Right, so that's Australia 'out of the way', if anyone has any questions or comments please feel free to leave a message.
I flew from Perth to Kuala Lumpur in the small hours of October 15th, 7 days more and it would've been exactly a year since I got that visa stamp in Sydney airport. I really cannot comprehend where that year has gone - it's all passed so quickly!
It was a pretty unspectacular 6 hour flight with Malaysian Airlines. I did get a window seat and was pleasantly surprised by a full-blown meal at 2am though. Lemon chicken curry which was strangely rather nice. They even happily obliged my persistent requests for more red wine. Well, why not?!
I made sure to get some AU$500 worth of Malaysian Ringitts before leaving Oz to avoid having to faff around in any currency exchanges in the airport. Not really being one for taxis unless I have no other choice I made my way through the KL transit system (which is actually really good - punctual, simple and CHEAP). Going through immigration was hitch-free, just had to think for a moment when it came to the box labelled "Normal Occupation" on the form.
I took the KLIA Ekspres from the airport to KL Sentral station, costing 35MYR (Malaysian Ringitt, which is about £7 as £1 = 4.90MYR at the moment), took about half an hour, and as I'm finding with just about every metro train, tram and monorail is lovingly fitted with air-conditioning.
From the KL Sentral station I took the Kelana Jaya line for one stop to Pasar Seni (Central Market in English). Once out of train and onto street I began following the directions I'd jotted down from hostelworld.com, politely shaking my head and smiling at all the people calling "Taxi". Luckily I didn't have to go far and only had to backtrack the once before I found my hostel in a quiet area, just walking distance from everything.
So - first impressions of Kuala Lumpur are positive! It reminds me of Istanbul in a few ways, one being how you can buy pretty much anything your imagination allows from the street markets.
Straightaway I notice the humidity and it doesn't take long to get used to and enjoy it for the most part, especially when carrying my bags around with sweat dribbling down my face. Mmm. Also it's a welcome change from Perth, which, though beginning to heat up steadily, was still uncomfortably cold at night.
I had some much needed power winks in my nice air-conditioned room (never get much kip on a plane) for a few hours, then headed into the deep-end to get some food. I was still half-shattered so I went for the first place that pushed a menu into my gaze, bang in the middle of Chinatown.
It was a nice enough plate of fried rice and fish. That and a bottle of water was 9-something MYR. I wasn't so comfortable eating there as it was very crowded with people walking up and down the narrow streets doing their shopping / sightseeing. Also, looking around, it seemed there weren't many other than Westerners eating there. I passed on beer (3 times!) as it is relatively expensive here, in part due to the predominately Muslim population (according to Wikipedia).
After paying the waiter chap, I went off for a little wander in this new and thriving place. The next day I was toting the camera once again (after wiping off the dust). I'll get round to uploading some pictures soon.
For now though, it's dinner time. Most meals I'm getting now are around the £1 mark, with the most expensive so far being a bank-breaking 17MYR (£3.50)!!
