Kuala Lumpur

Our two days in Kuala Lumpur have been enjoyable. We've been traipsing around and are a little footsore now. It would be worth spending some more time in the city to see some of the other sights besides China Town and the Petronas Towers. Beau and I are confident we will be returning to Kuala Lumpur at some point. We wish to explore the east coast where there is supposedly good diving.

Dec 23 – Kuala Lumpur China Town

We arrived in Kuala Lumpur this morning at 4:45am. Ugggh, I cat napped a little on the bus but not nearly enough. Our hotel was very easy to find though and they let us check in early. We had booked 2 beds in a 6 bed dorm but those beds were full that night so they put us in a 2 bunk room. So we still got a private room and early check in for the same price. We went to sleep for a few hours and woke up again around 9 or 10. Our hotel provides breakfast of toast and coffee so we made use of that. While eating we met a Jamaican girl, Fae, who has been teaching English in Japan for 2 years. We had a nice chat with her and then finally got our acts together to explore around 1pm. Our hotel is situated in China town. All the signs are in Chinese and English, there are Chinese book stores all over and to make it perfectly a China town there is a street full of stalls hawking knock off products. You can buy Louis Vuitton purses, Gucci sunglasses, and soccer jerseys. It's what you would expect from any China town, although not really what you find in China. We had some lunch and then continued onward towards to Central Market. This was mostly tourist items but still quite expansive. I picked myself up a purse though. Beau's on the look out for a new book, so we went into a couple of used book stores but they were quite overpriced for what they were. We head back to the hotel to give our feet a rest. There is quite a nice common area with couches and a big flat screen TV. Later we went for dinner and then headed back into the China town market which had doubled in size (really there were double the number of shops in the same area). I picked up a new tank top and t-shirt and Beau got a Spain football jersey. Back at the hotel we made ourselves some instant 3-in-1 coffee and did some computer work. We also saw the end of Horrible Bosses which looked pretty funny. We'll have to watch it from the beginning sometime.

China Town Street Market

Dec 24 – Christmas time in the City

After some peanut butter and jam on toast for breakfast, we hopped on the metro to head to the Petronas Towers. These are the famous two towers in KL that have a large sky bridge connecting them. I think they are the ones from the movie Entrapment. We were thinking about going up the the sky bridge but it cost almost $20 and they were sold out of tickets for the day. Beau was still on a book hunt so we entered the massive 6 floor mall that was connected to the towers. There was a huge Christmas display and Christmas music playing throughout the mall. Being in the mall with all it's pretty decorations put us into the Christmas spirit. Beau browsed through the book store and I took a little wander around the mall. Beau found a book to his liking and then we went for lunch. We did some more wandering of the mall but we couldn't afford to buy anything here, it's a little more expensive, and legitimate, than China Town. It was also packed with Christmas shoppers. After much wandering we headed back to the hotel. I stopped into a few bead shops but they were about the same price as home so there was no point in buying any. Once back we started reorganizing our bags. Mine was being checked while Beau was taking his as carry-on. We headed out for some dinner after we were organized. We asked at the desk for a good place for Malaysian food and found one of the buffet style places. The food was delicious and super cheap, you just had to ignore the little cockroaches. It was an outdoor eatery. Back at the hotel we prepared a couple of peanut butter and jam sandwich for the flight. We got into bed relatively early but had trouble falling asleep. Looks like not much sleep for us for the next few days.

Beau at the Petronas Towers

Christmas Decor

Last Days on Langkawi

We survived the night bus and found our hotel very easily. They let us check in at 5am and we were able to have a nap before setting off to explore Kuala Lumpur.  There's apparently been earthquakes in Christchurch but it can't be help.  Fortunately, I don't think our flight will be affected.  We just might have to brush up on our earthquake procedures :S

