'Does sir want taxi'

'No, thank you'

(follows down the street)

'Then would sir like foot massage!'

'No I'm still good'

If it isn't a taxi driver/masseuse then it's a shopping centre/theme park, it seems it is all possible in Asia.

Hi guys, we have now arrived in Kuala Lumpur for the first part of our travels through Asia. We decided I should write this first blog as Katie has been here before, but it is all new to me. I'm going to run through our adventures of the last few days which as usual have been jam packed so sorry if I waffle on about things people have heard about before (maybe this blog should be read selectively by some). However we have been to the Grand Prix but more about that later.

We flew from Auckland via Melbourne to get here, a route I would defiantly not recommend, we spent about 22 hours in airports and on planes. This included our torturous wait in Melbourne for 6+ hours that turned out to be a mix of highs and lows. The low is that Melbourne airport is crap, it has only one place to eat that was open and they don't accept card so it was 6 very hungry hours. However the high was that we randomly came across some of our friends from Fraser Island in the departure lounge, they had carried on down from Fraser to Melbourne while we were in NZ, and their flight onto Fiji just happened to be around the same time.

Once we got too KL it all appeared to get a little better, KL airport is amazing; it's massive and even has a train that takes you from the gates to the baggage reclaim. Once we had battled our way through immigration and collected our bags it was just a matter of finding the bus we wanted. This was my first experience of a Malaysian bus after hearing so much about them from friends that have travelled here before, as soon as I got on I realised they were right for some reason buses here have the air con on what feels like a sub-zero temperature. Almost as soon as we set off, the man in the seat in front of my reclined his seat, now he didn't just recline his seat, he managed to recline it so much he was practically on my lap staring up my nose (Katie found this absolutely hilarious). He obviously liked the view as he stayed there for the rest of the hour long bus ride into the centre of KL.

Once we were in the centre we changed off the bus and got on the mono-rail to go drop our bags off at the hostel before going exploring. The mono rail here is quite nice and unlike the one in Sydney is a useful transport link that goes to useful places.As soon as we dropped the bags off we set straight out on a walking tour of the city heading first to the new build sleek area of the city to see the Petronas and KL towers. I got a bit excited and took quite a few photos but they do look really impressive. After a bit of exploring we headed into the shopping centre under the Petronas towers, mainly to get out of the heat (its soo humid here) and got our first feel for the madness surrounding the F1 with cars on display inside.

In the afternoon we walked over to the other side of town Pasar Seni (central market), a large indoor market in the shadow of the large mosque that dominates this side of the city's skyline. We wondered around inside before coming across one of the small stores that has fish that nibble your feet. So we parted with our ringgit and put our feet in fish tank. The idea is that the fish massage your feet by sucking them and removing all the dead skin, they really tickled at first but then we kind of both got used to it after a bit. From here we walked over to china town through the market there which as you would expect sold every kind of knock off product you can imagine then headed up to an area called Merdeka Square.

Merdeka square is a large open grass square that is surrounded by all the old fashioned government buildings and is used as a parade ground for the army and other official functions. The old buildings in this end of town were lovely and made a stark contrast to some of the modern new builds. After we had finished exploring this older part of town we headed up in a night market in an area known as little India. This market was huge and lined a very long street. We decided we would walk to other end and then go and find food. This took longer than expected as the market was so busy it took us about an hour to just walk up the street by which time we were both pretty hungry as all the food stalls we walked past smelt amazing.

After walking back towards Bukit Bintang, hunger subsided slightly, so we went to a shopping centre called Times Square on the way back. I've heard about this place from friends before but it was amazing. It makes Westfield or the Trafford centre look tiny. The shopping centre in 10 floors high and not only does it have loads of shops but also has an indoor theme park complete with roller coaster on the top 3 floors, a 50 lane bowling alley and even indoor Archery, it was mental! On the way back through the shopping centre we even saw a wedding being held on one of the floors.

The next day we got up early as we needed to head out back near the airport to the Sepang Grand Prix Circuit. We headed over the restaurant opposite the hostel for breakfast/lunch and I had roti canai with dhal curry, which was really nice, I think I could get used to curry for breakfast especially when its £1.20 for 2 of us, including drinks! I hadn't really thought about it before but here people tend to eat the same thing for breakfast, lunch and dinner; all variations of noodles, rice or naan bread, but I quite like it. The night before we had a lovely meal from a street side café of black pepper chicken and kuey teow (a curried noodle dish) something I would defiantly have again.

The bus to Sepang circuit took a little over an hour so we were a bit later than planned but still managed to see some of the teams come for the signing event (Red bull, Lotus, Petronas Mercedes) but we gave up after 30 minutes because it was just too crowed and spent the rest of the time wandering around the various stalls selling F1 merchandise and promoting flash cars.

We had bought tickets for the stand on the back straight of the course so had to get to the other side of the circuit for the race its self. They had thought a head and put shuttles on which we eventually managed to squeeze on only to find because of the weight they couldn't really go much faster than we could have walked. Once we got to our seat we were more than happy as we could see both the start and finish straight as well as the back straight and corners so we where hopeful of seeing quite a bit of action. Our stand was also shaded with a lovely breeze to start with; a welcome improvement from the heat of the midday sun. It took quite a while for all the presentations etc to be done but then it was race time.

I hadn't been to a grand prix before and although most of it was exactly what I had expected, one thing I hadn't was the noise they make. I thought they would be loud but not as loud as they were I could hardly hear myself speak and as I was trying to explain to Katie what was going on during the race I was often met with a blank expression, which after wards I found out was cause she couldn't hear a word I was saying! The race was really good with Webber (one of the forerunners) losing a lot of places at the start. Most of the rest of the race was dominated by a frantic battle between Lewis Hamilton and Alonso for the 3rd and 4th, which eventually found them finishing in 6th and 8th because Alonso clipped the back of Hamilton's car causing both to pit. It was quite amusing sitting in our stand as ever time Alonso (Ferrari driver) over took a sea of red jumped to their feet cheering and vice-versa with McLaren fans. The eventual winner Vettel was in the lead from the start and never looked like losing it, with Jenson Button finishing second. It was also good to see Paul finish in 10th after a long battle with Michael Schumacher. A great day out!

After the race we made our way back to the bus hub to get our transfer back.We thought it might take quite a while to get away from the circuit but it ended up taking almost 3 hours to get back to KL.If you think traffic at home is bad, here the cars just started making new lanes by driving down the hard shoulder and the verge, turning a 3 lane motorway in to a 6 lane sprawl in a desperate attempt to get back. We were amazed at one point to even see a bus flying down the grass, weaving in and out of signposts!

We are off to Hong Kong today so will be making our way out towards the airport again - hopefully it won't take 3 hours this time! But I have been very impressed with KL. Although this has been a very short visit, and we have crammed loads in, we pass back through several times so looking forward to exploring it some more. That and I also want to go up the towers!

Lots of love, Martin and Katie