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Published: January 29th 2011
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Another day, another country eh?!
Today we get settled on a 7 hour train journey to Kuala Lumpur. The train is packed full of locals and there's a delightful Indian couple sat across from us, making lovely nasal snorts every 2 minutes...I-pods are essential for getting through the journey without throwing up. A short connecting monorail ride later and we're in the Golden Triangle area of the city, where our hostel is situated.
Birkit Bitang is like a scaled down Piccadilly Circus, with shopping centres and huge neon signs and video screens plastered all over the buildings. We're right in the heart of this madness, above a massage parlour. There are Asian girls sat outside the entrance of the building, offering foot massages, and although this is common place in Malaysia, it looks a bit seedy at 10pm. We decline and climb the stairs to the hostel.
The hostel is brand new, so new that we're the first people to stay in our room! The owner, Patrick, only finished building it about 2 hours before we arrived and is still working on the rest of the place. We feel completely wired after our long journey and sit in
a nearby bar, sampling some fiery curry's and a couple of beers.
I get up bright and early the next day and set off on a solo mission to get tickets to ascend the famous Petronis Towers. I weave in and out of massive business parks and building sites along the way, enjoying the views. There's construction everywhere, as it's a rapidly developing city. With the bright sunshine, soon I'm drenched in sweat, looking forward to some air conditioning. It seems like everyone in Kuala Lumpur is either building a sky scraper, or working in a sky scraper. Maybe once they've built the skyscraper, they get to work in it as a reward?
Anyway, I arrive at the KLLC building at the base of the tower at 9am, proud of myself for being so proactive. I'm pretty confident that I can get a couple of tickets...until I walk into the ticket office and find about 1,000 tourists with the same idea! I can't face queuing for a few hours...so I cut my loses and go home. We'll have to think of something else to do!
A day in Kuala Lumpur is a little bit odd, because the
choice of activities is a bit limited. Shopping is a very popular activity, especially as there's massive shopping centres everywhere, full of western brands like Topshop, Debenhams and M&S.
We obviously can't afford to...
We opt instead to go for a walk and check out the Petronis Towers. They were the biggest buildings in the world until 2003 and are still pretty fantastic to look at, all shiny chrome and glass.
A nice monsoon style rain kicks off whilst we're at the towers so we run/swim back to the monorail and head back to the hostel.
The next day, we pack up and head to the bus station for our journey up to Penang. We have booked ourselves on a NICE Coach, which is a '1st Class' coach service operating across Malaysia. I have to admit, I'm pretty impressed! We get a comfortable seat, pillows, a little TV entertainment system and they give us a little meal.
Ok...the meal was a little bread roll filled with a green paste and the TV didn't work. But it was still comfortable and the scenery on the journey was stunning.
We make a stop after a few
hours and get chatting to a British ex-pat who informs us that Penang is going to be busy today because they're holding the festival of Thaipussam. We start to feel a bit nervous as we haven't booked any accommodation in advance. When we arrive, we dive into a taxi and jump out at 'love lane' in the centre of town and walk door to door asking every guesthouse if they have any vacancies. The 5th place we try tells us they have a 'special' room for us - special meaning a fly infested hole, with 2 single beds, one with blood stains and a strong, musty damp smell. We politely decline his 'special price' (about 50p or something!) and keep looking.
Our saviour comes in the form of a Chinese run guesthouse, called Banana Lodge. They have an a/c room available, that's clean and with no strong odours! Hurray! We pay for 2 nights and plant ourselves in front of the guesthouse with a couple of Tiger Beers. We dine out at a street stall selling noodles, visit a local bar and head to bed. The pillows are a bit like sleeping on bags of cement, so we wake
up the next day with sore faces!
Penang is an interesting place. It's the second biggest city in Malaysia, but seems small compared to Kuala Lumpur. It's basically an island, connected to the mainland by a bridge. We're staying on Chulia road, right in the heart of the city and it's very busy, sweaty and loud. The festival is taking place on our second day and as I'm sitting in reception at 9am, I see a young man walk past the guesthouse, with a metal rod through his cheeks and meat hooks attached to his back!! I didn't have my camera and so have to take a mental picture instead!
As part of the festival, young men have to drag chariots through the streets attached to the meathooks! Its a shocking sight to see and Penang is one of the only places in the world where it still takes place as everywhere else thinks it's too barbaric!
That morning we take a local bus to the Kek Lok Se temple, which is about 10 minutes away (it takes longer because of the festival crowds). We walk up the hill in the blazing heat to the massive temple
complex. Apparently it's the biggest in Malaysia and it's hard to belive how grand the buildings are. There are buddha statues everywhere and monks milling around. The most impressive sight is the giant buddha overlooking the complex near the top of the hill. We are high enough to take in some great views of Penang.
Whilst posing for a photo near the top of the temple, I accidently knock my bottle of water off the ledge. I look down to see some Indian tourist looking up...I missed them by a couple of centimetres. Not a very buddhist thing to do!
We're tired by the time we get back to the guesthouse, so we opt for chilling out, rather than rushing to see crazy 'meathook festival'. We get an early night in preparation for our flight to Thailand the following day.
Malaysia has been an experience and a good way to break us into backpacking Asia-style. I would've like to have stayed in the Cameron Highlands for a while to see the natural beauty of the country rather than just driving through it but we only had 4 days to take it all in. Next stop Bangkok -
can't wait!
Ali and Clio x
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Ann Pope
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No change there then!
Why do I think I've seen this all before?!