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Published: December 3rd 2007
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Petronas Towers On Our Last Night
Again from our hotel window, but I'm guessing they knew we were leaving by the firework display. How thoughtful. So, this was it for Thailand. We were leaving the country for good and pretty much on our way out of South-East Asia in general. Being used to such cheap prices, we were going to have to readjust for the economy increase, although our next country, Malaysia, was still on the cheap side.
Our flight out of Asia was from Singapore and a lot of backpackers on the South-East Asia trail generally just fly to there from Bangkok, unless they're going to travel in Malaysia itself. We wanted to see as much as possible so were quite willing just to bus it down through Malaysia and see a couple of things en route. Ideally, it would have been good to spend a lot longer in Malaysia as there was a lot to do there, but the Australian Christmas and New Year were now beckoning so it was going to be as quick a route as possible.
The boat journey from Phi Phi to Krabi was over quickly although it was running late. Our bus from Krabi to Penang (an island in Malaysia) was booked for 11 and our boat came in at 11:10. Fortunately the driver was waiting for
Masjid Jamek
Mosque in the city centre. us at the harbour, although he was an ill-tempered git, who shovelled us into an extremely cramped minibus, slammed the doors without looking and drove us off at a maniacal speed towards Hat Yai, the Thai border town. Evil Knievel must have personally trained this guy as he was veering back and forth out of traffic taking right of way on both lanes.
We got to Hat Yai and had to get off and ended up in a bit of bother convincing the tourist office there that we had booked through to Penang, as the travel agents in Krabi took our tickets. We were then told we had to wait 2 hours before we could leave Hat Yai, and after arguing didn't work, we headed to have a quick bite to eat. Eventually though, we were boarding a more luxurious minibus and got through border control with minimal problems.
Crossing into Malaysia, there were a few changes, that wasn't just currency related (although that changed to Malay Ringgits too). First of all, we had now moved from Buddhism to Islam as the dominant religion and secondly, they were an hour ahead for some reason, even though it is
Outside KLCC
There was a lot of greenery and lakes in KL. due south of Thailand. We never got told about this missing hour so it was lucky our guesthouse had clocks in the lobby as it was an alarm driven start the next morning.
We were using Penang as a night stop off as the journey to Kuala Lumpur was a bit too lengthy. It was late when we got in to Georgetown, the main city on Penang. It used to be the headquarters for the East India Company, but those colonial days were long gone and the place itself was pretty run down. We got dropped off at an OK-ish guesthouse but it was too late anyway to hunt for other digs, but it seemed to be full of travellers so it was a good sign. It turns out most of them were on Thai visa runs, as Penang was where they had to go to get the 90 day visa renewed. In fact, we even met Lior, our diving instructor from Koh Tao, staying at the guesthouse on this very mission.
We were up first thing to catch our bus to Kuala Lumpur (referred to as KL from now). We never explored Penang itself as we wanted
more time elsewhere so we hope we didn't miss too much. Waiting at the bus station, we met a guy called Lee, who was on the same trip as us, albeit on a stricter timescale. He had stayed in Penang a day and showed us his pretty cool pictures which made us a bit jealous, but there was no point in regrets as KL had a lot in store.
The bus was ridiculously great with only 3 seats in a row which were basically armchairs with more than ample leg room. The journey was over quite quickly because of this and we were soon standing at Kuala Lumpur bus station. We had gone against the backpacker ethos for KL though and had booked into a nice hotel! We had planned this from the start of our trip though as KL is
the cheapest place for luxury hotels in the world, although we only booked it on lastminute.com the night before. Walking to the hotel turned out to be a nightmare as we didn't know exactly where it was and carting the backpacks around in the humid heat isn't exactly fun. After about 45 minutes of walking we eventually saw
Petronas Towers
View from our hotel room. it in the distance, and were soon lying on our bed exhausted. It felt nice to be in a city again though with loads of amenities a stone throw away.
We spent the evening chilling out and went for a walk in the area our hotel was situated, which wasn't the nicest area, but that had probably been the reason we'd been able to afford it. The next day we hit the centre of KL and went to the Petronas Towers, formerly the highest skyscrapers in the world. We got to sample the public transport which consisted of a lot of different skytrains and was extremely efficient. We couldn't get tickets for the skywalk on the 45th floor of the Petronas Towers as they sold out first thing in the morning, but we had planned climbing the KL Tower later in the day which was higher. We ended up going shopping in the mall at the towers which was our first real reminder that Christmas was coming with sparkling trees aplenty and songs blasting from everywhere. It was very surreal. Emma ended up getting some cheap new togs here too, pretty much our last chance for Asia shopping.
Petronas Towers
View from our hotel room...at night! We then headed to the Aquarium which proved to be quite fun and had a bit more context now after having seen a lot of the marine life on our diving. Trying to get to the KL Tower afterwards proved to be a bit tricky as we could see it in the distant skyline, but there were a lot of obstructions between it and us. We eventually got there and were soon taking in the amazing panoramic views of the whole city.
After having dinner in The Golden Triangle, we headed back to our hotel and our nice air conditioned room. The following day was to be around Chinatown, Little India and the main centre, which we did completely on foot and really exhausted us. We went to Merdeka Square and viewed some of the colonial buildings and Islam architecture. Afterwards, an exploration of Chinatown was on the cards which, while being pretty claustrophobic, had some of the cheap market stalls and the lovely aroma of Chinese food. Having to get our bus tickets for Singapore, the bus station was revisted although this was a very weird experience. As soon as we got in to the ticket office, we
Outside Petronas Towers
Second tallest skyscraper in the world, although there is a few different categories in regards to the tallest buildings. were swamped by sales touts trying to sell us different bus companies and we couldn't hear ourselves think with all the shouting going on. All a bit strange.
Our next stop was the Masjid Negara (which again proved tricky to walk to), the national mosque of KL and the biggest in South-East Asia. It was a welcome change from the Buddhist Temples as we were all Buddha'd out from Thailand. We were intending to go to a different mosque in the centre as it had some pretty amazing architecture, but it was Friday prayer time so we couldn't get in. We had to wear Muslim attire to enter which was quite fun (but sweltering) and got a few nice pictures. A guy inside explained a lot of background of the place and the story of Abraham and Jacob, which was pretty much a similar story as the Christian version. It's weird to think that Christianity, Islam and Judaism started from the same seeds considering the conflicts they have now.
For dinner, we opted for Little India and had a really nice and filling meal at a local restaurant, all for a ridiculously cheap cost. After some more exploring
Frog in the aquarium
Another frog to add to the collection. of the markets and seeing some of a traditional dance show, we walked back to our hotel really exhasted. We had managed to blitz most of KL in the two days we were here, which wasn't bad going as it's a pretty big city and it's fairly sprawled out. We must have ended up walking a good few miles so we headed to bed fairly sharpish after returning for the early start to catch the bus to Singapore the next morning.
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