Happy New Year from KL!

Arrived in Kuala Lumpur on the 30th - as expected it was very hot and we were grateful for a relatively short walk from the bus station to our hotel.

Happy New Year!

As hotel prices are fairly cheap we were able to splash out a bit and stay in a smart hotel close to all the areas we wanted to see.

When we last visited KL, on the way over to Australia the first time, there was so much smog (from forest fires in Indonesia) that the air was poisonous and you could barely see anything, including the famously tall Petronas Towers building. However this time there was no such prblem, and we were able to walk around the city seeing the sights of the well preserved British colonial area (quite similar to Singapore) as well as the Petronas Towers, some interesting markets in Chinatown (selling more of the same stuff we saw in Melaka) and generally finding our way around.

SLight improvement in hotel comfort!

KL has arguably even more and grander shopping complexes than Singapore, and since we last came in 2005 there are some new glitzy centres to take a look at. One in particular has a great food court with very cheap (about 40p for main courses) food stalls, along with loads of good restaurants, all very good value. So this is where we got our evening meal on hogmanay, before wandering along to see the fireworks at the two towers, which are very impressive when lit up at night.

As soon as the fireworks were over it was back to the hotel to get ready to set off early in the morning to Penang, in the North.

Our bus was scheduled to go from the very dirty and busy bus station at 8.30am. Having waited on the platform until 9am with nobody seemingly able to explain anything to us in English we were eventually ushered around the corner, out of the station and onto a bus - gladly it went where we were going! How do I get the feeling this won't we be the last time things don't happen smoothly in Asia!

massive food court

shops, shops & more shops!

fireworks at Petronas Towers