Where In The World Is Becky?

Hey all, blogging from busy Kuala Lumpur. It’s my sixth day in Asia, and I’m still reeling a little, to be honest. I can’t seem to get over the jet lag and am tired during the middle of the day and wide awake till late into the night. Although it could just be the heat that’s making me sleepy…

Arrived in Singapore in the early afternoon – through customs in like five minutes. It’s without a doubt the most immaculate city I’ve ever seen, verging on sterile. This girl was ready for some sterile, though. The subway stations are cleaner than 90% of the hotels I’ve been staying in. Speaking of the subway, they have these little plastic credit card things instead of tickets, and you return them for a dollar deposit – nifty, eh? Hardly anyone even jaywalks here; I saw no one litter. The city is very, very green though, lots of trees and shade, thank God.

Got to the hostel, sweating buckets in the steamy heat, checked in and was told, no problemo, you can go anywhere anytime, all alone. Really? Hooray! So I set off through Little India, eating a wide swath of destruction as usual. The food was incredible – I was eating 4 or 5 meals a day, and I’m not kidding. Walked and walked and walked, despite the steamy, sticky heat, just for the sheer pleasure of being able to walk around freely. Went to the downtown area, caught some fireworks for the “practice show” for Singapore’s independence, ate dinner at around 10:30 at a 24-hour food court near my hostel – pork won ton noodles and a Tiger beer – delicious.

Day 2 I met a girl from Canada, also on her own, so we teamed up for some sightseeing. Went to the Botanic Gardens, shopped on Orchard St., one of many, many shopping areas – the city is really one big shopping mall. Mostly just walked. And walked.

Day 3 = my birthday. My new Canadian friend left, and I spent the day largely on my own. Got a pedicure, had some coffee, looked for some new Thai pants cause mine got ruined in a wash in Africa, and took myself to Raffles Hotel, an old Singapore institution and had a Singapore Sling, which was invented there – $20 for a cocktail. I’ll just check that one off the life list for good.

Took the bus to Kuala Lumpur, which is kind of like a grittier Singapore, the afternoon of the 31st. Stayed at a hostel/guesthouse called the Green Hut, and guess what I got again? Yep, bedbugs. Christ. I thought I got a few bites two nights ago, so I switched beds, apparently from the frying pan into the fire, cause I’m covered, literally, today. So disgusting. Worse than the last time. So I moved to some other guesthouse in the neighborhood, not the nicest, but at least no bedbugs. I hope. A bank machine also ate my card last night after I went out – to the Hard Rock Cafe. Don’t laugh- it’s cool here, I swear! Luckily I was able to retrieve it this morning. I think the machine has an eating disorder, cause mine was in a stack of at least 10 other cards it tried to digest.

That’s it so far, people. I was going to go north from here tomorrow on the “jungle train” – doesn’t that sound cool? – but instead: I booked a spur-of-the-moment flight to a town in Malaysian Borneo called Tawau so that I can dive an island called Sipadan! It’s supposedly one of the top 10 dive spots in the world, and I was going to just head north on peninsular Malaysia and skip it, and then I was like, “Hey wait a minute! What the f!@# am I thinking?? I’m this close to somewhere spectacular and I’m not going?” So, I’m going, and I booked a one-way, so who knows when I’ll return. I have to be in Bangkok on October 4th, that’s all I know. Oh, I put a bunch more pictures on the blog – enjoy.
xxx

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 2nd, 2007 at 5:49 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.