MALAYSIAAAAAaaaAAaaAAAAAAaaAAAA!

I am finally in Malaysia. Got here Wednesday afternoon after a hellish journey! Boarded a plane at Heathrow at around  3pm, about an hour after it was due to take off. This flight was not so bad, about 4 hours to Cairo. Cairo was a nightmare! We were all herded off the plane and told to check in for our next flight at the desk.. Headed around the corner to "the desk" and were immediately confronted by the biggest mass of people I had ever seen in such a confined space! No one seemed to know what was happening or where we were going. 2 men were sat behind a desk dealing with what was easily well over 500 people. I tapped a woman on the shoulder and asked her if she knew what we were supposed to do... The tear stained face that stared back at me pretty much said it all.. but she did manage a choked up "Noooo", just to clarify. Finally a young Egyptian gentleman, who seemed to know what was what, pointed us all in the right direction. Just made it in time for my connecting flight to.... BANGKOK???!!!!! WTF?!... Ok, so there is a small chance I may not have read my tickets properly, it was kinda late when I booked them. So i pulled them out of my carry on and checked.. Final destination was most definitely Kuala Lumpur.. but there was, in incredibly small print, something about a "technical stop".. This apparently meant we would be stopping off in Bangkok for no longer that 45 minutes (2 and a half hours). This would have been fairly simple if it had not been for the face that we were once again, politely escorted off of the plane, kicked out into Bangkok airport and told to head to the gate on the upper level in 30 minutes.. This was fine, except they neglected to even point us in the right direction. This certainly made things interesting. There were about 150 of us, wandering around aimlessly, asking various very polite, but equally clueless airport staff, which direction we should be heading in. After about 40 minutes we stumbled upon our departure gate by pure luck.. Another hour and 40 minutes later and we were even allowed to board the plane. About a 90 minute flight to KL from Bangkok, and got through security with almost no incident.. (there was a little confusion when the boarder agent greeted me in French so I responded in French.. had a little conversation with her still in French.. she was a little confused when I handed her a British passport) grabbed my luggage and headed "home".

Wednesday night was Hawkers night!! I LOVE Malaysian hawkers food.. a collection of street vendors selling freshly cooked foods. We had Satay, Fried Oysters, Ipoh Hor Fun and various other dishes while sat out in the warm open night air. Missed that so much! Finally went home and got some sleep.

Thursday morning we got up and went for Dim Sum.. another thing I have missed like crazy (there will be pictures to follow). CHAR SIU BAO!!! Seriously, this is something I have attempted to make on several occasions.. Mine are by no means terrible.. In fact they are not bad at all.. but they really do not compare to anything you can buy in Malaysia. Also had an assortment of other dim sum goodies. Then spent the day shopping for various things.. mostly what ever we spotted and fancied buying. We stayed in the Pavilion Mall, where we had the dim sum. This is one hell of a mall, puts anything we have in the UK to shame (Anyone claiming that Malaysia is a third world country has clearly never been to Kuala Lumpur). The decorations for Christmas were immense!! Later that evening we went to the "Duck King" for dinner.. also very good.. although the duck itself was a little tough. Went home, chatted and then buggered off to McDonalds for a cheeky supper.

Woke up a little later than planned Friday.. around about midday.. After a 2 hour journey to somewhere 30 minutes from the house, followed by another 40 minutes trying to park.. we met the family for a big lunch at "The Purple Cane" tea restaurant.. basically, these clever people cook everything with tea.. it was actually rather nice. Then, again, spent the rest of the day shopping until about 9pm.. went home and continued to prepare for the wedding tomorrow... That pretty much brings us up to around about now.. 3:47am Saturday morning.. I am waiting to continue cooking snacks for the guests tomorrow.. I do not think I will be sleeping at all today.. so as long as there is not seating at any point during the day, I should be fine. Oh yeah.. today is of course also Christmas Eve, so we did do a little present swapping before everyone went to bed as we will be, most likely, in no fit state Christmas day.

Hope you all have a very merry Christmas!! And I will be back soon.. still got some of you to meet yet... YES! Especially YOU!

~ Martin

p.s Sorry about the waffling.. tired and on my 3rd can of Red Bull... This will probably not end well :|