monica hair

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Singapore to Malaysia


After an amazing calm flight to Singapore Changi airport on an A380 air bus (seriously, the plane was amazing, comfy and so spacious) our first impressions of Singapore were that it was so clean and so pretty - the buildings reminded us of Las Vegas, all lit up and huuuge! We got a taxi to our hostel ‘The five stones’ which was a brand new hostel, really nice and modern.. Once we had checked in, we went to our 6 bed dorm to see who we would be sharing with and were chuffed when we realised that we had the entire room to ourselves, yes!

We went for a little walk around the boat quay and decided to go for a drink in one of the bars behind the boat quay.. We later realised that the area was a bit of a red light district (oops).. It was full of locals, gay men, half naked women and boy racer cars, but we were so tired and desperately wanted a beer after a long days travelling!

The next morning we asked the nice lady on reception Isabelle for the best things to do in Singapore in 24 hrs, so she gave us a map and circled lots of areas. I could of gone mad at Jen when she decided to do everything in one day, but it worked out quite well walking everywhere - apart from the chafing (Gav lar will remember the pain from Las Vegas) ha-ha.

The first stop was the Boat Quay, so we walked around to the ‘Fullerton Hotel‘, which was very nice. We walked to ‘Merlion park’ and then round to the amazing Marina Bay Sands. It cost $20 each to go up to the viewing point, but it had to be done, as the views when we got up there were absolutely amazing.

The next stop was the Fountain of Wealth, which wasn’t even on when we got there (gutted), then we walked around the malls, whilst I laughed at Jen knowing she couldn’t spend any money on clothes. Ha-ha. To cheer Jen up we went to Raffles hotel. We had to have a Singapore Sling (any excuse), just for the experience. We walked in the Long Bar and there were monkey nuts all over the floor. I was told its traditional to just throw the shells, even though it made the place look a right mess on the floor. The cocktail was beautiful, but the bar bill was horrendous! $62 for 2 drinks, same price as two beds at our hostel. Every time I took a sip, I shouted to Jen ”That’s 50p’s worth“, “that’s £1” etc.. After Raffles, we got the MRT, which was just like the BART in San Francisco, an underground tube, to ‘Little India’. Hmm it wasn’t the best (think Market Street in Hyde pretty much) We only stayed there for five mins, as the stench around the place was unbearable and cockroaches were all over the place running around our ankles, eeek!

We then got the MRT to Chinatown, which was amazing! All you could smell was food cooking, and the place was quite clean, and the shops were amazing. I managed to drag Jen off and convince her that Malaysia and Thailand would be cheaper or clothes, so we decided to eat at a popular place, just on the corner of Pagado street. The food was so cheap everywhere, only $4 - $10 for main meals, apart from the famous chilli and black pepper crabs which were $20 per 100grams, so Jen talked me out of having my favourite food as it would have seriously blown our budget.

Once we ate, it was getting late and the lights were all coming on, so we walked to Clarke Quay to see the riverside views. As we were walking round, Jen noticed an Irish bar there, so I ran full sprint dragging her there, as I needed a cider so bad, and heaven behold they had strongbow, as you can imagine I was in my element, although again it was (VERY) expensive. Once we left the bar, we walked towards the hostel passed the boat quay again which had huge live crabs and lobsters in glass boxes. On our way back we were hoping no-one had checked in our room again, and were relieved to find they hadn’t.

In the morning we woke up to find two girls in our room…ha-ha they must of checked in early hours, and been very quiet coming in. As we woke, we got chatting to a girl called Cassie from Essex (and her uncle lived next door to nanny pat from the program) she mentioned she’s known Mark Wright for years, and that the whole program was Marks idea (Jen now has a serious case of TOWIE withdrawl symptoms!). The other girl was called Linda from Norway, they had both been travelling around Thailand, Laos and Cambodia, and were heading to Australia. We checked out around 11am and went for a walk around Clarke Quay again, getting a bite to eat and then returned to get a taxi to the bus station for our trip to Kuala Lumpur.

The Sri Maju bus was amazing, it had recliner seats with foot rests and was extremely comfy and cheap at only $25 each, although you do need to wrap up as it was freezing due to the aircon, and I only had a t-shirt n shorts on. Once we got to the bus station on the outskirts of KL, we walked across to the train station and got a train into KL Sentral, then got a taxi to our guest house for the night “the nest” in Bukit Bintang. The hostel was clean and tidy and we had a double to ourselves for 100 ringet, which is around £20. As soon as we got in, we hit the sack as we were knackered.

The next day, we got our map of Kuala Lumpur and set off on a 6 hr walking trip. The first stop was the massive shopping mall at Berjaya Times Square which had over 10 floors and 1000+ shops, one of the largest in the world. Jen dragged me round there for hours so she could get some proper travelling gear, like them baggy MC hammer pants all the women were wearing here ha-ha. We decided for our 1^st try of Malaysian food, a Nando’s! ha-ha its crazy, they have everything here - Indian, Chinese, Malay, Thai and of course westernised food. In the afternoon we got the monorail to Chinatown, which was another mad experience, haggling prices for clothes etc. I managed to get two adidas t-shirts, a sports vest, socks and some ray ban sunglasses for 100 ringet.. Jen found some more baggy pants and a vest and it was similar price to the malls, everything’s so cheap.

