We've been in Kuala Lumpur now for the last 3 nights. This is a cool city. Very clean & modern, though therefore more expensive than Thailand. Still, apart from the beer, things are cheaper here than Ireland.

There arent as many caucasians here as Thailand, so in some places we get a few stares. There are a huge number of Chinese, Muslims & Indians here.

 

We left Thailand on Friday, and embarked on a 20 hour journey to the south of Thailand, crossed the border into Malaysia, then travelled down to the city. The journey involved 7hrs in a minivan, being dumped on the side of the road at 3 in the morning for an hour or so, another minivan for 5 hours, then a bus for 6 hours. It sounds horrible & it was a little bit. But there were these 4 cool British girls there too (going to Penang), so between the gang of us, we had a laugh.

 

Gotta say though, I miss Thailand. It seems my mojo has disappeared overnight. Where-ever I walk is no longer accompanied by women grabbing hold of me & trying to drag me into bars, saying

"Sexy maaan", "Massaaaage", "U cum insigh" & "I go hum wit u". I have just lost all my sex appeal overnight. You know, I'm starting to think they might have just been after my money ;-)

 

Anyways, travelling down through Malaysia was class, the country is beautiful. Kuala Lumpur has the Pedronas towers (or the Twin Towers as they're called here) which are the tallest in the world. It also has the Menaras telecommunications tower (cocktail stick thing), which, wait for it, has MacDonalds on top. We were up both of those today, pretty cool. They wont let you up top of the Pedronas towers, unfortunately, just to the Skybridge linking them.

 

We also went to see the Batu caves today (bout 10km from city), they were pretty good. They're full of Indian religious statues & stuff. And monkeys which you can feed. Sparkey decided to stare at one of them... you wanna see the little fecker tryin to go for him... tee hee.

 

Took a walk around Chinatown yesterday. Interesting. If you're looking to buy cheap sh*t... this is the place.

 

Yesterday we went to the Forest Reasearch Institute of Malaysia (FRIM), which is a tropical rainforest reserve 13 km outside the city. This started as a good day but went rapidly downhill. As its a reserve, there are certain trails you can follow through the forest using a map. There are also some museums on site aswell. We had walked on some of these trails, which we good, you see some interesting sights & the odd weird animal.

There was this slug thing we often saw walking along like a slinky (except obviously not down stairs), raising up like a periscope between moves & sniffing from left to right, deciding where to go. It was rotten.

Anyways, then we went on a trail that seemed a bit unused, which was fine for a while, till the sweat was pouring out of us in the midday heat. We took turns walking in front, as the 1st guy got the cobwebs in the face. It started getting bad when a big black & red spider missed Emmets face by a few inches. This is where we started thinking "F*ck this". But, of course, I insisted we keep going. We eventually found our way out of the trees & onto a small road in the reserve. 'Oh look', I said, 'my toe is bleeding quite a lot'. So I take off my sandal to inspect the wound. Then I notice a fat slug on my ankle. I knock him off to find he leaves a gaping hole which starts pissing blood (hence the first wound). The bastard was a leech! And it was those 'slinky' things we saw earlier. Emmet finds he has 3 on his foot. Mark had shoes & socks on, but found 3 inside his socks. Anyway, we had no lighter or matches, so spent the next 2 minutes hopping around in a panic, trying to pull the bastards off. There was blood all over the road & everything. It was funny afterwards though.

 

Plenty to do here in KL anyhows, if you're not the outdoor type, there are loads of shops & pubs. Found me a store called U2 that sells stuff with the U2 label (gotta be some copyright infringement there), so I was chuffed... had to buy me a shirt there. The Grand Prix is here in a a few days... they're all excited about that. We'll miss it unfortunately.

 

We leave Malaysia tomorrow & head to Singapore.

 

30 March 2004

 

The next day we got a Euroline bus down to Singapore. This journey took 5 hours, cost 15 euros, and put Bus Eireann to shame. It was the best journey ever. The reclining seats were leather, loads of room, air-conditioned, tv on board, toilet on board, a back massager in the seat, and best of all... a little Malay hostess to hand out free tea/coffee & sandwiches throughout the journey. We wanted to stay on this bus.

Oh, we stopped at a cafe along the way, I found me a blue urinal in the toilet & had to take a picture of it. I want one of these in my house.

 

Anyways, Singapore was lovely. Really clean & modern, but still with plenty of trees etc. We had heard about this place being really expensive, but apart from the beer & chocolate, its cheaper than Ireland. Then again, I guess everywhere is nowadays. We only spent 1 night here, Paddys night, which they've never heard of, so it was a quiet one. Just had a few beers (not pints, as those familiar with Asia & Oz will know, t'is bottles or small glasses).

I was pretty glad that we only spent 1 night here, 'cos this place was breaking my heart. I have never seen such a high percentage of beautiful women. They must only let goodlooking girls live in Singapore. Anyway, if we stayed there any longer, I was gonna end up a blubbering wreck.... or get arrested.