Malaysia

“Smelly is the man who carries garbage on his head.” Was I dreaming or just creating proverbs in my sleep? Nope, that was the first thing Court said to me this morning as she was staring out our hotel window. I wasn't sure if waking up to a new proverb signals it will be a good day or a bad day. But, like they say, “A new proverb in the morning, you need no warning. New proverb at night... yada yada yada.” or least that's how I think it goes.

Needless to say, my second proverb was proven correct today too. We showered, got ready, and hit up the breakfast buffet in the hotel. And we found the Juice Holy Grail. It was juice made from real fruit that tasted exactly like orange Tang. I didn't think it was possible. But, they did it.

Our goal for the morning was to make our way out to the Batu Caves. We asked at the counter how much a taxi to the caves would be, the guy at the desk said it would be about MYR20. But, he suggested we talk to the tour package dealer over in the corner. Even though we wanted nothing to do with a group tour, I still went and talked to them. We were promptly informed that a taxi by ourselves would cost close to MYR100. At this point I quickly wrapped up our conversation and proceeded to ask a cabbie myself. He then informed us that it would be MYR120, there and back. Plus, he would have to wait for us at the caves, it was early in the day and something else about the weather or dogs or something. I stopped listening after 120. It seemed the price kept rising the more people I asked. The only conclusion to this was to keep asking or to find our own way.

We hopped the Monorail back to KL Sentral station to get some directions to the caves. We asked a taxi counter and were informed that it would be MYR42 one way. Surprise Surprise the price went down! But, we were soured on taxis and decided to take the train and then take a bus.

We got to the station that we needed to and then eventually found the bus stop. By this time it was close to 10:00 am and our bus wasn't here yet. And, we had plans for later on in the afternoon. Very important plans. Now that we knew how to get to the caves, we decided to skip the caves for today and go directly there tomorrow morning. It was time to go shopping for the stuff we forgot. Here are some shots from our little trip around. The first one is the KL monorail, it's a little different than Japan. Some graffiti and a nice red house.

Our list of stuff we forgot kept growing as the day went on. It included our power adapter, Borneo Mammal guide book, head scarf. We headed back to the main mall we hit last year. We sat down with a list of things we needed to get and a map of the mall to create our plan of attack. We decided to skip all the high-end shops and just get the stuff from our list. Along the way we did find fresh dates stuffed with different types of nuts. Court was in heaven.

We also grabbed some lunch at the food court. After wandering around for 10 minutes I settled on a Chinese noodle dish and Court got a kebab set. Oh, I almost forgot the fresh banana carrot juice and watermelon guava juice we got. It was quite refreshing.

After lunch it was time for our very important date. Batman: The Dark Knight on Imax. We grabbed a cab to the Imax theatre, promptly got ripped off by the cabby. We paid between 4 and 5 times what we should have paid. Oh well, we learned our lesson. But, we got more bad news at the theater. Batman was the Imax movie last week, now it's The Mummy 3. We skipped that and just went down to the regular theatre to watch the movie. They had the AC cranked down low in the theatre we spent the whole time shivering!

After the movie we had some time to kill. We decided to get a quick snack and coffee at Starbucks and hung out for a bit.

After the movie we made our way to meet Weijin for some grub. He picked us up a train station and took us to a night market. The night markets set up in specific areas one night a week. The market in this area is there on Mondays. They will tear the whole thing down tomorrow and move to their next destination. Weijin said if you go to the next area you'll see the same guys.

We sat down by the foodstalls and Weijin ordered us some food. There were a couple different types of drinks (one with sea coconut), some little clams, fried noodles, and a dumpling.

It was all very, very tasty. He showed us around some more, checking out all the fresh fruit and knock-off goods. And he mentioned that it is durian season. Durians are a favourite in Malaysia. They are grow in South East Asia. But, they stink. In our elevator there is a sign saying “No Durians” and we've seen signs on planes saying the same thing. Weijin said he really liked them and his Mom just bought a bunch of them. He invited us back to his place so we could try some fresh fruit.

We drove for 15 minutes back to his place, met his parents and had a little feast of fresh fruits, mangosteen, rambutan (hairy fruit), longan and durain (the King of Fruit). We started off with the rambutans

and then the mangosteens

before moving on to the durians.

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Durians STINK. From the texture and consistency, it seems like it is already rotting. Court managed to eat most of her piece of durian. However, I think it is already rotting and couldn't even finish one bite. It was absolutely foul. I think Weijin's father was entertained by us eating the durians.

After that it was time to head home to bed. Weijin drove us back to our hotel, and now it's time to catch up on pre-Olympic coverage and get ready for tomorrow.

“Oh Sh*t! I'm going to have to run up to the station, get a cab, get back to the apartment to get Courtney and get down to the train station. And all in 20 minutes or else we'll miss our bus to the airport” was my first coherent thought of the morning. This thought being caused by the taxi company not answering their phones for ten minutes. But, luckily just before I took off for my “morning constitutional” I called back and they answered the phone. But, we weren't out of the woods yet.

Our taxi driver got us to the train station and the bus pick up point in time, but we ended up at the back of the line. When the bus was just pulling in to the station, the bus attendant came up to us and said, “Full booking” which after years of teaching ESL we interpreted it as, “The bus is full, you can't take this bus.” It was as if someone didn't want us to go on the trip. But, then our luck changed. The bus driver waved us onto the bus. The buses in Japan have seats that fold down in the aisle and there were two left, just for us. But the luggage area was full. We had to take our bags on with us. An hour later and both of us with one foot asleep we arrived at the airport. But, we didn't have enough time to write in this book, which was found at the airport.

After four departures from Osaka, we've got the departure routine downpat. We got checked in with no problems at all and got through security and immigration very quickly. We did have a laugh at the guy who tried to take a Gillette Razor on the plane. Hasn't he flown anywhere in the last 5 years? Oh well.

We lucked out and had our own personal TV screens on the plane. Court watched a movie and some TV, I read, watched some TV and slept.

And lo and behold 6 hours later we were in Malaysia.

As we were waiting in line to go through customs and immigration we were debating whether we should take a taxi directly to our hotel or take the train into downtown Kuala Lumpur. This debate was solved for us when we saw the sign that said the train was the fastest way into the city. We decided to take the train into the city and then cab it to our hotel.

However 'Harry' the taxi god was against us.

When we got off the train, we were informed that there were no cabs available but we could wait for 30 minutes for the next one. We were tired and hungry and decided this wasn't a good idea. Luckily we had the back up plan and took the monorail to the stop near our hotel. It took us a little time to find the monorail station. But, Court's nav skills were in great shape today and she led us directly to our hotel.

Once we got our stuff in our room and kind of unpacked we realized that we were both starving. It was time to head back out and find some food.

We stumbled on a drug store and picked up some stuff. After 10 minutes of searching for a restaurant, we picked one with a menu with lots of stuff we recognized. Court had a fantastic chai latte and vegetarian sandwich on Turkish bread which was summed up best by this quote, “This is the only vegetable sandwich I've eaten that has left me satisfied.”

Even after we ate we decided we were both tired and headed back to our hotel for some needed rest. This is when we discovered our beautiful night view of the KL tower.