KL- Malaysia & to Thailand

Monday
After a 5 hour bus trip (and 30 toll booths later) we arrived in KL and checked into our hotel, the Dorsett Regency, not quite knowing what to expect based on our last experience in Singapore. This place was all good though and we have now labelled ourselves more as "flash"packers as opposed to "back" packers as the Dorsett was a hotel with all the trimmings.


Below is a photo of KL from our room on the 28th floor - the 'executive residence'. This is a picture of the twin towers.





Nadia was quick to park up poolside with one of her 3 Marian Keyes books and start relaxing (which as many of you will know is a near impossible task, I'm sure there were thoughts of terrosim in there somewhere). I went shopping and found my 'electronic Nirvanna' in a nearby mall dedicated solely to gadgets!


Tuesday
We went to the Buta Caves - 4 hundred million year old limestone caves (only marginally better than the Cathedral Caves in Southland -NB the sarcasm). There are 272 stairs to climb to get into the caves, no easy feet in 35 degree heat. Below is a photo of the entrance to the caves with a massive golden dude and also Nadia about 3/4 of the way up the stairs.


The wildlife was interesting with wild monkeys just cruising about the place causing mischief. Below is a photo of me holding a Iguanna.

Overall we were not hugely impressed with KL. The city is quite dirty and the driving in the city is a hair raising experience with many of the locals looking like they had been through the 'Jo Turner driving school' (Sorry Frucor joke).

Thursday

We flew out of KL and arrived at Phuket airport. From there we took a taxi to Karon Beach (about 1 hour from Phuket airport, very close to Patong Beach). We have been here 2 nights and are planning to stay another 2 nights before we head south to Ao Nang for another 5 nights.

We are staying at the Diamond Cottage Resort and Spa which is very comfortable as shown below, which is good because the heat here is very intense which has meant frequent trips to the swimmimng pool.

Stay tuned for our next installment where we scam the scammers....

'A' Food Ratings in Singapore

For those of you in a hurry, here are the highlights of Singapore & where we are at now....

• Arrived in Singapore early Saturday morning (1am) after watching average movies on a 12 hour flight and checked into a less than spacious hotel in Little India
  
• Explored Little India


• Discovered Singapore had food ratings just like in Auckland!


• Went shopping along Orchard Road (100's of malls)


• Had dinner with Kim & Reuben formerly from EY Auckland


• Had a drink at Clarke Quay (where all the nightlife happens in Singapore)


• Visited Sentosa Island via the cable car- went to Underwater World, Dolphin lagoon & various beaches


• Visted the Night Safari at Singapore Zoo
  
• Caught luxury bus to Kula Lumpur and now staying in flash 5 star hotel

Now for the unabridged version...

Singapore is a cool city it is very clean (no rubbish and no graffiti). Traffic in Singers is also good because the Govt discourages the use of cars by imposing heavy taxes on them to minimise pollution. As a result eveyone uses public transport which is very fast and reliable.

We arrived very early in the morning in Singapore, exhausted we checked into our 3 star hotel and were greeted with a shoebox.

As you can see from above. they are very tight on their space - Singapore is the only place we have ever been to where you can shower and go to the toilet at the same time!

The next day we went out shopping and both Nadia and I were excited to discover that Singers has food ratings just like in Auckland. Orchard Road is the main shoping street and it has just mall after mall. We were all shopped out but still liked to spend time in the mall to escape the 30+ humid heat.

That night we went out for peking duck with Kim and Rebeun who then showed us the nightlife on Clarke Quay .

Sentosa Island was our next stop via a ridiculously high cable car. Nadia was less than comfotable on this ride and was unable to take advantage of the great views, thankfully I was taking photos for her to review once on solid ground.

Sentosa Island is the plastic fantastic of Singapore. We frequented Underwater World, a couple of beautiful beaches (shown above) and an viewed an amazing pink dolphin show.

That night we went to the night safari at the Singapore Zoo. This involved cruising around in a tram and looking at the animals many from different parts of Asia. That was the end of a very busy day.

The next day we caught the bus to Kuala Lumpur which was a 5 hour trip through Malaysia. One noteable incident happened through customs when the customs officer thought that we were from Brazil. Nadia put this down to her earthly Brazilain charm and fine features, she was dissapointed when I told her it was probably beacuse I was wearing a Brazilian soccer top at the time!

We leave now to go and explore KL. I will have to pick Nadia up from the hotel room where she is doing some washing. As we are happy to splurge on 5 star hotels, we simply cannot afford to pay NZ$2 to have each pair of our undies washed.