Melaka
From Singapore, I travelled with Kerri and Jeremy by bus into Malaysia. First stop Melaka, but this Kiwi couple like to travel fast (and cheap)! So we only spend one night, and I think they're already regretting the decision to share a room with me to save money – my snoring, combined with Jeremy's, means that no-one really gets a good sleep. We did another bike tour, yet again in pouring rain, through some of the near-by forest with a randy Muslim guide; interesting, but a little disturbing.

Although it's the dry season, southern Malaysia experienced some flooding around this time, which made getting out of Melaka a little difficult, due to road diversions. It was pretty weird to have the women in the front seat of the bus shouting directions to the bus driver to get us out of Melaka and on our way to KL. It probably would have been better if they'd driven the bus as well, since the driver was a maniac, hurtling down winding roads in heavy rain forcing cars to get out of his way. I had a previous experience with Malaysian taxi drivers playing “who dares wins” when I first visited as an 8 year old in 1985, but I didn't realise that the bus drivers were worse. This country has some of the most dangerous drivers in the world, from my own observations and other people's accounts (although Thai tourist bus drivers push them close, I'm told).

Kuala Lumpur
But we arrived in Kuala Lumpur in one piece, and began searching for the cheapest digs a Kiwi dollar can buy. The rat that ran between Kerri's feet as we were checking-in should have put us off, but Kerri is made of strong stuff (or at least stronger than Jeremy and I, who were a bit freaked out) and we checked into a 3-person room. I think they slept okay, but I was crapping myself at every random sound – worried that I'd wake up with rats chewing at my feet or drinking saliva from my mouth – and hardly slept. The plan was to wake up early, to get in line for the ascent up the Petronas Towers, but the queues were already until 2pm when we arrived, so we had to content ourselves with the view from the bottom and find something else to do. When I was here as a kid I loved the Batu Caves – especially when the semi-tamed monkeys almost mauled my brother when he tried to pet them... So we made the trip out, and it was every bit as good as I remembered – definitely my KL highlight.