a street cart, where we got some roti canai, mee goreng and nasi goreng. After refuelling, we picked up our laundry from the place we'd left it the night before, dropped it at the hotel and resumed our shopping. On our return to the markets we managed to pick up 3 pairs of sunglasses and a little digital watch for me, for a total of £10. We got the feeling we'd paid a little more than we could have for some of the stuff, despite our hard bargaining, but at that price we didn't feel we'd been ripped off. Satisfied with our purchases we returned to our room to catch up online before getting off to sleep.

In the morning we got up, packed our stuff then headed out for some breakfast and to find Lucy a jumper in case she got cold when we went to the cooler Cameron Highlands. We wandered through Chinatown and up Petaling road, which had a completely different feel in the morning with the stalls just being set up, and restaurants with loads of tables set up for breakfast. We nipped in and out of a few clothes shops but didn't find a suitable jumper on the first pass, so went to Starbucks for some breakfast before returning and scouring some more shops. Eventually we got a cheap hoodie for Lucy and returned to the hotel.

With all our stuff, we walked to the bus station around the corner, picked up our tickets and hung around the bus station to wait for our bus. While we were waiting we got chatting to a couple who were also heading to Tanah Rata in the Cameron Highlands. The bus eventually turned up about 15 minutes late. Unlike the flashy VIP buses we had become used to, this was an old rickety looking thing which may have been VIP once, but was now decidely far from it. However, once we got inside we found the seats big and comfy and the AC in working order, which was VIP enough for us.