I won't talk about the jungle though. Or the Cameron Highlands which is where we just came from. Instead I'll play catch up and talk about crossing into Malaysia.
Singapore was getting expensive, and it was time to get the show on the road, so we caught a city bus to the Malaysian border. From there, we crossed over with ease into the border town or Johor Baru. We had about 2 hours to kill before our train for Kuala Lumpur came, so we hung out in an incredibly Western shopping mall. They even had a Kenny Rogers Roasters. I guess Malaysia is doing pretty well. Compared to Indonesia at least.
Our train came and we took it all the way to KL. Decent ride compared to the hawker-fest that was the Yogyakarta to Jakarta train. Really, I'm just going to be comparing everything to Indonesia now because so far, we have yet to encounter anything as rugged or rough as some of the places we slogged through while there.
Anyways, we got to KL pretty late, so finding a hostel was a priority. Chinatown was the place to go and we managed to track one down with ease. It was a bit of a dump though. We got a room with no windows, no bathroom and just a fan. It smelled like dirty laundry and bathwater too. And it wasn't that cheap. Come to think of it, why the hell did we stay at that place? Anyways, the food in Chinatown was nice and cheap, and we got free wifi in our room so that helped.
That night we went to the Reggae Bar, which I was pretty apprehensive about. However, instead of white dudes with dreadlocks and djembes, we were greeted with Fatman Scoop, a dancefloor and lots of ladyboys. It seems you can't go anywhere without running into ladyboys in Southeast Asia. Or at least we can't. One of them sauntered up to me and whispered "you're cute" in a deep baritone. We spent most of the night at a table outside. Later, Adam found a whole bunch of rats in an alley.
The next day we had to pack in as much stuff as possible. It started with a late wake-up (thanks to a bucket of piss poor gin we foolishly bought at the Reggae Bar the night before) and a Chinese breakfast. We took the monorail to Kuala Lumpur Tower first. Now, I don't know what it is about towers that offer citywide panoramas, but they always end up being some of the WORST tourist traps. This one was no exception. The price doubled since our Lonely Planets were published AND they made you buy a package if you even wanted to go up the tower. The package included access to an animal pavilion, an F1 simulator, a forest walk and a pony ride.
The view from the top was nice. KL is a pretty big city and the Petronas Towers dominated the skyline as you can imagine. We checked out the animal pavilion and saw a monkey escape so that was rad. The F1 simulator was just 4 minutes of Playstation, we didn't do the forest walk, and despite Adam's constant urgings, I refused to do the pony ride.
Next we checked out the main city square (whose name escapes me) and walked way down to the National Museum. We made it 30 minutes before it closed, so it was kind of a rushed appreciation. We then walked the long way back to our hostel to catch some dinner in, uh, Chinatown again. This time, it absolutely poured, which gave our meal an interesting ambiance.
Next morning, we were gonna catch a bus to the Cameron Highlands, but there was no way I was not going to see the Petronas Towers. So we woke up early to check it out. Apparently if you get there early enough, they let you on the skybridge that connects the two towers. Unfortunately for us, they shut the bridge down on Monday for maintenance. CRAP. So we just took pictures in front with the other tourists before heading to the bus station.
So Kuala Lumpur, despite what my usually cynical posts may suggest, was quite nice. It rained sometimes and was blistering hot others, but the city itself had charm. It kind of reminded me of a budget Singapore. Paying In ringgits required a little bit of head-calculation, but everything worked out to be cheap (except KL Tower). I kind of wish we saw more museums, but oh well. Here's the pics.
Petronas Towers. Me.
I thought this building was really pretty.
Skyline shot. Cost me 38 ringgits so appreciate it!
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