Day 1 10-12-07 Cindy, Megha and I met at around 6 am to leave for our flight to Kuala Lumpur...none of us had slept much, but we were flying out of the evil Macau and we needed lots of time to get there. We discovered AirAsia is in fact a pretty legit airline, I swear, it's nicer than Southwest. We did walk out on the runway and up the stairs to get to the plane, but that was kind of cool. We arrived in Malaysia and had to take a bus to the train station to get into the city. It was about an hours bus ride, pretty scenic though, KL is very pretty, it is a jungle and there are tons of palm trees. We also saw our first random intense rainstorm, which happened every day while we were there. Suddenly the sky just opened up and it was pouring, but it stopped by the time we reached the station. We grabbed some food at a fast food restaurant (the worst food we had the whole time there, mine wasn't even that bad). I had my first hot Milo, which is this drink they have everywhere in Malaysia, kinda like Nesquick except less chocalatey, and chalky. I became addicted to it when I was there at any rate, it goes well with spicy food. Then, being fat americans, we went to McDonald's. They had green bean sundaes and McFlurry, SO good. I ended up gettting a green bean McFlurry every day in Malaysia, I don't think they have it anywhere else. So good. Then we took a taxi to the hostel, which was hard to find...we just got out and walked and finally found it down a small side street. It was very small, only a few rooms and one old Malay man running it. It turned out he spoke Cantonese so Cindy could talk to him in Cantonese, he spoke English as well of course. It turns out Malaysians speak more English than in Hong Kong, as well as Cantonese which is helpful. Mr. L, or Grandpa, as we now fondly refer to him. He was enthusisatic about helping us plan our trip. We decided to check out the area around our hostel and grab some food. Our hostel was in a pretty cool area, Bukit Bintang, and we found our favorite restaurant there, a street food place with amazing satay. We drank out of coconuts and ate delicious satay and noodles with mango ice dessert. I really like KL, it's got a really cool vibe to it, diverse culture of Malaysians, Indians, and Middle Easterners. It's pretty metropolitan, everyone speaks English and people are very friendly. It would be a pretty awesmoe place to live. So we went to sleep since we were exhausted, despite the fact that Thao hadn't arrived yet. H was suposed to meet us, and we hoped that he could find us. Mr. L waited up for him until 3 am, when he arrived.
Day 2 10-13-07 My 21st birthday! It's sort of weird traveling on your birthday...but cool. Breakfast was some delicious noodles at a street restaurant near our hostel. We decided to try to do some kind of city tour but it was a holiday weekend apparently, of course we had no idea it was a Malaysian holiday. After getting lost, luckily people speak English and Cantonese to direct us, (and after a trip to McD's for a green bean McFlurry), we began to see some of the historic and famous buildings in the city. We visited a mosque, where we had to cover up our heads and bodies, and walked around. There were some markets and cool stores, but probably would have been more stuff going on if it weren't a holiday. I played the "count the tourists holding a Lonely Planet guide in their hand" game, at least 6 people. Haha. We decided to visit the Twin Towers, but they were closed because of the holiday, so I randomly suggested taking the subway to Chow Kit, an area I'd read about as a potential hostel spot to stay. We emerged from the subway to find a downpour awaiting outside. It was cool in our jungle-ish setting. It stopped more or less by the time we reached Chow Kit. Chow Kit was cool because we didn't see any tourists, lots of people talked to me (because I was the only white person in our group) and we found a restaurant at a hotel to eat for my birthday, some Malay favorites. We ended up talking to our waiter for a while, he was really cool and really smart, he picked up English in 3 months simply by watching TV and talking to people. He gave us some advice and we learned a bit more about Malaysia too, it was really awesome. We walked around a bit, lots of street markets and street food. Next we decided to visit KL tower, which involved walking a bit and getting slightly lost as always, but we saw a view of the city from the top at night. My favorite sight was an Asian family, who posed for their photo with the usually FOB-y peace signs, but totally serious faces. It was the funniest thing ever. Afterwards, we headed back to our hostel area for our favorite restaurant ever, street food. I had to order my mango dessert like 10 times, but finally my mango craving was satisfied. We asked around and found a little strip of bars right near our hostel, and we just sat on the patio of a Lebanese place, on pillows, and smoked hookah and grabbed drinks, it was pretty nice. After that, I was totally exhausted and fell asleep as soon as I reached the hostel.
