Monday 6th February Up early again for the journey to KL. The bus leaves at 0830 am and we arrive at 1400hrs. It's one of those buses which have had the 4th set of seats removed giving a ridiculous amount of luxury. One can't help thinking that it would have been better served servicing the Hanoi to Vientiene route. Nevermind. The journey travels along a proper highway and everything and we can't help but be struck by the differences between Malaysia and Thailand. The scenery is very jungle like along the way and you can see that it's totally roasting outside. We don't really notice much else as Stu decides it's time to get beat at scrabble again. Now whilst we are in KL it's probably best to talk about the heat in terms of gas marks rather than celcius, it's a lot easier. So, as we arrive it's gas mark 4 outside and we are both suddenly really irritable as the heat and humidity gets to us. A river of sweat begins to run down Stu's back which is really refreshing. We decide to pay totally over the odds for a cab ride about 250m down the road to our hotel. The cab driver can see that we are just not built for these kinds of temperatures and rips us off accordingly. Whilst staying in KL we have decided to afford ourselves one final piece of luxury in SE asia. We are staying at the Swiss Garden Hotel which is 4 star (or so they tell us anyway). We check in and cool down in the aircon and decide it's probably best to go for a bit of a wander around. Immediately we can see that a great mix of cultures exist in this place and the number of eateries is staggering, we'll love it here. As we walk around we realise that we have made a big mistake, it's still way to hot. To counteract this we decide at random intervals to 'casually' drop into a shop that has air conditioning and pretend to look around for a present for someone. This leads to humourous conversations where we make up names of people that we supposedly know and question whether they need whatever is on offer in the shop. This works for a while but unfortunately for Stu we eventually come across the massive shopping malls and Amy can resist no longer. One thing that we can also no longer resist is a Maccie D's. Even though we know the food to be mostly s***e it's just one of those things that we cannot persuade ourselves not to eat. Amazingly the Quarter P with Cheese is not too bad and we can order in English and they understand us and everything. It's truly great. The shoping mall we have decided to frequent has a roller coaster inside and it's kind of like being back in Vegas with the weather so hot outside and the temperature so chilly inside due to the a/c. We pop to the internet for a bit and then go back to freshen up at the hotel. in the evening, feeling pretty tired, we go for a chinese at one of the 'hawker' stalls. We know we are back to our western ways when we completely over order on the deep fried fatty foods and go to bed feeling bloated. What have we done leaving the culinery wonderlands of Vietnam and Thailand behind? As it's a bit cooler we go for a bit of a wander around before retiring to bed. Tuesday 7th February 2006 We manage to get up at a decent hour in order to make the most of the buffet breakfast (included in the price of our room). It's probably one of the better ones we've had so we try a bit of everything - well, it'd be rude not too.. That morning we decide to head for the Petronus Twin Towers (on foot, of course). It's still pretty hot but we manage to mostly get their in the shade (probably walked twice as far with all that zig-zagging, but at least it was cooler!). We book tickets to go up the towers later in the morning and have a look around the shopping mall at the bottom of the towers. Unfortunately this one is a bit posher than the last so we really just are window shopping. Finally it is our time to go up to the viewing bridge, 44 floors up the Petronus Towers. Unfortunately, just before it is our turn to go up, the lifts decide to give up and we have to wait another half hour before they are sorted again. Never the less, the wait was worth it as we had some great views of the city from there. Next we head to Chinatown (we have learned our lesson now, and opt for the sky train) where we get a tasty Malay lunch and do a bit of bartering at the market stalls. Stu ends up buying a t-shirt that is too small, so Amy happily volunteers to have it instead! We are far too hot by this point so we give up on the Chinese Temple (we have seen far too many already anyway) and head back to the hotel to cool down and relax (via the bus station where we bought our tickets to Singapore). Decide it is time again for a curry. No, we know it wasn't a Friday night, but we just wanted one, okay? We decided well, as it was a fantastic curry. We also ran into an English/Oz couple again who we had previously met in one the shopping centres. We invite them for a drink at the pub next door, where we discover they are on their honeymoon, so we feel a bit bad about intruding. However, they were both really nice and we enjoyed a few beers with them and compared wedding strories! Wednesday 8th February 2006 Check out day today, so we decide to make the most of the 12pm checkout and have a bit of a lie in and a relax in our room. Tonight we are catching the overnight bus to Singapore (arriving 5am in time for our 9am flight to Perth). Since we are not going to be able to shower again until we get to Singapore airport (hopefully) we decide that we need to spend as little time as possible in the sun today so we intend to spend as much time as possible at the huge (a/c)mall with the entertainment complex inside. However, first we need to post another parcel back home. So, we decide to walk to the post office - durrrr!! While on our way to the post office we manage to bump into two different people that we had already met on our travels - Liesbeth, who we met in Chiang Mai and Leah, who we met in Luang Prabang. We thought it was a bit spooky that we saw Liesbeth, so you can imagine we were a bit spooked when we ran into Leah about 10 minutes later! Anyway, we got over that and posted our parcel back home. We finally made it to the air-conditioned heaven of our favourite mall where we decided to go to the cinema (first time in 3 months!) to see Keeping Mum, a british comedy with Rowan Atkinson etc which was very good. It was also nice to see a bit of home. We then settle in with a coffee and play a game of scrabble while waiting for the sun to go down. Dinner was a great chinese meal ($8). Headed back to the hotel to collect our bags before staggering to the bus station to catch our 11.30pm bus to Singapore. Thursday 9th February 2006 Fortunately the bus was another one of the luxury variety, and we may well have got a decent amount of sleep if we didn't keep having to get off the bus to show our passports and fill in forms (leaving Malaysia and entering Singapore). Mind you, at least the processes were efficient and there were no unexplainable additional "taxes" to pay to the staff. I think we get a little bit of shut-eye which will hopefully keep us going until we get on the plane to Perth. We arrive in Singapore at 5am and catch a taxi straight to the airport where we have to wait another 45 minutes before we can check in. However, we are at the front of the queue when it finally opens and we head straight for the showers! Bliss! Finally clean and feeling a bit refreshed we have a look around the airport shops until our plane is ready to board. The 5.5 hour journey passes pretty quickly and Stu embarrasses himself by laughing out loud all the way through his film (The 40-year old virgin). We arrive in Perth slightly sad to have left Asia behind, but also looking forward to the easier communication ahead of us. We meet our first friendly aussie as soon as we have collected our bags, who arranges us a room at a hostel in Perth, including a free pick up. Great. Arrive at the hostel which seems pretty nice and go straight up for a nap. Head into town in the evening for a quick look around before giving up and going for dinner where we enjoy some wine for the first time in ages. We then move onto a wine bar to enjoy some more wine before heading back to bed. Lots of love Stu & Amy PS Some messages would be nice!!!! Is anyone out there???