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My favourite, a nice early start.... Left our resort in Phuket at 5.30am for our flight to Kuala Lumpur. Hardly had any sleep the night before either thanks to the Man Utd Arsenal Champions League semi final at 1.30am! Had left far too much time again so sat in the airport for a good couple of hours, before boarding the practically empty flight to KL - only took just over an hour in the end. Arrived at the LCCT (low cost carrier terminal) miles out of the main airport so traipsed about trying to find the shuttle buses to the main airport with limited success. The original idea was to get the high speed train into the city centre, covering 70km in half an hour but after struggling to find a bus to the main terminals hence station and watching about 20 different coaches drive past all going to KL Sentral too for a quarter of the price we gave in and paid 8 ringgit each (£1.60) for a coach and slightly slower journey. Mental that the airport shuttle bus would take 20 mins to get us between terminals but the train would cover 70 km in half an hour! Arriving at KL Sentral we got a taxi to our hotel that cost more than the bus fare.... soon became apparent that metered taxis don't exist despite the meters in the cars! Plus the large majority of taxi drivers have NO IDEA where things are, zero sense of direction and we were having to direct him despite having been in KL all of about 5 mins.
Eventually arrived at the hotel, not quite what we were expecting... after costing the best part of 60 quid for 3 nights we were hoping it would be slightly nicer than some of the more budget options we had seen (apparently KL is notorious for bed bugs...yum). However, the highly anticipated hairdryer proved very elusive/non existent, the room was seriously cramped and dingy, the telly had one channel receiving signal and the bathroom was hilariously small - you could shower, sit on the loo and brush your teeth without stretching to the sink all at the same time! The door opened inwards onto the sink, with space to wriggle round onto the loo/shower haha. In all fairness it could have been worse but after paying more money than anywhere else we had stayed thus far I was just pissed off tired and whinging! We paid a sixth of the price for our accommodation in Nepal which was about the same quality! The only redeeming feature was the location on the outskirts of Chinatown and close by to the Golden Triangle too.
Ventured out in the afternoon to explore the Golden Triangle area - lots of shopping plazas and the main business district of KL. Spent the majority of our time in BB Plaza - just floor after floor of electronics and ended up with a new camera in under 4 hours of landing in KL! Scouted around for a bit to compare prices but settled for a little Sony Cybershot, nothing too swanky but perfect for our very basic snaps and replacement for our other sand clogged and increasingly tempramental pile of crap!
Didn't head back out again until the evening, after napping and chilling out for the rest of the day. Got dinner for a street vendor in Chinatown for 5 ringgit each - delicious crispy duck and chicken with plum soy sauce and rice and explored the market a bit.
A recurrent theme over the next couple of days was our inability to get out of bed before midday! The following day (1st May) we went over the the KLCC area for lunch - saw the Petronas towers, went around the very swanky shopping centres and ended up in the aquarium! The Suria complex was amazing - Harrods, Cartier, Chopard, Tiffany etc! Needless to say we didn't buy anything, managed to stretch to Starbucks for food and fraps! Sat on the Esplanade overlooking the fountains and Petronas towers before going to the Aquarium in the afternoon. Rather strangely Dan and I simultaneously started having stomach cramps and dizziness... think Dan's was his aversion to humidity and mine just general Jo sickliness but still was quite a weird experience! Made it round via sharks, rays, nemos, piranhas, turtles, seahorses, electric eels etc as well as BIG spiders, tortoises, iguanas, scorpions. The moving walkway through a big glass tunnel was pretty cool but still both feeling ill and had to work around toilet stops! After a very distressing incident involving some girl vomming in the sinks of the public loos and missing we escaped back to the hotel and watched s*** films on HBO for the rest of the day before more street vendor food and a seriously epic photo upload!
Our last day in KL (2nd) still didn't inspire an early start! Decided to go up the Menara tower instead of the Petronas after missing the free ticket allocation for the Skybridge at 8.30am! I felt seriously crap so while Dan, ever sympathetic, had a Big Mac meal for breakfast and lunch I managed half an apple muffin! Walked/got the shuttle bus to the entrance of Menara and then a lift up to the observation deck at 276m. Just wandered round taking a few pics and spotting sights. Although the tower is 421m and hence 69m shorter than Petronas, the viewing platform is higher than the Skybridge by over 100m plus of course you get to see the twin towers too! Went back via the market in Chinatown for a mooch/excessive banana purchase but felt worse again so headed back to the hotel. By this point we were both nearly dying from the heat so spent a few hours sat in the A/C! I resorted to more ciprofloxacin in the vague hope I would find some germs to kill and hence feel better and slept a bit. Headed out for dinner and ended up at a place called the Reggae Bar - cool place, full of backpackers (most knobbish and unwashed though, giving us a bad name!!) nice smelling shisha and live Premiership football! Prices quite expensive though, especially for Malaysia which has been seriously cheap, even the Starbucks! Walked back through the market, checked internet and tried to get a reasonably early night as 6am start for coach to Singapore the following day but my solitaire addiction, Dan's love affair with Bill Bryson and some very random conversations still meant a really late night!
Managed to actually get out of bed before midday and had got a taxi by half 6 with a crazy little Malay man who wanted 20 ringgit for taking us a couple of kms down the road! Couldn't really be bothered to haggle at that time in the morning so Dan half heartedly got him down to 15 and he wasn't complaining, knew that he had still completely ripped us off!! Arrived at the Corus hotel/Aeroline check in desk at 7ish, keen again! Got free tea from the hotel though, result! Boarded about quarter to 8 and left dead on 8. The buses were wicked, more like planes inside! Really good entertainment system and free Subway for breakfast! I slept for most of the journey after feeling really travelsick but Dan watched a couple of new films (in English!!) Reached Malaysian/Singaporean immigration about midday which went smoothly, just stroppy having to lug my bag on and off the coach!! Arrived at the Harbour Front Centre before our scheduled arrival time of 1pm, found an ATM and a taxi and rocked up at 1B&B, our home for the next 2 days!
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