Kuala Lumpar

We Managed to get toast, tea & juice for brekkie before catching a taxi to the bus station. The coach was nice with lazy boy type chairs, with free water and a movie, "The Medallion" with Jackie Chan. It was a 6 hour journey with the standard 2 stop border crossing. Once over the border, we stopped and had toasted waffle with chocolate inside. The toilets were really strange - sunk into the floor - but at least they have some "western" loos.

Our next stop was KL. We were expecting the KL stop to be at a major station, so when it pulled over at the side of the road we though it was an additional stop. All the announcements were in Malaysian, so we didn't know where we were and ummed and ahhed about whether we should check. Luckily Ev did, otherwise we'd have ended up....

Our panicked departure meant we weren't that prepared and it felt very strange being dropped off on the side of the road, in a bustling city, no one speaking English or able to tell us the way to the Tourist Information office. Luckily we saw some white people with blonde hair, who turned out to be a very helpful Swedish couple (turned out they were "close" cousins, complete with hairy legs and pits) and they took us to their first hostel. It was really dodgy and a typical scummy backpackers place with practically no windows, air con and bed bugs thrown in for free, all for the bargain price of RM45. So, we went to the Backpackers Inn and got a room for RM35 with a balcony. It was still not great, being very hot and the fan only worked between 5pm-9am, but for £5/night we cant complain too much.


To get out of the sauna, we headed to Nandos for lunch for RM43! and then headed along the main road to Times Square. This mall was huge - it even has a theme park with roller coaster inside!

We caught the train (DLR) (which was much better than walking due to the pollution) to the Info centre. They couldn't help us too much so checked their internet to find the best way to Krabi. We decided to fly to Phuket and go from there as direct routes were only long haul bus or train. They couldnt help with the accommodation either, so we decided to leave it until tomorrow and just drink a lot tonight :)

We headed to Hard Rock Cafe, luckily in time for Happy Hour as cocktails BOGOF were RM43 each. So, Margaritas and Long Island Ice Teas later, we headed back to the train station and along the way we met a very friendly New Zealand chap who invited us back to his hotel for drinks. Perhaps we would have if we'd had a 3rd cocktail...

At the hostel, we bumped into the Swedes again, Ida and Martin, so had a couple of beers before they introduced us to Yatzee!, which Ev won. Around midnight we headed back and managed to get some sleep (surprisingly, or perhaps not considering the cocktails;)

Next day, we had an early start to get our free tickets for the Petronas Towers. We got there at about 8:15 and there was a huge queue already. We managed to get tickets for 9:45, so loitered for a bit and had some smoothies and yukkie shots of wheat grass (supposedly high in energy and anti-oxidants). Our tickets got us to the bridge, which gave some pretty good views over the city. We then headed back to book our next night at the hostel, but couldn't work out why the train ticket machine wouldn't take our money. Soon realised we were using Singapore $ not Malaysia RM!!

We had a fairly full on tour planned, though on the way we got distracted by a large crowd of people. Being nosey, we stopped to see what was going on. Turns out that it was Lion Dancing to celebrate Chinese New Year (which ends tomorrow). We were really lucky to see this as not something we would see back home. It was very skillful with two guys in the dragon jumping from pillar to post in tandem with the other dragons. The dragons were spitting out oranges to the crowd, a sign of good luck if you get one. This shows was one of the highlights of KL.

 

 

We carried on to the post office as we wanted to send some boxes back to the UK, but it turns out it closes the last Saturday of the month. Bad timing! We wondered over to the National Mosque, and typically went the dodgiest, least scenic route over the highway. The Mosque was closed to the public, though we weren't dressed right in any case. We hopped over a wall and headed to KL Sentral to book flights as we decided KL wasn't for us and we'd rather head to Phuket, Thailand. It meant another long, hot walk over more highways, and then back again to the Bird Park, which Ev thought was recommended by her Dad (but it was actually the Singapore one).

Along the way, we stopped at the National Museum and saw some good displays explaining about the Chinese New Year. We almost didn't make the Bird Park, but scrapped enough cash together in multi-currencies for the RM30pp entry fee. The park itself was ok, but was tarnished by some very disrespectful Indian-Asian men who were pulling feathers from the peacocks tails. Ev had a word, and they were very rude due to her being a woman!

One thing we haven't mentioned yet is the smell. Everywhere you go there is a smell kind of like sewerage, and its pretty disgusting. It follows you around the streets, shops & markets. We went for dinner at a restaurant an the indoor market, and turns out the smell is part of the food. It was part of the spring rolls and one of the main flavours of Marc's curry. Its either fish sauce or egg plant. either way, not nice.

We headed back to one of the stalls to negotiate a price on some souvenirs - a wooden carved dragon face and a meditation bowl which makes a lovely soothing sound. We thought they were expensive but got sucked into the "we're only here once" and brought them for RM150 and RM350, down from RM300 and RM480. Not sure it was quite worth it, but its a nice momento. We've never been able to replicate the soothing sound quite like the guy in the shop, though he did say he played it continuously for a whole day before getting the sound perfect.

To round the day off, we headed to the roof bar at the hostel to watch Pool v Man U before packing up for the flight tomorrow.

In the morning, got a 'Buckies before heading to the airport. Came across another lion dancing show, so stayed to watch that for a bit, and bumped into one of the guys from last night - James. Watching the show meant we missed the bus from KL Sentral, so we caught the next one at 12:45. When we checked in at the airport we got stung for excess baggage - RM168!

