It's been a week now that we left Oz - a crazy and busy week. We arrived in Singapore after an 8 hour flight (ignorant as we are, we expected it to be around 4 hrs...) at 11pm (3am Sydney time). It took us a while to find our bus stop in the basement of a different terminal. Unfortunately the bus drivers only take exact change - which left us stranded with our $50 bills from the ATM... more wandering the airport to make change but eventually we found our hostel, cranked up the A/C, had a well deserved shower and a heavenly sleep. Things are different in Asia - we noticed quickly. We had 1 bathroom for 20 people, shoes everywhere outside houses (no shoes allowed inside), we had some of the best and worst smells , people EVERYWHERE and more importantly, good food to be found at every corner. As we discovered with our first "internet cafe" experience: our first generation IBM computers, Jason thinks he's found them. They are alive and well and ripping people off in an internet cafe in Singapore. We couldn't even get to read any of our hotmail e-mail.

After a few days in Singapore we headed north to Malacca in Malaysia. Our hostel in Chinatown looked great, nice quite courtyard, clean rooms... until we read the guestbook. At that point we had forked over the money for two nights. The last entry was a page long and gave nasty details about bedbugs.... we raced back to our room for an extensive search for... we both didn't actually know what these little suckers look like. At this point our corporate background came in handy - we called in an emergency meeting. Facts were reviewed, alternatives assessed, SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunities, Threats) analysis performed... it was just like a good old corporate meeting but without the coffee and the doughnuts. Luckily enough our plan B did not have to come into play - our room turned out to be safe. Some of the experiences in Malacca:

• a public fountain can have multiple uses (for the same person): a) drinking water, b) bidet...
• best street food ever - whenever there was a local lineup we would put in our order too. We've tasted some of the best (and to this day unidentified) food and it's sooo cheap. We can't stop ourselves from trying a bit of everything they are cooking up: Po piah (kind of spring roll with turnip filling, yum), Cendol (shaved ice with coconut milk, brown sugar, green jelly "things", red beans - to die for), Laksa (coconut or tamarind soup with noodles.... you name it)
• I am not made for Islam as I can easily sleep through the loudest call to prayer at the crack of dawn (not so Jason...)

The last three days we've spent in Kuala Lumpur. Our hostel was nice and the room had A/C - sometimes we need to treat ourselves. The plastic wrapped mattress seemed like a fabulous idea (after the bedbug scare) but in fact - it's not: a) the noise it makes at the slightest move and b) the "vapor barrier" made it a very unpleasant experience - but we had a hell of a giggle. Last night we met up with a friend of Jason's sister to get an insiders view of life in Malaysia. Reading things in a museum is neat but nothing beats an evening out with locals!

Next we're off to the Cameron Highlands - we decided that we need a bit of a break from cities and the heat. It's going to be a 4 hrs bus drive from sea level to around 1500 meters above sea level - it promises to be interesting.

We are on our way north towards Thailand but have to keep checking the news to know about the current political situation. By the time we are at the border things will hopefully have been solved (yeah right...) if not - we're flexible.

Love from KL (as us locals like to call it), Baebs & Jason

PS: I (Baebs) challenge anybody to use a public squat toilet with two backpacks in +30C/~99% humidity. Yep - tick that one of the list