The arrival experience into Kuala Lumpur is very easy, after disembarking you make your way via light rail through to passport control where finger prints of both of your index fingers are taken and then onto the baggage carousel. No drama, no real delays it is great. Steve is well prepared and we head straight to the transfers area where a prepaid transfer voucher is purchased for a car to the Shangri-La. We could have arranged a car through the hotel but it would have cost almost three times as much.

Our driver is a proud Malaysian who tries valiantly with his limited English (noting we have nothing at all to offer him in his own language) to provide us with a commentary for our hour trip into Kuala Lumpur. Showing us the football stadium for the upcoming commonwealth games, as well as the accommodation that has been built for the visiting athletes.

The Shangri-La is a beautiful hotel within walking distance of most of the places we want, a shopping mall, the Petronas towers, a “hop on hop off ” bus stop and a railway station. The room is just lovely and the pool pretty awesome, we are on a special deal which includes access to the Horizon Club Lounge where there is complimentary breakfast, afternoon tea and cocktails and canapés, and most importantly late check out for Friday.

Wanting to check the hotel out we decided to head for the Horizon Club Lounge where I enjoyed a complimentary glass of bubbles and the boys a coke each. It is a great space here and during our week we will spend a bit of time enjoying the clubs benefits no doubt.

Hitting the sack we sleep intermittently during the night and wake up after breakfast has finished, so decide to head to one of the many shopping complexes here in Kuala Lumpur where we spend the afternoon.

On our return to the hotel and after a quick swim we decided that we wanted to sample some ‘local’ food and so checked with the concierge who suggested the Tamarind Hill restaurant which is a 5 minute walk from our hotel. To get to the entrance you walk up a candlelit stairway which is simply out of this world, there were Red Chinese lanterns hanging from the path and the sound of running stream – simply gorgeous. This of course made us a bit nervous about the price and what we were wearing as we were all in shorts and one of us had his best crocs on!

Once we arrived at the big wooden doors, a waiter just appeared and opened them before we got there and we walked into a little oasis in the city. Sadly my photos don’t do the place justice but it has a thatched roof over the tables which have white linen tablecloths and napkins, tea lights and tall-stemmed glasses. We were given the option to sit outside, but with the humidity though it best to sit inside, and overlooked an open sided gazebo that had giant ceramic pots, each with a light in the middle from which water overflowed and came down the sides – just beautiful.

Once we were settled the waiter came back and provided each of us with a complimentary lemongrass juice drink, followed by a starter of Seafood Sticks with Deep Fried Chinese Leaves – very very nice. I am kicking myself that I didn’t take any photos of our meals they were beautiful. I had lobster with lemon juice, Isaac had six French filleted chops with a gorgeous Tamarind chilli dressing and Steve had a green chicken curry – whilst this place doesn’t serve traditional Burmese we were very happy with the “contemporary style of the food” and it was less than $100 for the 3 of us with drinks!