Kuala Lumpur

We arrived in KL on the night of merdeka - the celebration of independence from the British (49 years this year). Our time in KL was a mixed one - it started messy, and got better.

We headed from the airport into KL Sentral - a bus/train station place thingee. After going to 2 different information counters to work out which train system to get on, we ate McDs (I know. disgusting and naughty), and worked it out ourselves (both were about to send us much further away). After a couple of wrong turns due to misprint in the map, we found our hostel. We got to our room, and I crashed. Al went into town. By the time he got back, we killed more than 15 bed bugs and asked to switch rooms. Great, until I asked al to pass my wallet in the morning and noticed the money was wet. My passport was OK, but als was saturated (the bag he was carrying it in had a blow-out) and ruined. We found another hotel (Petaling st, in the heart of Chinatown markets), and left the one we were in, but not before I had one of my fuse-blow outs at the shitty hostel (Trekker lodge, don't go there) when they wouldn't refund us the second night we had pre-paid. At least it made me feel better. From then on, we spent and extra 3 nights in KL, tooing and frowing between the thai embassy and the NZ consulate trying to see if we could organize a new passport in Bangkok rather than in Malaysia. It did give us a chance to see KL.

KL is a real mixer of a city. Each ethnic group has it's own part of town and seems to have maintained it's traditional ethnic character, including a really expensive part for the loopies with wallets full of cash. China town and the markets were amazing, not to mention the tea pot shop and all the other shops. Little india was soooo colorful, with gorgeous Saris and so many beautiful burkas. We ended up with a box full of goodies to send home (including a tea set) and plenty of opportunity to practice haggling.  The food was great too. In the end, we managed to negotiate all the various train systems. KL's good to visit, but the number of people was almost suffocating. Putrajaya bus station was really full on - when we got onto the right floor (there are 3 or four) and found the bus touts we were hustled straight onto a bus - but it took 30min more to arrive - some don't leave till they are completely full. I was just pleased to get out of the building (think 3 floors of a small car park building with one floor just empty buses and everywhere else swarms of people - about 10 000 all up).

 On to Penang.