Blogs from Wilayah Persekutuan, Malaysia, Asia - page 186

I wonder if I feel like the Indians when Chris C. landed his ships on their shores. I've been in Asia less than two months and I've already had to make two separate visits to the doctor for unexplained diseases. Speaking of which - although I haven't noticed whether my tongue is still white, I think not noticing is probably a sign of improvement because I feel like I would know if it still were. In my last entry I think we were in Kota Bharu, preparing for our early morning rise to get to the jungle. Well, we got to the train station and slept on the train for a couple of hours until we arrived at Dabong. We arrived around 10:30am, ate some breakfast and left our backpacks with the restaurant owners, and then ... read more

Templer Park: 1200 hectares of primary rainforest 24 km north of Kuala Lumpur. According to my pre-trip information, to get there you catch the no. 66 bus from Puduraya station. Easy-peasy, for once. But no. I went across the road this morning to Puduraya. "No no, not from here. Go outside and down the street, and outside Kota Raya shopping complex you catch the bus to Templer Park." I went down to outside the Kota Raya shopping complex and asked around. No-one knew. Eventually I found the one bus driver who did. "No not from here. Go down this street and turn right and go to outside the Bangkok Bank, bus to Templer Park leaves from there. Metrobus no. 34" Okey-dokey. Did that, found no. 34. "No not me, bus in front." Having determined that the ... read more

Today I went to... the KL bird park and Zoo Negara (that's "National Zoo"). I went to a taxi stand to get a ride to the bird park, which the guy in the backpackers had said would cost 5 Ringgits. The taxi driver said 10, and I said forget it. Then another driver came along and says 7 so I say OK and off we go. When we get there (passing an awesome fountain shaped like pitcher plants) I only have 10 Ringgit notes so I give one to him and he just goes "thanks" and starts to put it away, so I say "that would be 7 Ringgits then" and he's like "oh, right". Everybody's always trying to cheat someone in Malaysia, and its usually me on the end of it. The bird park bills ... read more

Well, I felt like I should probably get a move on, so I left Singapore this morning and caught the bus across the causeway to the mighty country of Malaysia. Yay. I was trying to get to Kuala Lumpur, and you know how it is when you're in a strange country and have no idea what you're doing. I did my best to ignore the taxi touts swarming round outside the customs area -- it wasn't too hard because I couldn't understand what half of them were saying -- but then I got waylaid by one slick dude who convinced me that there were no buses leaving for KL from there, I'd have to go to the bus terminal instead. In my defence, I am new to the ways of con-men. So we get in his ... read more

So instead of hanging out on rarely-visited islands in Thailand, as was the plan, I just saw the world's tallest building(s) in Malaysia. How did this happen, you ask? Well, after my last entry I caught a boat from Koh Phi Phi to Krabi (I forgot to mention that I met a guy from Montrose, Co on the beach). This took longer than expected, and I ended up having to stay the night again in Krabi. It wasn't really a problem as I like that town much more than most people seem to. I got up early the next morning and got a bus to the southern city of Trang. I wandered around and finally found the office for Koh Ngai resort, on hopes of getting a boat out there. The weather would not allow boats ... read more