10
th
– 16
th January 2016
 |
| First land border of my trip |
It was time
to head north out of Singapore and into Malaysia. I caught a coach in the
morning which took me across the border and up to Kuala Lumpur. It was a fairly
uneventful trip really. The border crossing was easy. Just a simple stamp out
and stamp in process. I didn’t have to pay anything for a visa.
There wasn’t
much help when I arrived at the bus station in Kuala Lumpur. I knew I needed to catch the train
into the city but it wasn’t particularly clear which way to go. Travelling in
Europe you can always figure out what's going on with a limited knowledge of the
local language or a language similar as they are all Latin based. Here, Southeast Asia is so foreign that they even have a different
alphabet so you don't stand a chance of working it out. Its complete guess work. I guessed and, luckily, I guessed correct.
By the time
I got to the hostel it was late afternoon so I didn’t do too much. I had a quick
look around the area and had dinner at a Reggae Bar.
 |
| Chinatown |
 |
| with Chinesey things |
The next day
was a full day in the city. I planned to walk around and see everything there
is to be seen. There is quite a number of things worthy of seeing so I got up
early and set off walking. The first stop was Chinatown which was right next to
the hostel. I picked up some headphones after leaving mine in Singapore. They
didn’t work! I took them back and he let me swap them for another pair but they
didn’t last long either. This was the start of a theme when it came to electricals in Southeast Asia!
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| The Market |
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| Random Clock Tower |
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| Nice looking mosque - closed |
I walked
through the central market that had hundreds of stalls and a fancy looking
square. I was heading for a mosque that looked pretty cool. I couldn’t go in to
have a look, however, as it was closed for renovation.
 |
| Independence Flag |
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| Sultan Abdul Samad Building |
Just around
the corner was a big field with a huge flag pole at the other end. This was
where Malaysia claimed independence from the UK in 1957. Next to it is the
Sultan Abdul Samad Building which looks very fancy!
 |
| Just a transportation HQ |
I continued
walking with the intention to head to the Botanic Gardens. I walked past this
impressive looking building which is just the headquarters of the train company
here. I walked for a while trying to get to the Botanic Gardens but they’re
didn’t seem to be a way through the buildings. Then the pavement ran out
because of road works. The only way would be to walk down the side of a very
busy highway which I wasn’t particularly keen on so I left it. So that's the second thing I missed.
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| KL Tower |
I jumped on
a free bus that would take me past the KL Tower. This was more effort than it
was worth. It was extremely cramped inside this bus and it was so slow. This
only added to the frustration I had felt that morning. I took a picture of the
tower but I didn’t want to go up it. It was rather expensive and I’d heard it
wasn’t all that worth it.
 |
| Bukit Bintang |
Next, I
choose to visit Bukit Bintang which is KL’s answer to Times Square although maybe a
little bit more like Piccadilly Circus. The whole place was full of construction
work. Crossing the road meant an unnecessary round trip down the street to cross
and then back up again. The main shopping centre there was also closed. I had
done a lot of walking by now and I was getting annoyed at these constant
irritations.
 |
| The mighty Petronas Towers |
I continued
to the highlight of the city and the only thing people tell you to go and see,
the Petronas Towers. They are very impressive indeed. I must admit I was in
rather a bad mood by this point so didn’t enjoy them as much as I perhaps
should have. There is a viewing platform on bridge but, again, I didn’t want to
pay that much money to go up there which was lucky because its closed on
Mondays!
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| F1 car! |
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| Looking Epic |
There’s a
little park out the back which would be a pretty nice place to have a picnic. Not
today though, it was all roped off whilst they did some construction work! This
was the icing on the cake. I couldn’t believe the amount of construction work
going on in this city. I get that its expanding but everything is closed and when you try to walk anywhere
you can’t because the roads blocked because of BLOODY CONSTRUCTION! I went back
to hostel with very irritated by the days events.
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| Sunway Lagoon |
If any two
days could be more polar opposite then this was them. On my plan I have written
down about Sunway Lagoon. It’s a waterpark/themepark/zoo. One day a month they
have a deal online for half price tickets which is already cheaper than what you would
spend at the gate. It just so happens that that day was today.
I wondered if going there would be a little odd by myself but I decided to go
anyway. I was sure I would meet some other like minded people there and its
such a bargain. I paid a third of the asking price at the gate!
 |
| Nice pool |
I got there
just as it opened so it was very quiet. I kept looking round for a white face I could talk to but I could only see Asians. I did see a family but they were demanding a refund.
I don’t know why, the place looked alright to me.