After exploring the shops, food courts, buildings etc we decided to go to a road just off Jalan Nagasari to test the bars. There were loads of bars with music ranging from cheesy 80’s to European house. We had a few cocktails and then went for a bite to eat at Flam’s restaurant, a French pizzeria, with really friendly staff - Jimmy the manager (I laughed when he said it because he’s Malaysian so probably chose himself an English name). After the meal, we went for a walk up the road and went to a bar, which is when I realised Jen was pi$$ed. All Jen kept saying was “I want to dance“, and there was no where, so I managed to talk her into going back to the hostel to stop her embarrassing herself ha-ha. (SO not true as you will all know, Darren just exaggerating again!!!)

Friday morning, we went for a walk to the ‘PETRONAS towers’ in the afternoon.. famous from the film ‘Entrapment‘ with Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta Jones, to get some good pics. After the towers, we went to the Malaysian Tourist Centre, which has free wifi, so spent around 2 hrs sorting our next trip to Pinang out, the bus there and booking a hostel. It was quite fortunate we had to do all this actually, because as soon as we walked in, the heavens opened with huge raindrops, lightning and the loudest thunder I have ever heard. As you can imagine, Jen sh!t herself and so we stayed in the tourist centre for a while using internet.

At night, we decided to try our some local delicacies and for people that know me, would know that I am very careful when it comes to foreign foods. Jen finally convinced me to eat at a very popular restaurant on Changkat Bhukit Bintang, so I went for a fried meal to be safe, and it was amazing! Afterwards, we went back to the bars and just tried out a couple of new ones, before going back to take the mick out of Jimmy again at Flam’s (he’s a right character)

Saturday morning, we didn’t get up until 12pm, we must have been shattered/hung over? When we finally got up, we went for a walk around the malls again, as my new sunglasses from the Chinese markets had snapped already ha-ha. Around tea time, we retired to the room as it wouldn’t stop raining, so we decided to watch a film. Once all the lights came on, we went for a walk to the KL tower, which is one of the tallest communication towers in the world. We took some pics, had a walk round the gardens at the bottom, then decided to have an early night, as Jen wasn’t feeling too good (must be exhaustion from all the shopping)

Penang was our next stop so we checked out of ‘the nest’ on Sunday lunchtime and made our way to the Pujaraya Bus Terminal to get our coach to Penang. It wasn’t the best journey, loads of stopping and it was really late leaving but hey.. The torrential rainfall continued all the way to Penang - we’d read that monsoon season meant an hours downpour every afternoon, not 3 days solid with no let up!

We finally arrived at our hostel for the night ‘Ryokan’ and Darren found the sign outside hugely amusing as it stated ‘TITBITS’ underneath ha-ha. The place was lovely, and we had a 6 bed dorm, with only one Asian man in, who was quite old n hardly ever stayed in the room so we didn’t really talk to him and had the room to our self most of the time.

Once we checked in, we went for a walk to the ‘Red Garden’ which was a huge place with huge varieties of food to choose from, all for around £1.20 a meal! amazing! After the meal, we walked to upper Penang road, where the bars were and tried to find a bar that showed the Chelsea vs. Liverpool game. We found one called Djoint and as you can imagine, Darren was ecstatic as Liverpool scored in the 80+ minutes to win the game 2-1. We were drinking jugs of tiger beer throughout the match (Darren drinking lager!!), and due to the match being on, it made Darren drink faster and he ended up really drunk for the 1^st time in ages. Once the match finished we went to a nightclub across the road called ‘Sloppy senoritas’ ha-ha the music was amazing, all Shakira, J-Lo, Latino and R&B with even tunes from the 90’s that brought back a lot of memories.

The next day, we were a lil rough, so we got up round 11am n went for brekkie across the road, before venturing too the Pier to see the sea. The sea was disgusting, rubbish piled in it everywhere. We got on the free Central Area Transit bus and went everywhere in Georgetown to see all the sights. At night time we went to a pub called ‘Soho’ just round the corner from our hostel, which was English themed, and had an early snack for tea. At night we went to the Red Gardens again, ate there, and on our way to Penang road to the shops.. Jen jinxed it!. Jen was walking and just came out with “hey, I’ve not seen any rats here yet, and there’s a lot of food about”. As soon as she said it, around the corner from the Red Gardens, a rat ran across our path. Jen felt sick and started freaking out, I wasn’t too bothered bout it.. A rats got to eat too at the end of the day. Ha-ha.

Tuesday morning we woke up really early to sort out the laundry, Thai Visas and accommodation and plan for the next trip. The Visa’s was a right pain in the arse. We got a taxi to the Thai embassy which had a man with a printer/photocopier in the back of his van charging tourist for the photo’s and copy of passports needed, we were fortunate enough to research 1^st. We paid for the Visa’s and left our passports there, ready to be picked up again at 3.30pm. In the early afternoon we did the Cheung Fatt Tze Mansion tour, which was very interesting and value for money at 12 Ringet entry. After the tour we got a bite to eat and went to pick up our visa’s again, only this time, the taxi driver wouldn’t wait, so we had to walk back for around 15 mins, then flag a taxi again as its not in Georgetown, Visa’s were done though, so we were happy.

At night, we picked up our laundry, went for a walk again, grabbed a bite then retired early, ready for the next trip…. Langkawi island.



TTFN folks xxxx

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Comments

[Jess]

I want to see a picture of actual Monica hair!! Singapore and KL sound amazing! Can't wait for the next installment, Jen hope the hair calms down! Love you both lots! x