Crossing over the border into Malaysia from the expensive international modern city of Singapore was a dramatic change in scenery to dirt roads, houses built out of any material lying around, and endless rows of palm trees. The train ride to Kuala Lumpur was less than desirable with pieces of the floor missing, the doors constantly flinging open on the slightest turn, and people smoking in between the carriages. At least the smoke put a damper on some of the other smells, and we got to watch one of the Harry Potter movies two times in a row on the random flat screen, which was the nicest thing on the train. However, taking all that into account the ride was enjoyable to be with the local people and travel how they do enjoying the country side pass by, and that is the reason I enjoy train travel so much in the first place.

We arrived in KL greeted by rain and thunderstorms making the viable option to see the city for a few hours one of those hop on and off tourist buses. All in all the city was not impressive, and seemed like a second rate Singapore even more crowded, and still holding to traditional Muslim gender practices so that it felt a bit uncomfortable. Even on one of the country's most cherished shrines of one of the world's tallest flag poles and beautiful open parks in the city on which Malaysia claimed its independence from Britain they put a giant electronic advertising screen that was so bright you couldn't even look towards the monument. Overall I was happy to only spend a few hours there looking forward to the care free Thailand way of life on the coast even though we only had 2nd class seats for the 13 hour overnight journey into Thailand from where we would then catch a minibus for another 6 hours to our first destination of Phuket.