MUGGING MONK

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And so, after the party celebrations, a slightly light headed Mr. Byrne had to make his way through the underground system and over to the travel Agent to catch his VIP bus into Kuala Lumpur (K.L. baby!). Malaysia here we come. Pretty crazy coming out of Singapore as we drove for literally about 20 -30 minutes, past a Lamborghini dealership which had the sexiest Lambo Ive ever seen in my life and then past all the cranes of the shipyard, looking out for Maersk containers with a tradewood stamp on them..he he, and literally over a bridge...A pretty long bridge at that, but over the bridge through the passport border control...and there you have it, cheerio Singapore! So small...

Arriving into KL beside what is known as the Times Square shopping Mall and a starbucks...I stopped off to get some cash, buy a coffee and try to get my head back together after the bus trip...It was about 11 30 in the moring, but Id been woken by the driver because my bag had been chucked off and I hadn picked it up...everyone else had got off the bus and were well gone!...oooopsy...Anyway, sitting there with my coffee and a nice guy in an orange tiara comes up showing me pictures of his temples that his tribe of monks are building...ahhhh, dead on...shows me a fake list of made up names and money donations and duly asks me to contribute. Now... Youd think after these long travels so far, Mark would be a bit streetwise and tuned into this sort of street begging caper...But noooo...Into the pocket, out I pull 30 ringiit (currency, about 6 quid it was)...and pass it into him, thinking aul Mother Teresa is looking down from heaven with pride - cheers aul Tess! Mr fake Monk here in the other corner (who is going to hell may I add) pulls the wee prayer symbol and repeats peace about 10 times, blesses me and gives me a bracelet as he slowly saunters off into nothingness....! No more than 5 seconds later, literally hes just pulled off his David Copperfield impression, I was kicking myself in the back - you fool Mark, you just got muggd! Welcome to Malaysia...! (But it wasn too bad, because I later met someone who had dished out 200 ringiit to the poor helpless fake monk, so I didn feel as stupid!)

Anywho...crossed the road and into this Times Square place, sounds like a Newspaper publishing company, looks like a government establishment or a high end hotel...As you go in, there are 3 massive floors of shops, spread a fair distance across...this place is pretty big...but then, you go up to the next level...Above the roof that you can see above your head...and...theres literally another 7 -8 floors towering high up into the air...with all sorts of shops from bookstores, to foods shops, with a bit of Dolce & Gabana thrown in there too for good measure (and a really nice BOSE shop with 300 pound earphones that I might have looked at for too long!)...Have a wee walk around, and I find a secret hole...well, not so secret really because the deafening sound of the indoor rollercoaster is hard to miss...A bloody rollercoaster inside a shopping Mall in Asia! This place is nuts...Looks like I still havn found the real Asia just yet after all...!


Internet - Hostel Searched - Food - Skyrail - Walk - Sweat - Sweat - Drop Bag - Haggled by moto driver - Sweat - Hostel found - Happy Days!



Spent the remainder of the day typing up one of these blog things and near getting mugged by a street merchant, but when he came up to me with an angry face shouting and throwing his hands around and I literally laughed back in his face, he soon realised how tall I was and tried to turn it into a joke...I just dandered off giggling...needless to say I did take a different route home!...he was trying to sell me a pink purse as well...fooool!

So, a 7am wake up the next morning to get down to these towers early as and get me ticket, queued for an hour and a half, to be told I had to come back at 1pm...Fair Enough, Ill go and get a coffee with this fit dutch bird (and her boyfriend!!!) and then see what happens...So back for the towers for the most pointless sightseeing exercise ever. Now, KL is famous for one thing...The highest Twin Towers in the world - Petronas Towers! (Used to be, up until 1998, the highest building in the world) So everyone goes to KL to see the towers, but the uncanny thing about this skywalk bridge (which is located on the 47th floor of said towers) is that when you are on the damn thing looking over KL, you can see the towers themselves...because you e in the bloody things! So what do you look at...your own reflection...and then you realise youve been walking around all day with a crater on the end of your nose the size of alaska...No wonder siad Dutch girl wasn interested...lol!

So, off the skywalk, down into the shopping centre to find some food...LOST! But alas, a young man starts to laugh at my painted toenails!

Now yes, I must confess, this is starting to become a slight worry emotionally for me. You see, I think up to this point I have gone a good 4 months with at least some trace of coloured varnish on my toenails. Now this is no new thing to me, because at home I would sometimes get drunk (not too occasionally you must know) and would come home with painted nails...Wearing socks to work on a Monday, Id usually have raided mums bathroom cupboard by the tuesday and would get the all clear again...But its a different story in hot countries, becasue you wear flip flops all day, so the whole world can see them...And I have no access to nail polish remover! And things get worse, because I have had to admit that I caught myself looking up the Lesbian & Homosexual section in Lonely Planet...hmmmmmm....actually, well keep that one on the hush hush shall we!

Anywho...your man, the toenails, the laughing, the joking....all this turned into him inviting me for coffee and a chat about Malaysia, grab some info about what I should do and what I should see! So off we trundles around the corner where lunch and drinks for 2 literally cost me 1.50...His name was Daniel (real name Ridzwan), and so I had met one of the most sensitive, deepest, interrogating, unique people in my life! But all this was to unfold over the course of the next 5 days...

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