Almost homeless in Malaysia

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Ok, so today is the start of our ocular trip to Malaysia and Singapore. Levs and I met up at McDonalds in Mindanao avenue and went straight to Clark airport. My folks were nice enough to drive us up to Pampanga to get to the airport. Since Clark is being served by just a couple of airlines, the line was short and the entire process was so easy, we were finished with the immigration in minutes. Big bummer though was that the money changer was all out of Malaysian ringgit and well, we were pretty screwed if we don’t get any by the time we get out of the airport in Malaysia, but we figured, hell, there’s got to be at least a money changer open at 10 pm in Kuala Lumpur, right?
So, we boarded the plane etc etc. and settled in. I got the window seat and Levs got the one in the middle. Soon, a lady sat next to her and started talking to us in Malay, we were all, uh… no, we’re Filipinos we don’t speak that lingo, and she said, yeah well, she’s Pinoy too but she’s been living in Malaysia for 15 years so she speaks real fluent. She was real funny coz she talks a lot!!! I wanted to sleep so badly but couldn’t because I didn’t want to seem rude so we talked to her and it was really interesting coz she had this amazing life of struggle that isn’t uncommon with Filipino people overseas. Apparently, she’s a domestic helper in a house hold in Johor Bahru and the family really likes her and kept sending her a ticket to get back to Malaysia. (Something tragic happened with her family and she had to get back to P.I. she’s been in the Philippines for over a year before she went back to Malaysia on that flight) Funny enough, she was also booked on Air Asia, which is a ticketless airline, so when she got the confirmed itinerary, she thought she had to go there on that date to get her ticket. When she got to Clark today, they told her that date was the flight date already. So, just with her purse and a canvas envelope of her important documents, she took that flight, sat beside us and talked about her life.
When we got down to Kuala Lumpur, the lady who sat beside us, Tita Rose, told us that we could hitch a ride with her to the city coz her employer is picking her up. So that was cool. Soon another girl came up to us asking us if we were Filipinos. Her name’s Karla and she was on a business trip for some training or something. She didn’t know how to find her hotel and didn’t want to take the costly taxi. Tita Rose told her she’s fine, she can hitch as well. So Karla, Levs and I went to get some moolah changed by a Malaysian who thought Filipino actor Diether Ocampo, was cute. Then we went out to wait with Tita Rose for her ride.
Her boss came and we were so grateful to them for letting us ride. The drive was SOOOOO long, that airport was so far from the city, its crazy! The drive was pretty funny coz Tita Rose was actually telling her boss off for making her go back to Malaysia without giving her money to pay off the travel taxes etc. We were just laughing like crazy at her for that. Her boss dropped Tita Rose off at the bus station to go to Johor Bahru coz the place is a good 5 hours away, its at the border of Malaysia and Singapore. After that her boss drove us to the hotel where Karla was staying.
Well, the thing us. At the airport we called all these hostels and they were all booked and we really didn’t know where else we could stay, then Karla offered that we stay with her which was just perfect. So we did. We bloody sneaked into her place and even hid in the bathroom when the bellboy came up with the bags. Funny coz we were standing behind the bathroom door with the bathroom light open. We didn’t know that from the outside you can see the feet inside the bathroom. Karla was going crazy crouching in front of the door so that the bell boy wouldn’t see our feet!!! Wahaahhahaah
For dinner, we ate at this local Indian restaurant where we haggled over our dishes and we were able to get away with paying RM4 (about a dollar) for each of our plates. The food was crazy hot. Well, the rice was spicier than the chicken curry and that just blew me away. It was pretty good though. After dinner we went back to the hotel and just slept like logs.

July 4

We woke up real early and got ready to go out on our first day of ocular. Karla was still sleeping when we left and we spent a few minutes walking around the area looking for a bus to take us to the Petronas tower. Finally, after asking a lot of local people, we went to the KTM Comuter train which was right next to the hotel. Went through one station and arrived at the KL Sentral station where we had the universal Mcmuffin breakfast. We asked around, bought water and went on our way to the petronas. First we waited for the bus which took forever, so we just took the train. We got to petronas alright and asked around again to get to the skybridge. However, the most rotten of luck, there was some technical problem and the bridge was closed so we had to go back the next day. So Levs and I went out and took all these photos of the twin tower and the other surrounding buildings. We went back inside and found a Kinokuniya bookstore and we just went crazy. We love Kinokuniya coz it reminded us soooo much of Japan. The bookstore was stock full on manga in English and I was just going gaga over it all but it was pretty expensive so I didn’t try to get anything from there. Afterwards we went to take a walk to get to the tourism office. We got pretty much lost but we found it eventually. The place had a lot of information and they gave us brochures and posters for the agency. We continued walking to get to the KL tower and I don’t know why but as we were just looking up to the tower to figure out where we were supposed to head, we got really lost and we found ourselves at the back of buildings, dead ends and walking over branches on the road etc. My tongue was practically scraping the floor by the time we reached the tower entrance. We waited for the shuttle to take us to the bottom of the tower. Inside the tower, we found out that we had to pay RM20 to go up, too expensive so we didn’t go. Instead we joined the free nature walk where we had this funny old guy point out and talk in volumes about the rubber tree and the bamboo tree and whatever tree that was in that place. After being practically eaten by mosquitoes and torturous thoughts of malaria, we were done with the nature walk and we went back down to the entrance gates. We jumped on a bus to get back to the petronas building, better known as the KLCC, when we were both struck by gut wrenching stomach ache. We spent a while in the KLCC trying to get better and buying drugs from the pharmacy. After a while we felt better and we decided to venture off into our walking tour. We took a bus to Medan Pasar, got off at the Central Market and walked towards the Jamek Mosque. The architecture was amazing. It was so beautiful, and so totally Indian, I felt like I was in New Delhi. We wanted to go in the Mosque but it was already closed to visitors so we went away and continued walking. We passed by all these Moorish looking buildings and I just loved the architecture. We walked by the old Train Stations and the KTM office; all with the same building design. We found the National Mosque and stayed there to rest for a while. We later continued walking to the National Museum and found that we were in the middle of a series of bridges and fly-overs and we didn’t know how to get from one side to the next coz it seemed the whole place was pedestrian-hostile. We finally found ourselves on one side of the road with the KL Sentral station on the other side. We had no other choice so we jay-walked across the bloody high way. I was scared witless but had to get it done.
In the KL Sentral station, we were able to inquire about buses to Malacca and other places. We had dinner in the food court and texted Karla to tell her to meet up there. Finally she replied saying we should just meet up in the hotel so we went back to her place, settled down a bit and chatted then we went out to go to an internet café to get some work done. Afterwards, we had to sleep like logs again coz Karla has an early start

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Photos

Petronas tower
All the hooplah was worth it!

Sky bridge
The steel frames and structures of the sky bridge made it look ultra techy.

KL tower
We used this tower for navigation. Hah! Futile attempt

lovely architecture
the train station office of KTM

lovely architecture
more nice buildings

the national mosque
was under our nose but took ages to find

nature walk
our funny guide

Comments

[Bibi]

Great Shashins, dear D! I wish I could be standing next to you there, making weird poses and stopping every five seconds for a pic! I will answer your mail soon.. yes, im alive! Did I tell you Im done with college???? Sooo happy!!! Sooo free!! Sooo unemployed!!! Bwhahaha!! But I dont care! Im happy! See ya, girl! Bibi