The journey to Malaysia and Kuala Lumpur

Unknowingly, we decided to make our way by bus from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur on Labour Day in both Singapore and Malaysia. This is at least the third time we've celebrate Labour day in our 2 1/2 months of travel. Our very 1st day in Perth it was Western Australia's labour day and then we hit it again at our next stop in Melbourne. Not to mention the other public holidays we've encountered along the way.
Note to others making this trip - don't do it on a public holiday! Or if you do, buy your bus tickets in advance. We, of course waited until the day of to get our tickets and there wasn't a ticket to be had until later in the evening. Deciding that it wouldn't be good to arrive so late into KL we took the public bus tot he border and thought it would be much easier to get a bus from there. We were wrong, AGAIN. The bus drops you off at the bus station in Johore Bahru and this was the first sign that we had left the order and neatness of Singapore behind us. The bus station in JB was crazy to say the least. And again, no tickets until very late at night. Mark, however, went out to assess the situation and ended up buying them from a scalper! Yes, a scalper. Not exactly the luxury coach that was promised, but the drivers were good and got us there safely. However, due to heavy traffic, a trip that was supposed to take 4 and a half hours ended up taking six and a half. We still got into KL late. Luckily, we found a place close to the bus station. We've met some really interesting proprietors of guesthouses and hostels throughout this trip and the woman who owns traveler's Palm in KL is no exception. Until 6 months ago, she was a flight attendant for Malaysia Airlines. She's been everywhere they fly and says that it's quite the posh lifestyle as flight attendants are seen as ambassador's from their country and are treated very well. She gave that up to run the guesthouse and meet genuine, not "plastic" people, as she referred to those she would meet. She was incredibly helpful, especially with us arriving so late.
The original plan was to stay in KL for a month while taking Chinese language classes. That didn't pan out so we stayed for about 10 days, but only took a few of those days to explore the city. (I was still sick from Thailand and Mark ended up getting sick as well.) We took time to rest and get better. We did see the touristy things in KL, such as the Menara KL (which is a tower), the Batu Caves and the Petronas (pronounced Petro-nas) Twin Towers. The Menara KL isn't as high as the CN tower, but it came with a really nice audio tour so we actually knew what we were looking at. At the Petronas towers you can go up to the 41st floor skybridge that connects the two towers. We were told that on windy days the bridge can sway about 10 inches. Thank god it wasn't windy when we were there. The towers are 88 floors and the design is inspired by Islamic beliefs. It is quite an impressive sight.
There's also some nice parks and gardens in KL that we explored. We didn't really do too much. We did read the English language newspapers though and you can certainly learn a lot about a place by reading the paper, or should I say the government propaganda. There's no doubt in my mind what's on the agenda of the sultans and king.
Bali has been, by far, the cheapest place we've visited. We were hoping the prices there would hold throughout SE Asia. Thailand is about double the cost of Bali (although still very cheap) and Malaysia seems to be almost double the cost of Thailand. Coming from Bangkok, we were pretty disappointed to find that what you got for your money didn't go too far. For instance, we got some very decent accommodation in Bangkok (attached bathroom, aircon, fridge and tv) for what we paid for the traveler's Palm in KL. Traveler's Palm was ok, but rooms were quite small with only a bed and with a shared bathroom. And there was no sink! We had to brush our teeth in the shower. But, the price we paid for that seemed to be the going rate for accommodation in KL. Then the food in KL, in a word, sucked. We didn't have 1 enjoyable meal there. In fact, we didn't even like eating because we never found anything that great and it was twice what we would pay in Thailand. From what we have discerned, Thais love to eat and expect the food to be good and cheap. That doesn't seem to be the case in Malaysia. We are willing to accept that we just didn't do enough searching, but we did a fare amount. All we had to do was walk out of our door in Bangkok and great food at a really great price was right there. Again, take my opinion with a grain of salt, but Mark and I love to eat and have some sense of what's good and what's not.
Since we weren't staying a whole month in KL we decided to head for some islands. First stop, the Perhentian islands in north east Malaysia.