Kuala Lumpur

20 - 23 March

What a difference a day makes; from the hot sandy beaches and clear warm seas of the Thai islands to the humid inner-city bustle of Malaysia's capital city. Kuala Lumpur (KL) is an amazing city - it has everything that is good about - for example - London, but none of the bad bits (well, OK, except maybe the manic traffic).

Old KL architecture meets New (Petronas Twin Towers and KL Tower in background)

Here you can find a multi-level shopping plaza purely dedicated to electronic equipment, rubbing shoulders with another packed with nothing but the latest fashions. The largest mall contains an indoor roller-coaster which zooms at high speed around the vast atrium. A short walk away finds bustling market streets selling every kind of counterfeit product imaginable; designer clothes, watches, shoes, handbags and DVDs and CDs.

Shopping aside, the best thing about KL is that you don't feel like, and aren't treated as, a stranger. Everyone gets on with everyone else and you very quickly feel like part of the crowd.

Our hostel conveniently located in the centre of KL, and we wasted no time in dumping our bags and setting of to explore.

First stop was the tallest building, the KL Tower:

which for a small fee can be ascended to afford stunning views of the entire city:

Bizarrely, the KL Tower is surrounded by a small inner-city rainforest (honestly!) and so we took the opportunity of a quick yet very interesting guided walk. Unfortunately this proved to be a good way of boosting our collection of mosquito bites...

Five of KL's main tourist attractions are grouped together on a hill just outside the city; an orchid garden, deer park, planetarium, butterfly garden and the largest (apparently) enclosed aviary in the world. Arriving after a long, hot and sticky walk we were slightly disheartened to find that the deer park and orchid garden were closed for renovation. We weren't too bothered with visiting the planetarium (despite the miniature recreation of Stonehenge outside), but we did have a really enjoyable time at both the aviary:

and the butterfly garden:

On the last day of our first visit to KL we visited the zoo, which I had (mistakenly) understood to have been commended for its attempt to provide natural environments for the animals*

I hasten to add that none of the animals seemed particularly distressed or unhappy,

but somehow the zoo didn't live up to our expectations.

Luckily, the day was redeemed by a chance visit in the evening to a restaurant near our hostel called the Copper Kettle at which we had, by mutual agreement, probably the best Indian food we'd ever tasted.

*In fact, this praise had been bestowed upon Singapore zoo. More on this later if we end up visiting the zoo in Singapore.