A journey to the centre of humidity.....

It didn’t take long on our evening wander to spot the Towers out. They were, until 2004, the tallest buildings in the world, and are an incredible spectacle at night. Obviously, both being engineers we were bound to like them, but they even took us by surprise with their immaculate lighting and seemingly endless height. When we go back to KL we will defiantly be having another look!

With our Indian Visa still causing problems we decided to take a few days out from KL and head to the Cameron Highlands in Malaysia. This is Malaysia’s tea plantation hub and also the ‘coolest’ part of the country with temperature rarely exceeding 21C. Arriving around midday we spent the first day relaxing, eating more superb Asian meals, viewing the World’s least impressive waterfall and making a large error when ordering a pudding...After deciding we deserved a treat (‘Tis a hard life) we argued over who was to try the ‘Ice Kasang ABC’ and who had to endure the ‘Cendol’, without knowing what either dish contained. We settled on sharing and when they came out we knew we had cocked up. They both had the same base of rice flour and brown sugar (OK but very sweet), with the ‘Kasang’ containing sweet corn, kidney beans and a horrific brand of jelly and the ‘Cendol’ having some inedible Steve: “green shit on top”. Both equally disgusting and hilarious for the staff watching our faces!

The next day was tea plantation day, and we set off on a bus (that left its ticket lady at a random stop and then she miraculously appeared again 20 minutes later, strange) and then a long hike through the plantation to the tea house and factory. Accompanied by a Canadian couple we drank some local ‘BOH’ Tea and walked through the factory watching the Umpa-lumpa’s at work. We walked back instead of catching the bus only for the Australian Monsoon to catch us up just before the Tanah Rata Golf Club. Cheers. The evening was spent master-planning as our Indian Visa was still not ready for collection so we decided to cut our losses and head for Phuket and the Thai Islands, before coming back to KL to pick up the Visa, then fly to Cambodia so we don’t loss any time, make sense? Good.

And so the journey begins....the route between the Highlands and Phuket had three legs. Leg one was to get to Butterworth in Malaysia. However, after 90 minutes the bus decided it didn’t need a drive shaft anymore and left it on the road. The sound had to be heard to be believed. With another bus kindly giving us a lift to the next town we had to wait 45 minutes for a Butterworth connection. When it came after an hour we got on to find a passenger in the form of a loose chicken on board, very random. Leg two involved getting from Butterworth to Hat Yai in Thailand and therefore crossing the border. This journey could not have gone any smoother as it seemed we were the only bus at the border and with only 5 passengers we were away in no time. Then leg three, Hat Yai to Phuket. We opted for the 9.30pm so we would get in at 5am, early but the best we could do. Unfortunately, the regular driver was ill and Fernando Alonso took the wheel, cue a 3.25am arrival in Phuket! With nowhere open, we killed a very boring and slightly scary 4 hours at Phuket Bus Station.

As I am currently writing this we are in our fan assisted double room in Phuket town, trying to cool down from being at the beach today. Phuket is by far the hottest and most humid place we have been so far. Those of you reading in England should spare a though for us here, sweating constantly in some tropical paradise.....