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Published: September 12th 2007
With my new found glory I've decided to hit Malaysia. For those of you that don't know I've basically been living like a sewer rat on and off for the past 2 to 3 weeks as when I paid a visit to Chiang Mai, Northern Thailand my wallet containing everything one needs to survive decided to go walkies. Where it went is anybodies guess, but with a kind loan from my parents I've been able scrape on by, a BIG THANK YOU goes out to them and also Mr Martin for lending me some pocket money so that I can eat cakes.
So for now its onwards and I guess downwards towards Malaysia. The first stop on my agenda being the Perenthian Islands, which reading between the lines seems like it could well be a pain in the arse to get to. The easiest option would seem to be to head South East and pass over the Thai border at Sungai-Kolok. But this could potentially mean me getting my white ass blown up by Muslim extremists as over the past few years this area has been deemed slightly hostile. Some people say it's safe, others say not to touch it
with a barge pole. I'm going to go with instinct, and instinct tells me 'Find another way my son'.
My alternative route is to head directly South and a little to the West and cross a supposedly safe border and from there head all the way down to Kuala Lumpur, a bit long winded but I've opted to do this as I'd prefer to play it safe and from there I'll take an internal 15 pound flight with the legendary Air Asia up to Khota Bahru and from here I can direct myself to the Perenthians. I've almost made this little plan sound simple.
05/09/2007 - Road Trip
And it was simple, to some degree, it took about 27 hours to get there on the bus mind, but I'm kind of getting used to these long drawn out journeys now. It makes me smile when back home you consider a place to be to far away when it's only a couple hours drive away. I Even had to take a couple of buses that the yocals use, it's quite humorous when you travel with the locals because if there's one thing that the Asians love to do
then that's sleep, it's all about the sleeping in Asia, and there is no wrong time for sleeping either, day or night, even at work it's acceptable, it's quite literally OK to sleep on the job! And when it's not about the sleeping it's most definitely about the eating. It's two things that are very important in every single human beings life I'm fully aware of that, but in Asia it just seems to be more apparent, more directly noticeable than say ... not!
From the moment they get seated on the bus it's seat's back 90 degrees and on with the sleeping. The thing is with a lot of the buses the seats just do not warrant such an angle as they are already intimately close together as they are. They practically have their head in your lap. It's also another Asian occasion where you have to have your wits about you as they really do launch these seats back with great gusto without prior warning. The majority of the time you just get your legs crushed, yesterday as well as the usual leg crushing I also managed to get my book smashed violently from my hands. They
don't turn to say anything like 'Sorry' though, knowing full well that they have caused some sort of disturbance behind them. Instead they just lay silently and expressionless like a potato. I think if it was Vietnam you might at least get a sneer, but most of the time it's nothing, just ignore it and it will go away, and I guess it kind of works, fair play to 'em.
07/09/07 - Out and about in KL and the donut theory
Today I went on an unplanned walk around the city. The beauty of it being unplanned is that ... there is no plan, you just walk and see where you end up. And it's always exciting having a new city to explore, eyes peeled trying to soak up as much as you can. After walking for just a short while I noticed sticking out like two sore thumbs the Petrona Towers, I don't know much about these towers and to be honest I still don't, but I decided to make them my target.
It took a couple of hours for me to reach them but the route was nicely broken down by me stumbling across
a video games arcade. I decided that I hadn't played games for a while, so I played games, and it was fun.
The towers themselves are really something, I didn't actually go inside but the exterior itself was stunning. I'd reel off some interesting facts but like I say, I just don't know any. My homework on KL has been very minimal bordering on non-existent. I wasn't to sure if I was ever actually going to make it here but be in so my visions of going to China have now gone out the window it has created space for me to come here.
In the mid afternoon sun I chose not to linger for to long as I found myself melting to the pavement. Conveniently lodged in between the two towers was the KLCC shopping centre and I sensed air con. Turns out I sensed correctly and once inside it didn't take long for Dunkin Donuts to catch my eye. I really wanted a Bavarian donut but alas they didn't have any, so to make up for this mild set back I opted for two donuts. I had to cover myself just in case one happened to
be a disappointment. Statistically speaking I don't think it is possible to select two bad donuts in a row, everyone has a general sense of what flavour donut would appeal to them. But if you was to select two bad donuts in a row that would be really harsh and unfortunate. Essentially though my calculations were a success, the Vanilla Frost was far to bland for my liking but the follow up to this unfortunate event, 'The Big Orange' as it likes to be known was a huge hit with my taste buds. Thus proving my point in a single survey that it is impossible for the conscious mind to select two bad donuts in a row. And if someone states any different to that then that person is a liar and it is also quite possible that that person could well have ginger hair, although this remains statistically unproven.
Two Dunkin Donuts, one Iced Coffee, One Malaysian national football shirt and a pocket guide to the birds of the Malaysian Peninsula and Singapore later and I was ready to retire back to my dormitory, that incidentally smells like Mccourt's Fine Meats factory. I opted to take the sky
train back which proved no easy task. The system isn't quite as efficient as that of Bangkok's, in the sense that the trains don't seem to be as frequent and also capacity wise they are pathetic. There's two measly carriages about the size of my bedroom and when they turn up they are already carrying a full load and there's about 100 or so people waiting to get on. Pretty much offering a one off one on policy.
On my first two attempts I was muscled out being to polite to fight back despite being relatively close to the front of the queue. On my third attempt however I decided that the English gentleman approach would have to be left at home as I released my fury and surged through to make damn sure that I got on the train.
(A Chinese guy is about to turn the lights out in the dorm and if he does I'd rather much like to punch him in the head ............ oh good, he didn't, last night I was reading and the bastard turned them off without asking. He did it all so casually as well which perhaps made him think
that his decision to turn them off was an acceptable one, but I found it to be a wreckless decision and have no inclinations to talk to him ... ever!)
Anyway, apart from the total lack of carriages on the train as a whole the city is pretty clued in and very westernised, and so far it hasn't been as in your face as neighboring countries as nobody seems to want my money, which I'm going to find it hard to get used to.
Just before arriving back at my smelly dorms I came across a very unwestern pet shop, as you can imagine it's a case of stuff as many animals in a cage as you can fit. The worst being the two Bengal cats stuffed into the tiniest of cages. They seemed in reasonably good condition and cost 1680 RM, about 240 quid. I would have liked to have rescued them but certain specifics prevented such actions:
1. My daily budget would become seriously effected
and
2. It's just not convenient
So I had to leave them to it. When I went to take my camera out to take a photo the shop assistant
Bird Park
Rainbow Lorrikeetsgave me the 'Your not taking a photo of these atrocities' stare. So my camera was relegated back into my pocket.
Tomorrow I'm going to head to the bird park which is apparently the biggest aviary in the World with around 3000 birds. This sounds mostly my bag and maybe even the butterfly park if time permits. Hopefully the conditions will be a little more fairer on the animals. I'm now thinking was that pet shop actually a pet shop ... I'll stop my thoughts there.
RANDOM NOTES
* My toast this for breakfast this morning was actually proper toast and not stale bread.
* Found a bookshop called 'Kinokuniya' which has the best selection of natural history books that I have ever seen. One book I picked up I learnt this interesting fact from, brace yourselves....
'Bumblebees can recognise individual human faces!'
I'll leave you with that.
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john d
non-member comment
petronas
Petronas towers was the tallest at one stage, it also has a huge ball(s) at the top to stable it from earthquakes. more we learn the more we know.