Malaysia whirlwind - Part 1

Hi all,

Sorry it's been so long since I've last updated the blog, but I've been boycotting it for the last week. You see, I spent at least 1.5 hours last week writing the most spectacular post ever (of course!), and just as I was finishing the spellcheck, I lost everything. Don't know how it happened and could not retrieve it no matter how I tried. I was too pissed off to start over again right then, so I gave myself a little break. But for those interested in more up-to-date travel news, you can check out my sister Johanne's blog at johannel.blogspot.com. We are now travelling together through Thailand (yay!) and she is much better/faster at updating her blog. In the meantime, I will backtrack and post over the next few days details about my time in Malaysia. Hope you enjoy.

After spending New Year's Eve in Singapore, I was off to Kuala Lumpur (KL, as known by the locals). I took a bus from Singapore bright and early on New Year's Day. It was a luxury VIP double-decker coach, complete with assigned seats, massage chairs & my own personal video player. The bus even has an attendant, who serves water, coffee and sandwiches. And all this for less than 15$ CDN!

I arrived in KL a little anxious and very much overwhelmed, as I was still feeling some culture shock since my arrival in Singapore. Adapting to Asia was taking a few days, not as fast as I'd hoped, so my arrival in KL, the largest city in Malaysia, was not without trepidation.

The bus dropped my off at a bus depot, which was pretty much just a big parking lot somewhere in the city. Luckily, I had traded my remaining Singapore dollars for Malaysian Ringgits with a girl at my hostel, cause there were no ATM's to be found on site. My first challenge was to get to the hostel. OK, fairly easily done since there were a dozen or so taxis (or teksi, in Malaysian) drivers looking for a willing sucker, oops sorry, I mean customer. This driver comes to me, I show him where I want to go, he grabs the paper (my reservation confirmation) out of my hands and heads to a group of drivers to ask them directions. There was a lot of eye rolling from the other drivers, cause my guy was just not getting it. This is not reassuring, since as it turns out, my hostel was on a main road in the most touristy area of KL. But lo and behold, after maybe 5 minutes, the light seems to go on over this guy's head! Now all that was left to do was to decide on a price, since of course, he and all of the other drivers refused to use the taxi meter. Not being in the best frame of mind, I accepted the first price quoted to me. I didn't even try to negotiate (doh!) but as it turned out, I didn't get fleeced to badly. Only by about 10 RM, which is 3# CDN.

The rest of the day was spent walking around, trying to get accustomed to the sights and sounds of KL. This city is just as Singapore, but way dirtier and stinkier. But the prices! I was completely amazed by how cheap everything is. A few examples: a 1.5L bottle of water costs 1 RM = 0.30$ CDN, A KFC trio (cause KFC is EVERYWHERE in Malaysia) is 8.60 RM i.e. less than 2.70$ CDN. And KL has lots of western shops and restaurants, with the obligatory Starbucks popping up on every street corner.

The next day I was up at the ungodly hour of 6:30 AM to meet with 2 girls from my hostel to get free tickets to the Petronas Towers. After a 30-minute jog (one of the girls was a very fast walker), I was in line for the daily ticket giveaway. 1400 tickets are dispensed every day for a tour of the SkyBridge that links both towers, and we were told to show up at 7:30AM at the latest or risk missing out. This may have been an exaggeration, but regardless, we were there early so no worries. We got our tickets and were given a 10-minute window to view the SkyBridge. Now, for anyone planning on visiting Kuala Lumpur one day, please skip the SkyBridge and head out to the KL Tower instead. The tickets are more expensive (as in, not free), but you get a much better view of the city, and you actually get to see the Petronas Towers, which are quite beautiful in my opinion.

Now my favorite part of my time in KL was actually about 15 km outside the city. On the list of "must see's" in my Lonely Planet (aka Traveller's Bible), was the Batu caves. So like a good little tourist, I set off to see what it was all about. Part of the adventure was finding the bus that went there, cause even though the direction in my Lonely Planet were quite precise, I still couldn't find the darn bus. After a bit of scrambling and asking 5 different people to get 5 variations on the answer, I spotted a group of tourists (i.e. western looking people) just standing around waiting and looking uncertain. When in doubt, assemble like sheep with other tourists and hope for the best! It usually ends up we are all going to the same place, and this time was no exception. The bus arrived a few minutes later and I was on my way.

Now my arrival at the Batu caves was one of those moments that gave me chills. I didn't know what to except, not really having any idea of what the caves were about, but I was quite amazed when I got there. The sight of the huge gold statue next to the 272 steps leading to the caves was very impressive. Plus, TV junkie that I am, I instantly recognized the place from one of my favorite shows ever, The Amazing Race! I absolutely love it when that happens!

I walked up the steps and enjoyed the great view in the caves. Monkeys were amusing themselves trying to steal food from tourists and getting the last sips of beer in cans thrown in the rubbish bins. Plus, I got to learn about the disturbing Thaipusam, a huge Hindu festival that happens here every Jan/Feb. 1 million devotees make the trek from the city to the caves, many taking part in gruesome and masochistic acts. Piercing their cheeks with steel rods, placing hooks down their backs and hanging thing on them, all to show their devotion.

As per my new pattern it seems, by the 2nd day in KL I was feeling much better and getting into the groove of things. I met a lot of nice people at the hostel, and I find that generally speaking, my fellow travellers through Asia are more sociable than those in NZ or Australia. I haven't spent a day fully on my own since I started my tour in OZ more than 1 month ago. So all in all, a good start to my time in Malaysia!