Malaysia - Kuala Lumpur

As I write we are a month into our travels and it has been a few weeks since I updated you with our movements. In all honesty I had begun finding it slightly tedious recapping our experiences so thoroughly and with such regularity but I don't want to get too far behind myself so i'm online once again to give me fingertips a battering. In addition to my increasing disillusionment with my new role as a blogger I also felt that I didn't really have much of note to report after the all out assault of the senses that was Japan. However, if you do want to know what book I have been reading or what I have been eating on a daily basis feel free to message me. Alternately, take a long hard look at yourself and commit to getting a life.

After Tokyo, the city of all cities, all we wanted was some sort of quiet haven to rest in. What we got instead was another concrete and steel jungle, this one with a few more rough edges and an odd fixation with shopping malls. In its defence, Kula Lumpur or KL is an exciting multi-cultural city with great cheap food on every street which obviously pleased me no end.

Oh, did I mention it was monsoon season? No? Well it was and when the heavens opened you knew about it. This quite quickly put paid to our plans to find a tropical paradise to while away our days. Instead we pottered about the city for 3 or 4 days trying to entertain ourselves whilst escaping an imminent thunderstorm. One way we got our kicks was to take photos of me by the twin towers, showing off my new counterfeit Casio Illuminator with the picture framed to make it seem like I was on a green screen. I feel you will agree this was a worthwhile undertaking when you see the results below.

Not to be defeated by the unexpected meteorological goings on we planned a day trip to the Bat Caves just out of the city centre. One sweaty, uncomfortable, air conditioning free train journey later we were ready to be harassed by monkeys and left slightly underwhelmed. On the way in there were a few nice traditional sculptures and monuments worth showing you but after that it was a 200 step incline to a distinctly bat free cave (being daytime), spent feeling like a victim and cowering away from gangs of monkeys set up to ambush us for our bags and cans of Sprite.

For those who successfully made it to the top, this was the view we were met with. Not bad but i'm not sure it was worth the torment.

Before I move on to telling you of our adventures on the island of Penang I thought i'd share with you a couple of examples of the Malaysian street art that we saw on our failed mission to visit the Islamic Art Museum.