Long catch up blog time!
A 10/11 hour bus journey to KL was no fun but watching Ben trying to go for a wee in the men's prayer room at a 'service station' along the way was rather amusing. They had men and women signs on the doors to be fair to him. I had to give it a couple of seconds to decide whether to go after him and tell him but I decided I better had-I didn't want him being arrested for indecent exposure in a religious place!
We arrived in KL at about 7pm and it was quite a welcome with the tall buildings with flashing adverts and neon lights, plus the gorgeous Pertronas Towers were lit up looking very pretty. For a refreshing change, we managed to work out where we were and get to a hostel pretty quickly. Apart from being in Bangkok, we've missed our big cities. They have the best, quickest, most efficient and regular public transport-unless you're going by road and will inevitably get stuck in traffic. Bangkok doesn't have great alternative public transport to buses, particularly in the tourist areas.
As Malaysia hasn't been the cheapest for us (mainly transport and accommodation) we wanted to try and save at least some money and decided to stay in a dorm room. There were 8 of us in our room (7 boys including Ben, I felt like Snow White!) but there were also 2 dorms that you could only get to by walking through our dorm. We were basically a hall. I'm just going to get this out of the way now-people are so selfish and inconsiderate!!! They drove me mad. There was one nice Swedish guy who was 40 and he was very chatty and polite but as for the rest... people would slam doors at all hours, walk through laughing and talking, the worst were in our room. On our first night I had a lamp over my bed (the big lights were controlled and went off at midnight automatically) and at about 2am a guy on the other side of the room came over and switched the light on, right in my face, which woke me up. He was routing in his bag so I just thought fine, he needs something. But then he just sat on his bed playing on his laptop and I left it 5 minutes then switched the light off. I couldn't believe how rude that was. This same guy would be on his laptop all day and all night. I moved beds away from that light and we had 1 plug socket between me, him, Ben and another dude. His laptop would be plugged in all day and all night so we couldn't charge anything. There was one time where he'd magically taken his laptop elsewhere so I could charge my phone. After 5 minutes he must have realised someone was using 'his' plug, came in, plugged his laptop in and moved my phone to the other side of the room. I don't want my phone somewhere I can't see it when there are all those people walking in and out. He'd stay up all night as well on his laptop so there was a big light. I had to use my eye mask. I swear he never slept. Then a German guy would come in at 3am and they'd talk at a normal level, no attempt at whispering, about 'where the party was at'. They were so annoying and rude. Or he'd play part of a movie or music really loudly, not by accident either. He just did what he wanted but he had the cheek to get up and try and switch our alarm off one morning at 8.30am! On our last day in KL, which would be a long travel day, we got up early and he wasn't about so I unplugged his laptop to charge Ben's phone. 10 minutes later he came straight in and he must have a 6th sense. He unplugged Ben's phone and put the laptop back in. It had been charging all day yesterday and all through the night! He saw we were up and didn't say anything either. So rude. He was like Pacman, constantly eating up all the electricity and downloading music on the internet so it was really slow or didn't work for anyone else. I was so relieved to leave and was desperate for a good nights sleep, not to mention the air con in there. It made us both ill, probably due to all the other people in there but it makes me ill generally I think if it's not clean. I had a sore throat and my nose just wouldn't stop running.
Anyway, rant over! Now for the more positive stuff...
On Friday night (first night in KL) we grabbed a quick meal from the street stalls in Chinatown where we were staying and had a little drink in the rooftop bar of the hostel. Ben was back on the rum even though he said he was into day 2 of a hangover!
On Saturday we headed to the 'Golden Triangle', the rich part of KL. We took some pictures of the stunning Petronas Towers which were the tallest building in the world up until 2003. We were then meeting a Malaysian couple called Arshad and Nurul. Arshad is a member of the Malaysian supporters club who used to be my branch when I worked at the ticket office. It was just a coincidence once on twitter that I started talking to Arshad. He mentioned the Malaysian supporters club and I asked him if he knew Laurence, the branch secretary who I've met a few times. They know each other well so we kept in touch. Arshad and Nurul had kindly offered to take us around town, out to dinner and then to watch United at the famous supporters clubhouse that I'd heard so much about.
