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Published: November 29th 2009
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So, first blog of my journey:
We got to Kuala Lumpur trouble free about 8.30pm Tuesday night, got shuttle bus to station, then cab from aiport to our only prebooked accommodation. Took a bit of time adjusting to the 8-hour time difference, so ended up sleeping till 4pm local time on Weds. Apart from out room being small and sharing a bathroom, had aircon and free internet access and only got a couple of mosi bites so cant complain! When we went for some street-market food that night we realised KL wasn't going to be as cheap as we thought,at about 2 quid for a beer, and over a fiver for dinner.
We did bit of shopping on Wednesday, then quite easily found a Starbucks for a nice cup of Earl Grey. Afer dinner on Wednesday evening we went for a wander round the Petronas Twin Towers, then onto a few bars, including the Beach Bar whch was definitely the most expensive place we found, 30 ringgits (about 6 quid) to get in, then 72 ringgits for a jug of beer (2 pints) which was about 14 quid! It was pretty seedy as well being full of Malaysian girls
looking for a man with money, so the place was pretty much full of fat, white men in suits!
Thursday, we jumped on the monorail to Chow Kit market, which was an experience...saw van loads of chickens waiting to be slaughtered and, amongst other unusual things, cow hoofs for sale; the stench from dead chickens and fish was enough to make us move on, after buying some fruit for the journey (which was later realised were crawling in ants! We then jumped back on the monorail up to KL zoo, where we fed giraffes and elephants with mini bananas. Later, we found a lovely Italian for dinner and had a nice glass of vino to reward us for our exhausting efforts that day.
Friday, we went up the KL tower, 275m high - great views of the whole city from here and saw an impressive storm coming our way! Lara and I then treated ourselves to a nice foot and shoulder massage (much needed!)
We then got our bags together and got on the monorail to the train station, and got the sleeper carriage on the overnight train up Malaysia to Aura, which was a little dodgy;
it stopped for a while a few times, lights cut out too, went backwards after one stop which confused us a lot, and we got worried when we saw someone ride up to our train on a motorbike, jump on, grab a bag, then ride off on his bike again. Luckily we had our bags with us in our sleeper carriage, although this didn't help us sleep, and the food was pretty dire. Trying to get to the food cart was fun too which was right down the other end of the train and one of the doors was locked half way down which meant one of the locals attempted to jump off and round to the other carriage while the train was still moving, but luckily we were neary at a stop anyway. Whenever we wanted a cigarette we had to stand on the moving train with the door fully open too, and the doors remained open at stations too until people closed them half way to the next stop! It took 13 hours, and little sleep was had!
We got off the train at 8.30am, got a cab to the ferry terminal - Kualah Perlis, then an
hour long ferry ride to the (tax-free!) island of Langkawi. Got another cab from the main town - Kuah - to Cenang beach (backpackers resort) to find somewhere to stay. After over an hour walking around in midday sun, sweating and smelling like pigs, we realised it was half term AND a marine convention and everywhere was pretty much fully booked. Luckily, we managed to find a pretty decent room for 1 night.
Langkawi is a beautiful island, long white sandy beaches and a very laid-back atmosphere. The first day consisted of finding accomm for the next night and sitting on the beach, FINALLY! It's boiling hot here and the ea is the warmest i've ever been in...though we've had a few rain showers; Lara and I stayed in the sea while it was raining, though got out pretty quickly when we saw lighning! Had some nice Malay food last night, then managed to sleep properly for the first time. Thinking about hiring a car for the next couple of days to explore th island better...so more about that next time.
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