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| The saddest ride of my life |
Yeah this
happened. I decided to go to the theme park section first before I got wet. I
went for the rollercoaster first thinking that the queue for this would be
short this early in the day. I was right! I sat there for 10 minutes and no one
else got on! It was good but I felt like such a twat going around this by
myself! Even the people working there were laughing at me.
 |
| The vuvuzela |
I went on a
couple more rides before going heading to the water park section. This was good
also. They have the vuvuzela ride which is the most popular. There was a ride
where you had to stand in a sort of capsule and the hatch that you were stood
on would fall away and you would shoot down. That one was by far the most
terrifying water slide I have ever been on. There was another slide that was pitch black that was quite scary
too actually.
At least
half of the water rides required two people. You had to sit in two-person
rubber rings and obviously I was by myself so I couldn’t go on them. At one
ride I hung around for a while to see if there were any other singles. There
was a group of three so I shared one with a rather embarrassed Malaysian girl.
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| New friends! |
At another
ride I saw someone carrying the big two person ring but there was just him. I
asked him if he needed a partner and he did. Turns out he was in a group of
five Malaysian students who were on holidays. I shared the ride with him and
then hung out with them for the rest of the day. They were really nice people
and they wanted to know a lot about me and my travels. I was happy to tell them all
about it and they told me some Malaysian foods that I must try.
 |
| The heavens opened |
Me and my
new friends were waiting to do the vuvuzela again when a storm came overhead.
They close the outdoor rides when this happens for health and safety (the first
bit of health and safety I’ve seen in SE Asia). Instead we went to the haunted
house just as the heavens opened. This was one of those live action horror
houses. It was a lot of fun to walk through especially with my Malaysian
friends cowering behind me! I seemed to be the bravest of the bunch.
The storm
passed and the rides reopened for a half hour before the end of the day. I was
surprised they didn’t just leave it and I think most other people thought the
park was closed for the day too because there was no queues. We ran around
trying to get on as many things as possible before it the park closed.
It was a
really awesome day, one of my favourite of all my travels. The Malaysian
students I managed to make friends with really made this day great. It was such
a contrast to day before. I would highly recommend a day out to Sunway Lagoon.
It was a bit weird having a little bit of everything. They might do better to
pick one theme for the whole park but I enjoyed it all the same. I skipped the
zoo section having just been to one in Singapore.
 |
| Batu Caves |
My last day
in KL was also better than the first. I caught the local train to Batu Caves
which is on the edge of the city. I went early in an attempt to avoid the
crowds which I mostly did.
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| A few more steps |
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| Lending a hand |
This made me
laugh a lot. They don’t have any way of getting construction materials to the
top of the caves so they just get people to help them with it. I was astonished
at the amount of volunteers there was for this. Lots of people grabbed a bag
of sand to carry up and this guy even ran up. I don’t know if they think its some
sort of local tradition they were attempting to indulge in!
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| Cool photo |
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| Dark Caves |
Just next to
the main caves were the Dark Caves which were, well dark. I opted for a guided
tour through here. It was quite good. The caves weren’t too impressive but the
guide new a lot about the creatures that lived in this cave and were to find
them.
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| Teeny tiny worm |
I was quite
proud of my camera when it was able to pick up this 5 millimetre long worm on
the floor of the cave.
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| Spider! |
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| The most horrendous centipede |
If you’ve
ever wondered what a large spider would like if it had more legs then this is
it. It’s a long legged centipede and is quite terrifying for an arachnophobe!
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| Cave stuff |
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| The other end of the cave |
Back in the
city I wanted to see the Petronas Towers by night as I thought they would look
rather impressive lit up. I walked across the city as the sun was setting and
had dinner underneath the towers whilst I waited for it to get dark.
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| Sunset in the city |
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| Pretty lights |
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| Pretty fountains |
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| Dancing fountains |
When I
walked out the back of the towers I was greeted by a crowd of people sitting on
the steps watching these dancing fountains. There was music playing and the
water was dancing in time with the music. It was a very unexpected treat and
pretty cool to watch.
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| Super cool |
This was a
good day. So that’s one good day, one awesome day and one very annoying day. Its
quite hard to summarise Kuala Lumpur really. A mixed bag is how I would
describe it. Either way my days were up and it was on to the next destination.
I had decided to
leave Kuala Lumpur a day early and arrive in Bangkok a day later in order to
explore Georgetown in Penang, close to the Malay/Thai border. I would have to
stop off there for a couple of hours anyway so I just extended it by 48 hours.
I wanted to see a little bit more of Malaysia rather than just KL.
