Malaysia: the quick and dirty tour

I arrived in Kuala Lumpur at 6:30pm and waited at the baggage claim area for Kris to arrive- his flight was supposed to land before mine, but it was running on Thai time.. which means we'll get there when we get there.... We left the airport in a taxi and headed toward Times Square in downtown K.L.. Given the fact that Kris had been travelling for 2 days, we hadn't seen eachother for a month, and I hadn't had a hot shower in about the same amount of time- we decided to splurge for a pimp hotel. We stayed at the Equatorial on the executive club floor and it was faaaaaaaantastic! We did some exploring around our hotel and ended up closing down a Thai restaurant after a late supper.

The next morning, we enjoyed a complimentary club floor breakfast buffet and watched the news about M.J.'s "heart-attack." Then we left for our K.L. adventure- just in time for a wicked ugly pourdown of rain. fun. We hopped on the sky train and headed for China town. China Town was pretty cool, and we wondered around there for an hour or so before having some street-meat for lunch at the Food Paradise Market. Lucky for me as the lady was making my noodles a westerner who spoke Malaysian walked by and told me not to eat the clams cause you can get Hep B from them.... I proceeded to do sign language and cherades for a few mintues trying to get the food stand lady to understand NO CLAMS while he laughed from the side-lines and eventually hopped in to translate for me.

After lunch we hopped back on the sky train and headed for Central Station where we purchased two night-train tickets to travel north to Butterworth. Then we went back to Times Square to check out the twin towers, grab some supper, and get ready for our night-time travel fun.

Soon, we found ourselves at a "Hawaiian"Aloha Lounge fondu restaurant. They had a promo on Carlsburg beer- 20 Ringet for the first bear (about $6) and 1 ringet for every subsequent beer. We had some mystery meat on a fondue and had a few glasses while listening to a painful mix of Disney soundtracks, Mariah Carrey, and Michael Jackson (WEEEE ARE THE WORLD). Kris insisted we stay until the mean cost/beer dropped to under $3- despite the bizzar ambiance of a bar packed full of middle-aged Malaysian business men listening to Pochahontas.

After this, we had an epic unsuccessful search for a Subway restaurant to try and get some snacks for the train ride, before finally heading back to the hotel to find there is a sandwich bar there that makes to order. We grabbed some munchies, and hopped in a cab with our backpacks to Central Station to catch our train.

One thing I will never understand about tropical destinations: WHY MUST THEY CRANK THE A/C TO BELOW FREEZING TEMPERATURES? Needless to say, the train was no exception. We popped some Gravol, threw in some ear-plugs and froze our butts off for the next 8 hours slipping in and out of consiousness every stop until we finally hit Butterworth at 6am.

From there, we caught a ferry to Palau Penang, and then another to Pulau Langkawi. We finally arrived here around noon and met two lovely British ladies along the way. Now we are staying in a cute bungalow (despite the fact that we are pretty sure there is a rattle snake living under the bed) that is run by a Japanese lady and a Iranian man.

Today we spent some time at the beach and organized our next adventure to Phuket, Thailand. We will be leaving tomorrow morning. We also saw a scorpion tied to a string on the sidewalk, and checked under our bed for the above noted rattle-snake... no luck. Later in the afternoon we rented a scooter and went for a cruise up-island to a gondala that took us up 710m on a small jungle-esque mountain. We passed several monkeys on the scooter ride there, and also saw another HUGE scorpian crossing the road!! The views from the top were well worth it though, and we saw the sunset from there before heading back down the steep cliff of the jungle (Kris was scared). Then we hopped back on our scooter and drove back down island (in the dark) to our hotel. Along the way, we were attacked by numerous flies landing in our mouths, eyes, and legs at mach 3 speeds, and I WAS HIT BY A BAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! All I heard was Kris yelp as it flew past him, then the next thing I knew it was smashing into my leg. I'm pretty sure I felt his wing crunch. GROSS! I dunno what it is with me and bats, but this is the 3rd bat attack I've experienced in my life (the first two were in caves in Australia).

Anyhoooooo, now we're gonna head out for some dinner on the beach before heading back for some rest before our long day of travel tomorrow. Hopefully we can get some sleep- despite the monster living under our bed, and the gecko that lives behind our toilet keeping us awake with worry. The English ladies lent us a mosquito net though, so we've convinced ourselves that it's basically an impenitratable forcefield against all scary things in the night.... Anyway, that's all for now! Peace, and hello-kitty-sunshines to all.