Two whole months
Well, today I have been away for exactly two months and it has absolutely flown by! I'm in Kuala Lumpur at the moment, mostly sightseeing and relaxing on my hostel's sofa with dvds. I've been to the Batu Caves, which are a huge cave complex just outside the city. There are a few Hindu shrines inside but the biggest attraction seems to be the monkeys. They were everywhere! Very cheeky monkeys though, you have to be careful as they have a habit of stealing. They chased one guy down the stairs for his can of coke! So lots of monkey photos to upload soon...After that I went to the Forest Research Institute and had a little walk around the woods before doing some kingfisher-spotting at their wetlands area. I saw three.
The next day I went to the Menara KL tower, which has the highest views of the city so took tons of photos there too. They also have a small zoo at the bottom with lots of snakes, including a 24ft reticulated python. It was huge! I held a smaller one. There's also a 9hectare patch of rainforest which has been preserved at the base of the tower so I took a guided walk around that. Unfortunately, no-one warned me its full of mosquitoes who bite at all times of the day so I now have a lovely souvenir in the shape of 20 new mosquito bites. Can't stop scratching!
Yesterday was by far my favourite day in KL so far, I went to the crafts centre about 20 mins walk away and it turned out they were having their annual craft fair so there were marquees with weaving, wordworking, jewellery and batik stalls. I was in heaven! I bought some little batik pictures, a pewter brooch and a silver bracelet. I also made my own piece of batik, which is fairly simple when you've got a pattern to copy but the filling in isn't quite so easy! My background is decidedly blotchy! Not bad though for a first attempt, its definitely something I'd like to do some more of.
Today's a bank holiday so I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet. Possibly nothing.... Jesse is getting back this afternoon then tomorrow we're off to Borneo. Really excited about that! Baby orangutans here I come....
