Hi everyone! Yes, it's Erin again, writing from Kuala Lumpur (ok, you know I'm not really but just go with me on this one!)

Well we had a lovely luxury trip on our coach from Singapore, and six hours later we arrived in Kuala Lumpur...although there were some interesting experiences on the way, namely our first encounter with a Malaysian squatting toilet...basically a hole in the floor! Lovely! Oh and when we crossed the Malaysian border, Sophie and Nathan were escorted off to have their temperatures taken, whilst I stood there feeling a bit bewildered and wondering where on earth they had been taken! But rest assured that they were fine and we were allowed to carry on with our journey.

We arrived at our nice hostel right in the centre of the city with really nice helpful staff who helped us plan out our visit...especially helpful as we were going to celebrate a very special day whilst in Kuala Lumpur! Yes, my birthday!

On our first day we decided to go to the Chinatown markets (I know what you're thinking! More shopping!) This was the place to go for all things fake - watches, sunglasses, handbags, wallets. We did treat ourselves to a pair of sunglasses each (Nathan got himself a snazzy pair of Oakleys...unfortunately the paint peeled off after a couple of times of wearing them, but then what do you expect for £3???) We tried our hardest to get two Tag Heuer and one Omega watch for £10, but the market guy wasn't having any of it!

Afterwards we walked around some of the many mosques in the city, and then visited quite possibly the biggest shopping centre I have ever been in, with it's own rollercoaster inside! There were floors after floors of shops, Nathan absolutely loved it (ok, he didn't but Sophie and I did!) And then that evening we decided to experience the delights of Kuala Lumpur at night, not realising that in a Muslim country where most of the population don't drink, alcohol was going to be very expensive! We did manage to find a great bar though where we watched Kuala Lumpur's finest kareoke act on stage... yes, it was awful - Sophie and Nathan's faces were priceless!

The next day was my birthday - yippie! As I was away from home, I wanted to do something special so that morning we woke up really early (6:30am) and went to queue up for tickets for the Petronas Towers, which we were lucky to get. I'm so glad we did this as I had a great time - the towers are amazing and the views from the top were lovely. We obviously got the tower bug as we decided to then walk to the Kuala Lumpur tower and go right to the top, which was excellent too.

After having some birthday cake (Sophie bought me some birthday doughnuts from Krispy Kreme - yummy!) we then headed out on the town again, with our fingers crossed for a much better night that night! And we weren't disappointed, as we went to a place called Reggae Bar, where ladies got cheap drinks all night - what excellent planning! We danced the night away there, although some of us enjoyed the cheap drinks a bit too much and fell into a tree...never mind! But it was my birthday though! :-) And definitely one I won't forget...

I didn't feel very well at all the next day surprisingly, and unfortunately this was the day we had to fly to Phuket in Thailand! Not very good planning. We had a fab time in Kuala Lumpur though, and are looking forward to going to Thailand!

x x x x x