New Zealand had a way of detracting people, or at least me,
from going into any mall or shopping areas: the goods were quality, but
terribly expensive ($100 USD for a merino wool shirt). Kuala Lumpur’s Chinatown is literally the
opposite. You don’t have a choice but to
walk through the stores, there are venders yelling, “you sir come take a look
sir I give you good price sir” with a speed that my lack of punctuation implies,
and the wares are poorly made, super cheap knockoff brands. I’ve never seen so many fake clothes, shoes,
purses, watches, or hats in my life. No
price tags either, just haggling. For a
watch, a typical first offer would be 150 Ringgit ($50 USD), but after some
scoffing, that would fall to 100 Ringgit, then when you try to walk away it
goes down to 60.
Curry chicken rice with a 100 Plus, drink of champions
Chinese "flower pot chicken rice"
Chinese reflexology - the idea that your entire body is connected to your foot. Uh yeah, that's what the leg is for.
When I wasn’t shopping or eating, I was either by myself in
my empty 6-bed dorm room or out exploring the town. Downtown KL is a maze, but I eventually found
my way to the Petronas Twin Towers. No
matter how dizzying the maze, it’s hard to hide the 6th and 7th
largest skyscrapers in the world. The
towers were impressive and had a nice little place to take pictures, but even
better than that were the other travelers taking pictures. I could have sat there forever making fun of
these people posing for the camera, and taking pictures of them was easy
because they were in front of the thing that all cameras were pointed it.
Do the Samson
No caption needed
When this guy took his shirt off and revealed the wife b, I almost couldn't contain myself
Perfect timing
Asian.
2 girls from the hostel wearing leopard skirts and "sexy me" shirts at 10 AM. Look at the one on the left!
I met another traveler at the hostel, a Japanese girl named
Reiko, and we took a train to the Battu Caves – giant limestone caves full of
small Hindu shrines, even smaller monkeys, hoards of trash, and teeth-grindingly
bad Indian music. It was cute seeing the
monkeys fight over empty bottles of orange juice, until you caught another
whiff of the trash and monkey poo that bottle was sitting in. The best part was seeing small drops of water
run off of plants hundreds of feet above you, then trying to get it to land on
your forehead. I was getting pretty good
at it until I thought of how easy it was for a forehead my size, then a drop
landed in my eye and the game was over.
Mocking a 50 foot golden statue
272 steps. We counted. Slowly.
The next day Reiko and I picked up a Californian named
Barbara and went to the National Museum.
Note to self: art museums, cool; actual museums, lame. We had worked really hard to get there, paid
for it, and the girls seemed to really enjoy it, so I stuck it out. The museum had on display some oblong stones
that had seemingly come from any dry riverbed in the world and claimed that
they were “hammer tools” used by humans 300,000 years ago. Please.
The museum did cover the history of Portuguese, Dutch, English, and
Japanese invasion and occupancy, which actually was interesting.
After 4 nights in KL, it was time to leave, but the hostels
at the Cameron Highlands were full for the weekend, so I went to Ipoh. A town of over a million and the nearest city
to the Highlands, I felt that I had stepped into the Waco of Malaysia, or something like it. With no real city center, no hostels, and no
reason to be there, I chilled at the local bubble tea shop and enjoyed their
free internet. The next day, I arrived
20 minutes late to catch the bus to Cameron Highlands, with the next one
leaving in 3 and a half hours. I took a
45 minute bus ride to another bus station to find a 2 and a half hour
wait. I was enjoying my book anyways, so
I decided to stick it out at the bus station.
Thank goodness the bus got delayed another two hours or else I wouldn’t
have finished the book. I had told the Highlands
hostel that I would be there around 2 or 3, and the bus didn’t leave until 5:30
and took a solid 3 hours to get there.
Miraculously, there was a van driver from the hostel there for somebody
else and I got a quick ride and the last dorm bed in the hostel.
The Cameron Highlands is a breath of fresh air in the most
humid/hot parts of the world, with the afternoon rain that usually brings
pleasantly cool weather. This morning I
went on a hike that had some of the steepest terrain I’d ever hiked, held
together only by a lattice of roots and the occasional rock. The peak was… less than I had hoped, complete
with mangled road signs, a lump of grass, and practically no view
whatsoever.
Strawberry plantations at the end of the trail
The hike was some much needed physical activity in a country
where all I do is eat. I’m looking
forward to Thailand, and I’ve picked up a lot of info from other travelers. It seems that I might spent a week in Rai Leh
or Ton Sai and another week in Chiang Mai.
Right now I’m trying to figure out a creative way to get around the 15
day visa that I’ll have (my flight out of Bangkok leaves in like 21 days). My current plan is to go on a visa run from
Chiant Mai to Burma and back, which will take all day, but better than going to
Thai prison if I get caught over my visa.
I don’t want to be one of those morons on Locked Up Abroad.
By the way, I found this at a 7 Eleven in Ipoh on my way out the door. I did a double take when I saw the hat. Even in Malaysia, nobody likes Tech.
No helmets or TTech hats
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