some more photos.

I keep forgetting to mention, Mostly KL.

The place is full of bikes, they are everywhere. the rest of this applies mostly to KL.  No one seems to pay any attention to the traffic lights unless there’s something coming the other way. People just throw rubbish on the ground, even if there’s a bin right near by and people spit on the ground. We got a bit of a laugh when we got on the bus and it had a sign not to spit, right along side the sign that said to make sure that you insist on a valid ticket from the bus captain.

New hotel today

Yesterday we went exploring and found a new hotel. the place we were in, Central Hotel, was nice, once. Its now a rundown dirty dive of a place but it was somewhere to start. it was only RM80 / night, about $34. The second floor is or possibly was a snooker centre and “massage parlour”, the ground floor at one stage had a nice shopping arcade and probably restaurants, now its abandoned and smells a little of cat urine. The room had a damp floor in one corner and the bathroom wall near the shower was 1/2 mouldy, at least where the paint wasn’t peeling off anyway. Yesterday night when we got back the lift had broken so we had to walk up 6 floors of stairs. Its kind of sad really as you can see it was once a very nice place that just hasn’t been maintained. On the up side the staff were friendly, it was cheap, had air conditioning and hot and cold water.

The new hotel. We are waiting to check in. It is nice, its new, i think less than 2 years old, the rooms are small but the beds are supposed to be 5 star quality. we booked it yesterday and ended up paying about RM49 / night. that’s about $21. If we had of booked it earlier then it would have been cheaper. down as low as RM9.99 / night but we would have had to have done it 9 months ago to get that rate. It fluctuates depending on how many people are already booked in for the date you want to stay.

Photos.

Malaysia mainland in background

North Georgetown

 

Can you imagine burnt pine looking  like this?

This ones for you Scully, it looks brand new. not even dusty.

Penang

Why oh why did we waste so much time in KL. The people are nice, its almost passable for a non littering city – almost.

Quite a strange feeling being on an island about 2-3 times the size of Norfolk but with cities and a population of around 1.5 million.

so far we are having a great time here. Sharon had a haircut and i had a foot massage.

Photos soon.

Bus Tickets

WOW, talk about get attacked. as soon as we got off the bus to the transport station it was all on. everyone wanted us to buy the ticket from them, we were mobbed by people trying to get us to go to their counter. where you going, where you going, anyway we looked around a bit and decided they are all the same. its RM35 to Penang, thats about $15 for a 5 hour bus ride. We cant wait to get out of KL hopefully the people in penang wont be so pushy.

Found this car lot on the way back, thought it was worth a picture, reminded me of “pick a part” in NZ, ahh the fond memories.

been seeing the sights

We went yesterday and looked at the twin towers, they are big, thats about all you can say, other than it was hot and a bit of a walk to get there.

today we went to see the big stickey type tower on bukit nanas = pineapple hill, once again it was a big tower. we didnt get fleeced the RM38 each to go up it instead had a drink and watched the info video at the bottom of it. later in the arvo we went to Market Central, I think this is the one Riki was telling us about.

For those that are interested i used the proper “local” tandas today just for the fun of trying it out. it was a good experience and now i am more comfortable in case of getting caught short when we are out and theres no choice. photo attached, imagination required. Sharon is starting to think i am one of “them” and is going to start looking for my real parents of asian decent. especially now that i asked for extra chilli sauce for my dinner tonight and they returned with 1/4 cup full that all went on my rice.

Monorel, notice the bridge in the background

Bush walk on the way up to bukit nanas

Enjoying a hard earned drink

We have been asked “Have you tried any weird local foods?”

Answer is no and yes.

No for sharon, Yes for me.

Sharon says they sell rice at KFC and that’s different but she hasn’t tried it.

The best story. In Singapore at the Teka Centre, which is a food court / Hawker Centre with probably 100 different stalls selling all different foods, i decided to have some Indian food. The guy said it is common type Indian house food, I wanted to try the mutton, duck and omelette. it was basically bones with a bit of meat covered in orange/red curry. I will mention at this time that i have become addicted to chilli and find food without it hasn’t got much flavour any more. The guy dished it up and watched on. It was hot and good. the mutton was tasty and had plenty of sinew and not much meat, the duck was 1 foot and the head. There was only 1 choice to eat it and thats with the hands, when i was most of the way through the foot he came over and said something along the lines of hands are the best way to eat, i agreed, he then offered me a fish head to which i said that i eat fish heads all the time and the eyes are the best part, he agreed, i then said they are good especially chewing them, i think this was too much for him and he had a funny look and went back to his stall. i then proceeded to eat the rest of what i had ordered. the head was quite good, mostly dark meat around the neck, jaw and tongue, eye was a bit strange, not much flavour. We think he saw a westerner coming and expected to have a laugh but got more than he bargained for.

Durian – its a fruit and i have read it described as rotting onions in a toilet. true it does smell and taste like old onion but its also sweet, at least in the drink i had it was. It is the only fruit banned in Singapore hotels and on the MRT transport system as the smell some people find offensive.

We also saw live turtles in a tank in the supermarket next to the crabs for $10.80 ea, this upset Sharon a bit as we had turtles for pets in NZ. I think that someone who had crabs as pets would feel the same way.