Day 3 10-14-07 We overslept, since there were no windows in our rooms it was hard to gauge morning. Mr. L scolded us for oversleeping but he brought us traditional Malaysian breakfast, nasi lemak, which is delish: coconut rice, beef in spicy sauce, dried anchovies, curry. SO good. We decided to visit the Batu Caves outside the city, a sort of natural wonder and holy Hindu site. So we grabbed a bus to the caves. Of course there was a rainstorm, so we had to wait it out a bit. We waded through the water (I sort of enjoyed it, my Chacos were handy!) and climbed the steps to the caves. They were pretty cool, smaller than I thought but really pretty. We saw some temples, and on the way back down the stairs, monkeys. Of course, Thao thought it would be fun to feed them peanuts. He threw them and the monkey would catch. There was even one with a baby clinging to it. Of course, we had to sneak away so they wouldn't follow us around all day. One of them grabbed my leg and I freaked out a bit, but now I wish I'd taken a picture. Anyways, our newly expanded and hungry stomachs cried out for lunch so we headed to find some food. We ate some authentic South Indian food, and Megha was proud that we enjoyed it. They use banana leaves instead of plates. It was really delicious, vegetarian too. After we headed back to the Central Market in KL (McD's again, another McFlurry), and then to Chinatown, which is pretty funny. But Chinatown actually had good markets, I made some purchases, and we had some good Chinese-Malay fusion. I wasn't even that hungry, but I ate soo much. And then of course we get back to the hostel, I'm ready to go to bed, but the others drag me out and we eat more street food, satay. I also bought a cool glow in the dark tshirt that night.
Day 4 10-15-07 Mr. L brought us dim sum for breakfast, which was of course very good, he's awesome. We got more breakfast at a cheap local place nearby, and then headed off for the Genting Highlands. Since it was a holiday we couldn't get a bus up the mountain (about an hour away) for a little while, so we set off for somewhere near the train station to grab lunch (oh and we lost Thao. oops). It was a very local place, no foreigners. But we had super cheap food (less than $1 US), my spicy noodle soup had tons of shrimp. And buns. And there was a nice guy who talked to us. Yeah Malaysia's awesome. So we go to catch our bus up, and take a nice peaceful, scenic ride up the mountain. We have to take a cable car up to the highlands, and this cable car is basically all of us crammed into a stuffy, standing room only, rickety metal box. We arrive and its basically casinos, amusement park, entertainment type stuff. We tried to find stuff to do, but there wasn't a great view, it was cloudy. Thao did a skydive simulator, which was pretty cool, funny to watch. It was sort of maze like, we wandered a lot and naturally ended up at McDonald's. I tried a banana pie, like an apple pie, but banana and DEEP FRIED. So yum. There was a sort of dance and singing show of people in traditonal Malaysian costumes, randomly. Then we tried to follow the sign which said "Safari", I was really excited to find out what the safari was. But it turned out to be the "Safari NightClub" totally disappointing. We headed back, to discover a huge line for the cable cars. But these cable cars were at least nice, and it was really cool and we felt like explorers descending into the jungle in the night, with mysterious fog. We get to the bus station, and we already have return tickets. However, they tell us that we have afternoon, not evening, tickets. Great. What a scam. So we go to buy our tickets but they are totally SOLD OUT. Pissed, we realize there is no other way down the mountain back to KL. It's like one of those nightmare bad situations. Cab drivers are everywhere begging us to take a cab. It's overpriced but we agree, what else are we supposed to do? So we follow this guy to his "cab" and realize all the cabs are unmarked normal cars. We freak out, but realize it is the only way down to the city. So we get into a car, but it won't start. The guy tells us to go with someone else, who leads us to an even sketchier old, dented car. We definitely thought we were going to get our organs harvested. Or driven into a ditch. But we lived. Barely. To celebrate, well first we stopped at the mall, I had to pee like no other. And there was this delicious bun shop. Really good barbecue pork buns and stuff. We headed to our favorite street restaurant for a great feast. I like to call it the Great Supper. Much Satay was involved, as well as delectable garlic butter vegetables, and STINGRAY. Stingray is so amazing, it's like fish but better. "Why don't people eat stingray more often?" asked Thao as we tore the thing apart, so good. We drank from coconuts, ate maybe 10 dishes, and had mango ice fruit dessert, all for probably around $5 american. The best meal I've EVER had. For sure. And then I fell into a food coma. lovely.
Day 5 10-16-07 Slept in again, and then went to get buns at the place at the mall. Hot and delicious, with white coffee. So good. Thao left us and we went souvenir shopping- at the grocery store. Pretty much sums up our trip to Malaysia. Bought some white coffee and tea. and Milo candy. We went to a bread store as well. They were still bringing out the fresh pastries. I got a hot, fresh, blueberry pastry and drank it with Milo. ORGASMIC. Then we went to the Iraqi restaurant, figuring it would probably be the only time us Americans would get to sample Iraqi food any time soon. It was good, grilled lamb and tomatoes and pita. The Iraqis were friendly to us too, luckily didn't ask where we were from. We said a quick goodbye to Mr. L, and then headed to the airport. Huge rainstorm of course as we walked to the monorail. Even with my umbrella I got soaked, and all of our luggage got soaked. Time was running short, and we barely made it to the airport. It was quite scenic as the sun set over the airport, out in the jungle, and we flew to Bangkok.
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