From the coastline of Uruguay, Buenos Aires' skyline shimmers like a mirage over the Rio del Plata: A dream of tall buildings and wide streets, modern art museums and restaurants serving food where the main ingredients aren't ham or cheese.

Up close 'BA' is a city of Parisian buildings, on a New York layout, to a London-scale. There are 13 million living in Greater Buenos Aires – over ¼ of the entire country's population – spread over an enormous grid system around the open mouth of the Rio del Plata. Every block in every neighbourhood seems crammed with grand buildings, four storeys or more of high ceilings and ornate balconies built then abandoned by the rich as they fled the latest outbreak of yellow fever or moved on to more fashionable areas. So whilst every district has its own distinct personality, even the most run-down streets in La Boca have a faded grandeur that makes the city endlessly interesting to walk around.

And by God did we walk in Buenos Aires. Pondering why my feet were throbbing on Friday, I estimated that we had walked well over 10km every day for 6 days. We pounded the pavements from our hostel in San Telmo, up to the Microcentro, down to La Boca, west to the harbour development of Puerto Madero, and further north to upmarket Recoleta, Palermo and Belgrano.

In Palermo we stopped to visit the Evita Museum, as we were a little embarrassed how little we knew about this national icon. I can't say I left the museum knowing much more. After a promising introduction – 'Evita was a controversial figure...' - the rest of the exhibits were little more than propaganda, which seems to be a pretty accurate reflection of her time in power. I think we learned more from the imagery than the words: as we moved forward in time the graphics became more and more soviet communist ('Workers Unite!')...the PR stunts more and more shameless (Evita sponsors a free day out at the sea-side for all poor children! Look how happy these street urchins are!)...and the crowds of poor people ever bigger.

We continued following Evita's trail to her grave in the famous Recoleta Cemetery. A walled city of mausoleums in the centre of the most upmarket neighbourhood in town, the cemetery is a seriously spooky place to spend an afternoon. It's like an enormous terraced town; each house inhabited by stacks of coffins and rotting flowers. The mausoleums are all built in different styles and sizes – some new, some old – and most have glass doors that display the coffins resting on shelves inside. The newer ones tended to be more discrete with their contents – metal grates or staircases set in their floors leading down to dark subterranean catacombs. Sarah let out a gasp when we walked past an especially ancient mausoleum where the shelves had rotted away. The glass door had smashed and we caught a glimpse of a splintered coffin, spilling cloth and bones onto its marble floor. We walked away from that one as fast as we could without running, and continued our search for Evita. Her family tomb was actually one of the smaller ones in the cemetery, although it drew the biggest crowds. About 8 tourists gathered around the doors holding their official cemetery maps in one hand and cameras in the other.

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Our first evening in town we took the metro (30p a trip by the way – makes you wonder what TFL are up to!) up to swanky Belgrano to watch a Sunday night tradition in the local park: as sun set, the old bandstand filled with smartly dressed oldies, shuffling a tango to the music from a small set of speakers. Sarah and I sat and watched, and with twisted arm I promised that we would go to a lesson before the week was out.

After putting it off for 5 days, on our penultimate night we went to a tango hall in the centre of town. When we arrived at the ridiculously early time of 10pm, we were shown upstairs to a grand hall with marble floored and a long thin dancefloor surrounded by pillars and tables. As Sarah fetched Quilmes to ease my nerves I watched as several other tourist couples sheepishly ascended the stairs. We were the youngest there by a good 20 years.

Our lesson was given by a professionally greasy pint-sized lothario in a black suit and a pony tail. He showed us the basic steps of a tango, training us up to perform a simply 'el ocho' (figure of eight) over the course of an hour. I'll admit it, I enjoyed it. The tango is at once a bit mincing and very macho – the lady has absolutely no idea what moves she has to do, and has to intuitively respond to the man's movements. Unsurprisingly Sarah struggled with this concept, preferring instead to try and lead me around the dancefloor. This drew the attention of one of the teachers – an elegant old gent who interceded on my part to show Sarah what was what.

As our lesson drew to an end, the tables around the dancefloor filled with local couples in their glad rags, ready for the real dancing to begin. So having finished mangling the art-form beyond recognition, we sat back down to our now warm Quilmes and saw how it was meant to be done...

To see the pros do it, the tango seemed to me to be a very slow and graceful dance: The men gently guiding their partners around the floor in seemingly random directions, avoiding the other couples, while the ladies did all sorts of twirls and lunges and feet pointing. The couples were very old though, so maybe we have a distorted view of the pace of the dance. My favourite couple's average age was 70 (he was around 80, she was around 60) and spent the whole hour we were there dancing, only stopping every 20 minutes to rehydrate and (probably) pop pills. He was wearing a crisp blue shirt with chinos belted up around his armpits, and she was wearing a very low cut purple dress that showed off her thin figure and large breasts. Actually, I think bony is a better description than thin. She looked like Skeletor with fake tits.

