Kuala Lumpur, or "KL"

We decided to venture to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for a long weekend. I apologize in advance because clearly, I made it back alive so the ending is spoiled.

We took a "3 hour bus ride" from Singapore straight to KL, as the locals call it, which actually turned out to be a 7 hour bus ride. Let me tell you a little about this bus that is a juxtaposition in itself. The bus was nicer than any bus in the US. The seats were double the size of what I'm used to -- which is ironic because Asian bottoms need half the size of what American bottoms need; they all had ample foot room and seat rests; a comfortable recliner; and they provided snacks and water bottles. What is the juxtoposition is that the way we were driving you would have thought we were on the amazing race from Singapore to Russia and the driver needed to get there in 20 minutes. I saw my life flash before my eyes . . . which was not the first time this weekend (spoiler again). Also: 7 bumpy hours do not go by quickly when you had a few drinks the night before and 4 hours of sleep. Wouldn't recommend it to anyone. I dozed on and off and woke up only to the sounds of blood-curdling screams coming from the "family entertainment" on the tv screen at the front of the bus. For a country that doesn't allow gum-chewing, Singaporean films are the goriest and most violent ones I've ever seen. Oh also, the rest stops. So we get off and find that the stalls are actually holes in the ground, and there is no toilet paper. After doing what I needed to do, I subsequently dropped my waterbottle face down into the hole while trying to hold onto my pants and dignity. Remember that water bottle is all I had for the whole ride from Singapore to KL.

I complained up a storm and whilst doing so, I walked around the corner to find - alas - full sized toilets. Next time I'll keep my complaining and squatting to a minimum before I suvey the premises.

We arrived in KL and realized that we are, in fact, dumber than we had anticipated. We had only Sing Dollars and were in Malaysia. Interesing. After a lot of BS that I won't bore you with, we took a 60 Ringgit cab ride into the city - which actually we found out should have been about 15 Ringgit. Turns out cabbies love to rip-off white people (spolier alert again). Luckily for my Asian-American roommate, she was traveling with one. The driver didn't know where he was going. We took a 2 hour ride that should have been about 20 minutes (theme of the weekend?).

We spent the night at the hotel and made it out alive. I slept about 20 minute intervals with my fanny pack secure to my body all night long. We propped a chair up against the door at the suggestion of a doctor on my floor (I think that was a bit overboard, but I am Jewish and I'm allowed to do that) and were glad when we heard, at about 2am, loud screams in some sort of Chinese or Malasian. I shot up in bed, looked at Liz, clutched my pack to my fanny - er - abdomen, and went back to sleep. . . for 20 minutes at a time. Go ahead and make fun but hey, this girl had her credit card, passport and chapstick in the morning.

The next day we hired a driver to take us to on a tour of the city and the countryside. We got to see the National Museum, National Mosque (a tour of an open-air building in long robes and hoods in 100 degree weather is about as fun as it sounds), the King's Palace, and the Twin Towers. Outside of the city, he took us to the Batu Caves, which is an amazing hindu temple in a large cave in the side of a mountain. It was absolutely my favorite thing I've seen so far. You have to climb about 300 tiny stairs to a temple inside a cave that has holes with light shining down into it from the cieling. Hindus bring their baby boys up those 200+ steps to get blessed. I spent a lot of time at the caves, taking pictures of babies, the cave and the city from the mountainside. I brought some pictures of my dad with me on the trip and planned to leave them in beautiful places. I found a spot where the light was shining through the cave and left one of his pictures there.












After the cave our driver dropped us off in Chinatown and Central Market area. We strolled through and decided to get a fish spa. Now this is supposed to be something tranquil - hence the SPA part. I sat down and couldn't stop laughing and shreiking at the tiny fish biting at my feet. The man trying to sell the spa to onlookers didn't seem too happy about it, as I sucked the tranquility of the moment, but it actually did draw a crowd. Might have just been because I was white, however. I know there is no reason to be afraid of tiny fish willing to suck on my feet for 1 Ringgit, but I'm not a fan of sea creatures and have ticklish feet. So there is my reasoning for my unreasonable behavior at the fish spa.












The cab ride back to the hotel. Dun dun dunnnnn. So, we tell the driver to take us to our hotel, and he tells us that he'll use the meter, which should actually be an improvement from a flat rip-off rate. Turns out that drivers can acutally tamper with the meter, though. I should have realized this when I saw the numbers flying by at lightning speed, but I didn't. It might have been the residual fish spa fear left over that kept me from saying anything. The car also was a piece of S. I got in, and being the jokster I am, said, "you really need a tune up!" Hardy Har Har. Wish I could have taken that back as about 3 blocks from our hotel, the car made a pitiful sound, gave up and grinded to a halt. Yes, the car died and we were stuck in KL. We had to pay the bastard the full amount, which was astronomical due to the flying numbers, and had to subsequently run three blocks home and not make eye contact with any person on the way. I'm still waiting for the "this will be so funny in retrospect" thing because it was 3 days ago and I'm not laughing.

We had dinner at Quattro, a chichi 4-seasoned themed place: summer restaurant, spring lounge, winter bar and autumn club. Liz ended up with a full fish on her plate. I wasn't embarassed to ask the waiter to come over. I said, "we don't know how to approach this. .Help." He picked apart the nonsense and left us with some tasty tasty fish on her plate and the fish head away from her fork. Thank you Malaysian waiter, for humouring the white girl and laughing behind my back and not in front of me for not being able to cut her own food.


Slept better the second night out of sheer exhaustion, I think.

The bus ride home was also exponentially better. However, I think we definitely took part in some sort of drug trafficking from Malaysia to Singapore. The driver, along the way, stopped abruptly on the side of the highway, where there was a single man holding a bag. He took it, didn't exchange a word, and kept going. Then once we got to Singapore, he saw another man on the side of the road, came to an abrupt halt, gave him the bag, and went on his way. I opted to not tastefully inquire about the contents of the bag.

In conclusion, I'm back safe in Singapore in one piece with some nice memories. Dried month-old curry stains on the sheets of the hotel does not seem so bad when you had the chance to see a baby blessed at a hindu temple in the mountains and a bumpy drug-trafficking bus ride sans toilet paper isn't horrible either when you ride along and watch the coconut trees acting out the play of the purple sunset in the background.

KL is two thumbs up for those who like adventure and a bustling city all in one. It has awesome mosques bumped up against towering sky scrapers and palm trees scattered throughout.

And with that, I am off to bed before my first night shift tomorrow! xo