Dec 21 – Beach Ball

For a bit of a change this morning we went for breakfast at a different place. I had baked beans on toast, it was delicious, a nice change from eggs. After we went in search of a beach toy. We found a pretty cheap beach ball and headed to the beach. We went to our usual spot but the security guards caught on to us today so we were shafted to the beach. We lazed around, but it wasn't too hot out today as it was pretty cloudy which was good since we weren't in the shade. We went into the water and started playing with the beach ball. It was really fun until Beau stepped on a shell and cut his foot :( We headed back to the room so we could clean his foot out and then we went in the pool for a little bit. Afterwards we headed to find some lunch. We went to a different place that was serving Nasi Campur and tried a few different dishes. They had really good butter chicken and whatever else I ate. It was super cheap and super good. We looked into a bus ticket for the morning of the 23^rd and were told they were sold out. We couldn't believe it! They has said to just book a day in advance but here we were two days in advance and no tickets to be seen. We were able to procure a ticket for the night of the 22^nd. This wasn't ideal because we were going to be on a seated bus over night, not conducive to a good night's sleep. Gotta roll with it though. We had to talk to our guesthouse before booking the ticket because we had already paid for the 22^nd but the owner was very nice and gave us our money back. We picked up some beers and Popsicles as a consolation for the bus stress. We skyped Mom, Dad and Elaine in NZ for a bit. They seem as ready for Christmas as you can get without snow. We went out to the Duty Free shop again to check the price of liquor and some clothes. We were going to return to the place we had lunch but they didn't have their Nasi Campur out so we went further up to the place we ate on the first night. We had a yummy Indian meal. We were so full that we decided to forgo our usual dessert and settled for just coffee. It was a little sad to have to do that as it's our last night on Langkawi.

Dec 22

One thing I won't miss on Langkawi is the lumpy pillows at our guesthouse. I get such a kirk in the neck from them! We got ourselves all packed up, breakfasted and checked out by 12am. We grabbed a cab down to the Kuah ferry jetty where a ferry will take us to Kuala Perlis but not 7pm. We dropped our bags at the left luggage department and did some exploring of the ferry terminal and the grounds. There is a great big eagle statue next to the ferry terminal. Langkawi means something like eagle I think, hence the statue. Beau was being goofy, as usual, and I took some pictures of him. We discovered that the Langkawi Fair Mall, the largest mall on Langkawi (mockingly), was near by and spent the rest of the day wandering the mall. We thought we should pick up some clothes that are a little warmer than what we have so we both bought a pair of cheap jeans. We figure when we get tired of carrying them around we'll just ditch them. We also found a few stores selling diving masks. While we had lunch we did some research on the net and decided to buy masks for our Christmas present to ourselves. We are now the proud owners of scuba diving masks, now we need to go diving to test them out! We headed back to the ferry terminal and had a beer on a bench. We grabbed some dinner to go and loaded up onto the ferry. The seats on the ferry were a hodge podge of all different aeroplane seats. We arrived in Kuala Perlis about an hour later and walked the one block to the bus station. We had a short wait and boarded our bus. We were having trouble falling asleep, surprise, so we watched The Hangover 2. It was pretty funny. Would have been a little more perfect if we had actually spent sometime in Bangkok though. We attempted to sleep again and hopefully we'll suceed with a few Z's before arriving.

The Eagle Statue

Goofy demon Beau (the eagles wings are coming out of his head)

Scooting around Langkawi

Well plans have changed again, we are going to Kuala Lumpur on the night of the 22^nd since the buses on the 23^rd were sold out. It's frustrating because they tell you to just book the day before and if we had left it another day we might really be SOL. Fortunately our guesthouse owner here was very nice and refunded us the money we had paid for the night of the 22^nd. Now we'll be spending that night in a bus seat. Ce la vie!

Dec 19 – Scootering around Langkawi

We set an alarm this morning so we could be up in time to get one of the first scooter rentals from one of the travel/Mini marts. It was about 7 ringgit cheaper if you were there for in time for the first 2 scooters of the day. And we made it! Rentals are much more here but they also seem more legitimate than the ones we rented in Vietnam etc. We actually had to produce a passport and drivers licence and have insurance. We had some breakfast, then set off to the north to explore the island. Our first stop was Seven Wells Waterfall. This is right near the cable car, which would have a very nice view from the top I'm sure but we weren't willing to spend $10 each. We climbed up the many stairs to the top of the pools. From here we could continue to the peak, which we did. It was quite a hike up and a little disappointing when we reached the peak. The view was obscured by all the foliage, it was quite a jungley trek. It was also very hot and sweaty. On the way back down there were a bunch of monkeys in the garbage can and playing in the woods next to the stairs. They were fishing out water bottles and food wrappers. We went down to the waterfall and went for a dip in the pools below. It was very refreshing. We went back down the stairs to the bottom where we had a nice lunch of fried rice. We hopped back on the scooter and went towards the north west coast. We drove along the coast for a little bit then the road started to climb. We went past a couple of fancy resorts but then we could go no further as there was a gate blocking the road. I'm assuming the road continued onto the resorts private property. We turned around and headed back along the coast. We stopped at two beaches, Pebble Beach and Pasir Tengkorak bbeach, along the way to check out the view. We then headed towards the north east side of the island. Along the way we stopped at the side of the road for some photos then went to a craft center. The craft center was okay, it had some really pretty batik wall hangings. We then continued on to Tanjung Rhu Beach. At low tide you can apparently walk out to the limestone formations in the bay. Unfortunately we were there during high tide. We sat at the beach for a little bit then had a snack. We headed back into town for a shower and some dinner. Beau finally got to try Nasi Campur which is essentially Malaysian buffet. After we went for ice cream as per usual.