Singapore

The flight from Oz to Singapore was our first long haul flight for a while – about 8 hours. Quantus were pretty good and the flight was smooth apart from a bumpy patch over Darwin.

Whilst we did a lot of prep for Asia, we heard accommodation was easy to book at the tourist office at Singapore airport so we decided to just pitch up and see what was on offer. However, we (Ev!) got the flight times wrong and we landed at 9:30pm not 19:30 which meant all the decent back-packer accommodation was gone! Being on a budget, we opted for a cheap hotel in a less reputable area, which was a real eye opener! As we arrived at our hotel and wondered what so many women were doing out so late without their husbands. There were lots of men offering them lifts home - so they were being looked after – at a price. Our room was small and had a stench of cigarette smoke so had to put the air con on “full blast” to try and remove the odour. It didn’t really work, but it was better than sleeping at the airport!

The next day, we searched our lonely planet guide - as most local calls were free, we phoned around and found the South East Asia Hotel. We thought we’d walk to the train station, which didn’t look far on the map. However, it is always a lot further when you’ve got back packs, so it wasn’t long before we caught a taxi to the station (which turned out to be on the other side of the road)! We then jumped on the train, which was really clean and spacious, even in rush hour, and then walked the short distance to the hotel.

They only had a triple room, which was a bit more expensive, but it included breakfast which turned out to be noodles, filled parcels and deep fried potato. This was in a perfect location between China Town and Little India, and the landlady was really friendly and helpful so worth the extra money not to mention a far better area. The location was on a pedestrianised road with open-air food stalls where the locals were getting their breakfast of noodles or rice. A couple of buildings down were Hindu temples, and the street was lined with small family run shops selling novelty items

Food Market

One of the first things you notice is how clean it is here – there is no litter anywhere as you get fined if drop anything including chewing gum and the street cleaners are out regularly. The second thing you notice is the cultural diversity – Hindus, Buddhists, the old China Town, Little India, the British colonial buildings, and the modern sky rise buildings – and with only two days here we had a lot to fit in.

Abdul Mosque

On our first day, we headed north and went to Little India where we found a nice little Australian run café for brunch, which did some nice scrambelled eggs and tea. We visited some of the bigger mosques including Abdul Mosque before it started to rain. At this point we caught the MRT (Mass Rapid Transport) over to Orchard Road famous for shopping, so we went to Lucky Plaza, had a look around the shops, had a Starbucks, then headed back to the hotel area.

 

Lucky Plaza

 

In the evening, we headed to Raffles – when we walked in we felt a strange carpet under our feet, and heard a crunching noise as we walked. When we looked down, we saw the carpet was discarded peanut shells from the bar. We ordered the obligatory Singapore Sling, which isn’t really that nice but has to be done. Raffles itself is a very grand and posh hotel, and an example of the British influence in Singapore.



After to chatting to some weird American lady, we headed down to China Town. We brought some silk pillow cases from a Chinese market, before chosing a spot for dinner. The chopstick diet has now begun...

 

City by Night

Next day, after breakfast we wandered up to the coach depot to get our tickets for the next day – an 8 hour journey to Kuala Lumpur. From here, we headed back south to Little India to wander around the shops and markets. The food markets are all open air, and wouldn’t pass any of the UK health and safety laws! All the fish and meat is uncovered and there are lots of flies around. The smell of fish follows you and there is quite often blood on the floor.

From hereafter, it rained pretty much all day, but that didn’t matter too much, apart from giving us wet feet and blisters! We took in China Town and had some yummy biscuits, before going to the Buddha temples, which were really peaceful and serene. The Hindu temples don’t always allow tourists into their temples, so we were grateful the Buddhists were more relaxed and allowed photos.

Hindu Temple (left) and Buddist Temple (Right)

Inside the Buddist Temple 

 

For lunch, we tried one of the open air food courts. It’s a real challenge as there are 60 odd stalls to buy from, the menus aren’t in English, and you don’t know what meat is on offer. After about 20 minutes of wandering, we picked the one with the longest queue, which presumably means it’s the most popular ;)

We walked around the docks and saw the famous peeing lion (Merlion), before heading to the 72nd floor of the Swissotel for happy hour cocktails (which were London prices even at half price) and got some great views of the city, although it was a little grey.

 

Merlion

 

View from Swissotel

Cocktail number 1

  Cocktail number 2

On our way back, we stopped at the Hindu temple near our B&B and after watching the locals going in and out, we decided to take off our shoes to go in to have a look – we hesitated as it can feel a intrusive watching someone worshipping Gods you don’t understand. The Gods are a mismatch of different animals, having a human body with an elephants head. The sculptures and artwork are really colourful and bright, something we would rarely see in the UK.

We also stopped off at the SunTec Mall to take a look at some purple-gold jewellery - a bargain at only s$4,000 for a braclet!

In the evening, we went to the night zoo, as recommended by Heather and Sprocket. There is a train that runs around the zoo, passing animals pens. There are no cages, and the animals are in lowered pits surrounded by razor wire, so as you pass the animals at night, it doesn’t look like they are locked in. There are train stops scattered around so you can wander through various enclosures, such as bats. This is a bit more interesting than seeing the animals in the day as they are a bit more active.

 

One of the only pictures that came out from our Night Safari

It’s been a short stay in Singapore, but probably about right. Whilst we have seen most things we wanted to see, it is a place that we would come back to again as its ideal for a 2-3 day stop over.