And the word for today is...........

Juxtaposition!

Never one to shy away from the (over) use of a cliche, I expect that this word will crop up a lot to describe much of what we find in South East Asia, but it particularly well describes the mix that is Kuala Lumpur.

We paid up front for a bus from Singapore to KL, and were surprised at how comfortable it was - with only three huge seats per row. The journey took about 6 hours, but disappointingly the scenery wasn't that great.

As KL was to be our Xmas stop over point, we choose to bypass the usual hostel accommodation and go for a swanky(ish) hotel. Our excuse for this was that we needed internet for a marathon skype session on Christmas day, but it didn't hurt to have a good a/c and buffet breakfast available. Walking the short distance from the bus to the hotel proved that KL is quite hot (30C), and very humid.

Kuala Lumpur Tower

Petronas Towers - worlds tallest buildings from 1995 to 2003

Much of the tourism in KL was based around shopping, and unsurprisingly the shopping centres had gone xmas crazy, with pantomime like performances and huge christmas trees. Most of the shopping centres were massive, one even had its own theme park......

"Times Square" shopping centre / theme park

We enjoyed christmas in KL, but unfortunately discovered the chinatown area too late, as this proved to be where the best bars and cheap food was. We spent a fun boxing day evening here though, and had a few beers and spent some time haggling for tourist fake t shirts.

English man abroad - "I've got my beer, now where's my sausage, egg and chips?"