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Aside from the spectacle of the tango, the real highlight of our stay in Buenos Aires was the food - no more ham or cheese! OK, so these ingredients were still present in abundance, but at last there were other options for us to try. During our week in the city we gorged ourselves on Japanese, Chinese AND Indian food. The last time we had a curry was in Kuala Lumpur with Zubin: a meal so good we worried it might have ruined all other curry for us for life. However after a five month break we were both craving some spicy food, and were delighted to find a 'British Curry House' two minutes from our hostel run by an expat Londoner and his partner. While there were no poppadoms, there was mango chutney, naan and a most passable rogan josh.

And so it was that we ended our week in BA with sore feet and full stomachs, slumped exhausted in a taxi that took us through the shanty towns to the airport and off to Puerto Iguazú. We're beginning count the days till we see friends and family again, but still have the adventure of the Iguazú Falls and Brazil ahead of us...

From the Perhentians we all headed back together to Zubin's parents house in Kuala Lumpur which, to be honest, we didn't want to leave. I could quite happily live out my next 6 months of travelling in that house. James and I hadn't realised quite how much we were missing the comforts of home, but the delights of a home-cooked meal, a fantastically hot shower and the amazing hospitality of Zub and his parents certainly served to remind us.

Food formed a big part of our stay – I think on average we were eating once every 3 hours, which means James and I are both now back up to our fighting weights again. Malay food is absolutely delicious – we enjoyed local specialities including Char Kway Teow (flat noodles with chicken and prawn), Pau (giant dim sum buns filled with pork, chicken, or bean paste) Lam Mee (the birthday noodle dish), Pork Char Sui (Malay style pork) and Banana Leaf Curry (curry served on banana leaves which you eat with your hands). But the absolute highlight had to be the Malaysian mangoes, which were the yellowest, sweetest mangoes we've ever tasted. I am not sure UK mangoes will ever taste quite the same – fortunately we can buy a version of the real thing in Tooting Bec, so I think my Saturdays will soon be spent making pilgrimages there to satisfy my mango cravings.

But we did a lot more than just eat whilst we were there. Zubin gave himself over to being our tour guide and chauffeur for the duration of our stay, and we definitely saw the best that the capital has to offer. A highlight was the Islamic Arts Museum, built by a reclusive local millionnaire who has spent a fortune creating miniature models of the grandest mosques of the world, including Mecca and the Medina. It made me realise just how little I know about the Middle East, and also how interesting it would be to visit – our previous experience of Islamic countries being limited to Morocco. But that's for another trip.......

We did the obligatory tourist thing and went up the KL Tower, to see the cityscape as the sun was setting, including the magnificent Petronas Towers. The area around the Tower has been turned into something of a 'tourist attraction' and as part of our ticket, we also got to ride in F1 simulator cars, and I went on a pony ride around the car park, much to the amusement of the boys. I think they were just jealous as they were too heavy to ride themselves.

On Wednesday Zubin's parents, Rada and Jessie, very kindly took us out for a morning's sightseeing whilst poor Zub had to work. We had a guided tour of Putrajaya, the new administrative district, which was created by the former president, presumably as a sign of his great wealth and power. It currently covers some 46km squared. Rada talked us through all the different government departments – there are many, a brand-new building for each one, all lined up along the same road. And at the top of the road stands the Presidential Mansion, giving the big man a great view of his domain. The mansion looks more like an Ottoman Sultan's palace, or a mosque, so grand is its exterior (and presumably its interior too). The mosque is actually next door, and there is also accommodation onsite for all government employees – flats for the administrators, and large multi-roomed homes for the big cheeses, making it very clear to all when you've made it.

No visit would have been complete without a big night out, and Zubin did us proud. We started with martinis at the SkyBar on the 33rd floor of the Traders Hotel, which had an epic view across to the Petronas Towers. The bar was amazing - comfy booths with amazing views around an indoor swimming pool (sadly not for night-swimming) – and they had an 80s night on whilst we were there, much to my delight. We also met up with Eil, who has recently moved back to KL, so it became something of a Hertford reunion! After that it was on to Rootz, a new rooftop superclub, where all the young and beautiful people hang out. KL seems to have adopted American 'bottle service' style clubbing in a big way – you have to buy a bottle at the door in order to beat the queues. To James' eternal shame we duly bought our bottle of Smirnoff, which Zubin held aloft as we headed inside. Once inside we enjoyed dancing to the best of R&B from now and the recent past, including some classics from the uni years, which went down very well. However, the highlight of the evening was a conversation with some Kazakh girls that Eil and Zubin met over the course of the evening, who then joined us to share some late-night Chinese food (because 3 main meals a day no longer seems to be enough!). Of course the conversation turned to Borat, as Todd (quite genuinely) said,

'The only things we know about Kazakhstan in the UK are from Borat, but obviously that's all made-up. So tell us one thing we should know about Kazakhstan.'

Kazakhstani girl (after a thoughtful pause): 'We eat horsemeat.'

Amazingly, we managed to keep straight faces at the time, but have since been quoting it to each other ad nauseum. Hopefully it will be more or less out of Todd's system by the time he gets home, although James and I are still laughing about it.