Asia/Europe Travels 2008: Kuala Lumpur Thailand Laos Vietnam Germany Austria Prague (Czech Republic)
Poland Vilnius (Lithuania) Riga (Latvia) Berlin London (UK) Amsterdam (Holland) Dublin (Ireland) Hamburg

Kuala Lumpur

Day 1 – Friday 29th KL

We arrived in KL at about 7am and pushed past the taxi drivers scrounging a fare, and took the train into the city. The express train to the city centre is great taking about 30 minutes and offering nice views of the country side. Finding a budget taxi line, we found ourselves in peak hour traffic bumper to bumper trying to get to our backpackers. Finally we made it and fell asleep recovering from a long flight. We then had a wander around our hostel and checked out the electronics store down the road. When I say electronics store, I mean to say 6 storey shopping centre full of IT products. I looked at some nice high definition video cameras, and then we had a meal at a nice Japanese restaurant on the bottom floor.

This is the first time I realised how cheap the food was, and made full use of the $1 fruit smoothies. That evening we went our in search of some pubs/clubs and ended up in suburbia and a closed down china town market place. After being hassled towards private cinemas and stepping over rat congregations, we turned around and headed back to our hostel. We ended up settling for the hotel pub next door which had a live band playing, although quite expensive. There were people dancing around crazily and it was quite entertaining.

Some of the guys next to us came up and had a chat, mentioning that all the clubs and bars were up the next street. This time we came up trumps and found a happening pub/club where we had another beer. Tiredness did get the better of us however and we wandered home well after midnight.

Day 2 Sat 30th – KL

After a refreshing sleep we headed out early into the city. We walked around town a bit and ended up at the twin towers hoping to do a tour. It was a Saturday so very busy and as a result the tour was booked out. I asked at the counter just in case there were free spots and we were in luck. Two people had just cancelled so we were in! The views from the bridge section were quite stunning and I was glad we managed to do this.

We headed off in the direction of KL tower and as we were walking, noticed that there was a guy jumping off the top, and then parachuting to the ground. We guessed that the tower must be closed for an event, and we were half right. They had base jumping from the tower today, but amazingly for only 100 Rupe we could go up to the top and sit next to the base jumpers as they launched off the edge! This was really quite surreal sitting on the very edge of the 4th highest tower in the world next to a whole bunch of guys doing back flips off the top. Every time someone went off the edge my heart jumped and I eagerly watched to see if they survived. Of course they landed in the middle of the oval perfectly every time, but all very jaw dropping stuff to watch.

Food was on the agenda again, so we headed off, only to be way laid by a local radio competition where they were giving away a night for two at some hotel somewhere. All you had to do is throw a couple of balls into this spinny foam thing. It was of course very difficult, and I came third, just missing out on the first two prizes. I guess it was kind of karma doing its stuff cause I wouldn't have been able to make use of the prizes anyway if I had won.

We grabbed some lunch at a nice little restaurant just as it started to pour down. I love it when this happens, like you planned it or something. I tried a 3 course meal which included a prawn cocktail, a Caesar salad and dessert which was very good and really cheap. We made the decision to check out the indoor theme park not far from our hotel, so we jumped on the crowded monorail and about 5 minutes later found ourselves at one of the biggest shopping centres I have ever seen. I think it had 10 levels or so, a bowling alley and an indoor theme park inside. The roller coaster had no waiting line either so we went round on it 3 times, and I have to say it was one of the best I have seen with loop the loops and track a good 5 storeys above ground. It was awesome fun, but the rest of the rides were more for kids so we did one more ride, the bumper cars and then headed back to our hostel.

Shopping

I had been thinking all day about wether to purchase a high definition video camera from the massive electronics shopping complex and decided that since we were heading out into some of the most amazing places in the world in the next few months, now was the time to make the purchase. One of the shops was also having a liquidation sale, so I grabbed a nice JVC High Definition video camera for about 30% less than the cheapest online price I could find in Australia. Tonight we were told there would be independence day celebrations which included fireworks at midnight. So we had a meal around the corner at a random and slightly dodgy restaurant, and then headed towards the action.

Fireworks

It was amazing seeing all the people tooting their horns and riding their bikes around yelling stuff at each other and it was hard to look anywhere without seeing about a dozen flags. They were absolutely everywhere plastered across the city. The fireworks started at about 11pm but we couldn’t even see them from where we were standing despite being in a completely crowded arena of people. They were actually quite unspectacular from what we saw, but everyone was so ecstatic that it didn't seem to dampen anyone's spirit. We headed off home past all the pubs and clubs where everyone was going mental, eager to get an early night as we had to be up for our flight at the crack of dawn the next morning as we were off to Thailand.