KL is far more modern in terms of infrastructure than Bangkok - a richer, more developed city, I felt. The western-seeming the sky trains and huge shopping centres of ipods and cameras combine confusingly with the mosques and many women in headscarves.

While transport in Bangkok seemed futile attempts to tame the essential chaos of the city, KL is less manic - things give the impression of working, despite the long traffic jams. KL is far more of an attractive city, many old Chinese style shops like those of Georgetown, art deco market buildings, British colonial complexes of minarets and spires, sky scrapers meant to fuse the modern with traditional Malay or Islamic design, and the sci fi Petronas Towers. I must say that I don't find it as captivating as Bangkok, although I am glad it doesn't smell as bad.

But while Bangkok stinks, KL steams. The signature of KL is this incredible humidity. It isn't especially hot, but even by 9.30am, points of my clothes are sticking to me, I feel damp and dehydrated. And this is after weeks of adjusting to SE Asian weather. Air con is a blessing here, and they turn it up so even as you approach an open door, cold air billows out. It was a Singaporean, I think, who said the greatest invention of the twentieth century was air conditioning - in KL that no longer sounds odd.

The Genting Highlands complex lies at the top of a mountain, featuring hotels, Disneyland style rides, Malaysia's only casino and, for a limited time only, the musical Annie. For half an hour, our cable car carried Mark, Georgina and I over rainforest up and up. Genting is a playground for (presumably fairly well off) Malaysians - almost no other Western tourists around. And as this was school holiday time, the place was rampaging with tiny kids. It is so high up, clouds pour in if you open a window - there is an element of Bond villain HQ among all the rides and cheesy "Venice gondola" waterway.

That night Mark and I watched Georgina's musical - an entirely English cast putting on thick Nu - York accents. One of the songs, kicked off by Daddy Warbucks, is a homage to New York - "NYC". He sang, N-Y-C, "too hot, too cold...", the rest of the cast danced and sang the chorus line again and again, "N-Y-C"!! As the song finished, the Indian boy sitting next to me turned to his dad and asked, "What is NYC"?

After her singing and high kick dancing, Georgina joined Mark and I in Genting's somewhat odd Fun Bar. Decorated like a treehouse, on a raised stage behind the bar four Chinese girls sang covers of every American song ever made, from Britney to Linkin Park. Some of the business men in shirts did their best to impress the singing girls by doing cringe-worthy almost dancing in their bar stools. We drank till quite late that night, and the next morning we shook off lack of sleep and hangovers to have the buffet lunch for breakfast. Without thinking, I chewed the chicken on the bone and deposited the bits I didn't want on the table beside my plate, in standard Chinese fashion. Mark looked at me in horror, "I'm going to tell Mum about you! I'll say, he's looking good, very well, but he's gone weird. He was pretty disgusting when he ate before, but now he's worse"!

I took the cable car down towards KL alone, planning to meet up with them again on Monday. I got to the incredibly confusing KL bus station, perhaps fifty counters along the huge cave-plaza selling different companies' tickets. At one desk, I paused to check my bus ticket - a Malaysian family asked questions in a language I didn't recognise. Neither did the Malaysian guy behind the desk, it turned out - over and over he asked them, "DO YOU SPEAK ENGLISH"?

Daniel, 11 June 2004, Malacca