Days 49, 50, 51 and 52

We arrived in Kuala Lumpur in the evening, and on time despite our flight being delayed by an hour. We stayed at a hostel called Sunshine Bedz, which was nice even though it was our first shared bathroom in Asia. The owner of the hostel took us to a street vendor, and we had our first taste of roti, which is a bit like the love child of a pancake and a naan bread. It was very cheap and yummy!

On our first full day we headed towards the famous Petronas Towers (one of the worlds tallest buildings). The high level of humidity combined with the heat from the sun made even a steady stroll hard work, and we were glad to make it to the a/c mall beneath the towers. In Kuala Lumpur we felt like we had left Asia, because everything was ultra modern, and the sheer number of shopping malls was amazing. The towers were pretty impressive however we decided not to go up them and instead go up the KL tower a few days later. We then took our first monorail to the Central Matket. The monorails are extremely cheap and a very efficient way to get around the city. We had lunch at the hawker centre within the market, which although was more expensive than the roti wasn't quite as tasty. In the afternoon we went to Times Square, a shopping mall that was about 10x the size of the Bullring. It even had an indoor theme park with a rollercoaster to rival those at Alton Towers! I also managed to sniff out a Krispy Kremes outlet and when I realised they were only 50p a donut I couldn't resist.

The next day we woke up to drizzle and dark skies, but we decided to don the waterproofs and head for the lake gardens. This proved to be a bad decision because after getting off the monorail and walking for 10 minutes in the rain we were both completely sodden In the end we decided to head back to the hostel for some lunch and a film session as the weather didn't look like it was going to improve. Jamie decided to try another KFC and nearly fainted at the counter when they didn't do gravy or a fillet tower. In the evening the rain finally stopped and we headed to China town for some food. I had crispy duck which was not only the best but the cheapest I have eaten

On our final day we were hoping for sunshine and got 33 degree heat with blue skies! We booked tickets to go up the KL Tower, which is the 3rd highest in the world and gave us views of both the city and the Petronas towers. In the afternoon we headed to the lake gardens again and this time we made it before the weather closed in. There was a bird park there with a large walk in avairy, which we thought was overpriced so didn't go in. However we found a way of cheating as the restaurant next door had a balcony which was actually inside the avairy so you got to watch all the colourful birds for the price of two drinks (bargain!). As we were leaving the gardens the heavens opened again, and the thunder and lightening continued for the rest of the night. We ate dinner early as we were getting the overnight train to Butterworth (Penang) at 10pm. Our train was delayed by an hour, and so we were starting to think we were in Thailand all over again. Once it did arrive though it was the best sleeper train we'd been on so far, and we both got quite a good nights sleep despite having to get up at 6am. On the whole we had really enjoyed Kuala Lumpur as the first truly modern city on our trip!