KL & Phuket 2012

Saturday 15th Sept - Fly on time at 14:45 from Heathrow to Abu Dhabi. First time on a Trent 500 powered aircraft, A340-600

Sunday 16th - Arrive in Abu Dhabi at about 1am, for a two hour transfer. Fly on a Virgin Australia 777, GE powered, first time on a Virgin Airways. Arrive in KL at about 2pm. Get the KLIA express from the airport into the centre of KL. Get a taxi to the Prince hotel. The wired Internet is free, create a WiFi hotshot. Walk down in the direction of the Petronas Towers. Eat in the food court there, Annette has Beef Teppanyaki, I have salmon over cheese baked rice. Watch the fountains for a while. Everyone seems very civilised.

Monday 17th - Awake from 3:33 am, Annette sleeps fairly well. Very good breakfast. Discover the Bintang walkway leading towards the Petronas towers. Walk down only to find out that the towers are closed on Mondays. Get a taxi over to the KL tower. Great views from the top. Taxi back to the hotel and head to the pool. Not very warm when we get there. Play a few games of table tennis, I win. I have a go on the running machine. Start reading Sins of the Father. Annette is hit when the umbrella falls over in a sudden gust of wind. Walk the other direction on the walkway, explore Bitek Bintang. Have a drink in d'spice in BB Park. Walk back and eat in Michelangelo. I have a very good pizza calzone. I am struggling to stay awake from 10pm onwards.

Tuesday 18th - Awake from 3:45, After breakfast we get a taxi to the Batu caves. Walk up the 272 steps to see the cave. Taxi back and head to the pool. Rather tired in the afternoon, have a bit of a sleep. Walk along the Bintang walkway towards Bitak Bintang again. Have a look round Pizza Low Yat, full of electronical stuff. Walk into Berjaya Times Square mall, very large. Have a look at the roller coaster, inside the shopping mall. I buy some contact lenses. Walk back to Outback and eat there. We have the Fried onion, called Typhoon Bloom to start, I have a BBQ Beef rib. Very full. Walk back towards Petronas towers. Have a quick look at Jalan Alor, the street food place. Go to the Sky bar at the top of the Traders hotel, there are no seats, so we don't stay long. Taxi back to the hotel for a large Tiger.

Wednesday 19th - Sleep relatively well. Down to breakfast for 9am. Pack and check out. Get a taxi to Melaka, takes about two hours. The taxi runs on natural gas, NGV, at 0.68 RM (14p) per litre. Interesting drive along the E2 through the jungle. Arrive at the hotel. Walk along by the river into town. To go the Standthys museum, partly because of the fantastic air conditioning. McDonald's, have the local speciality, not very good, my right ankle has become swollen. Go on the revolving tower, good views of the straights of malacca. Buy a couple of t-shirts. Do the river boat cruise. get the boat to drop us at the hotel at about 7:30 Walk out again at 8:3opm, because the hotel has no beer. Head to Jonkur walk. After quite a while we opt for beer in the Friendly World bar. Nobody else is in, Gangnam Style video is on continuous repeat. Have two there and then walk down Jonker street. Find the Geographers club, have another there and some wings. Walk back along the canal, see lots more bars. Thunderstorm starts at about 1am, very loud, very heavy rain.

Thursday 20th - A bit later for breakfast. Walk down the canal and into Jonker Street. See lots of shops. Go in Jonker gallery. Stop for ice cream at the Geographer. Stop for coffee in 1673 bar. Walk back through little India, find a Pharmacist for an ice pack. Back to hotel for a bit. Walk into Jonker Street, go to Bistro 1673 for evening meal, have Chinese based food. They have a singer on. Wander back along by the river. Have a drink in the Riverside bar.

Friday 21st - Late breakfast, taxi to the airport for 250 Ringgits, drive past loads of Palm Oil trees. We have a couple of hours at the airport. Have some noodles and then Annette buys some shoes by Sembonia. Fly up to Phuket. Take off and Land at the same time, 4:30. Thomas meets us at the airport. He drives us back to the Angsana Laguna resort. Check into room 2201, a massive suite. Two double beds, three balconies. Have a drink in Xana bar. Giffy comes down to meet us. Also his friend, Si from Korea. Drive a short way to a Reggae bar right on the Bang Tao beach, we are the only ones there. Have a good selection of Thai food. Drive to Phuket town and go to the Rock Angels bar. A few blokes are playing live blues music, have a couple of drinks there. Back here for midnight, spend an hour exploring the apartment.

