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Published: July 19th 2007
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Well here it is ladies and gentlemen our malaysian leg of the blog.
After a short flight from phuket we arrived in Kuala Lumpur. We didnt have a place pre booked to stay because we thought we would be alright and find a place when we got here (how wrong we were). We got dropped off at KL Sentral (<< there spelling) thinking it would be the central area of KL (how wrong we were again) it was like getting warped into india. we was surrounded by a million indians trying to sell us t shirts asking us to go into there shops all this with our backpacks still on AS IF. We walked around for a bit trying to find a place to stay and because our bags are very heavy we would of settled for anywere. We walked into a few places we come across but they were all full (just our luck we were saying). Anyway we decided to go to the first internet cafe we came across and look for somewere to stay. After scrawling the internet we found a few address of budget hotels in the chinatown area. We got advised the taxi drivers
rip you off bad style in malaysia so we deceided against this and headed for the monorail.
We arrived in chinatown in the middle of the weekend night market. The paths through are bearly big enough to walk through normaly never mind with 5 stones worth of backpacks to carry aswell. We had an address for a nice budget hotel we liked the look of on the internet so we headed for there. When we arrived the lady on reception told us it was full (just our luck ay). As we turned around to go out the door she shouted us back and said she had a dorm available if we wanted to have a look at it, why not we thought we had no were else to go. When we walked up the stairs and seen what was on offer i seen sally close to tears. We declined and asked if we could leave the bags in the hotel reception while we had a look around for somewere else. The woman told us because its the weekend we would be very lucky to find somewere else and she was right. We walked around for 3 hours trying
to find a hotel to no avail. We went back the hotel and had to take the dorm and as you can see in the pic it wasnt no Ritz. When accepted the dorm because we had just come from thailand we only had thai money on us. We went to a bank to try and get some Malaysian money to pay for the hotel but both got declined. We thought it was that bank at first and tryed another but was declined again. We told the lady in the hotel and she said the banks close at a certain time in malaysia for safty reasons so we could leave out passport as a payment on the dorm we had no other choice so had to do this. We hadnt had any food either so asked the lady what we could do, she lent us $30 on the strenth of our passports.
After seeing the local people still useing the ATM machines we thought we would give it another go. After trying everybank in chinatown we realised it was our own banks had put a block on our cards (Great). With the $30 the lady lent us we
bought a phone card to try and sort this out. So off we go with a prepaid phone card to ring home, To cut a long story short we tryed EVERY phone in a 5 mile radius and not 1 would work. After about 2 hours of trying we took the phonecard back to the shop to find out we had to use there phone with the card no other phones would accept them (only us). Finaly we got through to the banks and sorted it all out it was now 3:30am and we were nackerd. Anyway we got back to the hotel and got about 2 hours sleep in the bunks because it was so hot and had no air conditioning plus the asian in the bed next to us got up early, 6:30 early and decided to ring half of his phone book then decided to get a shower in the room right opposite our bunk.
Because we were coming back to KL on the way through to singapore we only had another night because we had booked out overnight sleeper train to langkawi which is a little island the very north end of malaysia. We
spent 12 hours on the sleeper train and arrived at 9:30 in the morning to a place out in the sticks. We were in the middle of no where looking lost when we seen another traveller in the same situation so we started talking to her and decided the only thing to do was get a taxi to the port which was 25 mins taxi ride away. After landing at the port it was another 45 min ferry ride then at the other side another half an hour taxi ride so after about 14 hours of travelling we finally made it to cenang beach which is the main part of langkawi. Because we were so knacked after the travelling we both just went straight to bed to recharge the batteries. We went for a walk around in the night to find the whole place was just 1 straight road along the beach and that was it. The next day we decided to hire a moped and go sight seeing around the island. We found loads of really nice places in the way of veiws and stuff but when it comes to 9 o clock at night the whole place shuts
down with it being a muslim country they dont serve alchol at all and every restuarant we visited was either aribic or indian. Although we like indian there is only so much you can eat and it became a pain in the bum when it come to meal times for us.
You cannot come to langkawi without going up the cable cars to the highest point on the island. The veiws from the top are proberly the best we have ever seen. Although the bridge was scary because it swayed in the wind we managed to get across and back intact. On the way back after the cable cars there was a man with a huge snake and was giving it to people to take pics with (Neil bottled out). We stayed on langkawi for a week because we arrived on monday our plan was to have a beach day tuesday and go up them on wednesday but because the cable cars were shut for repair on the wednesday and thursday we had to go up friday. We didnt want to leave saturday and arrive in KL on the weekend again so we decided to leave it untill
the monday so we could get a decent room. The weather changed on the friday night though and restriced us to our hotel room for the weekend so the last 2 days were spent playing travel monopoly and cards whilst listening to the worst thunder we have ever heard.
We made it back to KL on the monday after another 14 hours of travelling as planed and found a room easy enough. We still hadnt been up the patronas towers because there shut on a monday so the tuesday we got up early and headed for the towers. It is first come first served on the tickes for the towers because its free and when we got there the que was already massive. We got to go up at half 2 in the afternoon and the views are amazing, people looked like little ants and cars were like little toy lego cars. After our tour of the towers we went to book our coach to Singapore because of the 24 hours spent on the train to langkawi and back we decided to get a coach and found the best coach ever. It was a full size coach but
only had 16 seats on it, The seats were big massage chairs that had there own computers attached to them with about 20 movies, 20 music channels and loads of computer games (heaven). It only took us 5 hours on the coach and we have finaly arrived in singapore so we will update you on here soon.
Speak to you all soon
Adios
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Laura
non-member comment
Don't look down
Hi Guys, You both look really well and very brave with all those heights and snakes, tigers etc!! The rain has not stopped in Dublin very depressing but i have Santorini to look forward to we go Tuesday so i'm now counting the hours down can't wait!! The wedding i organised on Saturday - the bride and groom are going for their honeymoon - how mad is that!! Then when i come back Sarah and Jem are invading me but can't wait there won't be a single sober moment between us i'm sure. But when you have finished with your globetrotting tropical heavens you will have to pop across the pond and come and visit me and Ber - our blow up matress is amazing its king size and about 3 ft off the ground - better than those bunks. Really enjoying blogs - much better than a postcard but can't wait to see you both mssing you lots, take care Laura and Ber x