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Published: February 22nd 2010
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In an effort to catch up on my blogs, and to spare anyone reading this from having to take an hour of their life just to read a single blog post, I'm going to try to keep my blog on Kuala Lumpur short. The first night we arrived, the Swedes and I, after some poking around, found a place to stay. For $10 Canadian dollars were were able to split a room. Was a nice room? No, actually, it was probably the least nice room I've stayed in my entire trip so far. Cracked walls, a fan sitting on a table, a single bed and a bunk bed made up our room Oh right, there was a half foot by half foot painting of a flower. What a nice touch. The Swedes are on a 6 week vacation, and definitely a bigger budget, but i decided that at least for the first night I could splurge. We were starving by the time we dropped off our bags, and we had lunch at Nandos, a nice little air conned restaurant that Dennis (D) had been to before. Him, Pierre (P) and myself had a really nice dinner there; a marinated chicken breast,
a small salad, and some potato wedges. I had a bottomless ice tea with my meal, and by the time we finished eating, I think both of the guys had a good idea what Brodie was all about.
We did a brief walk around of some surrounding areas before settling down for some beers at one of the outside restaurants. One thing to be noted is that Malaysia is primarily a Muslim country, and the price of beers definitely reflected that. Although, on a side note, I must say that Singapore was actually even more expensive, and at one point I saw a 26 ounce bottle of Smirnoff Vodka on sale for $58. So yeah, we had some beers and just enjoyed the street view. At one point a mini-parade headed by a giant chicken mascot with boxing gloves on his hands strolled by, making a racket. They stopped in front of this Chinese store, selling pressed meats and Chinese new year gifts. From then on, I noticed, that store always, and I mean always, had a lineup out into the street of people wanting presents for the new year. At this point, the Chinese new year was only
a few days and you could tell. We were staying in China town and everyone was busy buying up gifts, snacks, and flowers for family and friends. The flower shops in china town never seemed to close. You could walk by at 3am and they were still working intensely, I assumed trying to get out all the orders before the new year. So, we sipped some beers at the outside pub, and then moved to the Regae Bar, located directly below our hostel, and continued partying till the wee hours of the night.
The next day we tried to fit in a few tourist sites. We went to the Petronia towers via the metro, and took some nice photos. We went hit up the Shark Bar, where I had one of the best burgers I've had on my trip so far. The Swedes were to leave that night on an overnight bus ride to one of the islands on the east coast, and I was still undecided on what to do. The owner of the guesthouse however was pestering me each time i saw him to make some sort of decision, not for his sake, but my own. Apparently
the Chinese new year was about to create tourist chaos across Malaysia. Everyone and their dog were going to be flooding to all the popular spots with their week off. So, he said, best for me to go the next day and get a jump on the competition. I took his advice to heart and booked a ticket to the Cameron Highlands that night.
Later that night I met a couple of English girls and we had a few beers at the Regae bar. The night wasn't early, but it was fairly uneventful, and I ended up falling asleep at almost 4. This was not what I wanted, because I had to be up at 7 to start my journey to Cameron Highlands. I would wake up the next morning disgruntled and unimpressed with life, but I managed to make it to he bus station and find my correct bus. Tired, but happy to be leaving Kuala Lumpur, I laid my head against the bus window and let my journey begin.
Kuala Lumpur in one crazy paragraph: Cheap food, expensive accommodation. Mulsim culture everywhere. Roman lettering, but foreign language. This results in things like: "Polis" for police, "teksi"
for taxi, "teh" for tea, "cic"...I don't think I ever figured that one out. China town in KL is booming with knockoff clothing, more than I've seen anywhere else, and everyone is equipped with walkie-talkies, I presume to tip each other off it the police are about to do a raid. The Petronia towers? Yeah, good for a photo, but good luck if you want to go up. There's a limited amount of tickets handed out each day, you need to be at the ticket station at 8, and then you get a scheduled time to go up during the day. Not my idea of a good time. Minutes before we were in the city, we were on a road with jungle on each side, and minutes after we left the city it was pretty much the same. On the bus from Singapore they played the movie Jumper, and I loved the subtitling. They didn't actually use the right words, they would just write down whatever it sounded like. So, if the actor said, "Your not leaving here, this I have got you covered." Could very well turn out "Your not leafing here, I have gut shoe covered". I wish
I could provide an example up to the quality they were giving me. In Kuala Lumpur, the metro was not clean and efficient like Singapore, well, it was clean I guess, but it was a gong show getting on and off. I saw so many rats in the streets eating at giant piles of garbage. I saw a man pissing on a pile of garbage, more or less on the middle of the side walk. The food is good, but hasn't been great. Malaysians appear to love Mcdonalds. Its so cheap, like 2.50 for a meal at lunch time, and the McDonalds has wifi. As well, you'll see brand new BMW's sporting prominent McDonalds windshield stickers. VIP Drive Through, they read. I still don't know exactly what that means. The 7-11's were nasty, and they always seemed to be short on stock, especially cold water. I'd have to say all in all it was cheap city, with cheap food, but expensive alcohol. I have a feeling there's a lot more to the city, and if I had time to explore it I would, but I'm not sure if I'll get that chance. Oh well. Next stop. Cameron Highlands.
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