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| Ferry from Butterworth |
The train
from Kuala Lumpur took 4 hours to Butterworth and then I had to catch a ferry over to Penang
Island. The ferry was quite basic. The seating was in the middle of a platform full
of cars. Once we set off it did give a nice breeze which took away some of the
extreme humidity.
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| Georgetown |
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| Room with a view |
I arrived in
Georgetown and took the short walk to the hostel just before it started
raining. This really cooled things down so when it stopped I took a walk around
to explore.
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| Fountain |
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| Victorian Building |
Georgetown
was once a very British city and you could tell that by the amount of colonial
buildings around. There were a lot of grand looking buildings that are now
hotels and offices.
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| Temple |
There were a few things I wanted to do in Penang. One of which was take the cable car up the hill. This is arguably Penang's main attraction so obviously it was closed for maintenance. I'm getting seriously sick of this.
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| Random painting |
The hostel
was in Little India so there was a lot going on. There were a few shops that
were blasting music from out the front on big speakers and I really mean
blasting. It was deafening even first thing in the morning. I saw a few people
painting these flowers on the ground outside their shops. It didn’t strike me
that its something they do all that regular. Maybe it was in some preparation
for a festival.
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| Kek Lok Si |
The next day
I took a local bus up to Kek Lok Si Temple. When I was on the bus I noticed some other
westerners getting on the bus and asking the driver to go to the temple as
well. I was quite happy listening to my music at this point so I put off making
conversation until we arrived. I’d been told about this app Maps.me which is
basically offline maps. Its come in so handy. You can never get lost with it. I
was looking at it so I knew when to get off. As I went to get off the bus I
noticed that the other guys weren’t moving so I shouted down the bus that this
was the stop they wanted.
They were
quite thankful and I told them which direction we should walk. There was an
English guy called James and two girls who I think were German. I ended up spending the
afternoon with them walking around the temple. You'd think I'd remember their names but I don't.
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| Turtles |
It took us a
little while to find the entrance as there was a bit of construction work going on so the main entrance was blocked. Always with the construction.
Once we found a way in we climbed the many stairs to the top. This was hard work thanks to
the heat and we were all sweating profusely by the time we go to top. We went
past a small pond that had about 100 turtles in.
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| Like a fairy tale |
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| Big temple |
The temple
was very impressive. I hadn’t realised it would be this good. It was very
colourful and had many more rooms than I thought.
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| Fighting Buddha |
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| Cool roof |
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| More Buddhas |
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| Rock on Buddha |
There were
lots of Buddhas here and they all looked different in various poses. My
favourite Buddha was the one doing the ‘rock on’ sign.
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| Make a wish |
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| My wish |
For a small
donation you could pick a wish and stick it on the wish tree. Some of these
were interesting. There was the usual “Good health”, “Happiness” and “Good
luck” but there were also more unusual ones like “Improved working conditions”
and “support from eminent people”. I wanted to go for “All wishes come true” to
cover all basis but that one had sold out. I decided to go instead for “Gain an
immediate victory.” I placed it on the tree and waited. Nothing happened! I
had just made three new friends so maybe that was it.
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| Room with a view |
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| Nazi Buddha? |
One of the girls had been
here before with a friend a few years ago and she told us about a room where
she they had taken a picture in a Buddha pose. She wanted to do it again to send
to her friend. We thought we had seen all the rooms in the complex and we
couldn’t find it at all until I stumbled upon a very inconspicuous room that
matched her description.
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| Pose, Sweat, Pose |
We had fun
doing a few poses on a timer so she could send it to her friend and we all
wanted the same picture. It was very hot that day, just saying.
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| Doubt it was hand crafted |
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| Big tower |
As if we
weren’t hot enough already, we found a tower that had a further 5 flights of
stairs to climb to get to the top. It had a great view though.
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| Cool place |
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| What the hell is this?! |
I never
found out what this fruit was but it was very strange looking. There were a
load of them hanging from this frame. It looks like a siamese melon.
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| Funky food court |
We caught
the bus back down to the centre and the others invited me to join them for
dinner. After picking up my washing and packing my bag I went around to hostel
where we had a drink.
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| FOOD! |
I met about
half of the hostel that they were staying in. It was a much more social hostel
than mine was. There was about 12 of us that went down to this food court where
there were a whole range of meals to choose from. I went over to a pizza stand
and ordered an Indian!
It was a
good night. I went back to their hostel with them as it was someones birthday
at midnight. I stayed just long enough to wish him happy birthday and left as I
had an early start the next morning. It was a slightly panicked early start as I
had lost my wallet. I had left it at the other hostel!
Panic over a
caught the ferry back to the main land and boarded the train bound for Bangkok.
