21st March 2010 Directly opposite the old railway building in KL, which is a beautiful building in its own right, and only a short walk from our hotel stands the National Mosque. The National Mosque is Malaysia’s principal mosque and one of the most prominent buildings in the city. Reputed as one of the more beautiful mosques in South-east Asia, this uniquely designed mosque embodies a contemporary expression of traditional Islamic art, calligraphy and ornamentation. ...
20th March 2010 It’s a good job that the room situation is now ok since we’ve spent a lot of time here today. When I woke up this morning it was with a bad stomach which has persisted for most of the day. The few times we’ve ventured out I’ve felt quite unwell and too hot and had to return to the hotel. On the plus side though, the hotel sent up a plate of fruit and a box of chocolates to apologise for the problems with the room :D. ...
19th March 2010 KL has some very big malls, full of the latest designer gear and some of our UK high street shops. In a change of pace, today we visited the Suria KLCC mall below the Petronas Twin Towers (having tried and failed again to get up to the skybridge). It turned out to be a day of cool air-conditioning, away from the punishing humidity of KL. We took a wander around the mall. One name stood out, so we simply had to go and take a look in Marks and Spencer. It was just like being at home, albeit a lot quieter and with a different type of clientele. While we were there I was able to pick up a pair of light trousers. I’ve been looking for a pair since Oz with no luck, so to be able to pick up a pair for the same price as the UK and in a short length suited me and I can finally stop the ‘great trouser hunt’! ...
18th March 2010 Ok, so maybe I was a little premature when I said yesterday that our room seemed clean. We pulled back the sheets on the bed to go to sleep last night and there was an unidentified ugly stain on them. Of course, since it was now 11.30pm, when I rang down to reception to complain I was told housekeeping was shut and they would change them in the morning. When I asked what we were supposed to do in the meantime, the only suggestion they had was to change rooms. So, yesterday we checked into 608 but last night we slept in room 908 two floors above. ...
16th March 2010 We awoke this morning to more activity across the street in the food market. A really bustling little place with people calling in for breakfast as they start the day. I am finding Malaysia quite different from Singapore. It is certainly not as clean and well ordered as Singapore, especially in the old part of town where we are staying. The streets have open gutters and pavements are few and far between, meaning you have to have your wits about you when walking about as there are loads of cars on the roads. ...
15th March 2010 We took an early bus from Singapore’s Golden Mile Complex to get to our next destination, Melaka in Malaysia. We were at the border about an 45 minutes after leaving Singapore and passed through immigration and customs with no problem. On entering Malaysia, the predominant landscape was palms, a lot of which seem to be plantations, although I’m not sure whether that’s for palm oil or coconuts. Most of the journey was on a long straight motorway although we did stop at a food court for about half an hour. ...
14th March 2010 Sentosa is a popular island resort in Singapore, just a short journey from the city centre and visited by some five million people a year. Attractions include a two-kilometre long sheltered beach, Fort Siloso, two golf courses and two five-star hotels, not forgetting the Resorts World Sentosa, featuring the new theme park Universal Studios Singapore. We took the MRT down to the Harbourfront where we got off at the Vivo Shopping Centre. With it being Sunday there were loads of people milling about the mall and also wanting to go across to Sentosa. We then caught the monorail across to Sentosa. There is also a cable car which goes from Mount Faber across, but this is currently closed for renovation work. ...
10th March 2010 The current plan after Singapore is to travel by train to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia then to fly out to Ho Chi Minh city in Vietnam. Vietnam is one of the few countries we need a visa for in advance so this morning we caught a train out to the Vietnamese embassy which is about a thirty minute train ride from the centre. We were slightly wet by the time we arrived at the embassy because it had been raining hard all morning, but we were able to fill in our forms and leave our passports in order to (hopefully) collect our visa on Friday morning. ...