We went to see the old courthouse, the national monument, some amazing mosques, the old national football ground, the new royal palace, and the Batu caves. The Batu caves are massive caves made into a Hindu temple. There were nearly 300 steps up to the temple and lots of monkeys about, some were quite big and scary! It was an impressive place though. It was also nice that a lot of places we went to, Arshad and Nurul had never been to. We were treated to dinner as much as we tried to pay but our hosts treated us so well. We tried stingray which was really nice and so much more that I can't really remember! Kick off for the game was 12.30am so we headed to the clubhouse and met Laurence. He gave us a tour-I didn't think it would be so big! Downstairs has a large projector screen, a few tv's, sofas and chairs and everywhere else in the room and upstairs contained decades of memorabilia, covering every space available. There were different rooms, a whole room dedicated to Cantona, a room of signed shirts, a room of player figurines. It was unbelievable. Everything was signed and there were so many photos. Everyone has visited the clubhouse from Cantona and Best to Robson and Law. I don't think there was an autograph that they didn't have at least 4 times! There was even a United ball signed by our Queen! You could stay in there for hours looking through everything but the match was about to start so we signed the guestbook (which I didn't think I was important enough to due to all the ex players in there but they insisted!) and went back downstairs to watch the game. The game was great and it was nice to watch just with United fans for a change! We didn't get back until around 3.30am so crawled into bed (QUIETLY-TAKE NOTE EVERYONE ELSE!) and dreaded getting up in the morning.
On the Sunday Ben woke me up just before noon and I really didn't want to move. We were supposed to be meeting Arshad and Nurul at 1 a few metro stops away so we needed to move! We were going to 2 different 'open houses'. After Ramadan, many families invite people round and have caterers in to share lots of food with everyone to celebrate. Nurul had lent me a traditional dress to wear (picture my last blog) and I got so many looks walking to the tube! Even our hostel manager said, 'What are you wearing? Where did you get it from?' I explained where we were going and he said it was very appropriate to wear.
We arrived at the first 'house', which was definitely more of a mansion and it was spectacular. It looked like an extravagant wedding with marquees set up, the white cloths that you get tied around chairs with coloured ribbons around the middle, a singer and lots of food. It was impressive. We ate, met a lot of people and many were impressed with my outfit! Our next house was equally mansionesque and we even got a little tour! The houses are so grand, I don't think I've seen much like it apart from in America. We ate more and went for drinks before it was time to say goodbye to our new friends. They have been so welcoming and kind to us, as have their friends. We have seen the Malaysian culture like we wouldn't have done without them, met many people, seen lots of things that we wouldn't have seen ourselves and learnt a lot about the country. We love that people just say 'lah' after words. Ben would forever be saying 'ok lah' or 'yes lah' to have everyone in stitches. We were sad to say goodbye but we'll definitely return the favour in Manchester, and Malaysia will be somewhere we will go back to. I also think I could live in KL! It has something about it.
Monday was a stressful day. We got up early to do a few things before our 6pm flight to Bali. We should have stayed in bed instead and made the most of the sleep that we're missing. We headed to the KL tower which you can go to the top of to view the city. You can go up to the skybridge that connects the two Petronas towers but this is higher and I'd rather get a view of that as it's the best building around. After public transport and lots of walking we got there and it was £9 each! It said £4 in the guidebook and we could have booked a ticket for £5 at our hostel and as we're on a budget we decided not to splash out, I'm sure it wouldn't be that amazing. Next on the list was a mall that had a rollercoaster running through it. I was obsessed with this as it reminded me of Vegas and I miss rollercoasters! Anyway, we got there and you couldn't just go on the rollercoaster, you had to pay for the whole amusement park and then use it for as long as you wanted. We didn't have that much time so we didn't want to pay £8/each so it was another disappointment! We had no time to do anything else so felt like we'd wasted the day a bit and could have tried to catch up on some sleep instead! Oh well...!
Bali has been good so far. We have been staying in Kuta, the tourist town so it's very busy. We've not done much apart from drink beer, eat a lot (especially the national dish chicken satay-we have it every day!) sunbathe, swim in our pool and today we went body boarding. The waves are huge and there are lots of surfers. I was a bit of a wimp at first with the body boarding even though I've done it in America. But with a bit of coaxing I was soon having fun in the waves!
Tomorrow we move to a quieter part of the island where the ferry terminal is for Lombok but we'll stay at least a night there. The next week or two can see us visiting between 4-7 islands depending on where we like and how much time we have. Some of these islands are very basic so I'm not sure about internet connections so my next blog may take a while, but I'll be fine island hopping!!!