Hello all!! We've got quite a lot to update you all on as it's been a while! Last time we were just leaving Phi Phi for 2 relaxing days in Ko Lanta before Kuala Lumpur. We decided to shell out a bit extra and get somewhere nice to stay for the 2 nights, so we booked a place called Chaw-Ka-Cher.

It was 7km out from town, which wasn't ideal but the bungalow was really nice. When we arrived at the hotel, they greeted us with coconut milk and a freezing cold facecloth, perfect in that heat. They showed us to our room, and it was huge compared to anywhere we have stayed. A huge bed, TV, housecoat and slippers and a decking to sit on. The shower and toilet were outside!! Still part of your individual bungalow and walled in but roofless. It was pretty cool showering outdoors but having to go to the loo outside, especially at night wasn't great! Speaking of loos, we were only in the place about 2 hours and we blocked the toilet!!! It wouldn't flush, had filled up and wouldn't drain (and it really needed flushed!) so we spent the afternoon trying to unblock it with various objects, none of which worked, so in the end Matt went to reception to ask for a plunger!! Lol I'm sure they thought we were a right pair of stinkers haha. So I was sitting watching the telly and Matt comes towards the bungalow with 3 women who worked there, talking. I was thinking, God Matt, don't bring them in!!!! But he was standing on the deck and still trying to get a plunger but they didn't understand a word he was saying so then through the window all I see is Matt giving his best charades impression of a plunger!! I thought I was going to keel over laughing ha! They went up to reception and brought one down and then they said, oh we fix for you and Matt said NOOOOO, that's OK, I'll do it. Arguing over who was going to unblock the toilet lol!! So he got the plunger and came in and in the time it took him to get the plunger, the toilet had unblocked itself!!!!haha we just spent the next day roaming the town and getting ready to head to Kuala Lumpur. When we arrived in KL at 4am, we thought we would walk to the hostel as it was supposed to be close. We walked down a street filled with homeless people, then we passed a homeless guy cutting his face open with a razor blade!! so we swiftly jumped in a taxi after that!!

We found a hostel online called Reggae Mansion that we decided to try. It only opened in June and the place was amazing. Such a cracking hostel!! We stayed in a 24 bed dorm, and instead of the usual bunk beds, they were all individual sleeping 'pods' with double mattresses!!! It even had a cinema!!! It was class and only £7 a night!! We met so many people in this hostel, which made a great change from before. There wasn't actually that many sights in KL so having the likes of the cinema was great. We had a few nights out drinking too with the ones we met, it was great having some other company to do things with. It had a rooftop bar and you could see the KL tower and the Petronas Towers from there!

We went sightseeing during the first few days, climbed the KL tower, the 4th highest tower in the world, but the sight wasn't very rewarding, it was all buildings and really industrial looking but still good to see. The ticket got us into an animal park under the tower too and it was the most depressing thing I've ever seen! It was just a big, darkened space full of cages with the saddest looking animals in them. Snakes, spiders, turtles, monkeys and a two headed turtle!! After seeing the first few, we just felt really bad as the animals looked so depressed!! We went to the Petronas Towers, I think they are the worlds tallest twin towers and they have a skywalk bridge joining both towers but it was closed for renovations when we were there. And then it was Halloween!!!!

We had already bought face paints for Halloween but we didn't get any costumes so we just had our face painted and ordinary clothes lol! But at least we made the effort. The hostel had a party for it and you got free drink if you bobbed for apples, which we did and it washed off our facepaint! So we went as zombies and came home like lepers.

It rained every day while we were in Kuala Lumpur too. Big thunder storms, it was crazy. We went to the botanical gardens one day to see the bird park and ended up spending an hour taking shelter from the rain and when we got to the bird park, it was £10 each in! We weren't paying that so we turned round and went back again, wasted journey!!

We heard from someone about the worlds biggest indoor rollercoaster so we decided to try that another day and it turned out to be an indoor amusement park, inside a shopping mall. The rollercoaster was good but I could only do one more ride and I felt sick as a parrot, a ride called The DNA Mixer was to thank for that!!

We went out during the day quite a bit with a lot of people from the dorm and got lunch and seen sights and things. We went to Little India and got a cup of Masala tea, I thought it was going to be like curry tea, but it was really really nice. It was a milky, spiced tea and had Banana Leaf tully for lunch. You dont get plates, they give you a big bit of banana leaf and the waiters come round and put ladels of food onto the banana leaf. I wasn't adventurous enough to eat with my fingers, like the locals but Matt got stuck in!! It was really nice food too so we went back the next day and got the same with few different people, it was the most cultural day we had in KL!!

We were going to go down to Singapore after a week in KL but the accommodation was twice the price so we decided to stay an extra few days in Reggae Mansion to save money. We stayed for 10 long days and have just landed in Singapore now!! We only have 4 days here so our days are going to be choccer! After that, it's bye bye Asia On the way to this hostel, the other (and only working) handle broke on my suitcase!! The first handle broke before we even left Belfast (thanks Dad), then in Phuket the case reset the combination lock by itself and I didn't know the code so I had to set fire to the lock system to melt it off and release the lock, and now the 2nd handles broke lol. One of Matt's wheels fell off and another broke so he is currently dragging his case through the streets and I just have to pretty much throw mine down any stairs ahead of me!! And Matt managed to cut his toe open and lose another pair of shoes!! At least it was only the Primark ones he lost!! So far, it's his walking shoes and 2 pairs of flip flops!!!

One of the other things I noticed about KL in particular was that local men really stared at all the white girls. As openly as you like, not even trying to hide it and not even looking away when you caught them! It may not be rude to them but it really annoyed me, sitting on a train and every local male staring unblinking at you would annoy anyone but it was a little unnerving too!! We really didn't much like the city either. It was quite dirty and the streets were always clouded with exhaust fumes, which made walking around a nightmare!! Overall though, KL was a success as we met loads of people form all over the world (Melbourne, England, Germany, Sweden, Brazil), and did a lot more socialising than anywhere else, even if it was only to the local Reggae bar and the hostel was absolutely cracking!!

Hopefully we've got you all up to date now, apologies if this blog is a bit confusing, we're dead on our feet and keep remembering things to put in!!

Lots of love, Nicola and Matt x