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After a good few days spent in the vast and endless maze that is Kuala Lumpur international airport with our group (2 of whom I would later meet strolling around Lakeside in Pokhara several weeks later, much to the surprise of all of us!), Nicole and I finally make an executive decision. We rebook our flights for later in the week, go on an overly complicated mission to reclaim our bags and practically skip out of the airport - we had ourselves a holiday! In order to celebrate this fact and get a plan together, we headed back to the Empress hotel where we stayed for one final night, this time enjoying the gorgeous sunset from the rooftop swimming pool (yes, it was as good as it sounds..). A quick outing for beer and rice was followed by an early night, as the next day was when the real adventure began.
Bright and early the next morning we were up and desperately googling cheap places to stay in Kuala Lumpur city centre, so we ended up booking the cheapest one we could on a whim and hoping for the best! We were pleasantly surprised when we turned up to our place after successfully navigating the train, tram and taxis of KL. Surrounded by cool, super-sleek skyscrapers and nestled on a street in the hub of the city amidst the trendiest local bars, clubs and restaurants, it must have been the coolest little hotel in the city. It was made up of loads of little pods (each one was a room) and was hands down the coolest place I've ever stayed. The staff were amazingly helpful, and suggested on our budget (ie non-existent) the best way to see the city was on a bus tour, which we spent over 11 hours of the next day on, completing 2 and a half circuits of the city. We saw all the sights, bought some super cool genie pants and got some not so cool major sunburn. Then just as we were buying some water, chocolate frosties and cider (all the travel essentials you need, obviously), an English businessman sees my back (redder than a tomato) and asks if I'm a local. The weird thing is I think he was being serious!
We spent our first day in the city wandering round, finding our feet and exploring. As this was the first Asian country I'd been to, it was a bit of a culture shock, especially when you're walking through China town and get offered freshly fried chicken feet and fish head soup with eyes that follow you as you walk down the street! Something we did find pretty tempting though, were the foot massages, which were being offered to us at every other shop we walked past.
The second day was spent on the bus and after that we weren't really sure what to do with our last full day in Malaysia. Eventually we decided to get the train out to see the Batu Caves for the afternoon, especially as we were getting the hang of this public transport malarkey. We got there to find huge golden religious statues, and beautiful temple which we were allowed to go and look around. After that we climbed the 254 stairs (harder than it sounds in air so humid you're basically swimming in it!) and found ourselves in the caves. Unfortunately we were not alone though, as there were hundreds of monkeys roaming around us, which was pretty scary as they have no fear at all so will happily come up to you and try and haggle you for your camera or sunglasses. After temporarily being trapped in a side cave by these primates of peril, Nicole and I legged it back down the stairs, with just about all of our personal belongings in tact, and headed back to the city.
As it was our final night in KL and we were staying just behind Bar Street and the following day we'd finally get to where we were supposed to be, we decided it couldn't hurt to go out for some casual drinks after dinner. Oh how wrong we were. It turns out there is no such thing as casual drinks in Malaysia! After an interesting interpretation of Pizza Hut and the best barbecued banana I've ever eaten, we head somewhere for cocktails and immediately get given the strongest tequila sunrise in the world. I think the tell tale sign was that happy hour was from 3pm - 8pm... In the next place it's slightly better - the cocktails were good and they sold cider, so me and Nicole were happy bunnies. That was, until a fellow Australian hears Nicole 's loud voice and strong Aussie accent. He then comes to sit with us, orders us buckets and buckets of cocktails and the waiters keep bringing us tequila slammer after tequila slammer. Ok so it wasn't an ideal way to spend the night before a flight, especially considering we were up at 5am the next day, but it was a great night! Next stop: Kathmandu...
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