Saturday 22nd - Meet Thomas at 9am in the Market place for breakfast. Good selection. Drive to Niathon beach. There for midday. Have 20 minutes in the sea and then a big black cloud comes over and it starts with heavy rain. Take cover in a bar called Macarona. Selection of Thai food. Me and Thomas change the front wheel on Giffy's car because of a puncture. Buy some petrol and head back. The beach at the Laguna is a bit windy, so the red flags are out. Swim the circuit and rest in the sun. We go over to meet Thomas and Giffy at Xana, have quite a few cocktails. Thomas and I swim in the Xana pool till late on. Thomas and Giffy go to bed for a while and then get up and go to Catch club till 5am.

Sunday 23rd - We have a small breakfast at 10am, Thomas comes to find us. We go for a canoe round the lake. Eat a fantastic burger at the poolside bar. We drive over to Dusit Thani for an Italian meal. We try to go for three courses but the food ends up arriving together. We go to Catch beach club for a little while, right on the beach.

Monday 24th - Rather slow start to the day, rains early on. Annette packs. We go sailing on the lagoon for a good while. The constant breeze is fantastic. Transfer to the Boathouse and get checked in. The hotel is actually on the beach. We are in room 210, Thomas and Giffy stay for one night. Drink some wine on the balcony just outside our rooms. Watch some heavy rain whilst sitting under a shelter. We have welcome cocktails at the Re Ka Ta club and then move into the Boathouse rest, Vincent and Giffy's friend Yin join us for a meal. Very good food.

Tuesday 25th - Thomas goes off to work at 7am. We go down for breakfast at 9:30am. Spend some time in the sea and on the beach. Meet up with Giffy at about 4:30pm, she drives us around. We go to a view point overlooking Kata. Drive down to Raiwa beech, no wind, and 6 islands just off the coast. We go to the After Beech bar and Thomas joins us. Good Thai food. I ride with Thomas down the hill back to the Boathouse. We sit outside and have a bottle of red.

Wednesday 26th - Have the full breakfast. We both have half an hour in the Spa at noon. Giffy then gives us a lift back to Laguna to collect a car. We have a roast beef sandwich at Bake. We see a number of electric cables down. The car hire man turns up at about 3pm, we drive him back to Phuket town. We then follow the sat nav back towards Kata. We have a problem at a road island and head up towards Chalong temple. We go though a lot of water, we can hear it slapping against the bottom of the car. Back to Kata for half an hour break. We drive up the coast via Patong beech to get to Laguna, a very interesting drive, pick up Thomas at 6:30. I drive back to his flat in Kathu. Thomas then drives us to Sanaeha for food. Have some very good Thai food. There is live music on, very good. I drive back and drop them off. Heavy rain as we drive back to Kata.

Thursday 27th - Neither of us sleep well. Annette is not feeling very well. I go down to breakfast by myself. Still windy and raining. Watch “Just Go With It” on the telle. We have a drive down to Phuket port in the afternoon. Thomas and Giffy turn up at about 7pm. We have some drinks in the Re Ka Ta bar to start with. I drive down to Capannina, Italian restaurant. I have a Europa pizza, very good but I can't remember what was on it.

Friday 28th - Sunny start to the day. We have a quick dip in the sea before breakfast. Annette has the yogurt pot, very nice. Lazy day on the beach. We go to the opening night of the O2 club. Free food and drink, fashion show and live band. After singing the band jump in the pool. Drive over the top of the island to Patong. Walk down the main party street. Lots of girls offer to let us watch them play table tennis. Go to the Red Hot club. This is one of Thomas's favourite bars. There is a very good singer on. We drink out of large wooden containers. Have some navigational problems on the way back and spend at least an hour driving all over the island.

Saturday 29th - Yoghurt pot for breakfast. I decide not to bother with sun cream. Lie on the beach, get a bit burnt. Thomas and Giffy give us a lift to the airport. On the way we stop at Nai Yang Beach and have a great meal at Batik sea food, right on the beach. Fly on time on an Air Berlin A330 with Trent 700 engines to Abu Dhabi. Everyone speaks German.