Kuala Lumpur and back to Krabi, Thailand

We arrived in Kuala Lumpur at 10.30pm, we looked into finding accommodation but everything was closing and what was open was expensive, so we stayed the night in the airport!

See me sleeping in the bottom r.hand corner with all our bags, the others are sleeping on the lazyboys.

The next morning took a bus to China town and lugged our bags to the first guesthouse we could see.

The room was budget with just enough room for a bed, and there was a fan (no aircon) so we had to acclimatise pretty quickly to the sweltering heat.

Petaling Street, Chinatown, Kuala Lumpur. View outside bedroom window

We decided to pay a visit to Batu Caves where the most popular hindu shrine outside of India is, (dedicated to Lord Murugan). Batu caves is a limestone hill which has a series of caves and cave temples, 13 kilometres north of Kuala Lumpur.

This was next to the big shrine and the indians gave us heaps of free food to eat...now thats what I'm talking about!!

Petronas towers 451.9m high

(people basejump off this) It was $40AUD to visit the top so we decided to look from the ground.

We went for a walk to the lake gardens and found bambi! We spotted them through the fence of the deer park.

After a few days in the city we soon got sick of the pollution and noise and was looking forward to heading back to the countryside in Krabi, Thailand.

Ladies making skewer sticks for prawns on the barbecue.

We arrived in the afternoon to Krabi and for the whole week it rained torrential downpours solidly! So we started to go stir crazy and then luckily the sun came out.

A quaint little road in Krabi rubber trees on one side and I dont know what the other trees are

Some randoms cool wee house, there are alot of sidecars on scooters here

Dudley hooning past the rubber trees

We took a scooter to the tiger temple in Krabi, and had to walk up around 1300 steps of irregular sizes and very steep sometimes like climbing a ladder. For 2 days after, my quads were sore as!! I know I need to toughen up.. We were so lucky at the top there was free cold drinking water!! What a luxury! Speaking of luxuries, we only just turned the fridge back on yesterday, because being on the hard the power consumption is huge! The steel heats up far too much so the fridge is continually cycling, a drain on the batteries. So Dudley went and turned the thing around that sucks in air, so it sucks in from the galley and not from the hull. And now we can enjoy cold drinks and it tastes soooo much nicer!!
So if ever you're becoming complacent with things in your life, go without it for a few days and then you'll realise just how good you've got it!

View of Krabi from the top

Dudley at the top looking out over Krabi

This was at the top of the hill

arrrrggghh the tiger's got my head!

What have we been doing on Baikal you may wonder, well...working on the interior of Baikal, giving her a new paint job, sanding and fairing the walls and then priming and taping and painting area  work in the anchor locker, making a new hatch for the lazerette, replacing silicone around windows that were leaking, making a surfboard rack in the v-berth replacing a seal on the shaft, testing the header tank for leaks, replacing a heat exchanger, making brackets and the list goes on and on and on.
It is always a constant battle to find the right tool for the job....where did I put the flat head, the paint scraper, the adjustable crescent, we are living in a bomb shelter at present but it is slowly coming back together. THANK GOD!!!

The tools, paint, gloves, rollers, containers needed for the job . In the cockpit

Yeah a bomb went off in here.. we are getting rid of rust in one of the bilges, so had to remove the food, and also repainting the nav area means taking everything away from that area and putting it on the starboard saloon side.

See the cornice (primed in grey) around the edge of the back cockpit, it looks better than the steel edge you can see on the left. You can see the new hatch on the floor as well