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Published: February 21st 2009
There we have them
Conny gazing up the Petronas Towers.So I came from the wonderful city/state of Singapore making my way to the next metropolis: Kuala Lumpur. That was sort of a mistake as I will explain soon. First I have to say that the bus from Johor Bahru to KL was the best long distance bus I've EVER been on. The friggin seat was like an easy-chair! No music, no TV and of course AC. A promising start for Malaysia.
Unfortunately KL was a disappointment. I was a bit lost when getting off the bus as I'd expected to be dropped off close to Chow Kit where I was supposed to stay. Turned out I had to subway and monorail my ass to the other side of the city center. I chose the Hostel Cosmopolitan as they had WiFi in the rooms and free breakfast. I would also be ab le to watch the NBA All Star Weekend there. The place, although excellent reviews on the Internet, was so-so. First of all it's relativly expensive (50RM) for a windowless room without bathroom and a crappy bed. No doubt this was a hostel as my room was next to a dorm room and one night some asshole was sporadically
playing some fucking bongo drum. Allt this while other inconsiderate fucks were slamming their doors and making general noise. Ahh, gotta love your fellow man! On the plus side, other than the reasons I mentioned for staying there, the black dude working there was very helpful and even the the grumpy looking owner turned out to be quite helpful. When I get back to KL I'll be staying in Chinatown though, as Chow Kit was a bit of a shithole. Okay I'm back in the real Southeast Asia again, was my thought when arriving there. Dirty place with garbage everywhere and the usual dodgy looking buildings. Shabby cats everywhere and the goddamn roosters again! So I gotta say that it was a positive thing living in a windowless room as I didn't have to listen to these awful creatures. I also barely heard the constant worshipping going on in all the mosques the neighborhood was littered with. Not only did you have the five daily "singing" prayers, there were also these damn services or something. Everything done through the goddamn loudspeakers! I don't give a shit if people worship Allah, God, Vishnu or Belial, but can't they keep it to
"Oh daddy, it's HUGE!"
The coolest thing about this place was that I heard a band rehearsing somewhere in the tower, playing an instrumental version of Deep Purple's "Highway star" and doing it pretty damn well! Unfortunately I was told they were playing for some private party, so I never got to see them. themselves?
As Chow Kit was an extremely muslim part of a muslim city/country there was no way in hell I'd find any pork, my favorite meat, in this part of town. I went to a "food court" the first evening there and tried to get a decent meal. There wasn't much to choose from and after being denied pork I asked for some beef with vegetables. "What kind of vegetables?" they asked. "Well, tomatoes would be nice" I answered. "WHAT!? Are you crazy!?" they replied... (??????) Okay... "How 'bout some peppers or cucumbers then?". "No, no!" "Okay, get me whatever... and NOT spicy!" I got a tiny halfassed meal that was a bit spicy... Screw this, I'll lower myself to MacDonalds then and that's where I ate for the rest of my stay, I'm sad to confess... My first visit to Starbucks was a ripoff aswell as I ended up paying more for the coffee than for my previous MacD-meal. I was quite shocked over paying 8:60RM for a coffee of the week. Turned out I had all reason to be as I've "only" paid 6:90 since.
As in many other SEA:n cities they were cheap on street
View from KL Tower
The side view of the Twin Towers. signs making it a nightmare for a guy without any sence of locality. My biggest help was following the elevated monorail tracks. I'm like an impatient kid when not finding my way, frustrated and angry, blaming everyone and everything but my own inept self. Street signs would help though.
Kuala Lumpur is hotter than Hell! I love the heat but this was a bit too much, even for me. Everyday I returned to the hostel with a soaked T-shirt and I'm not the overly sweaty type of guy. Even after dark it was a nice boiling heat. It was "coolest" just before dawn but even then it was too hot. Thank Baal I had AC in my room. I was a bit surprised by this as I came from Singapore which is south of KL and there it wasn't close to this kind of humid heat.
