Cities

Not all our time has been taken up with my obsession with my bites. In Singapore we did a lot of window shopping.Shopping is their favorite pass time and there are hundreds of shops and malls. The shopaholics paradise. When we first arrived in Singapore, the heat and humidity was quite overwhelming and we kept diving into malls for the air-con. I think it's the first time Tim has willingly gone into a mall. As we got used to the heat, we carried on going into the malls, as Tim wanted to look at Electronic goods. It turned out they weren't that much cheaper than he could have got on the net, but I think he liked looking anyway. I think we walked for miles whilst shopping and we found that the time just fell away. We also got to catch up with diary entries and emails etc.

From Singapore we headed to Kuala Lumpar. We treated ourselves and got an over night 1st class sleeper cabin. (not that expensive) It was great. (Sorry Roger!) We had our own little bathroom, t.v and were brought tea and breakfast.(I didnt have tea as it was all meat) We watched a film about a boy in Africa who runs away to the desert with his pet cheetah and then slept. The rocking motion of the train was quite soothing. We arrived in Kuala Lumpa too soon. I wished it could have been a longer journey!

In Kuala Lumpa we stayed at a hostel which was ok. We left the hostel to have a walk around and a man from Kuwait jumped out of his car and showed us his wallet stuffed with American $. We were quite confused by this and talking to him made us even more confused, but he seemed quite please and leapt back into his car with a cheery goodbye.

We had not been stamped into the country when we entered Malaysia, so we thought we had better be honest and go to Immigration. We thought it would be in the middle of the city, with a few bored people sitting around and we would be in and out. How wrong we were. A monorail, a train ride and a taxi later we arrived at immigration to find lots of people waiting. We got our ticket and realised we could be waiting quite a while. We didnt wait so long, but we were told to get a form to fill in and then wait. We waited for ages thinking" we only want a stamp". Eventually our number was called and we grabbed our passports and made a run for it before they changed their minds.

We wanted to go up the Twin Towers in KL. We did not manage to as everytime we went there were no tickets left for that day. Everyday we went increasingly earlier, to find that there were no tickets. (We went 3 times! The rest of the time we spent negotiating athe monorails, browsing Central Market, eating and drinking at foodstalls.

To be honest I was getting a little sick of the city. I'm just not a city girl and we had gone from Cape Town, to Singapore to Kuala Lumpar. I do like going to the cities and it's good to see them in different countries, but after a while I just get fed up with the hustle and bustle and I was a bit bored of shops and products!

We are in Cameron Highlands now and it is a welcome relief. We got the bus from KL (eventually, it had to be fixed before we left) and 4 and a half hours later were winding up a road in amongst Ferns and Palms. I felt instantly more relaxed. We checked into a hotel and it was the first one which had the local washroom which consists of a squat toilet (a toliet basin in the floor)and a seperate room to "shower" . The shower is a basin with a jug in which you do the "wash and slosh" method. Coming here, I realised I had got used to my home comforts. It never used to bother me roughing it, but I was disapointed to find that I was a bit dismayed! However, I think the biting thing has got me down a bit. Now I am feeling better about that I feel ready to deal with things more.I have got used to the squatting method though now I think, although it is a bit difficult when you are wearing trousers! I do get quite excited when I find a western toilet though (It's the small things when you are travelling)! I will also develop my leg muscles I think!

Today we had a nice walk to a waterfall and a look out point.We saw monkeys (our first SE asia wildlife) which I was really happy about and realised that I had been craving some nature!