Monkey playing with garbage

Seven Wells Waterfall

One of our roadside picture stops

Tanjung Rhu Beach, at low tide you can apparently walk to these formations

 

Dec 20 – Back to the Beach

This morning started a little earlier than most with Beau skyping his buddy Ryan from Brockville. It was good to talk to friends from home. We went for breakfast and splurged a little on Eggs Benedict. It wasn't as good as making it at home but it'll do for now. Egg Benedict is going on the “to make” list. We headed to the beach to soak up some sun and some heat. It's a rough life sitting on the beach reading. Later we went down the beach for some lunch then continued down further to the Duty Free shop where we picked up some beers to have at the pool. Tall cans of Carlsburg cost 2.50 ringgit or about 80 cents. We hung out at the pool for a bit with our beers and goofed around in the water some. We got cleaned up and went out for dinner. We've developed a little bit of a routine: wake up, breakfast, beach, lunch, pool, dinner, ice cream. Like I said it's a rough life :P

The travel holiday time

Beau and I are calling this time on Langkawi our travel holiday.  It's our little holiday from traveling.  We had been hoping to take a night train to Kuala Lumpur on the 22nd but the train is full so now it's a morning bus on the 23rd.  So we will only have on full day in the city but we'll spend the rest of the time on the beach.

Dec 17 – The beach life continues

Our new room was not as nice as our old room, the pillows are lumpy, the beds okay I suppose, and the lack of hot water is a little bit of a bummer. But we have internet now! Another near by hotel has an unlocked network so we are using that. And it's super fast!! We went for some breakfast and then dropped laundry off with our hotel. We're staying here for a few days so we paid our hotel up to the 20^th. It was a very slow start to the day today. We didn't get to the beach until about 1pm. But we are on holiday so it's okay to sleep in and be lazy. We went back to the same spot as yesterday and got us some beach chairs again. The weather is very changeable here, one minute the sun was out, then it was behind a big black cloud and it started raining. Our beach chairs were tucked under an umbrella like tree and kept off the bulk of the rain. It was a typical tropical down pour that didn't last too long and then the sun came out and it was bright and sunny again. We went back to the same place for lunch and then returned to our beach chairs. It was very hot out again so we went for a our first swim of the day. Later we decided to head back to the pool. There was a group of people at the pool about our age, goofing around and drinking beers. We hung out with them for awhile but it was fairly windy and we were starting to get cold. We showered up and thought about joining the other group for dinner and drinks but they were going to a pricier restaurant and we were just too cheap for that. Plus we were looking forward to banana splits again. I've been itching to get a sarong for the beach and found one I liked. They are about $7 here but I bought one that has good quality material not just a pattern printed on it. The time is about 1hr later here so we keep going to bed fairly late. I guess that could explain the sleeping in too!

Relaxing on the Beach

Dec 18 – More of the Beach

Another slow start to the day. After breakfast we headed to the beach. We sat in the sun for a little bit but it was so hot we were just sweating our sunscreen off. We went for a dip then shifted to the shade. Being in the shade definitely keeps the heat down nicely. We sat and read for awhile then decided it was lunch time. As we started towards on of the restaurants the sky clouded over and threaten rain but luckily it didn't actually rain and it got sunny quickly again. After lunch we walked back to the hotel and sat poolside for a little bit with our music. It's always windy at the pool though so it kept us cool. After cleaning up we decided to check out the far end of the beach strip. There were several duty free shops that we checked out and picked up some beers and chocolate. We looked at some of the restaurants down that way but most were more than we were willing to spend. We found one place that had a good set menu deal but they didn't actually have chicken curry so we left. We ended up at a burger kiosk and had burgers and beer at a picnic table. We then went to our favorite little restaurant, we eat breakfast here most days, and ordered a little snack and then some ice cream. It's the cheapest place to go for a banana split on the island, only $2.

