Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

We spent four nights in Kuala Lumpur, before I caught a flight back to Thailand where I am now. We stayed in Chinatown which was a good location for cheap dining especially (there was an amazing Indian canteen just down from our hostel!) and good transport links to KL Sentral which connected you to the rest of the city easily by monorail or light railway.

We got up early the first morning to queue for tickets for the Petronas Towers - they have pretty good availability but you just have to get there at about 8:30am. We managed to get tickets for that evening and it was definitely worth it. You first visit the Skybridge level, and then the higher observation deck. We managed to time our visit perfectly to see the sunset on the higher deck. The organisation and group sizes here are excellent and make for a great visit!

The Skybridge

Views from the top

The Petronas Towers... model and real life!

Another great place we visited in Kuala Lumpur is the Lake Gardens. It's a really beautiful garden and then has lots of animal parks, such as a huge bird park attached to it. The bird park was brilliant, with huge canopies and birds walking all around you.

The next day we visited the Batu Caves, which were just a short train journey from KL Sentral. It was a great sight to see, and there were a lot of steps to climb! It is a very popular Hindu shrine, with a huge statue of Lord Murugan (Matt was actually able to find this on the telescopes at the Petronas Towers the day before). There were plenty of monkeys at the bottom of the area to watch as well!

The rest of the time in Kuala Lumpur was spent exploring Chinatown and the area near the KL Tower. We also had a couple of fun nights out, and Kuala Lumpur had some great bars!

KL Tower

I caught an early flight on the last morning to Surat thani, Thailand, and the traveled by ferry over to Koh Samui!

Penang Part 2, Malaysia

We started our next day with a visit to the Kek Lok Si temple, which was absolutely stunning! There was a huge pond full of turtles on entry here! The site also featured the first inclined lift in Malaysia which took you to the top which had some great views of the area.

We found our way back to the main street afterwards and walked to Penang Hill, where we caught the funicular train up the hill to the top! This was a very long train and made for some great views up the top! There was a temple up the top, and we had a half an hour ride around the area on a golf buggy, and made perfect timing before it started raining!

Our final evening in Penang was spent meeting some of Matt's friends at their hostel. The next morning we caught the coach to Kuala Lumpur! It was a pretty nice ride with a lot of leg room! Will update soon :)

Penang, Malaysia

After spending a few days in Bangkok I flew down to Penang in Malaysia, where I met up with my friend Matt from home. We spent 3 nights here staying in Georgetown before heading onto Kuala Lumpur. I absolutely loved my time in Malaysia, and am quite missing it already!

Georgetown is a colonial town in Penang, and a great base for exploring the area. The food here and in Kuala Lumpur was amazing, and Penang had a lot of very cheap and delicious street food. We stayed at a great hostel and met some more travelers to hang out with, and I was even lucky enough to get the room to myself one night for the price of a dorm! Prices are definitely lower in Malaysia than Thailand which attracts a lot more tourists - we paid just £6 and £4 a night for accommodation here!

Our first day was spent exploring Penang National Park, which was excellent! We caught the local bus there and after eating a delicious curry at a roadside cafe we went for a hike to Turtle Beach, where as you can probably guess there was a turtle reserve! The beach was lovely, although the sand was burning hot! The turtles were very small and adorable to see.

Turtle Beach

Turtles!

On the way back we changed our route slightly to take in the canopy walk. We arrived a few minutes before it was meant to be closed, to find it was already shut, but fortunately we found someone who worked there who reopened half of it so we could go on it! It was an excellent canopy walk for only £1!

On our way back to the entrance of the park there was a nice little bit of sand where there were quite a few monkeys to watch playing around!

Our evening was spent visiting a great food court we found in Georgetown. I think this was the night where there was also an entertaining dance and singing show going on!

To be continued...

Bangkok, Thailand

My first stop in South East Asia after leaving Dubai was Bangkok, where I spent 3 nights. I stayed in a great hostel called NapPark near Khao San Road, which is a very popular area with backpackers. The hostel was excellent and I met some nice people here who I've bumped into again recently in Koh Samui!

The first evening I arrived a group of us went to the Sky Bar, which is featured in the Hangover 2 film. It's a great way to view the city from above, and you only had to purchase a drink as opposed to paying admission for the view.

The next day I explored the local area - Khao San Road is within walking distance of the Grand Palace. This was an amazing sight to see, and decorations are just incredible on the buildings!

Democracy Monument

Grand Palace

The next day I visited Siam Square, which was a very nice area of Bangkok with very modern and upmarket malls and facilities. I ended up visited Ocean World (I love aquariums this trip!) and the cinema as well as just looking round the shops. It was a nice day and nice to see a different side of Bangkok. I also had my first tuk-tuk ride which was a fun experience!

Tuk-Tuk

I really enjoyed my few days in Bangkok, and am looking forward to getting a couple more nights there at the end of the month before flying to Australia to see the sights I missed out. It's a very lively exciting city, and I particularly enjoyed the amazing street food - Pad Thai was just £1 and my favourite find was Pancake Rotee - a sort of pancake parcel with bananas in and nutella spread on top - Delicious!

Costa Atlantica Cruise Part 2

Our next stop on the cruise was Khasab, also in Oman. We did take a short trip into the town, but that had very little to see so we literally spent 5 minutes there!

However the highlight of this port was the dolphin tour we did on a traditional Dhow boat. We could catch one of these boats from just where the ship had docked. It was a great 3 hour trip, and the scenery there is beautiful. We were also lucky to see quite a few dolphins and had an amazing moment where the dolphin swam along the boat with us.

The final stop on our cruise before heading back to Dubai was Abu Dhabi. Apart from Dubai this was definitely the highlight of the cruise, and it would have been good if we had been in port for longer than we were as there was a lot to see here! We started our day by getting a taxi to Ferrari World, which is a theme park dedicated to the Ferrari's, located on Yas Island which is a modern area (which also has a brand new water park that looked fantastic!). Ferrari World is an indoor theme park, with all the attractions based on, of course, the Ferrari! It also has the fastest roller coaster in the world, which was brilliant, although the forces at the beginning when it accelerates from 0-240km/h in 5 seconds is incredible! You even have to wear eye goggles because of the forces. I was definitely glad I did it though! There were some interesting rides and shows, and a great use of technology throughout the very modern theme park.

The lovely mascot of Ferrari World

Formula Rossa - the fastest rollercoaster in the world

After our trip to Ferrari World we caught a taxi to the Emirates Palace Hotel, which was a great site to see!

Abu Dhabi was our last port of call before heading back for our final days in Dubai, where we visited the Wild Wadi Water Park and explored more of Dubai on the Big Bus Tour. We had a great time on the cruise, and the ship itself was beautiful. The food was also excellent, although being an Italian ship there was always pizza around!

The Costa Atlantica in Khasab

I'm in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia at the moment, although I'll catch up soon with the last week which was spent in Bangkok, Thailand and Penang, Malaysia. :)