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Published: March 29th 2012
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Singapore
Hold on, is that.. is that, a boat on a building?? Welcome to Asia!
Where the people are friendly and the beers are cheap(er). We started in Singapore, the state of many rules. A night in the cells for spitting on the street seemed to me to be a little extreme, but then I was warned. We spent our time here in what was an awesome hostel, apparently in asia things are done for you. For example the free breakfast toast was toasted by the receptionist, the pool table in the bar paid for and racked by the bar maid, the hawker stalls get a water out of the fridge for you, the list goes on! We also splashed some cash in an outdoor 50m pool, one whole singapore dollar. Singapore as a whole is pretty clean, and the centre in particular is ridiculous. Think upside-down sydney opera house, and a boat on a building. Yes thats right, a boat on a building. Ridiculous. A x
I'm Alex. I'm 5'11 inches tall, have blue eyes and am a Gemini. From Singapore we moved on to KL, staying at a rather budget hostel in Chinatown. The beds weren't very comfy. Although we managed to leave the market
Singapore
Just after we successfully manufactured the first cloning machine for humans stalls without any generic crap, Andy certainly made some friends. This will be a recurring theme for the rest of Malaysia. Keep note. The next day we managed to get tickets to the Malaysian Grand Prix at Sepang for the princely sum of 76 pounds. For 3 people. It was loud. Button was shit. Done. Then a day of relative culture looking round KL, and of course, a fair amount of money was now spent on generic shit at the market. I'm still amazed you can get real Armani wallets for 2 pounds. We are clearly being ripped off back home. 3 pairs of Ray Bans, Mont Blanc watch, Armani watch, Mont Blanc wallet, Armani wallet, Louis Vuitton wallet, Armani bag, CK boxers... Maybe 50 pounds in total. In the evening, you can get a plate of food for RM6. Enough said.
The next day we went to Genting Highlands - the most ridiculous place in Asia, if not the world. It's a theme park/casino/hotel complex ON A MOUNTAIN TOP. We were literally in a cloud. It was very white. No traveller should ever leave KL without having gone up the Petronas Towers - a 'must see' some may
Malaysian GP
Penang international circuit, Alonso's victory lap say. Obviously, we wanted to do the same. Set the alarm for 7.30am to get up and get there for 8.30am and queue for one of the 1640 tickets limited to each day. The alarm went off, we went to bed. We woke up. It was 10.30am. Needless to say we didn't get up the towers. We went to Chinatown and bought some more shit to console ourselves. Winners all round. KL done.
Not quite sure when this blog turned into a horroscope, but for reference I'm a slightly confused Leo! We left KL later that day and moved on to the lesser known city of Ipoh, not to be confused with Ipod or Ipad as both are of a high availability in this part of the world. A 3 hour bus journey for less money than the bus from Stroud to Dursley. We checked into our hostel....which turned out to be a pretty great hotel....note the lack of 's'. We went out in the evening to the recommended 'English' bar, the Miners Arms. Complete with pool table, dart boards, tudor beams, calsberg on tap and not a single white man in sight. English themed....definitively not English.
Ipoh
The view from the top of the temple caves, a struggle to climb in the heat was especially hard for Alex who was nursing a 10 pin bowling injury from the previous day Although as Alex mentioned earlier Andy appears to be a hit with the local lads. Lads not lasses unfortunately. Our civilized game of spears being interrupted by a kiss for Andy, apparently a result of some lost bet, Andy seemed quite pleased with himself although he did later complain of stubble rash, a common complaint I hear among those who make a habit of kissing bearded men. We left the bar at a rather sociable hour and began our treck back to the hotel, we found ourselves in a night market, now so far although we have made some purchases we have avoided being near a market under the influence of alcohol, alas this is no longer the case. We woke up to find Alex sporting a lovely pair of 'Elesse' tracksuit bottoms in a glorious mauve colour, I'm relatively sure they have been hiding at the back of that particular market stall since the mid to late eighties. The price it seems was not to be ignored.
Today we have had another culture day, Ipoh is famous for its buddhist temples built into caves on the mountain side. They were incredible to see and climb through and around.
Petronas towers
Towers in KL we failed to visit Steep stairs winding round the mountain at the top various statues of Buddha alongside incredible views of the Malaysian countryside. You can get busses to the various different sites but we opted to hire a cab for 2 hours and do it in the comfort of air-con. If anyone is interested the going rate for a cab is RM25 per hour (5 pounds); quite reasonable one feels.
And thats it, you're all up to speed. Please dont think that as this blog has arrived in relative succession to it's predecessor that this is in any way likely to continue. We are rapidly approaching the Thailand leg of the trip and I fully expect most of my time and energy to be sent keeping Andy from doing something stupid. I am aware I made several promises to parents back home that he wouldnt return with any less common sense or body parts, and a functioning liver. If rumours of drinks prices prove accurate this may become difficult.
Love to all,
Tom, Alex and Andy.
p.s I'm an Aquarius. Andy
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