So the time had come to set off on my travels. It was hard saying goodbye to everyone and part of me even wondered if I was doing the right thing. On the plane, I was sat next to a man who was going to work as a security guard in Iraq, which helped me not to be scared anymore and made me realise how lucky I was to have the opportunity to do this.

After a 15 hour journey, I finally arrived in Kuala Lumpur. When I eventually arrived in the hostel the lady who owned it made me feel so welcome and I was relieved to find that my hostel was really clean and friendly (even if the people who work in the 'clinic' downstairs were a bit dodgy).

So I woke up the next morning to find that the lady who had been doing a night shift at the hostel stayed up just for me, because she had promised me when I arrived that she would show me what to do! She told me step by step what I should do on my first day. I went to the Batu Caves, which are basically huge limestone caves with Hindu shrines in them. There was a Hindu wedding going on there, which we were allowed to watch and was pretty interesting. There were loads of monekys at the caves, and chicken too for some reason. The monkeys were coming up to people and taking bottles of water out of their hands, it was so cool! Then, I went to Little India, which was pretty rough, but I had this amazing meal in this restaurant of 3 vegetable curries and rice on a banana leaf. I had to ask the lady there if I could eat the leaf and she said no :-s they just use them to save washing up and also to give the rice a bit of a flavour. I went back to the hostel and fell asleep as the jetlag had seriously kicked in (KL are 8 hours ahead). Then, in the evening, I went up 250m in the KL tower and got panormaic views of the city, including the Petronus Towers. I went at sunset, so I got day and nigth views. Because I'm a loner, I had to ask this Dutch girl to take a photo of me, but we ended up chatting together and even went for dinner together after! However, whilst we were walking around, it rained like hell (it's coming up to their monsoon season) and we got totally drenched. Thankfully, it's still around 30 degrees so I dont mind the rain so much.

The next day, I decided to walk to a bird sanctuary, which was a bad idea! I got very very lost. I eventually got to this place, but had to walk up this small mountain to get there. On my way up, it rained like crazy again. I must admit, I was scared at this point because I was walking quite high up under trees with thunder and lightening :( I got to this bird park and then had to spend alot of money on an umbrella because the bird park was outdoors. But I put so much effort into getting to this sanctuary, I WAS going to see these birds. Apparently, it's Asia's largest bird sanctuary! Then I went to China Town in the evening. I ate proper chicken and cashwe nuts, which was really good, but a bit offputting because the locals there had a habit of staring at me. So I walked around the China Town markets for a bit, but the people working there were getting on my nerves being pushy and trying to get me to buy things, so I put my headphones in, music full blast, and got the hell out of there!!

Today, I decided to do something crazy and hopped on a bus to this town 2 hours away called Melaka. I knew absolutely nothing about it, and, when I got to the bus stop in Melaka, I was tempted to get back on it and say take me back to Kuala Lumpur because I didn't know where to go/what to do. But, I got in a taxi instead and asked him to take me to the tourist places. The weirdest thing happened when I arrived there. The Dutch girl I met at the KL Tower a few days before was stood right next to me when I got out of the taxi!! So I hung around with her for the day. It was such a nice town, really quaint and historic. We did some shopping, saw some ruins and went for this really weird lunch called Buna Laka or something. I can't even describe it. It was like noodles with dumplings and egg and fish in this spicy coconut sauce.

Now, 18 hours later, I'm in Auckland, but that's another blog altogether....