But there is everything else - the koalas will have to wait till Oz. Sorry, that was Bob's idea, a terrible pun!

Well, did Kuala Lumpur deliver too? It certainly did, especially cold white Sauvignon, albeit at a price! KL is an amazing city and we were lucky that our hotel was ideally situated close to the Petronas Twin Towers and the KLCC transport hub, so we could get to pretty much everything. The hot and humid weather continued and we were treated to some awesome lightning and a tremendous thunderstorm one evening. The thunder was SO loud that I jumped, literally, much to Bob's amusement!! Unfortunately that was the evening we had a table booked at the revolving restaurant at the top of the KL Tower (a bit like our PO tower). Needless to say the reservation was cancelled! We also developed neck ache, as there are so many high rise buildings to look at! KL is a city that is expanding rapidly, with so many new high rise blocks, and roads, being built. They also like their shopping malls - but with so many designer shops that were empty, we were left wondering who shops there!

We visited the Chinatown part of town, as Petaling Street is famed for its market. Well, it was hot, the stalls so close together that you had to squeeze past in single file, and every stall sold the same things - designer stuff that clearly wasn't designer. After a few minutes of being constantly hassled by the traders I just wanted out of there. But it is a very long street!! The food did, however, smell good so Bob chose an on-street eatery right at the end of the street. I must admit that I questioned his choice of eating establishment - the cooking took place on the street, in a not too clean looking environment, and the red plastic chairs and plastic tablecloths were not too appealing. However, the food was delicious, and we had no repercussions from it, so that was a bonus!

I guess the highlights for us were the Petronas Towers, the Bird Park (a most unexpected plus) and a visit to Sepang, the F1 circuit due to host the Malaysian Grand Prix on Oct 1st. The towers are the tallest twin towers in the world, joined by a skywalk bridge on the 41st floor. This was a weird feeling as I was very conscious there was nothing underneath us, even though it wasn't a glass floor. I was very uncomfortable for the 10 minutes we had there. Then up to the 87th floor, which was only two floors down from the top. Here I felt much better as there was a whole tower underneath me. I know - it's all in my head!

The next day we had an odd morning to spare, and a half day to use up our Hop On Hop Off pass, so we decided to visit the Bird Park as something to fill the morning before our trip in the afternoon to the Batu Caves, which we were really looking forward to. As it turned out the Bird Park was one of the highlights of our trip. It has the largest walk-in free flight aviary in the world, and it was awesome to see these huge birds being able to fly properly, even though you had to watch your head at all times, and watch where you put your feet too!! It was there that we got to see a chick hatch from its egg, something we've never witnessed before. We noticed that one egg was cracked, then it moved and the crack widened. After about 5 minutes a wing emerged then the whole chick just burst out. We left the park after we had been 'storked' (really sorry, another Bobism!).

And then to the Batu Caves. There are so many trips here and so we thought it had to be done. How disappointed were we! From the outside it looks amazing, with a giant gold Buddha guarding a huge flight of 272 steps up into the hill. There were both pigeons and monkeys in abundance! We climbed to the top only to find a huge cavernous space, some of it painted lime green, filled with colourful shrines and temples, and a lot of concrete half-finished structures. There were huge stalagtites and stalagmites if one looked for them, and the view upwards was amazing, but sadly spoiled for us.

The real highlight though was the F1 circuit tour. This was not advertised, we saw the sign on the way in from the airport, and emailed the venue directly to find out they did two tours a day on non-race days.That part sorted we then had to arrange our own transport - our first ever Uber! It took an hour to get there and the fare was less than £10. We were then surprised and delighted to find that we were the only ones on the tour, so had a guide and a minivan to ourselves. We had access to all areas, including the race control room, and the VIP suite, but my personal favourite was seeing Bob wave the yellow flag from the starter's box. But I guess standing on the podium where the likes of Hamilton, Vettel, Schumacher, and Alonso, to name a few, have stood was pretty special, as was being driven round the circuit, albeit slowly in a minivan!

There was also a colourful fountain and light show each night near the towers, and a carpark next to the hotel transformed each evening into a street food van park. Awesome! My worst memory though is going out for breakfast one morning to a Korean venue, where I ordered boiled eggs and toast. Well, the first egg I tried was hardly cooked at all, nor was the second. Bob tried his and the same. We didn't return!

So, to sum up, KL is a huge, sprawling, modern high rise city with a good metro transport system (even air-conditioned!) and loads of malls. There are some historical buildings but they are dwarfed. It was hard to get Malaysian food, but you could get everything else - Thai, Korean, Indonesian, KFC, McDonalds, Pizza Hut and Japanese sushi by the bucketful. We felt we only touched the surface as there is just so much to see and do.