'Standing on the shoulders of giants' - KL, Malaysia

Flying into Kuala Lumpur airport, for the first time in ages it actually felt like we were arriving into a new country. I mean obviously we have arrived into new countries or places before, nearly daily or weekly throughout our trip but you never get that sense of arrival from a boat or bus.

Never the less, our first of three visits to Malaysia's multicultural capital throughout our journey was easily navigated with a simple hour long bus journey from the airport to the city centre taking in the great sight of the Sepang F1 circuit on-route. From there, we once again hoped on the tube for 1 stop and arrived at our pre-booked destination.

Entering the city, it is hard not to make comparisons to London. For example, nearly every ones first language is English, there was almost always constant outbreaks of rain and to top that the little India, Chinatown and glass panelled structures were very reminiscent of Tooting, Soho or Canary Wharf.

Staying at a cute little hostel named Surai Inn we were immediately brought up to speed with what to & not to do in this amazing setting by our lovely and hospitable host. A truly great guy, going out of his way to make sure you know everything you need to.

Throughout our first stint of three days here we once again managed to fill our days with exciting new adventures, leaving our second & third visits mainly for transportation stopovers or minor day trips to the surrounding areas. With so much to see and do here that we wanted to participate in we set out seeing the amazing Petronas towers both from ground and high rise elevations, truly awesome landmarks. We also climbed up to the highest possible viewpoint at the Menara KL Towers providing us with some stunning views over the city and some rather cool photographs. Mix this in with doing a forest in the city tour, the mammoth shopping plazas in and around Times Square where we occasionally stopped to check if the largest indoor roller coaster in SE Asia was actually going to stop travelling at breakneck speed, we also took in the cultural diversities of Chinatown and Little India - often eating our way out, checked out Central Market both at day and night as the food stalls there were truly remarkable, we visited the national planetarium, the national mosque (wow), Masjid Jamek Mosque, the Islamic arts centre, the old train station building, travelled the skytrain and even managed to walk along the world renowned Petaling St Market where flocks of tourists and locals combine to ignite a fantastic atmosphere of street stalls and restaurants. Our list of things still didn't end there as combining this with some excellent opportunities to sample several different cuisines we enjoyed some amazing Indian food at Woodlands Vegetarian restaurant - unearthing Jo's new favourite 'The Paper Dosai', we ate like pigs in a cute little Japanese place & also indulged in many more kinds of street food on offer. The only thing we didn't do was drink alcohol! So expensive in a Muslim populated country and something my system thanked me for after our exploits in Thailand.

Concluding our 1st visit, our second and third visits provided us with a day at Sunway Lagoon Plaza and Waterpark which turned out to be good fun after an initial dodgy start where most of the rides were closed. We also booked trips to Melaka (see Melaka section) and took in a pretty damn good Ramadan festival market where I got to try Nasi Kerabu with Blue rice for the first time..... Super!!!

Needing another little beach break after the hectic non-stop first three days activities previously mentioned, we decided our next destination would be the Perhentian Islands where we had to catch an overnight train through the jungle. How exciting!!!!