Our epic journey began with a night boat from Koh Tao to Suratthani, in Thailand, on what turned out to be nothing short of a refugee boat! We were literally packed in like sardines with a tiny single mattress, pillow and life jacket each - and for once in my life I was too tall to stand up, as the roof was a mere 4ft high! This actually turned out to be ok and we got a fair amount of sleep. At the port we transferred to a taxi - once again being barked at by hostile Thais at silly hours of the day (it was 5am). From the taxi we were ushered to a cafe where our wait began. We were told we would be picked up at 6.30am to start the journey to Hat Yai on the Thai border. At 6.15 our minibus arrived - great we're early for a change we thought - oh no, this simply took us to another cafe where we proceeded to wait another hour - apparently for more people to make the journey worthwhile. At 7.30 we eventually left only to drive around the town we were in for a further hour. So it's now 8.30 and we're slightly concerned (and annoyed) that we're going to miss the connection across the border. As always with these journeys, suddenly no-one understands English and we have no choice but to just sit tight and hope for the best. Finally at 12.45 we're dropped off at yet another cafe, more waiting before we're taken by taxi to the bus station. We're then run through a visa check before embarking on our final bus - it's now 2pm and we're only just leaving Thailand! It's then we find out not only is it another hour to the border, that Malaysia is an hour ahead of Thailand, but that the bus is going to take a further 9hrs. We settle back in our ridiculously large chairs resigned to the fact that we will not be in KL until 1am, as opposed to the 10pm arrival we were quoted in Koh Tao. The rest of the journey is fairly painless - for us anyway, as we leave 2 Chinese girls at the border as they didn't have the correct visas - harsh, but hey anything to keep the bus moving!!!!! We're ambushed at the other end by the ever forceful guesthouse owners - we cave in our tiredness and trudge along to the biggest dive we've stayed in yet - Wheelers! The outside resembles the entrance to a drug den and our 6'x10' windowless room is less than appealing. It's amazing what a 28hr journey can make you do.......

We start afresh the next day by heading to the world famous Petronas towers, and their attached shopping mall. The towers themselves are absolutely spectacular and you can't help but stand staring at them. The surrounding area is not only spotless but immaculately designed and maintained - it's like stepping into a whole other world than what we've been used to. Everything to do with the towers and their surroundings is designed around the star of islam - this includes the actual shape of the towers down to the patterns in the pavement. We finally drag ourselves away and into the mall - OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!! It puts bluewater to shame, there are no other words!!!! The place is huge and has every imaginable shop you could hope for - best of all they're grouped into collectives, so there is literally a technology, sports, fashion, souvenir etc section. We even plucked up the courage to walk around Tiffany in our shorts and flip flops - definitely not allowed in Bond St!!! We decided to hang around until it got dark, mainly to see the towers at night, but also to make the most of the air conditioning too! So at dusk we headed back out to take the towers in once more. To add to the magical air they already have about them, we had the fortune of seeing them partly covered by the monsoon clouds too. No photo even comes close to doing them justice, but we tried! We headed back to the Chinatown for the evening.

Day 2 saw us cover most of KL on foot, not intentionally, it just kind of happened. However, it turned out to be a great way of seeing the city and a whole lot quicker than the bus. The highlight of our day was lunch at the KL telecommunication tower. This is the second tallest building in the city and their revolving restaurant is a massive 284m high, and over 100m higher up than the skybridge at the Petronas. We spent near on 3hrs slowly rotating around the entire city. Once again we had the pleasure of the city clear and sunny, as well as the afternoon storms. We headed back to Chinatown's evening market only to get caught up in the evening storms and trapped for nearly an hour!!!

Our final morning was spent at the city's Bird Park. This is the largest covered bird park in the world with over 160 species, predominently South East Asian. A relaxed and pleasant morning, and a welcome change from the hustle bustle of city life.

Next stop Penang........

PS Ditto to the previous comments regarding the photos!