Tuesday 30 November 2010

Arrived in Kuala Lumpur

Tuesday 30th November 2010

MP3 track of the day: The Way I Are - Timberland

Weather: Hot, rainy and humid
















I woke up a decent time and, due to buses leaving Melaka for Kuala Lumpur (KL) every hour, I decided there wasn't any rush. In the morning I met a Northern Irish couple (Ross and Amy) who were also traveling to KL today, and had booked into the same hostel as I; we therefore decided to travel together.

I wasn't looking forward to traveling, I knew that I would get very hot and sticky with my bags strapped to me. I was tempted just to stay in Melaka as things were now 'safe' there (I had good accommodation, I knew where to eat, I knew where to go) and it was chilled; however I also knew that if I didn't leave Melaka today I might not ever leave, in fear of what might turn up later on. I headed out, at around 11:00am, with the Ross and Amy to the bus stop.

Things went well at the beginning; the bus stop to catch the bus to the main station in Melaka wasn't too far away and so I boarded my bus to Kuala Lumpur quite refreshed. Things were going swimmingly and I sat in my comfortable chair awaiting my arrival within Kuala Lumpur.

This is where things 'going swimmingly' took a sharp dive south; the first problem was that the main bus station within KL was under heavy construction and so they had set up a temporary bus station waaaay out of town and off any of our maps. After talking to 'locals' , who wanted to take us this way and that, we eventually got on a bus to the city center, or that's what it said on the bus.

I knew we were going in the right direction as I saw the Petronas Towers out of the window. However, where the bus dropped us off, had very little signage and it took us a while to find the entrance to the nearest mono-rail station. It turned out we had arrived near the 'Plaza Rakyat', which at the time meant as much to me as it does to you. I stopped and thought to myself; travelling within Japan was much easier than it is here and in Japan they hardly speak any English at all. In fact there lettering system is totally different and yet, they have made the signage for transport so easy that any idiot can find their way. In Malaysia, where English is a national language, no chance. I have to say that I was glad to be travelling with other people.

We found a ticket office and eventually worked out that we needed to travel one stop, change monorail lines and then a further six stops to 'Chow Kit', our stop. Once there the heavens had opened and I've not seen rain like it. Experience from my limited time within South East Asia has told me that this downpour shouldn't last to long and so we waited checking our maps so we knew which way to run to our hostel.

The rain died down and we legged it. Luckily I was following the Ross and Amy; if I had been directing we would have gone a longer way. We made it to our hostel, which was okay and clean, without getting too wet and we put our stuff in our dorms and then headed out for something to eat (it was now 4:30pm; it had taken us four hours to get to our hostel in KL and I had only eaten breakfast ... I was starving). We stumbled by an Indian restaurant (being located within 'little India' it wasn't much of a shock) and we had a rice meal, which was okay.

We then headed back to our hostel to chill. As I've had my lunch late I might just snack for tea (there's a stand selling corn on the cob outside ... yum) before having an early night. Tomorrow I need to head to the Thai embassy to get my Thai visa; I also want to go up the Petronas Towers and to do so I have to queue up for a ticket early (as there are only 1,000 tickets per day) therefore tonight will be an early night to I get up early tomorrow. It's all fun!

Toodle Pip

P.S. Just found a brochure offering a three day trip to the Taman Negara national park; I'm really tempted to book on this as it's quite difficult to get to the national park on your own. It's £30 for the three days, but only two nights, and that's without meals. It sounds cheap but in Malaysia that's my daily budget ... I'll have to have a think.

No comments:

Post a Comment