Sometimes we have no luck!

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Busses in Malaysia are luxury! Not only compared to the rest of SE Asia but even compared to North America. It's not unusual to find huge comfy sofa style seats with a massager with your own personal television. Kuala Lumpur is only 2.5 hours away from Melaka so we opted for the cheaper busses, still quite nice though

The Capital city of Malaysia, known locally as KL has a population of just 1.5 million people. Around the bus station it's unusually chaotic, even by asian standards. However most of the Malay people are gentle and polite, so it makes things go by a bit easier.

Our first mission was to get to the Embassy of Myanmar (Burma) to get our Visa's. We bought our 2 non refunadable flights for March 5th, but can't board or enter the country witrhout these important documents. Lugging our heavy backbacks around we caught a cab and found our way there. They let us know that because of the Chinese New Year we could not get our Visa's for a week. Same thing happened a couple days before in Singapore. This was dissapointing because the next chance we get to apply for a Visa is bangkok which is only a couple days before our flight leaves. If anything goes wrong then we're pretty much screwed out of the $200 for the flights and our chance to make it to Burma.

After the dissapointment came the torrential downpour. In the tropics when it rains it pours. And the heat, it's so hot and humid here. Usually we'd check into our hotel, but we met somebody online who offered for us to spend the night at his house so we had to find a place to call him. Kuala Lumpur is congested with 6 lanes of traffic, a walking friendly place. There's overpasses over the roads for you to cross, however they're cleverly designed to not lead you across the street but into a mall! This wasn't so bad for us as it was dry, air conditioned and has everything we need.

On this trip we've learned that 5 star hotels have to treat everyone with the utmost respect as if they're guests. We let them know that we were checking in soon, left our luggage there and used their business facilities such as internet and phone for free. Should've went swimming! We called our new friend who said he'd come meet us in 5 hours. We did a bit of touring the city, including viewing the amazing Petronas Towers. The 2nd highest towers in the world. At this point we started to rethink our Burma trip. Maybe we could reroute our flight and go to Bali or Jakarta in Indonesia. Maybe to the island of Borneo and visit the rest of Malaysia and the rich and tiny country of Brunei. So many options on this part of the world. We rushed to a phone but of course air asia wasn't answering. They were closed. I asked why would they close so early, then realized that my watch has been one hour behind for over a week. When on a trip like this we rarely know the time, or day of the week. We read some books on how amazing Indonesia was, and got really excited. Then checked online that our flights are not reroutable or refundable. We just gotta hope we get those Burmese Visas

Like the rest of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur is an interesting mix of Chinese, Malay and Indian. it seems after every corner you turn it's a different city. One area may be all brown people, then you go through China Town and onto an area of all women with muslim headcovers. All smiles whereever we go. Really friendly people here.

We finally met up with our new friend Gurpreet. He is 3rd generation Malaysian, his roots are from Punjab, India. He took us to his mothers house where we enjoyed a traditional Indian meal. We ate with our forks while they ate with their hands haha. Typical Indians! They were really hospitable, especially since we were strangers. Offered us their home to shower and relax. We had plans to go out clubbing that night but we were exhausted from the long dissapointing day. That night Gurpreet brought us to his brothers house. Also really cool people, one being a lawyer. They sat around and smoked weed all night, which is surprising since the punishment here for drugs are extreme. Anything from 20 years for simple possesion to death fro trafficing. Naturally we stayed away. They're locals so I guess they know what they're doing. They say everyone smokes weed, but chemical drug use is very rare and frowned upon. Also at the night clubs the police raid them regularly and give urine tests. Anyone caught with chemicals int heir system would be in some pretty serious trouble. This is all because of the strict islamic government here.

We had a great sleep that night. In the morning we left their house for a hostel. They lived about an hour out of town and it was kind of a hassle taking a cab back and forth to see the sights. Great people, I hope they didn't take offence that we left so quick. That mroning we did our best to do some preplanned walking tours through the historic parts of the city. It's just seemed impossiblke. The traffic is heavy, and the roads don't make any sense. We quickly found ourselves in a market. This place is great! Jasmine loves shopping and loves to stop at these places but here I even wanted to stay. You can buy pretty much anything you want here. All (somewhat) high quality fake designer brands. Anything from "Gucci" and "Prada" purses to "Rolex" watches to "Etnies" shoes. Also theirs all kinds of designer brand clognes and perfumes, clothes, you name it. It's fun to bargain with these people who usually start their price at 10 times the going rate.

