#13 KUALA LUMPUR (PART 1) BATU CAVES AND PETRONAS TOWERS

Our initial plan when we landed in KL was to get on an overnight bus straight to the Perhentian Islands. We've both been to KL before and love this city so at the last minute we decided to stay for a few nights. We headed to Imbi on the monorail and headed straight out for some Indian food. Malaysia has some cracking Indian restaurants and as seen as we're both obsessed with it that's all we pretty much ate for 3 days. There was a great Indian a few doors down from our hotel. Everything is set out buffet style, you load up your plate and someone comes over to your table and writes down the charge. We were a little worried by this at first as we weren't sure how much it would cost but these types of restaurants are some of the cheapest in KL. That evening, we went to Bukit Bintang for surprise surprise more Indian food. I was being a little fussy and wanted a proper restaurant instead of a help yourself kind of meal so we jumped on the monorail to Little India. The transport and monorail system in Kuala Lumpur is fantastic and a very cheap way of getting around. We went to the Gem Restaurant and firstly ordered a Kingfisher Beer. This was the premium stuff at around 8%. Its a really nice beer. Chris wasn't too impressed that of all the lovely looking food on the menu I went for a good old chicken tikka masala. What can I say, I love them and having only had a couple hours of sleep in the last few days I needed it. Chris had the palak kofta and it was very tasty. The following day we headed to TBS Bus Station to book our overnight bus to the Perhentian Islands. It was pretty cheap at 45 RM each and when you consider we don't have to pay for accommodation that night I thought it was a good deal. We were hungry (again) so went for a Laksa, Nasi Lemak and Roti before jumping on the train to Batu Caves. It takes about 1 hour to get there on the train but doesn't cost too much. As soon as we stepped off the train we were greeted by a huge monkey man statue. Pretty cool. And just round the corner was the entrance to Batu Caves. You really can't miss it as there is a huge gold Murugan statue outside, the largest in the world. Its 275 steps to get into the Caves and in the blazing sun we were feeling it by the time we got to the top. It was very peaceful inside and well worth the visit. By the time we got back to KL Sentral there was a huge thunderstorm outside so we headed into one of the many shopping malls hoping it would die off soon. These shopping centres in KL are all huge. The mall in Imbi is 10 floors, 700 shops and I reckon there are at least 10 like this in KL. Crazy. We wanted to go outside and see the classic view of Kuala Lumpur, The Petronas Towers and the rain wasn't dying off so we went out anyway. Its still one of my favourite places, even if I did get soaking wet!