Hey Guys,

So I left Jackie back in Vietnam and caught my flight to Kulua Lumpar, whilst flying saves me time and can be pretty cheap, it's a right pai hving to pack everything inside my bad. I have my shoes hanging off it and bit and bobs in the open pockets either side which all have to be packed away for a flight. I always have to re-pack my entire bag before getting one lol.

I arrived in KL to the heat and humidity. The first thing I saw on coming out of the airport was a starbucks, body shop and McDonalds. I guess I am back into western style culture. It was pretty easy to get to my hostel, a bus to the city centre and the mono rail to my stop. The heat is insane here and 5 min with my ruc sak on and my t-shirt was soaked through- yuk!! My hostel is a nice little place and very busy with a bunch of nice people to chat too. By the time I had gotten there there wasn't much of the day left so I just showered and got some food with one of my roommates. We literally went next door for an indian, I ordered way too much as the portions are big but it all cost me 2 pounds! It's a funny little canteen style place with the best butter naan I have ever had. I was shattered from the last few weeks with Jackie and crashed out in my room not long after eating. I am in a ten man dorm and it's quite small but it's the first time I have been given a bottom bunk. I am never lucky and normally end up having to clamber onto the top, so this made a nice change.

The next day I did a lot of walking. I started my day by walking to the business/shopping area. I walked over to the petronas towers and wandered aimlessly through the massive shopping malls they have there. It was a little bit like torture- especially when there was a topshop and mac make-up store pretty much next door to each other. So hard to look and not buy. This place was just full of mall after mall and is a shopping paradise. It's a very modern city and one of the plaza's I went into had 14 floors. Ridiculous you could spend days just eating and shopping here. Its also very western, I saw lots of brands I recognised, it's also more pricey but that comes with being in a city. After having a good wander round looking at all the fancy buildings, I headed over to China town. Before I got there though I went to see the old railway station. It's a lovely looking building that is very Islamic. Its has huge sweeping arches and you would think it looked more like a moqsue that a staion. It was very bizarre to see and very pretty. It was insanely hot walking round and your in the heat only for a few minutes before you soaked through. It's more the humidity than the heat but I kinda just kept going and knew a cold shower would be waiting for me at the end of the day. Chinatown is a bustling little place known for it's markets. It's always interesting to see the different types of markets you get and china towns was knocks off's. It's fun little place to have a look round but I wasn't massively bothered my favourite place of the day was Merdaka Square. The buildings there are beautiful and very old. A lovely old lady saw me looking at my map and walked with me over to the square and had a lovely little chat with me. She told me to be careful, especially at night and gave me a little history lesson of the square as well. The buildings around the square are more traditional and look nothing like the big business buildings you can see a little further on. It's funny how close things are together, whenever you are in a city you assume things are far away but they aren't. I had managed to navigate myself around the city quite easily and things weren't that far. The square used to be a cricket pitch and had a huge flag pole at one end of it. I liked sitting there and looking at the buildings. I'm not much of a city girl so seeing things that aren't modern in a big modern city is nice. After that headed to little India to wander down the streets of endless sari shops.

I have to say I was one of very few westerners that I saw on my walk round and at points I felt rather uncomfortable. I got a lot of unwanted attention from men, looking at me and making facial expressions. I wasn't dressed in a inapproriate way but it's the first country where I have encountered that kind of attention and I must say I didn't like it. One guy even accidnetly 'bumped' into me and then followed me asking me questions like ;where you staying', 'you alone' to which obviously I replied 'can't rememeber', 'I'm meeting a friend'. He then told me I had a nice body and would I like to be good friends with him. By this point I was fed up and told him no way and go away. Still it creeped me out a little bit and I had no desire to be out alone at night here with perverts like that. When talking to a couple of girls in my dorm about the next night they said that something similar had happened to them.

Anyway aside from that I had had a lovely day of walking and discovering the city all by foot. My day ended when I got a blister lol, so I hopped back on the monorail to save my poor feet. Being lazy I headed back to the indian place I had been the night before and got a butter naan (40p), it comes with two yummy sauces and it filled me right up. Again I crashed out in the dorm, trying to catch up on some much needed sleep.