I try and stay away from baragining with the brown people. Bargaining is in their blood and they're professionals. The older Chinese people are really good also. I try and find a ayounger asian guy who is a worker and not an owner. I grab a calculator and offer a price that is so low it's unacceptable to them. When they say no I laugh and tell them that they're stuff is no good and I know the real price and not to bother giving me the "tourist price" This may demoralize them and they give me a price about 5 times the going rate. I act uninterested and give a laugh and say "I'll think about it" Then they'll give a slightly lower price. I shake my head no and walk away. Usually they'll chase me and ask me my final offer. I'll offer slightly more than my original lowball. They'll offer their last price which is higher. I'll walk away and usually they'll give it to me for my price. This is the way of life in Asia. If you pay 5 times the going rate you're not getting ripped off. There is no real rate. They just get what they can for it. You're just not negotiating as good as the next guy. You always need to negotiate with a smile. I bought a rolex watch and a Nike hat, while Jasmine bought some designer wallets and sunglasses. Everything for less than $25! Although fake, it looks really good and is actually good quality. You can tell the qulaity of the watches. Some are complete crap while the more expensive ones will last longer. They're honest and say that after a year it's time to buy a new one.

That day we went to the chaotic bus station to buy a bus ticket to the island of Penang. There's gotta be 50 companies to choose from. We asked a booth and they said "Sold out" then 5 more were sold out. We then asked if we could get a bus to Thailand and once again it was sold out. 20 companies and every route is sold out! This is all because of Chinese New Year. It's a big holiday around ehre where everyone goes to visit family. We were told we're stuck in Kuala Lumpur for a week! This is not good. We've only got a month left on our trip and we don't want to spend 1 week in a big city and the rest trying to get a Visa to Burma in Bangkok! This leaves no tropical beach time whatsoever. We tryed 10 more places and finally somehow managed to get the last 2 seats on a bus for 6:30 pm the next day. We've been really unlucky these past couple days but I guess this is a little bit of good luck. Or is it? We met a guy who waited for a bus for 6 hours, then found out his ticket was fake. This had us worried all day!

We decided to make the best of what we had in Kuala Lumpur. We went out clubbing. The clubs here are world class and the one we went to 'Zouk" puts any Vancouver club to shame. it's absolutley gorgeous inside. We did our usual drinking from 7/11 before we went to save money, only to find out that drinks were cheaper in the club. I've never heard of such a thing! oh well. We ended up spending way more than our budget allowed us, but we need to splurge once in a while. It was lots of fun. We spent the next day trying to avoid the torrential downpours and tropical heats. The streets are flooded to our ankles. Why do we have to be stuck here of all places! We spent long hours in Starbucks and eating at Chinese Restaraunts. I would've taken more pictures but it's tough in the rain. All in all Kulala Lumpur is an awsome city to visit. But I guess it could've been a bit better for us. Now we just gotta hope we make it on this bus!

Penang

I usually write a blog for each and every city we go to but considering the fact we did pretty much nothing while we're on the island of Penang I figure I'll add it to this blog. Well we made it on the bus, and were actually lucky enough to get a luxury bus with sofa's as seats! We stayed in the city of Georgetown. It may as well be called Ghosttown. Chinese New Year is making things really boring and dead around here. We showed up because we read that Georgetown is like real

China, even more so than Hong Kong or Singapore. We expected parades and festvities. Instead we found out that it's more like Christmas where everything closes and people spend time with their families.

We made the best of it though and headed to Penang Islands nicest Beach. Being in a muslim country, it's very conservative here. It was interesting to see the beach crowded with people fully clothed. But of course also kind of dissapointing as it would look really strange if Jasmine put on a bikini and I put on just a pair of shorts and went swimming. We spent our day just relaxing at one of the 5 star hotels, using their facilities as if we were staying there.

When we arrived in Georgetown it was 2am. In the morning we set off to the beach not noticing how crappy our hotel room was. We realized this when we got back. It was filthy, worst than anything we've had on the entire trip. Then the fan broke and it got extremely hot in our room so we slept in the dorm room outside.

We quickly bought a minivan ticket to Krabi in Thailand. We've been there before, it's cheap, comfortable and beautiful. I can't wait. Malaysia is an amazing place, and recomended, but I guess it would've been a bit better if luck were on our side a bit more.

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Photos

The Petronas Towers
2nd tallest buildings in the world

Market
Here you could buy anything you want. Gucci, Prada, Rolex, Nike, Etnies, Louis Vuitton etc. All fake of course, but not terrible quality. And you can't beat the price!

@ The Hawker Stalls
The cheapest food, with the best atmosphere is from the street hawker food stalls.

Visit Malaysia
A huge multi million dollar advertizing campagn. I think Malaysia is looking to cash in on tourism like neighboring Thailand.

Monk and I
Quite interesting meeting monks from all the different countries

Petronas at night
As seen from Zouk club in Kuala Lumpur

Incence
All over the streets of Georgetown, Penang there are huge incence sticks burning giving the city a great smell

5 star hotel
We don't spend the night at these places, but we take full advantage of their facilities. They treat everyone like guests and wouldn't dare to question us. Here we went swimming

Mosque
Malaysia's population is mostly muslim, however they have a large percentage of buddhists and hindu's

Batu Ferrengi
The beach isn't so bad, but not the greatest. It's a muslim beach which means most people are covered head to toe. Seems very strange to me!

We have the same problem at home!
if you put a sign up saying not to dump garbage, people will dump garbage there! The solution is to take away the sign, the rest of the streets are almost spotless!