So why was it a mistake coming to KL from Singapore? Well, as I explained in the last post Singapore was a really nice and happening town and pure Heaven after having travelled through dirty SEA for three months. Of course everything after Singapore will be like Stephen King's TV-version of "The
Shining" compared to Kubrick's masterpiece. So maybe if I would've skipped Singapore I'd actually would've liked KL? Who knows... Only thing more happening about KL than Singapore was the obvious: the Petronas Towers and the "space dick" - the KL Tower. I gotta admit they were cool, but that was it. And by he way, KL stank! Yeah, the lovely smell from the sewers was oozing up from various holes in the ground. Quite a nice touch, especially in the sickening heat!
So how were the towers then? Okay I guess. I went up in KL Tower first and had the bad timing (what else is new?) of ending up with a really loud group of retards. Yes, I mean the figuratively mentally challenged. Why was this a problem other than for the obvious annoyance? You see, when entering the observation floor you get this audio-visual gadget that guides you from window to window. Problem for me was I couldn't hear half of what was said due to these fucking assholes screaming like a bunch of halfbrained kids. Yes, they were grown-ups... Naturally when I finished the audio-visual tour the morons disappeard, but by then I didn't really feel
Complementary water
This is what they gave us going up the phallic tower. Some Swedes never got the idea behind the shape of the bottle. Stupid people them Swedes... like doing it all over again. I however stayed around to have another look at the view which was quite nice. It was DEFINITELY not worth the 38RM though! Not even with the complementary funny shaped bottle of water... I also got a complementary ticket to an F1 simulator that I wasn't too excited about but I thought I would try as it was for free. Turned out I was too tall to do it... The day after I went to see the Petronas Twin Towers. I knew I had to get there early as there's always a huge line to get the free tickets. So I got there at 7:30AM and there was about 50 people there already. The thing opened at 8:30AM and by then there were maybe 300-400 people there. I was under the impression that I'd get to choose a time slot when I wanted to do my visit during the day. Apparently not as I was whisked away straight to the queue for the 9AM visit. Whatever... First we had to pass an airport style security check and then we were forced to watch a 7 minute commercial depicting the glory of the mighty Petronas
Deadly jungle!!!
Right next to the "space dick" they have a rainforest park which is quite ridiculous when you've walked through a couple of real ones, but still... IT'S DEADLY! Just look at the sign! I'm glad I got out alive... corporation! A nice touch was the "stylish" goggles we were equipped with as the damn thing was in 3D. Too bad for me I'm not able to experience the effect as my eyesight is fubar. I, however, looked really handsome in the goggles (see photo)! After the crapmercial we were taken up to the 41st floor skybridge where we had 10 minutes to roam around and take pictures. People have said that the view is shit compared to the one from the KL Tower. I beg to differ though. I wouldn't say it was that bad. Of course the KL Tower view is better but this one was still OK and this one is for FREE! An argument for the KL Tower view is that you get a nice view of the Petronas Towers. It's a side view though so it's not that hot.
I also went to the Batu Caves outside of town as a good tourist boy. What a waste of time. This place was a total Mickey Mouse circus. I took the local bus out there for only 2RM which is a much better option than the taxi ride people suggest on the Internet. Arriving there
Circus ground
Welcome to Batu Caves - nature meets humanity... I found myself in the middle of some crazy fair with a billion stalls and horrible "music" being blasted from a dozen different PA-systems. Just the way I like it... After climbing the 272 (I think) steps with hordes of people and some monkeys I entered the actual cave which would've been cool if it hadn't been filled with MORE STALLS and MORE BLASTING MUSIC! Cheesus! Abominable! What the hell is wrong with people??? I needed to quickly haul ass out of there. Fortunately this crap was also for free so it only cost me the 2RM for the bus.
I'm looking forward to returning to KL...
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Mr. X
non-member comment
Unfair judgement
I think it would be unfair to say that you had a dissapointed time. It's because you did not know where to stay or where to look around. KL has many places for cheap good food with pork. I think you need to do a little bit of homework before you go. And... if you want it cheap, no reason to complain