Malaysia Kuala Lumpur


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Asia
March 8th 2011
Published: March 10th 2011
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Malaysia is a sauna!! it is impossible to keep hydrated......
So we arrived from Melbourne, into a complete Malay sauna! After having our flight diverted to the Panang island due to a bomb scare at the LCCC airport in Kuala Lumpur, and suffering a 3hr delay while the plane was refuelled.
Once outside the airport and carrying our back packs we fought our way through the crowds in order to get to the 1 of a hundred busses waiting to shuttle people to the city.
With our ticket purchased, for around 8 pound for the two of us, we boarded the coach, along with a mixture of Malay, Chinease and indian people.
The bus driver set off and from the word go it was clear that he had spent most of the day watching formula 1 videos and was in the process of re-enacting some of the greatest races. Every corner we can across he decided that he would speed up, and then take the racing line regardless of what type of vehicle was coming the other way. This was ok, but coupled with the fact that the suspension was completely shot, and it seemed we where on some sort of high speed bouncy castle, led us to believe that our time was possibly up.

Finally we arrived, alive, at the main KL sentral depot where busses, trains and the mono rail meet.
Now back in 2000, i lived in KL for 2 years but at this point i had no idea where we where, and where our pre booked B and B was! The only answer was to jump in to one of the Proton taxis driving around. everyone else had the same idea.
Finally an old Chinease guy stopped and we hopped in. He did not have a clue where it was either, but he was not going to give up easily. He drove from one side of the city to the other, asking various people in the street, and pulling off some wierd traffic manouveres James Bond would be proud of. one hour later we got there, very close to the new shopping mall Times Square. The price for our epic taxi ride????? 40 pence!

Walking towards our B+B we where nervous! it was a row of complete, down right dirty buildings. The one clean freshly painted one was ours, The Irisa.
This is a Iranian family run B+B, and they are extreamly helpful and friendly. Our room was the "top of the range" one, which had a fan, but no windows. It was almost impossible to stay in the room on a morning or through the day with out sweating at least 16 litres of water!

We planned to go to Batu Caves while we where here, but first i had to get my tooth fixed, as i had broken it in half in NZ.

That night we went to China town. This area is a hustle bustle market, where you must haggle for a price on everything.
At first it is ok, and quite fun, but after a while it gets a bit tedious, that after 15 minutes of haggling, you have to pretend to walk away, then finally he gives you the real price. This is a pain when buying about 20 things all off different stalls. We jumped in a taxi and back to our B+B. Jesus H christ! it was so warm in there i think you could boil an egg in the air, the next night we went to the cinema and watched 3 movies in a row, so that our time in the hotel was limited to just semi-cooking ourselves to death.

The next day Ilona forced me into going for a hair cut and the dentist, i am not sure which was more painful, as the hair dressser kept talking about tattooed heads and cut my hair down to the skull.
Once inside the dentist, a pleasant Indian lady tried to reasure me that she was not going to remove my face for cash or steal one of my kidneys. The end result was a lot of drilling and an appointment a week later,.
That appointment sort of clashed with our plans a little. We would now stay in Malaysia a little longer.

The Peritian Islands for a week would be our first choice, but the season there had not yet started, therefore it was risky trying to get a fishing boat to drop us off on the island and try to get somewhere to stay.
We opted to get ourselves North bound to Pangkor, a very small Island where the malay locals sometimes spend there weekends off, that in theory should mean cheap prices.
We jumped on the mono rail in KL ( One reason why i was in KL in 2000, was to build this monster eye sore ) and got off at the main station, Ilona then navagated us to the next train and LRT atation, where we had to get another train to the bus station.
At this point a friendly local guy helped us get past the agents at the station who try to intercept tourists before they reach the ticket kiosks, and sell them tickets at higher prices.
Once we where on the bus our strange Malaysian bus expieriences continued. Our very unfriendly driver, decided ramdomly, that he would stop at cafes or service stations, jump out without saying anything, and go inside and order some food or drink. Meanwhile we where parked on a blind corner, bewildered as to what he was doing.
!0 min later the driver would jump back on board after his refreshments and set off again.
Next stop, and i mean stop, the bus was almost standing on its nose before he swerved into the wrong entry on a gas station. He ran as fast as possible into the toilets. emerging 10 minutes later and dissapearing again inside the shop for some more light refreshments.

Finally 5hrs later we arrived at the ferry terminal. We bought our ferry tickets for 4 pound, return tickets.
i asked "what if i loose this ticket, how do we get a new one?"
" No need sir that ticket is return ticket"
"yes but what if i loose it and i dont have it anymore,what do i do?"
"yes sir that ticket is to and fro, you come back with that ticket"
"ok, one more try, If i loose this ticket, say a big wind comes and blows the ticket out of my hand and into the sea and the sea carries the ticket far far away across the world, and i have no ticket, how do we get back from pangkor island to here?"
" its ok sir you have the ticket in your hand, that ticket you come back with "

Its going to be a long 8 days on Pangkor......................................





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