And so it begins again ....

So here we are in Paihia, New Zealand. Strangely, it's so close to Australia but it's somewhere we've never travelled to before. It all seems so familiar - K says it's like Tasmania, but M thinks it's just like the Dandenongs except with water.But we're just being flippant -  it really is a very beautiful country!

Day 32 - If only Border Security had been filming .....

Last day of the holiday .... and yep, it sucks big time! However, determined to make the most of it we headed over to the KLCC plaza for breakfast and some last minute shopping (mainly for food to eat on the flight home!).

With the help of some scales we managed to distribute all of our luggage into correctly weighted groups, and headed off to LCCT to get the flight home. The flight was uneventful, but also more comfortable than the outgoing one, which we think is due to travelling during the day after a relaxing holiday, rather than after midnight while in a fragile (super stressed) mental condition!

On arrival in Customs, we declared the horse name plaques we had made for us in Manali - we had purchased 12 of them, with painted horse names on lacquered pine wood, for around AU$30 - a bargain! However (and we thought this may have happened), they had to be treated before they could be allowed in - so our $30 bargain had another $60 added to it for the treatment. Hopefully we'll get the plaques some time in the next 5 weeks .......

Day 31 - The Twin Towers: Chapter 3

Once again we got up early and headed for the towers, this time it looked like we were in luck - if that's what you can call it. 1 1/2 hours later we got our tickets but the times left were limited, so as not to ruin our day we took the latest time possible - 6.30pm, having serious doubts that anything but the Taj Mahal is worth this type of trouble.

We had a great day taking in the rest of KL's sights including the Islamic Museum,heading back in time for the towers. By the time we got there the rain was very heavy and the outlook dim. It took a long time to get into the towers, through their boring propaganda film and finally onto the sky walk. And yes it was nothing special - as suspected!

We headed back to try and work out how to get all our stuff into suitcases and still meet the Air Asia weight limit, then had dinner at the hotel where they serve Aussie steaks.

Neither of us are ready to go home tomorrow, but K has all those children booked in to arrive at camp on Monday - and we can't disappoint the little tackers now can we???

Day 30 - Take 2 at the Twin Towers

Determined not to miss out this morning we arrived at the towers at 7.45am, only to be greeted with a sign that said they were closed on Mondays - didn't read the fine print!

We headed back to our hotel and M was seriously under the weather with a stomach upset so we headed back to bed for the morning - we really must start going to bed earlier!

In the afternoon we headed off to the KL Bird Park - 22 acres in all, we really enjoyed it, so many different types and so tame. We then headed to the butterfly park that unfortunately did not live up to the Melbourne zoo. We headed back to the towers to the bookshop, books are so much cheaper here (though not as cheap as India) - don't ask me how we are going to get them home, we both should not be left alone in those large style bookshops.

We found a very nice Thai restaurant on the top floor of the Towers shopping area and after a lovely dinner headed home, determined to go to bed earlier!

Day 29 - It finally catches up with us!

We set the alarm early so we could get tickets to the Sky Walk at the twin towers as you need to be there when it opens at 8.30am. We arrived at 8.35 and the tickets had all gone, we had got up early for nothing! We had some breakfast and went back to bed until 12.30pm.

We now felt very lazy so decided to head out to Batu Caves. A quote from the hotel of $50 for the trip seemed a lot of money, we managed to hire a taxi from the street to do the the entire thing for $17. After  climbing the 272 steps to the cave and and checking it out we got the taxi to drop us off at the start of the Lonely Planet Chinatown walking tour.

After completing the tour we headed back to the towers to do some more shopping and then back to our room to try and get this blog up to date! After blogging we headed off to one of the better Malaysian restaurants in town where M finally got to have some authentic Malaysian rendang!

Day 28 - Finally a decent shower and lots of hot water!

We arrived into KL about 8am we, had about 2 hours sleep on the plane, arrived at our very nice hotel but as our room wasn't ready we were given complimentary breakfast - the best we have ever had (M ate too much - which he always does with buffets)! Our room is lovely the best bit that we do not have to shower in shifts and there is enough hot water for K to wash her hair whenever she feels like it! India has come a long way since our last visit in 2002 but is still has a lot of catching up to do in the bathroom area.

A few hours sleep and we headed out to the famous Petronas twin towers and the huge shopping centre which is only a 5 minute walk from our hotel. We got a bit of dinner there as well and did some shopping, but we still didn't manage to make it to bed until midnight.

Day 27 - Every holiday has a worst day ......

Today we had to fly from Manali to Delhi to catch our connecting flight to KL. Problems started at 5.45am! We had asked to pay the account the night before as we had to leave early but all the ATM's in town (the whole 2 of them) were not working, as well as this a power outage at the hotel meant they didn't have any credit card facility. They said not to worry too much as hopefully the credit card would come back online before we left. Sure enough they phoned our room at 9pm to say it was back on so M went down to pay. They said don't worry pay tomorrow, M said but what if it isn't working at 6am, no problem it will be fine they said ..... hmph!

This morning you guessed it, no credit card facility so M walked into town to get cash but the ATM's were still not working  - and we had a plane to catch. Another problem was that the taxi we were using to get to the airport was owned by the hotel and they wouldn't let us leave because we hadn't paid the bill! You can imagine how well K was coping with this John Cleese moment! K was yelling things like "this is not our problem as we wanted to pay last night!" and stormed out the front with luggage in tow trying to hail a taxi - not possible at 6am on New Year's Day! M suggested that we get the cash from an ATM at the airport and give it to the driver to bring back - but this wasn't good enough, the guy at reception decided to come with us just to make sure!

So we headed off, and on the way we stopped at other non working ATM's with the staff member going into the cubicle & staring over M's shoulder at what he was doing! We eventually found a working ATM, paid the money and made it to the airport.

Plane was meant to leave at 8.30am .... at 9.45 they announced the flight was cancelled and there would not be another flight until tomorrow! Apparently a bird had hit the plane and they didn't have any engineers available until one came up from Delhi! Panic for many as so many people were catching international flights in Delhi. Ours wasn't until 11.10pm so we thought we had a chance. We caught a taxi with a Brazilian girl Maike from Germany and started heading down the mountain to Chandigarh to catch a 5.30pm flight to Delhi. Maike had to make a flight to Mumbai at 9.20pm to make her international flight.

We arrived in Chandigarh at 4pm with one 10 minute toilet/food stop for the whole day - only to be told that flights were cancelled due to fog and they couldn't be sure the 5.30pm flight would leave. We decided it was too risky and would continue the 5 hour drive to Delhi. Problem was we had to change taxi and get more money, this all took over half an hour. Maike phoned the airlines and they said the 5.30 flight was going so we raced back to the airport - but once we got their it wasn't - all were cancelled! Panic set in again as we had to get the second taxi back so we could head to Delhi. We had now wasted over an hour and it was doubtful Maika was going to make her flight! We finally made it to Delhi at 10.50pm, 15 minutes before our check in closed and way too late for Maike. To say we were frazzled is an understatment and K does not cope well when things don't go as she has planned! But we were welcomed at check in with flower garlands and a complimentary red spot (which we promptly washed off) - and at least we did make it onto the 5 hour flight to Malaysia!