Well was certainly meant to be a civilised way to begin...

First post, sipping "real" coffee on the 31st floor of Sydney's Hotel Intercontinental. Very nice man at reception took stock of throw away clothes (literally, I'm tossing the outfit in the bin when we leave, it's very liberating), backpacks (yes, 50 litres, that's all we're taking, no, I don't think it's going to be a problem, gulp), and gift voucher for one (1) night's accommodation (thank you Worling Saunders), and gave us an upgrade, a room on the second highest floor of the building, and a late check out time. Yayyy!

View from our room...

Unfortunately, a combination of extreme over planning (Blake), and mild absent-mindedness on my part, meant that we didn't get to utilise the lazy morning.

Note to travellers: Important documents, such as non-refundable plane tickets, should be kept safe... but to hand. I do not recommend zipping the tickets in the invisible pocket of your girlfriend's handbag, which she then puts into storage. Especially when you put all the keys to the storage in equally "safe" places, like posting them to your parents, leaving them with friends who are uncontactable, or at work. It makes for quite a hectic trip to the airport (Hotel-Work-Storage Space-Airport: 40 minutes)

So, we made our flight, off to what the Lonley Planet calls the "kiddie's wading pool" of Asia - KL. And it's pretty spot on. Customs was such a non-event we wondered if had even happened, new train took us right into the city, then one connection to reach chinatown, the backpacker ghetto of the city. Our Planet-picked hostel was full, so the guy at the desk walked us across to another - mainly to get beer, I suspect, but a kind gesture all the same!

So we've wandered, we've eaten, we've seen some sites, but mostly we've just been acclimatising ourselves to the heat and hustle bustle of the shallows before we plunge any deeper!