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Delicious Food, Monkeys in Caves and The Petronas!
We hailed a cab and headed to the station in Singapore with the cab driver telling us his best jokes on the way such as "What did the Leaning Tower of Pisa say to Big Ben?You may have the time but I have the inclination".A nice friendly bloke but his jokes definitely need some work.We got our tickets to Kuala Lumpur and jumped aboard after sharing a cheap but delicious curry from a nearby stall.We opted for second class travel with air con and this was perfect, no need for anything more.
We had booked into Reggae Reggae hostel which had recently won a cleanliness award so we figured it would be worth it - not to mention the free tea and coffee all day and free toast in the morning.The hostel was in the heart of Chinatown with lots of hustle and bustle from the market and food stalls selling all sorts of trinkets and great grub.Before we checked out and began our sight seeing we had a bit of a budget chat and realised that the hostel at £19 per night was a bit steep (despite the free brekkie and tea) so we went across the road to a hostel called Wheelers.Now this one, whilst half the price, has certainly not won any cleanliness awards and resembling something more a kin with a prison cell we thought of the money and booked a room for the night for £8 and figured we'd be out most of the day anyway.
Once checked in we set off exploring around KL and saw a few impressive mosques and interesting streets that resembled what I imagine some of the streets in India may look like.We then headed for a stroll around the Central Market, a huge building with 100's of stalls selling everything from tourist tat to beautiful furniture and traditional clothing.One of the stalls though was slightly different. It was an area that had fish tanks and one large paddling pool filled with fish known as Doctor Fish!For 5 ringits you can place your feet in this paddling pool and have hundreds of fish nibble your feet apparently removing all the dead skin!Liz went first with me being a bit of a girl and opting to be the photographer of the event!I then figured "when in Rome" and paid up and plunged my feet into the pool.Liz seemed quite gracious and relaxed by the sensation but as I put my feet in and felt the hundreds of fish go to work on my feet (bear in mind we have been wearing nothing but flip flops for 5 months!) I imagined I would pull only bloodied stumps from the water.The guy had assured us that they weren't piranhas!
After this ordeal we did the usual of finding some great food from the upstairs at the market and filled our bellies before heading back to the room.Whilst we hadn't planned on staying in the room for very long we had the misfortune of being stuck in there for about 4 hours due to the loudest thunderstorm I have ever heard right above the room!Luckily for us though we were able to still see our old hostel (the good one) so were able to still tap in to their wireless connection allowing us some precious research time on the next parts of the trip and India.
That evening we ventured into the heart of the food stalls and markets of Chinatown and found our cheapest (but still very tasty) meal yet, I went for the "new recipe" and Liz for an interesting pork curry - costing us about £2 for the two of us.
The next day we were to be leaving KL on the train to Penang but not until 23.30 so we had a lot of time to kill.We were up very early and in the long queue for tickets to go up the Petronas Towers.They give out 1000 tickets per day so we were there early enough to get our time of choice.In the queue we got chatting to an American guy who had been travelling for a few months and had recently been to Bangkok and he told us stories of how he was tear gassed in the protests - a good story but also made our minds up to go to the islands for a few weeks rather than feel unsafe.
After the queuing we bid farewell to the American and wished him slightly safer travels and then jumped on a local bus to the Batu Caves about an hour outside of KL.The Batu Caves housed a Hindu temple and a whole host of monkeys!Before we went in we had a spot of lunch - I have a feeling the SE Asia blogs are going to be largely food focussed! - and then headed up what felt like 100's of the steepest steps we have encountered for a long time.We got passed the massive golden statue of a Hindu God and dodged vast amounts of monkeys chasing us up the steps and entered the caves.A good look around and then cautiously negotiated the steep steps back down.
Then it was off to the Petronas Towers for our viewing time slot.You watch a short video and the go in the lift up to 170 metres above street level to get some great views over the city of KL.We timed this well as the sun was just starting to set and the lights of the building we starting to come on.We headed to the bottom and sat in the park until about 8pm with me taking A LOT of photos of the towers from different angles and all the new settings I was finding on the camera!
Then as it had been a few hours we headed to a night market for some food, surprise surprise!Filled ourselves up and then got back to the prison cell hostel, collected our bags and got to the station ready for our night train to Penang with a packet of Oreos just in case.
We would be getting off in Penang at about 07.30am so got our heads down after a fun packed day seeing KL.
Sam
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