The main thing to remember is that if they eat it it must be edible and probably will taste  good, doo nok et till u se try et brudda, dem was sweet wettels.

some pictures

Chinatown Petaling Street market

The fountain outside the pavilion

 

inside the pavilion – the huge open space and sterile cleanness of the place is awe inspiring when you walk in.

KL – City of people trying to rip you off

Tourist seems to equate to cash machine to the locals. we seem to be attempted to be ripped off at every turn. First is the man at the bus depot who when i asked for a city map produced a standard small folded paper map and asked for RM15 = approx $6.50, these are usually free, obviously he didnt get any money and i didn’t get the map, we picked up a similar one fore free from a hotel lobby and a more extensive one for RM10.60. 

Tandas

Then there’s the tandas (toilet) there is usually a helpful fellow with a mop and his hand out, he mops around the bowl or squatty and sometimes gives you a paper towel or toilet paper .

Lunch

Then there’s the place we went for lunch. i was asking the price of the food. they told me some prices reluctantly, then i spotted what i thought was a large prawn, no one could give me a price only some vagueness that it depended on the size of the animal. i stupidly thought “its a prawn how expensive can one be”, so i got some briyani (flavoured rice dish) and lamb curry, octopus curry and a prawn then i went to pay, no sir please sit and eat. pay after. ok, well the food was good, and when i started eating a man with a large smile and a pad came to inspect what i had. after finishing the man with the large smile returned. finished some scribbling and handed me a bill. RM26, i nearly had a heart attack, one item was RM13, the next was RM9 and the last was the 2 drinks for RM4. you could tell by the look on his face he knew he had me and there was nothing i could do. i asked for a explanation of the bill. The RM9 is for the briyani and lamb curry, the RM13 is for the lobster. It suddenly became crystal clear why no one wanted to tell me the price of the thing. after some annoyed discussion from me and some pointing to the the sign written in Bahasa Malaysia from him i paid and we left. Luckily the food was good but the annoyance stayed for a while. then i realised he didn’t charge me for the octopus curry, HA Karma baby.

Sim cards

Next we went looking around and found a mobile phone repair / sim card + topup place in a market building. cool we need sim cards, the transaction went something like this,
RM8.8o is that the nett price?
yes sir.
does it have any credit on it already
yes RM4
ok good, can we have 2 please.
yes do you have your passport so i can register them for you.
-hand over passport
-takes some details and registers the sim
can we please have RM10 topup as well
yes it is RM10.50 for RM10
ok
-all done and toped up
that will be RM51 please
-- WTF i think that maths doesn’t add up to me.
how do you get that price?
RM15 for each sim + RM10.50 each topup
NO NO NO NO you didnt tell us it will be RM15
the extra is for registering the sim for you
i could have done it myself
-- some heavy discussion goes on and he decides we aren’t so stupid. i tell him we will only pay RM10 for each sim he agrees.

The moral of the story = make sure of the full price before agreeing buy anything.

Helo dari Malaysia

Had a great bus trip from Singapore only s$45 for exectutive coach. there were only us + 2 more adults and a child. we had the front seats and so had a perfect view the whole way. the seats are on top, driver is below. ** edit – the trip was about 5 hours with 1/2 hour lunch stop **

had my first experience with no toilet paper and a hose. i wont go into details but its not bad.

 

view to malaysia from singapore

View from the front seats

no explanation required

 

KL street. i dont remember the name

Science centre + Pixar

yesterday went to the science centre and it had a Pixar exhibition. Sharon found out about physics the hard way and i almost did the same. there is a slope going to the centre that has steps on it. the problem it it is matt black so you cant see the step until its too late. i just opened my mouth to say watch the step and suddenly she wasnt there. luckily it was only a small step and it must have been soft cement as only grazed knees were sustained.

The Pixar exhibit was great. they had short films running, 6-8inch cast models of some characters from several of the movies, storyboards and artwork from the movies, etc, etc.

the best part of the science centre was the tesla coil. 3.5 million volts sure makes a nice show. the sparks were purple and about 5 feet long and forked. for  the last bit of the tesla show they had 2 balloons filled with hydrogen that they put near the coil, they obviously caught fire when struck by the sparks. it was loud and produced a bit of heat.

Monday we go to KL.

Jurong Bird Park

Today we went to the bird park.  it was quite good also. one good thing was the MRT station where you get off at, it has a large shopping mall. It was quite good as it was away from the tourist places, this means it’s for the locals and not full of tacky tourist stuff and Indian tailor shops. after the bird park we went back to the mall and in a park area nearby there were people flying single string kites. many were out on strings a hundred meters or more long. see the last photo.

Zoo, Night Safari

Yesterday we went to the zoo and night safari. It was quite good. plenty of animals (as you would expect), also a section on orchards and tropical plants, fruit and herbs. The night safari was good too. both have a tram thingy, kind of like a trailer with seats. it made it a bit easier to get around although we ended up walking the whole zoo and doubling up with the tram anyway. the night safari was only fully viewable if you took the tram.

i had enough of numbering days now.

Today there was a small thunderstorm and heaps of rain. we went back to harbourfront and did the usual. have a feed and look about. in the afternoon the rain had stopped so we went for a walk in the nearby bush.

I could only laugh. there is a KFC in the top of this round building. if it was red it would have been better. the resemblance to a KFC bucket is uncanny.

Singapore flyer

what a cool thing. about 170 m high at the top. a great view all around. and the amount of ships was insane. we thought newcastle had a lot.