Quick trip down Malaysia

The second day in Penang, Thursday 6th December was spent exploring the old town, including lots of colonial buildings, a visit to the Cheong Fait Tze Mansion, a very ornate house built by a rich Chinese trader, we had a guided tour by a very crazy Chinese lady, Pat! Next I went to the Provincial Museum to learn about the origins of the island including finding out about all the different ethnic groups that make up the population, lots of them! The afternoon was spent wandering the streets seeing what we could find and one thing we found was another Starbucks where I finally had some proper English tea which was quite exciting! Unfortunately we had a bit too much time to kill in wet Penang as we were unable to get a bus to KL until 8pm in the evening! I think if I'd had another couple of days to spare I would have liked to explore the island more and visit places other than Georgetown....but no time to dwell as we were off to the capital. The bus journey down was somewhat of an adventure, we finally left the bus station at 10.30pm and after several rest breaks and some crazy fast driving we arrived in KL at 5am, which was a bit scary as the area around the bus station is not the nicest! But we were confident and located an 24hr Internet place to kill time to sunrise!

So Friday 7th December became a very long day...... After locating a hostel we hastily took advantage of a free breakfast and then headed out to try and get tickets for the sky bridge at the Petronas towers. This proved to be easier than we expected and by 10am we were 170m up on the 41st floor looking out on a wet and misty KL city! After that we had a quick wander around the shopping complex Suria KLCC and looked at all the very nice shops that we couldn't afford and then I gave in to temptation and went into Topshop! Our next stop was the National History Museum, which had closed down so swiftly on to the National Museum which was open and full of school trips! But it had a good exhibition on the Malaysian nation and independence. Next we decided that since the mist had lifted it was time to go even higher and so we made our way to the Menora KL (tower) where we had brilliant panoramic views of the city along with a recorded commentary that I quickly got out of sync with and just wandered around snapping away!

On the way back to the hostel we decided that because we'd saved money on accommodation the night before we'd treat ourselves to some more expensive food, at the Hard Rock Cafe!! It did taste good (although probably not the highest nutritional value) and was very satisfying! We then endured a stressful Monorail trip back to the hostel, since there seemed to be some sort of problem further up the line and no train turned up for over 30mins and when it finally did it was practical full! But we squeezed on and off again without too much injury!

Saturday 8th December and our second day in KL, we had some difficulty waking up due to lack of sleep and lack of natural sunlight in the windowless room! First stop on the itinerary was the Batu caves some 13km outside the city and our first trip on the public bus, which for us seasoned travellers was no problem at all! The caves involved a long trek up a few hundred steps past some fairly angry monkeys after food! The caves themselves were a bit of a let down but I got myself some sort of Hindu blessing which meant we made it safely back the stairs with no monkey attack! Once back in the city Dan and I split and I went back to the Suria KLCC and then to the BB Plaza near our hostel, managed to have a really nice Chinese meal with chopsticks and everything before getting a well deserved foot massage where it turned out that I brought luck since once I went in the place filled up with customers!

Sunday 9th December was time to move on further down the country to the Singapore border and after a slow start we got to the bus station which turned out to be a crazy place with hoards of people. First difficulty was getting a ticket to Singapore, something that was impossible unless we wanted to go the next evening so instead we got one to Johor Bahru the border town and from there got another one over the border. Now this border crossing was a lot more stressful than the Thai-Malaysian one. First you have to get off your bus at Malaysian immigration and then get back on, before getting off at the Singapore side and going through the huge queues there and that back on the bus to get to the Singapore bus station, so after leaving KL at 10.30am we arrived in Singapore at 6pm! We were worried about finding somewhere to stay but we managed to find somewhere quite central right near a MRT station. Although we later found somewhere cheaper for the following two nights! Now apparently the Singapore national pastime is shopping and so that evening we joined all the locals in wandering around the shops and stalls (in the rain!).