Malaysia > tourists

It was brought to my attention that I haven't post in awhile. Until this past weekend, I haven't done much but go to class and do homework. Hopefully, I haven't lost all of you because our weekend trip to Malaysia is a good story.

On Wednesday, I ran into Jason, and he mentioned that a bunch of NUS exchanges are going to Kuala Lumpur for the weekend. He called on Thursday, and on Friday morning, I was on a bus to Malaysia. The roommies didn't want to come, so it was just me from SMU.

It took 6 hours to get to KL, and the first thing that happens is that we get ripped off by the taxis. We didn't realize that the bus stop was a 10min walk straight ahead. The 12 of us had to take 3 taxis, and one group had a taxi driver who felt bad about scamming us. He told us that they drove in a big circle so it seemed farther away. Also, the taxis didn't use meters (for us anyway), so before we got in, we had to negotiate the flat rate, which was like 18 ringgit (about 6 USD). That sounds cheap, but the whole ride probably would've cost under RM 5.

The hostel was pretty nice though. The 3 girls got a room, and we shared it with one guy. The other guys were split up. If you ever end up in KL, stay at The Haven in the Golden Triangle. It's pretty spacious and had a pool table. The first thing I noticed about Malaysia is that it is much dirtier than Singapore. You know that haze that you see around the tops of the skyscrapers in Atlanta on a muggy summer day, take that and bring down so it hovers around 6-7 stories instead of at 20-30 stories.

After we checked in, we walked around for a little, and then ate dinner at this amazing Indian restaurant called Sagar at the bottom of some hotel. We were totally underdressed. The guys were in basketball shorts, and everyone was wearing sneakers or flip flops. I don't think we could've afforded it in Singapore, much less back in the States. But thanks to the exchange rate (1 ringgit = 3.50 USD) we ate like kings. We even got a private room, probably because we were a huge group. One part of me thinks they hid us because we were a rag-tag bunch of kids.

Next day, we woke up early to go see the famous Petronas towers. The line for free tickets was really long, and we didn't think we'd make it in, so we never made it to the skybridge. So we headed to the Batu Caves. It was about 20 minutes outside the city. You have to climb 272 stairs to get to the temple at the top, but it wasn't creepy because the cave had an open ceiling.

This is Jason, striking a pose that matches the epic sense of accomplishment when you reach the top.

Oh, and there were wild monkeys running around inside the caves. Some guy got really close to take a picture of one, and the monkey slowly leaned in and quickly swatted at the camera. The guy was so shocked that he dropped his camera.

This is me in front of one of the many shrines up there.



One of the Norwegians, Tian, had a friend who has an apartment in KL. We headed over and hung out for awhile, before going out. Originally, we were going to a club called Zouk, which is supposedly the #4 ranked club in Asia (better than the Zouk in Singapore), but it was expensive and a huge hassle because our whole group wasn't 21 up. We ended up at some bar which was pretty fun.

On Sunday, we split up and walked around, did some shopping before we had to get on the bus back to Singapore. We bought tickets at the bus station, because the fare was cheaper in Malaysia. We had to bargain, and paid RM40 (about 11USD) each. It's important to note that we didn't take the same company going back to Singapore. Coming to KL was totally fine. Nothing sketchy happened the way there, except maybe when the driver was tailgating a small compact car so closely that it looked like the car was attached to the front of the bus.

Anyway, this bus driver was a cracked out, sketchy Indian man. He would sing along to the radio, had a movie going, and at one point, I think he lit a cigarette. Also, a few of us actually had little cockroaches climb on their legs. It was really dark, so you couldn't see anything. I couldn't sleep because I was so creeped out. Around 10:30pm, we arrived at the Malaysian Immigration and Customs checkpoint. What is supposed to happen is this: the bus pulls up to Customs and everyone gets off. We walk through, get our passports stamped, and the bus meets us on the other side.

We actually happened is we went through, got back on the bus, and then the bus driver tells us to change buses. He kept waving us off, so we grabbed our things, and he drove away. We walked around asking which bus we were supposed to be on, but every other driver had no idea what we were talking about. There was an older Indian couple on the bus with us, and the wife told us wasn't supposed to happen, that if we were actually changing buses he would've told us which one to get on. Luckily, she figured out which public bus we had to take to Singapore Immigration and Customs, and we paid with our Ez-Link cards.

Somehow we managed to get to Singapore customs, get through, get onto another bus, and get onto the MRT all before 12pm (which is when all public transportation stops running). We got as far as we could and split cabs back home. I was never so happy to be back in Singapore.

I finally understand why they call Singapore "Asia Lite" because real Asian cities are gritty like KL. Things are safe and efficient in Singapore. You don't have to bargain over everything or worry about lady-boys walking the streets. You can walk down a street without having women in front of "massage parlors" assaulting you to go inside. I have never seen so many prostitutes on the arms of nasty looking men.

We were ripped off by cabbies, got hustled by the bus driver, but it was still fun.