1/2 of Kuala Lumpur

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Well here we go again, Right up to date!

We've spent 2 full days in K.L. so far, and it's been pretty ridiculous! Basically we've been living in jungles and isolated islands and other things of the same nature, that now, being in a big city feels both ovewhelming and invigorating. This city is HUGE though. Literally, if you walk a block anywhere in the district we're staying (called Bukit Bintang), you run into a HUGE shopping plaza. I bet money that all the shopping plazas in K.L. equal about 10 west edmonton malls in total size.

So we've basically been shopping for the last 2 days.

I must update on another important thing though... that is the NIGHT BOAT/ridiculously long bus journey.

So we decided that from Koh Tao we would take a night boat, and then a full day bus to get to Kuala Lumpur, although to be honest, that was the only thing travel agents were offering (and only at one time).
So we're walking up to the night boat, right... and we give our bags to the bag people and then get our tickets from the ticket lady; take note that these tickets were numbered with corresponding numbers above all the thin mattresses strewn along either side of the floor of the boat. So we find our numbers and guess what... there's people sitting in our beds!. We politely ask them 'what's going on?', and they reply something like 'oh... you can just sit anywhere, the numbers don't matter.' Now, I would have put up a decent argument if there weren't additional beds free at that time, so though this seemed like a loaded statement, we decided to be the pacifists and just find another bed (thinking we were being nice to everyone). So we find some other bed and take a seat, and I start reading. 45 minutes later, this german girl gets onto the boat (hardly on time) and starts picking a fight with the girls sitting across from us, because they are sitting in the bed next to the bed whos number was on their ticket. This sounds confusing.

Lets say this german girl and her 3 friends have 3 different numbers on their tickets, but they still want to sit together. One of them finds her number and asks the girl to move, she says no, so they go to the next girl (who doesn't have their number, but is next to the girl who does). The funny part about it is, this second girl that was asked to move has the number of our bed... and asks us to move, we can't because someone is in OUR bed! At any rate... this girl wanted to sit all together and so she literally tried to move the whole boat around so that her and her late friends could all sleep together. In the end, they found some way to sleep together, but even without their problems, we were all packed like sardines on the 3-level sleeper boat.

The boat was really rocky, the girl next to Erin (though not the crazy german girl) was sleeping all over Erin, and people stayed awake talking for a good part of the night... oh, and there was this ear-splitting-ly loud droning throughout the whole ride (which, I'm sure would cause long-term ear damage), so we both donned our earplugs-which was also uncomfortable.

Sleeping was futile, and then we arrived at the pier (at 5 am, no less) only to be packed even more like sardines in a tuk tuk, to hang out at a little overpriced sandwich shop to wait for our buses.

The bus ride lasted from 6:30 a.m. until 10:00 pm (with 2 or 3 short stops). We arrived in K.L. underslept and over worked and, well, tired! We had a less-than perfect sleep on the spring-filled beds, and then, finally, two consecutive days of almost non-stop shopping through all the various plazas of K.L. You can get some idea of how Erin and I feel right now! 😊

But, really, though I'm writing all this negative stuff, there was a lot of good in the whole fandango too. The landscape once we got into Malaysia was incredible, with foggy mountains and jungle area all around us, the second leg of the bus trip was cushy when we changed buses from a cramped minibus to a plush air con tour bus. Kuala Lumpur is Breathtaking in size (and a lot of the architecture too)! Things over here are good. We found some treasures while shopping through Kuala Lumpur, and I can only hope we find some more!

Take care for now everybody!

Ben

But that's about all I've got to say for now

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Comments

[mnd]

the hell bus, bats, spiders, the night boat.... one adventure after another !! You're becoming such seasoned travellers that nothing will shock you any more. (You've probably also run into some interesting bathroom situations but you are to polite to write about them). We love to read your blog. Take care!

[JJJ]

I love all these stories and I'm sure once we're all together and they are told face-to-face, associated expressions and gestures will make them even BETTER!!