It's Sunny!

Yay swimming

Playing around

Ahhh the Beach

We've just been chilling on the beach the past few days.  It's been awesome.  We've gotten a little pink but no burns, just need to be more vigilant about reapplying the sun screen!

Dec 15 – Puala Langkawi

Upon arrival in Hat Yai we quickly got off the train and went to the ticket booth where we were able to purchase “standee” tickets for the same train we were on that was continuing through Malaysia. The first two cars disengaged from the rest and they were the only ones to go on. We got on the train and asked a young Australian couple if we could sit with them, by this time all the beds had been folded back into seats so there was room for twice as many people. Our Thai exit customs and Malaysian entrance customs went off without a hitch. We arrived in Alor Setar around noon. We didn't realize what a small train station we were getting off at and were a little confused at first. A German couple had gotten off the train too so we pooled our resources, talked to some locals and got a cab to the ferry terminal to take us to Pulau Langkawi. We made the 1:30 ferry just in time, it would have sucked to wait around for the next one at 3pm. We got a taxi once we were off the ferry to Pantai Cenang, a beach town. We were dropped off at a guesthouse which turned out to be full along with the other 6 guesthouses we tried. We finally found a room for the astronomical price of 70 Ringgit, or $23.33. We weren't quite prepared for those kind of prices. We took the room and decided we'd look around for something cheaper for tomorrow. We walked to the Cenang strip trying to find another room. Cenang is essentially a road that runs parallel to the ocean with buildings on either side so you can't actually see the water. We had only marginal luck finding another room but we figured some might be available tomorrow and the guesthouses just didn't know yet. I did something silly though and wore my new flip flops for all this traipsing around town and ended up with blisters on my toes. Silly me. After we ate and I changed shoes we walked the opposite direction down the road and Beau found a $100 American. Lucky us!! We were still a little hungry since, besides what we had earlier, breakfast and lunch had consisted of crackers. We went to a little Indian/Malaysian restaurant, a pretty common combo here. The Malaysians have very different eating habits, they use their hands to eat everything. So the just pick up a handful of fried rice and shove it in their mouth. Not the most elegant way to eat, I think I'll stick to a fork. It was nice to sleep in a real bed.

Dec 16 – To the Beach

We had a lovely sleep in our overpriced room. We knew we couldn't keep paying this much so we set off for breakfast and a new room. Fortunately we struck gold and the first place we checked had a room coming available as did the second places. We got some breakfast and headed back in hopes the people had checked out, they hadn't yet but the lady let us have a quick peek at the room. It was good enough, no hot water though or internet. It does have A/C, is about 25 ringgit cheaper and has a pool. We told her we'd take it so we packed up our goods and checked out of our other hotel. The room still needed to be cleaned but we were able to leave our bags in the room and headed to the beach. The beach is fully lined with hotels but we found a little break between buildings we could walk down. The beach is beautiful with gorgeous white sandy beaches. We sat on the sand for a bit then had to go swimming since it was so hot. The water is very warm here. We were outside of some sort of resort that had a bunch of empty beach chairs in the shade of palm trees. So we snag two since no one was using them. Down the beach it looked like a building had caught fire. There were huge plumes of smoke and we heard sirens. They did get it put out. After sitting in the shade a bit and going for another swim we were hungry for some lunch. We walked down the beach and found a reasonably priced restaurant. After eating we continued our walk of the beach to see what else there was. Mostly it was hotels and water-sport places trying to rent out jet-skis. We asked about diving at one of these and the guy said 300 ringgit, or $100. Seems high but I think it's because there is only one diving area and it's a 30km boat ride away. We were feeling a little crisp so we headed back in and went to our pool for a little bit. We got cleaned up and realized we both had caught a wee bit too much sun. We were both a little pink in the face and else where. We headed out for dinner. Most food is some sort of fried rice dish, nasi goreng. I'm started to get a little tired of rice. We saw the building that had caught fire, it was a short building on the road that housed all sorts of different shops. One of the shops caught fire somehow but I don't think it spread to the other ones, although they will have suffered smoke damage. After dinner we went to another restaurant to use their internet and had coffee and dessert to go with. Many places don't sell beer, probably due to the high Muslim population, so we settled for ice cream, not a bad trade off.

Smoke for the fire

Some islands seen from the beach

The mountains in the background have a big cable car.