This is the end!

This is the final blog of this trip, and even 30 posts. I'm flying from Kuala Lumpur to Coolangatta Airport. This flight takes approximately eight hours, six less than my lat flight. Today was really draining. My night in London i had three and a half hours, slept for a few on the plane and arrived in KL at 5:30am and i had to fill 16 hours before my flight back home. It's funny when i thought of home i started singing that  Michael Bublé song....(in my head of course). I did all the now usual stuff, fill out the arrival sheet, go to through the passport lines and customs. Got out my Malaysian ringgit, purchased a ticket to get into KL. Before i headed off i needed to shake this immense tiredness. I finished my blog, put some pictures up. The airport has free WiFi so that is a bonus. I needed some food, maccas for breakfast. I used to have maccas for breakfast heaps, pancakes, hash browns and large orange juice. It certainly helped my tiredness, but it wasn't long before i was really struggling to keep my eyes open. I left something fragile attached to my main bag in the luggage area, i did instruct them to be very careful, but when i picked it up later that night it was damaged, i was pretty upset about it, but i know our heart was in the right spot for this extravagant gift! I couldn't take it with me because it would have been destroyed. So it got to Malaysia in one piece, it just didn't stay that way. So i tried really hard stegs, and i have managed to keep it well clear of anyone on the flight home so no more damage will befall it. I might even be able to fix it with some melted gold....... Or give it a different design :-P 

After breakfast and blogging i got out of my thermals, packed the jacket up and got into a t-shirt, now it's time to explore. I was thinking that it was a short bus trip to the main airport KLIA then they have a train into the city. Nope, the bus just kept going. So A$2.60 for a one hour bus trip, A$0.30 for the train from KL Sentral to the Kuala Lumpur stop. I was again out of my comfort zone with signage in another language, there is a train map but no street map to accompany it, so you are kind of guessing with your choice. I just chose the next stop. Some of the architecture is very modern and very impressive. My main aim is to see the Petronas twin towers. I spotted them a fair way away and i headed in that general direction. I must admit their upselling is very commendable. In Australia most sales people give up after a few nos or take it personal, but these guys just keep asking everyone, taksi, watches, movies and even tattoos. I walked around sweating my ass off, i think it was 34 and of course bloody humid, even my sweat was sweating! I made it into the main part of the city, through some markets trying to see just about everything. I would have been tempted if i had some room in my bag. Found a national geographic shop and was looking at some of the books and photos. They have a cafe there too, so i sat down and had a well deserved drink. There was a nice guy behind the bar, we had a chat about traveling, he gave me a website address of people who put up travelers for nothing, hmm this could be interesting........ We swapped details since he may be coming to Australia in march, i could get him some passes into work etc. He also told me the twin towers weren't worth going up but the tower was, and the ticket has heaps of things included, like F1 simulator, audio guide once you're on the observation deck, their zoo and even a pony ride. I nailed the F1 simulator, zoo was pretty lame but saw some cool and cute animals. Monkey tried to steal my camera, great video footage! I skipped the pony ride, i don't think they were built for my body specification. Found my flag patch which was one of the main reasons i was in the city and headed to the top, well the observation deck. A great day to take in some great views. From up there you can't smell the streets or drains and it really is very pretty. No smog, no mist and no storm clouds which were predicted. Halfway walking back to the station to get a bus i found a bus company which was running to the airport, saved walking another 45 mins in the heat. I had forgotten my hat too, so the sun was trying to turn me into a tomato. What i noticed when i was outside with a t-shirt on was that my skin colour was probably the lightest it has ever been. I've resumed writing with about 30mins left of my flight. I had slept quite well on this trip and should be able to push through the day without jet lag, my plan had worked well even though it was really hard to stay awake in KL. During the night i had some amazing views from London to KL, little cities plotted about, some with what seemed to be big fires, may have even been oil stations, but the plane was very high up and could see it so clearly and it really lit uo the area. And on my flight home again I saw so many stars, heaps falling too, had trouble thinking of things to wish for! But the coolest part was when the plane got near a thunderstorm. I randomly woke up and had to look outside as i always do, and first i thought it was just the light from the plane hitting the clouds but it was lightning, my favoutrite natural phenomena. For me that was pretty cool. Soon I'll be touching down, it'll be interesting how i go through customs and quarantine. Never had to enter Australia before. What i know it wont be the last time. It's not a bug, it's more that i have a great opportunity to do some travelling now, then come home settle and breed the next generation of virgin travellers, may not be sober though ;-)

Thank you all for joining me on my first overseas trip. It has been a bit of a roller coaster ride that's for sure. But I've definitely come out on top. I'm happier, healthier and looking forward to more adventures. I'm going to make a hardcopy book of this blog, with pictures, reciepts and maps as backgrounds. I've had so much fun writing down my thoughts everyday and I'm glad so many people have enjoyed what I've written and came along for the trip. So my travel cherry is popped, thanks for being gentle :-D