I am writing this from the best internet cafe I have been in; this may seem an insignificant and boring detail but when you are travelling without a laptop and trying to write about it, these things matter. From my experience in Asia so far, internet cafes tend to be noisy, smelly places, filled with teenagers on computer games, screaming into their headsets and at each other while jumping around in their chairs in excitement. Although this is pretty amusing, it doesn’t provide the best writing environment. Even for this reason alone, I already love Malaysia.

So yesterday I said goodbye to Vietnam and to the amazing group of girls I’d been travelling with for the last month (that’s you Tess, Leah, Jordanna, Joanna and Chantele!) It was an emotional goodbye to the girls, but not so much to Vietnam as it had been raining constantly for almost two weeks (it turns out I haven’t planned this trip too well according to the seasons, in fact I seem to be intent on following the monsoon around Asia. On another note I will be writing about the past month at some point but I was having too much fun to do it at the time….).

Saying goodbye in Ho Chi Minh (a rare break in the rain!)

I arrived in Kuala Lumpur international airport at around 8pm, one hour after the expected time as the flight had been delayed due to heavy rain in Ho Chi Minh City. The previous night I had ‘slept’ on the bumpiest sleeper-bus in Vietnam so when I arrived I was totally exhausted and a bit apprehensive about being on my own again. It’s amazing how quickly you get used to things and going from being one in a group of six back to a solo traveller was (and still is) quite daunting. I decided to head straight to Chinatown and to a Lonely Planet recommended hostel, The Original Backpackers Inn. I managed to negotiate the bus system with no real problems and after Ho Chi Minh and Hanoi, any city pales in comparison for craziness, even though walking down JL Sultan in the heart of Kuala Lumpur wasn’t exactly peaceful and serene. I was relieved when I saw the sign for the hostel and even more so when I heard the price (around two pounds per night). As you would expect for this price it is extremely basic and privacy and space is at an absolute minimum but everyone in my dorm seemed cool and it had a really good vibe about it so I decided to stay. As soon as I got upstairs I had the classic travellers conversation with a couple of girls in my dorm (where have you come from, where are you going, how long are you travelling etc etc) before excusing myself and going straight to sleep.

This morning when I woke up my first thought was to look around and see if the girls were awake yet, until I realised I was on my own and in a room full of strangers. Actually, this wasn’t strictly true, the room was pretty empty as I’d slept through half the morning. I went straight up to the rooftop terrace and had my usual breakfast of seasonal fruit salad and was instantly happy again because the sun was shining! I looked through the free guide of KL and decided to head straight out of the craziness of the city centre to the nearby Lake Gardens. My plan was to have a super chilled day, reading my book in the park in the sunshine. According to the helpful guy on reception, the park was a half hour walk from Chinatown.

Kuala Lumpur is definitely not walking-friendly! For most of my walk I was walking on the side of the high-way, trying to work out how to cross the huge spaghetti junctions in front of me. Obviously I got lost several times and was getting a bit annoyed of walking around in this concrete jungle but I persevered and my questionable map reading eventually got me where I needed to be.

First impressions of KL’s high rises

Walking through a maze of flyovers

I soon found myself out of the concrete and surrounded by lush green. The park area was gorgeous, and huge! I picked my spot and lay on the grass for a couple of hours soaking up the midday sun as much as I could in my Islam-country-appropriate outfit.

Kuala Lumpur Lake Gardens

I then decided to check out the nearby butterfly park which was cheap and didn’t look too busy, although it was obviously a major tourist attraction in high season. It was amazing being surrounded by all different types of butterfly and walking around the park itself was like being in a jungle paradise, however trying to take pictures of the butterflies was pretty frustrating!

My only successful butterfly photography attempt

I then made my way back to Chinatown and had a walk through the markets. It reminded me of Kho San Road, only cleaner and with less tourists. By this time I was pretty hungry and had heard amazing things about   the Malaysian cuisine and the incredibly cheap hawker food available. I found a local food hall and dived in – a local Malaysian man with a huge belly handed me a plate of rice and pointed to all the available dishes, all for less than a pound (the only trouble with eating in this way is you have no idea what any of the meats or dishes actually are so you don’t even know if you’ve eaten something really exciting like rat or frog).

Hawker food in Chinatown

On first impressions I really like Kuala Lumpur and after all the moving around I’ve been doing recently I want to stay somewhere for a while and really get to know it. I think this could be the place……