Our second full day in KL was a rainy one. We stood at the doorway to our hostel umming and ahhing for ages over whether to step out in it without an umbrella but eventually decided to take the plunge and ran to the train station, sheltering in shop doorways whenever someone upstairs REALLY took the piss. We caught a 20p train to Batu Caves, a sacred site for Hindus that thousands of pilgrims travel to each January/February. There are 272 steps that lead up to the mammoth main cave and a giant golden statue of Lord Muruga standing guard. Cute monkeys followed us all the way up the steps, tapping us cheekily on the legs, because Jak kept hand-feeding them bits of coconut he'd found on the ground. He stopped when a beast of a monkey crept up behind us, baring his yellow teeth and hopping around aggressively. Naturally we screamed and ran away - and the thing chased us! It must have been rather amusing for the locals to watch. The caves themselves were cool, incredibly high and dark and atmospheric, and filled with various colourful Hindu statues and shrines and, bizarrely, a few bedraggled chickens even though there was no coop. There was also a temple. We stopped for lunch at a restaurant at the bottom, veggie curry served on banana leaves for less than a quid (I still can't get over how cheap Asia is!!) Even Jak admitted it was yummy, despite his initial disgust at the complete lack of meat on the menu. That evening we just chilled and watched the Heath Ledger Batman at the hostel.

On Friday we took a sweaty walk around the Lake Gardens, stopping off at the Butterfly Park for a bit. We intended on going to the Malaysian Museum too but it was so bloody hot we just couldn't be bothered to walk there! We sacked it off in favour of the air-conditioned Central Market. We found a small shop there where we could paint our own batik masterpieces for a small fee. They handed us over a piece of fabric, with the outlines of a picture already drawn on it, a paint brush and a pot of paints. Because you're painting on fabric you only have to touch the tip of the brush to it and the colour bleeds out, stopping at the slightly raised outlines. It sounds easy but we were so heavy-handed that we literally just ended up with solid blocks of colour whereas the paintings on display were gorgeous, with tonnes of soft colours gradually fading into one another. I bought a proper picture too so that we could remember how it's meant to turn out like!

That evening we were so desperate for Western food that we walked almost 2 miles to a Papa Johns. We were rewarded for our efforts as there was only a bloody Krispy Kreme shop next door :-O We gorged on fatty pizza and sugary doughnuts and left two very happy people. Even the heavy rain and flooded roads on the way back could not dampen our spirits.

Yesterday we caught a bus up to Tanah Rata in the Cameron Highlands, where it is blissfully cool. Apparently the British used to come up here to get away from the humidity when they were feeling homesick. Perhaps that's why a lot of the restaurants serve English food and a few places even offer Devonshire tea, complete with homemade scones, cream and jam. Today we went for a 45 minute walk to see Parit Falls and ended up spending a good couple of hours trekking through the jungle - in flip-flops and with less than half a bottle of water between us - because the falls were so crap (tiny and dirty with tonnes of rubbish dumped at the bottom) that we passed right by them without even noticing them at first and ended up getting lost. Jak slipped over about three times, landing spectacularly on his backside the last time. It's easy to see why they recommend you do the treks around here in pairs as you could easily twist an ankle on the muddy paths or get lost and have no way of getting help. When we eventually made it back to town we treated ourselves to one of those cream teas - and then just relaxed :-)

We are booked on to a half day tour tomorrow to see the tea plantations and strawberry farms that the highlands are famous for. We were going to attempt to reach them ourselves but after today's escapades we thought it safer to leave the navigation to the professionals...