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Another early morning flight and we had arrived in Malaysia. The final destination in Asia for us. Initially starting our journey on mainland Asia in Beijing, it has taken over 2000 miles of bus journeys, taxi rides, overnight trains and flights to eventually arrive in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia.We weren't quite sure what to expect from the country, but we were hoping it would provide a little more culture than we found in Thailand.
We had a great first impression, it reminded us slightly of Japan and its efficient transport system, apart from our 1 hour queue to buy train tickets! It also reminded us of Sri Lanka with similar shops and restaurant selling food we had previously eaten, however minus the hassle that came with Sri Lanka! As well as an Indian population there is also a large number of Chinese citizens.
We stopped in a hostel in a central location, in an area that was predominantly Indian. The old style buildings housed shops selling vegetables, spices and pulses, as well as numerous resturants selling Indian food,snacks and sweets. Obviously there were also numerous 7-Elevens, which we have mentioned before, they are as common as a Starbucks is in Seattle (currently 104) in this part of the world. We celebrated our arrival in the country with a meal at a Indian restaurant for the sum of £6.20! The restaurant looked one of the more expensive in the area as well. Although we received a few stares as we sat down we had a very nice meal, consisting of similar curry's and dosas that we have sampled from our time in Sri Lanka. Along with the meal came something else we had not experienced in weeks, rain! Luckily we could make it back to our hostel most of way under the cover of old style porches, that are at the front of all of the old buildings.
Chinatown and the shopping of Petaling Street are always mentioned as places to visit in the guidebooks and blogs. We hopped on train and got lost for about 20 minutes and eventually found the market street! As the saying goes, when you have seen one you have seen them all. Maybe we were a little hot and tired after getting lost, but we were disappointed with the markets produce and it didn't measure up to Chinatown's we have visited in other parts of the world. The majority of the stalls sell the same fake watches, handbags, trainers and sunglasses. Not the culture we were expecting to find. However we are due to spend a couple of days back in Kuala Lumpur at the end of stay in Malaysia, so we have promised to give it one more try in the evening in the hope its a bit more lively.
As we had learnt in other countries that getting out of a big city can give a better experience to the country you are visiting. With this in mind we opted to visit Penang, an island that was a 5 hour train journey and 30 minute ferry crossing North of the capital Kuala Lumpur.
We left our hostel at at 8am to make our way Kuala Lumpur's main train station. Though, it soon became clear that passengers at rush hour are less than helpful, as we have found in most countries in the world! The first train arrived jam packed, so we waited for the next and managed to squeeze on. We noticed that the majority of the carriage had space so we moved in to it, but other people would not move down. When arriving at our destination we realised our mistake, as no one would move to let us off! So we used some tactics we learned in Sri Lanka and perfected in China, and pushed our way through the crowded doorway!
Arriving in plenty of time at the station, we made use of the time and bought some fruit and snacks for the long journey. After a short wait we boarded a comfortable train at 9:15am bound to the next part of our Malaysia journey.
To be continued.....
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