A comfy bus journey from Penang took us down to Kuala Lumpur, our second to last stop in South East Asia.

As we were heading down on the bus little bits started appearing, little bits which were familiar to us westerners. Motorways - with some kind of hierachy, hard shoulders, service stations, Tarmac and no crazy overtaking manoeuvres. There were still some occasional little touches which reminded us where we were. For instance, the bus driver stopping and picking up new passengers, using the hard shoulder as a bus stop. To round off a familiar journey, we hit a traffic jam on the out skirts of the city centre.

We finally arrived about 8:30 pm and still had the job of finding a bed for the night. We knew the main backpacker area was China Town so we headed there. After a short stroll the search begun. We checked out about six in total, some as nice as a route canal (and probably as comfortable), one also resembled a cupboard under the stairs. Despite this we stayed determined and managed to find a nice place, complete with luxuries such as air con and a TV.

The next day we changed rooms, still the same hotel but we opted for a 'economy room' - which was pretty similar but lacking a TV and en-suite. We explored China Town, which was a large cross roads with stalls selling the usual tat and 'genuine' sun glasses & clothes you find all across South East Asia.

After a day of strolling, dinner was next on the list. We opted for some 'street food' in the form of pick & mix BBQ. We selected meat and veg we wanted, in kebab form (on sticks, not a 3am saturday night, in pita kebab) and some other meat (I use this term loosely) which was also on sticks, but this time we cooked ourselves in boiling water? Located in a pan built into the middle of our table. The kebabs were okay, the boil your own meat didn't quite reach the same dizzy heights of averageness. They had about as much flavour as a sheet of bounty, similar slim content as frogs spawn and the texture of a 'hubba bubba'. In reflection the concept of dinner was a lot more fun than it was tasty.

The following day were checking out of our 'economy room' and checking into another hotel a couple of doors down, as a last bit of luxury for us and for my birthday, kindly paid for by Belle!

Our new hotel had only been open for a couple of weeks and when we checked in, was every bit as good as we hoped. A flat screen TV on the wall, air con, comfy bed, a large, clean and freshly tiled bathroom which boasted a shower head the size of a aerobe pro frisbee, It was awesome!

After exploring China Town the day before, we ventured further a field and hoped on the monorail and tube towards the financial district. The financial district is made up of shops, cafes, bars, with the monorail hovering above. All of which is surrounded by high rise buildings, with the KL tower and the Petronas Towers stealing the show. We headed towards the Petronas Towers.

As we walked towards them they got more and more impressive, two huge silver towers linked in the middle by the 'sky bridge' - staring up at them made it difficult to walk in a straight line, as they were so tall (the Peter Crouch of the building world).

Before we had a proper look round the towers we had a goose in the shopping centre spanning the base. The shops ranged from normal high street (Topman etc.) to the very expensive (Rolex, Prada etc.). We didn't even dare venture into these in our shorts and flip flops, we were even out priced window shopping.

Outside again we took a closer look at the almost Meccano like structures and explored the surrounding gardens, which were immaculately kept. I don't think either of us thought we would spend so much time looking at a set of buildings without getting bored. We attempted to scale these beasts (via lift not by doing our best spiderman impression) but they are closed on Mondays so our feet we kept firmly on the ground.

As Belle had spent her entire birthday travelling on various modes of transport, we were re-celebrating hers and marked it by going for a slab of cake. Little did I know that after we had ordered and I had gone to find a table, Belle asked for my slab to be bought over complete with candle.

For dinner that night we went for a chicken clay pot. Exactly what it says on the tin, chicken cooked in a clay pot with stock and rice, pretty tasty but still not as nice as we hoped. Luckily we had filled up on some familiar grub earlier in the day...a 'Mega Mac'. Yep, we did it again, McDonalds. This time we had a 'Mega Mac' which is the same as a 'Big Mac' but with four burgers instead of two - alot of beef, I think you would agree.

Our birthday celebrations were rounded off by a cold Tiger. Due to it being a whopping £3 a bottle, our Tiger intake was enjoyable but limited. At the time disappointing, however the next morning we were fresh as a daisy so it wasn't all bad.

Our time in Kuala Lumpur was coming to an end and with one day left we again headed towards the finical district, this time walking to a HUGE shopping centre - 'Time Square.' Easily the largest shopping centre I have ever been to, so big infact that there is a full blown theme park on the eighth floor. It didn't have the same high end shops as the towers but again we were restricted to window shopping.

For the rest of the day we took advantage of the room, air con and film channel, untill the following morning when we checked out and caught the best bus (possibly in the world - reclining arm chairs for seats, individual entertainment screens, complete with films) to our last stop...Singapore.

In short - Kuala Lumpur is a brilliant city, 5 great days were had.