Traveller's Moon Lodge Kuala Lumpur

The bus dropped me off on the road instead of at the bus station which confused me a little but I managed to find the 7-eleven where I was meeting Casper (couchsurfing friend). We went for Nandos then got the bus to her house. That night we went to the local night market and I bought some mandarin oranges. The next day we headed into town to check in to my hostel and to wait for Nick to arrive on his flight. He arrived a lot later than I had anticipated and I felt really bad that Casper waite...

After breakfast and internet we sweated our way over to the bus station for our journey onwards into Malaysia. There were some very friendly folk at the bus station and we were soon on our way. We had to pile out of the bus twice for each country's border controls and then again at a fly-infested service station but the trip was pleasant enough and comparatively short. At the Melaka bus station some genuinely friendly Malays gave us their advice about hostels, transport and sights in the city...

We arrived on a scorching afternoon in KL, and headed straight for the accommodation we'd booked. Unfortunately, it turned out we'd booked at the wrong one due to a bit of name confusion, but luckily for us it turned out that they did have a bit of room in our desired one after all. The Travelers' Lodge as its called sits above the rowdy Reggae Bar just on the edge of China Town, and we were really impressed by the staff who encouraged us to head straightaway to the Thaipusam Hindu festival g...

Today we went to the Mid Valley Mega Mall for some retail therapy! It was a huge mall just outside of the town centre. Zaf got some new glasses made and I gave Jamie a bit of a whooping at pool - I think he has having an off day! We then headed for the cinema. After one week of low-grade copied dvds at Daniel's Traveller's Lodge in the Cameron Highlands we were ready for some high quality entertainment. The movie we saw was Blood Diamond with Leonardo Di Caprio playing a South African diamond...

Today we went to the world famous Petronas Towers. They are among the very tallest buildings in the world and have held the title of tallest in the past. One thing is for sure - they are mighty impressive. It was 9.30am - already one hour later than the guide book recommends for grabbing one of the 1400 free tickets to go up. We got lucky though and were allotted 12.15pm as the time to come back to go up. Jamie and Zaf wanted to do it a bit later and got a 6.30pm slot. At the foot of the Petr...

Melaka is the kind of place you roll into expecting to stay for a day and end up staying for the best part of a week. It isn't breathtakingly exciting or beautiful and it isn't somewhere where you can completely switch off and meditate/vegetate in isolation, but there is just enough for you to do in and around the city to keep you amused. You potter along, visit somewhere, go and hide from the sun, have a drink, have a potter, eat...and that's a comfortable day gone. For us, it was the first ...

You have to love a place where when all the scheduled buses are full, they just write on the front of the office that they'll run another bus. For a second, we were a bit concerned that we wouldn't get tickets to Singapore when we wanted them because of the demand from Malay workers going back after the national holiday, but here things are relaxed, so no worries necessary. The road that dipped and curved between the elegant and colourful Melakan houses which never seemed to stop, yet were ne...

South East Travel Diary 2002 Malaysia: Week 1 Day 1 Arrived in KL. Got a bus into the city centre and then a taxi to The Travellers Lodge Hostel, in down town Chinatown. The room was basic but clean and breakfast is included. Went for a wander and found a place to have a good dinner of lemon chicken, rice and prawn crackers. I have to admit that all I thought about while eating was about everyone in Hsinchu and what a fantastic last few days (well, fantastic last 19 months) I had had. I retir...

I'm sniffling at the computer at the moment, eyes streaming, and I blame it all on the night bus! My bus from Penang to Melaka was lovely in that it had 3, rather than 4 seats across. Comfortable, yes, but it brought air conditioning to new highs. Despite my 3 long-sleeved tops, I was seriously frozen. I think I even dreamed about being hot and sticky (one's usual state at sea level in Malaysia). So now it's vitamins and orange juice in the fight against the common cold. I started off at Trav...