As I had wandered a lot of the city yesterday, I decided to move the edge of the city and walk round the lakes and gardens. I love map reading so hoped off at the nearest station then used my map to navigate me round. The trees were a big give away that I was getting close. The roads I was walking were empty but it was ok I could see trees and knew I wasn't too far. I went to see the nationa monumet before giving up with shoes and going barefoot. Plaster's would not stick due to heat so barefoot I went around the gardens. They are very pretty and huge, it would have been a gorgeous place to spend the day with Darren and it made me miss him so much. I had a nice relaxing stroll and found a shady bit to cool off in. I saw a lot more western people on my route around, and I felt more comfortable. I walked to the butterfly garden and had a butterfly friend that followed me for a while clinging to my bad. It was very pretty and they had other things in there too like turtles. Some of the butterflies you can get are amazing and so beautiful. It was just lovely to be out the city and see more nature even if it is man made. I spent hours wandering around the gardens and had another long day of walking but again I felt I covered a lot. I then walked back to the city edge and caught a monorail home. The water at our hostel was out as there was a burst watermain outside. I had hoped that it would be back on by the time I got back, it wasn't. I needed a shower and decided to out for food and hoped it would be back on in time for later that night. I was cheeky, I have be sooo good in not eating western food that I treated myself to a Papa John's pizza for dinner by the 14 floor times sq plaza. I'm not a massive fan of Thai food and that was the same style in Cambodia and I got a bit sick of it but Vietnam had amazing food. I had been eating a lot of local food and decided it was ok to treat myself. Something I have noticed is that when I have western food I don't bother with ketchup. I prefer it this way, this trip has def changed my eaing habits for the better. It's often so cheap to buy food I can try new dishes without feeling bad if I don't like them. I love it.

The next morning I headed to Melaka, I need somewhere to just relax and not do a lot and here is the place for it. I got the monorail over to the bus station and then a local girl got chatting to me and helped me find the right bus to get on. It was short trip here and I found a place to stay pretty easily. Its a funny place though, I feel like Annie minus the red hair. The dorm is massive about 25-30 beds and is just a big loft style room. Its clean though which is always a bonus and near everything. That afternoon I wandered all around china town. The buildings here are so pretty and the town sqaure is red. The British painted it this colour to make it cheaper to repair as some of the brick work was red bricks. It was something like the portuguese, then dutch, then British owned it for a while, so there is a whole mix of cultures here. There is a pretty river that runs through the heart of it and it has a great chill out vibe to the little place. I met some funny people at a cafe and ended up meeting them that night to play cards games with them. Chinatown is small with lots of little streets to wander and plenty of cafes and bars to just grab a drink and relax. It's a bit touristy with lots of shops to look at but it is such a pretyt place you can side track that all and just wander or relax somewhere. I forgot to say, the first thing I did when I got here was have some chicken rice balls. My friend Katy had told me I must have them and they were delicious. Balls of rice soaked in soy sauce with roasted chicken- yum.

The next day I slept in and eventually dragged myself out to the burning heat of the day to go and see stuff. I went to the Stadthuy's museum which taught me about Melaka and the different power's that had owned and then headed to see some old ruins of a cathedral that had changed depending on which country had owned it. I saw a big boat that was a museum, just randomly on a street and some weird dodgy film being made. I am always attracted to camera's or anything that looks like a set of some kind and stood watching some weird blonde girl running around and an Indian man waving a knife at her. Bizarre. It really was too hot to do a lot, so I spent most of the afternoon reading my book and sitting in a cafe having the most amazing chocolate milkshake of my life. That night was simple out for food, read my book bed or so I thought. You know how I said I felt like Annie- well a school group of boys are now staying in my dorm. I am guesing they are between 10-16 yr olds. Noisy little b*****s, I was asked to turn the light off so they could sleep and then spent the next couple of hours lying there wide awake. Then as they had to get up early they decided to keep everyone else awake who wasn't in their group. Safe to say my relaxing time was over, I did tell them to be quiet a few times but until they b*****ed off the other and I were kept awake. Also it doesn't help that they have loud music singing prayers through the streets in the morning at a ungodly hour. This I can put up with but little kids who wake me I can not. It's fine tomorrow I am up early and let's see how they like it- mwhahahahhahaha.

Anyway as for today I really have done sod all. I got up went for breakfast sat and read my book, went for a walk, then back to my dorm for a nap and to read my book, back for a cho milkshake and to read my book haha. I really am being lazy today, it's wonderful. It's mainly the heat I just can't be bothered to do anything in it, ifi was by a beach I would sunbathe but there isn't a sea to dive into so I'm sat in the shade watching the world go by- love it. I have loved the past couple of days here, I like to just wander around soaking up the place and the atmosphere. It's a beautiful place with fantastic buildings and bizarre things like a submarine or a ship randomly on a street by hey ho. Tomorrow I head to Singapore. Yippie, meeting with Kim on sat and then my gorgeous man finally gets here sun. The weekend is going to be a good one. As for the rest of my day I may have a walk and then go and have another drink somewhere. Such is the travelling life.

Sending you sunshine Amigo's.

xxxx