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Day 1 (Wednesday) - I decided to take the train from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur because it seemed more romantic for some reason than the cheaper, slightly faster bus trip. It turns out that I am not this generation’s Ernest Hemingway. I started off the trip buying a large bottle of water at the Singapore station. As the train was pulling off, I realized that the cap on the water was already open, meaning the vendor had reused the bottle with tap water. No big deal, just 6 hours without water for someone fighting to combat dehydration. Sometimes the fates do conspire with you. Not only because of that but the romance of the train ride was greatly diminished also by the film that covered the windows of the train, impeding my view of the Malaysian landscape. I slept a good portion of the time and when I wasn’t asleep, I spent my time finding breaks in the film to take pictures through or watch the tv at the front, which cycled through all kinds of programming. My favorite the first and second time it came on was the cartoons, featuring Sylvester, Elmer Fudd and Speedy Gonzalez. There were loads of
banana trees and palms of all sorts that graced the landscape. It was finally sinking in that I was in Indochina. We arrived to the train terminal near on schedule in the early afternoon. From there I had to find how to get to the sky train or monorail, which was not the easiest thing I’ve ever done. I thought it would connect to the terminal but it was actually 3 blocks away. I got lost 3 times and actually turned back once when I was only a hundred meters away. This wouldn’t be too bad but I was low on energy after not having any food in my stomach for nearly 4 days. Finally, I found the train, which was on the other side of a construction site past the buses. The ride was quite pleasant. It gave me a great view of the town, which was much appreciated given my early departure the next day. The only problem was that it also gave me a view that was more enticing than any I had had so far, Wendy’s. I have made it a mission to not go to any American fast food chains on my trip but I
almost couldn’t stand it on my empty stomach. When the ride ended, I had to walk only 2 blocks to the hostel but none of the streets had signs, a common theme in Asia. Luckily, I had a map with me, so I was able to deduct by the shape of a cross street which direction I was supposed to go. I got to the hostel, put my stuff down and was out the door to make use of the waning daylight. Kuala Lumpur is an impressive city. It is full of brilliant architecture mixed with a lively citizen base. I walked down to the main part of town and saw the big mosque and old church, then bended back along the little harbor on the river, and finally making my way back to the hostel through a little market for locals. At the market for locals I saw something that really made me question where I was. I walked past a booth with a tv on it that was not selling anything but just trying to talk to locals. On the tv was a video of a kid in all white robes obviously being celebrated. It reminded me of
Sickly Braden
In front of Petronas Towers what you hear of from with kids who have martyred themselves for Jihad talking about what they are going to do and how they want to be celebrated (ala the movie Syriana). I am not sure what this was but I do know that when I got close, they all backed away from me (unusual) and tried to hide their pamphlets from me. Like I said, I have no idea what this was but it sure did give me an eerie feeling. I made it back to the hostel, stopping to buy 3 little doughnuts to test my stomach just beforehand. My stomach seemed to hold them down fine, which was fantastic but I decided not to press my luck. I watched a movie that was on at the hostel that night then got cleaned up and went to bed.
Day 2 (Thursday) - I took the monorail back to the train station, where I caught a bus that took an hour and a half to get to the airport (direct). At the airport I had to rearrange some stuff so my carryon bag was less than 7kgs. Fortunately my other bag was just at 20kgs, so I was
all good. I had a small breakfast and coffee then boarded the plane bound for Bangkok.
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