BootsnAll Travel Network



Kuala Lumpur Day 8/9

Not every place I pick to visit or tour to go to will be excellent.  Day 2 of Kuala Lumpur proved that theory.  The day before I had decided to go to the Genting Highlands, about 1 hour outside of the city.  Genting Highlands was like an entertainment city on the top of the mountain with casinos, hotels, and an outdoor amusement park.  When I first arrived at KL I noticed a package deal going where it was 26 MR (like less than 8 dollars), for round trip bus fare, entrance to outdoor theme park and return fare on the skyrail (cable car ride).  So I decided that my second day I would get out of the city and go there.  Little did I know at the time how much of a waste it was, I wish I had, otherwise I wouldn’t have rolled out of bed hungover at 815 to make my train at 1000AM.

So after the hour bus ride, and getting myself to KL Sentral Station, I arrived at the Genting Highlands.  After many escalators, walking and lifts (elevators), I finally got to the top of the mountain and the outdoor theme park.  Now I had heard from locals that it was a pretty good theme park, unfortunately I didn’t realize or think about what “good” would really mean.  It is definitely a relative term.  It was pretty bad.  They had several decent rides but all were closed or it was too early to be running.  By 1230 I was fed up with the fact that I didnt have shoes for the go-karts, the best ride required me to pay extra and I was tired from the day before and hence extremely cranky.  I then tried to get to the casino’s but was quickly shot down due to the lack of a dress code.  Who would think there would be a dress code in a casino in freaking Malaysia?  I certainly did not, at one point I was so desperate to get to the casino and just make my time productive I contemplated buying a pair of woman’s pants at some discount boutique shop and basically stealing the shoes from the go-kart track.  Well not so much steal, but rather put the deposit and pay for the rental and then just not return them.

I knew that I couldn’t have gotten that low in life, and that was not worth it risking any further trouble, especially in Malaysia.  Side note:  In Malaysia if you have a gun without a permit the penalty is death if caught.  Wish we had that here.

Anyway after wandering around trying to kill time, I decided I would go back down the mountain on the cable car ride and try and get an earlier bus home.  The cable car ride was the longest such in Asia spanning 3.6 kilometres and over Malaysia’s jungle.  It was really peaceful and cool.  When I got to the bottom I rushed to the bus station and asked the guy what I could do.  He said I could try to get on the 130 if there were spots available.  So I went to the ticket collector near where the busses would deposit the passengers and gave him the heads up I wanted to get on the bus in the event they had an open seat.

Well Jenny it struck again.  The good ole luck of the Josh.  There was ONE seat left, as the bus was about to leave and the guy picked me over another old dude who just tried to barge right on.  No, no, no the ticket collector said, and I was on the bus back to KL.

While it was a bust for sure to get outside of KL to the Genting Highlands, I have become a firm believer even more and more so lately, that everything happens for a reason.  You can be reading this, shrug your shoulders, say come on Josh, whatever reaction you fancy, but I am a firm believer in karma and things happening for a reason.  So i’ll just leave it at that.

So once I got back to KL Sentral Station, pretty bummed about the time wasted and the lack of productivity, being hungover, and having to get another cab back to the hostel, I decided to be adventurous and take the monorail that runs above the city, similar to Batman Begins, just not that high.   Well I found the right train line and got off at the right stop, but the bucked stopped there.  Even with getting lost previously this time was also a struggle.  Luckily I managed this time to realize where I was, and got back to the hostel.  But not before picking up 2 dvds from a street vendor; Blood Diamond and Casino Royale.  So when I returned to the hostel I was eager to try the movie, and Casino Royale worked perfectly.  And this time I watched the whole thing, chilled out, invited Tasha to watch it as well, and just relaxed.  After the movie Laura and Clara came back from being out, we went out for excellent Indian food down the street and just played cards outside in the veranda of the hostel and enjoyed each others company.

Day 9 – Day 3 in Kuala Lumpu

This was the day that my cousin Jordan (jordo) as he is referred to sometimes as well was supposed to come to KL from South Afrika.  We had some problems with communication, but luckily his responsible girlfriend Ania gave me his details, where to meet him, a time, and when his flight was coming in.  But of course nothing goes perfectly to plan when traveling.  To cut this short, his flight was delayed I had to wake up at the ass crack of dawn to meet him and he didn’t get in till 11.  But because I woke up (again being delayed this would not have happened), I was able to watch some NBA playoffs on the dish.

Well finally after trying several times to see if Jordo had arrived at his hostel just around the corner, he was there!  From the hostel we walked to Chinatown to do a little bargaining for chatchkas and stuff, eat a little food and just explore.  In Chinatown we decided to do the hop on hop off bus tour that was good for 24 hours.  They had a student discount that was really cheap, the bus was air conditioned and not a bad idea.  The first stop we got off at was a bad choice on my part as it was the National Palace.  INitially not a bad idea, but the problem was that you couldnt get past the front gate.  So after some pictures near the guards and what not we had 30 minutes to kill in the burning hot sun of KL.

We then decided to just ride it for awhile and see where we want to get off.  We then decided to get off in the colonial section of KL.  They had old mosque’s with a baroque feel to them.  We just wandered around saw the sights, took some photos and then kind of walked towards back to Chinatown.  At this point we were hungry for food and then spur of the moment Jordo walked in to a camera shop and bought a new camera.  He was happy with purchased, fit his budget and was what he needed, seeing as though his viewfinder on his current camera was broken completely.

It was then time for lunch.  I tried to take Jordan to a place with the most locals.  In the end we found some place with many stalls (which I love) and I thought it was good food, and really cheap.  Jordan thought it was more on the fast food side of things, but my personal opinion is that while it may be cooked fast, that doesn’t equal “fast food” in the sense we are used too.  It is fresh, cooked fast, cause the wok is hot and is done right in front of you.

After Chinatown, we got on the bus rode around a little more, and then stopped at the magnificent Petronas Towers.  Famous for being one of the tallest buildings in the world, and has the worlds highest Skybridge (42 floors high).  I was not able to go up this one as they only give out 1500 free tickets in the early morning, and going up the KL tower is much better as you can go to the top of the tower and see a whole lot more.

It was awesome to just look up and stare at them.  After the Petronas towers we headed back to the bus and went back to Jordan’s hostel.  At this point things got crazy.  Jordan tried using his brand new camera, but it conveniently only worked once.  He then remembered they were open till 830, so we hoofed it to chinatown, hunted down the place and talked to the guy.  It turned out that the dude put in regular alkaline batteries which work for 5 seconds in digital cameras, and once he slipped good ones in the camera worked fine.

We then headed back to the hostel and at this point I was tired, hungry and a little cranky.  I hanged in there till we got back to familiar territory and I took Jordo to the Indian restaurant I went to the previous night.  It was real good I thought.  After that I had to call it a night, I was so tired and had to get up at 430am to take a taxi at 5am to the airport with Clara cause it took an hour to get there and her flight was at 830.  All in all it was a good time spent with Jordan.  We saw a lot of the city, took some great photos and had some laughs.

Stay tuned for Seoul Korea and Days 9/10 to come shortly!

Thanks,

Josh



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