By the early evening the streets of Kuala Lumpur’s Chinatown have turned from a politely busy scene of Chinese restaurants and coffee stalls into a full sensory assault of neon lights, market stalls and street hawkers. Constant calls from sellers to grab your attention… “Hey boss, looking. Very cheap price for you” and the overwhelming amount of smells drifting across your path can make it all seem a little confusing at times, but solace is never too far away. Behind the busy stalls dripping with fake designer goods sits many quiet, cheap and authentic Chinese restaurants, most tourists don’t venture in and instead choose to sit out amongst the throngs of passing people at the more “tourist friendly” places where waiters double as touts that get you in, get you fed and get you out as quickly as possible.

While eating out one night watching the world pass by and enjoying some of the amazing food on offer in KL I noticed a hawker making his way along the street side restaurants filled with tourists, he was selling small furry puppets and every person that showed the slightest interest got a small puppet show right at their table.

It’s been almost a week now since our teary goodbyes in Sihanokville, the morning after we scraped ourselves together and got the stupidly early bus to Bangkok bus as is always the case when taking a long distance bus that crosses a border… Things don’t always go to plan. Yet again one VIP ticket + Border crossing = cramped minivan the other side. Not that it bothers us much because we are used to it but it kind of set the tone for the long journey back to Kuala Lumpur.

We arrived in Bangkok not quite an hour after we were supposed to and quickly found a room down the Khao San road, from the very second we arrived Georgie’s agenda was taking over and that agenda was shopping. Faced with an imminent return to the UK she was dead set on spending what money we had left and some we didn’t on pretty things and who am I to deny a pretty lady of her trinkets.

We had a little stroll up the KSR before the journey caught up with me and I retired to the room leaving Georgie to shop until she dropped… Which wasn’t long.

The same happened the following two days except that Toby met up with us before he flew back home for one last Bangkok blow out… Only thing was there was no blow out, I think we have all been bang on it a little too long and short of a few social beers we did nothing but relax and enjoy the last moments of our time in Asia together. Bangkok took it out of us, Georgie has the stamina of an army where shopping is concerned and it was as much as Toby and I could do to keep up with her and by the time he left us it was clear we all needed a rest.

We didn’t have the luxury of leaving from Bangkok airport our tickets out are for Kuala Lumpur which meant whatever way we looked at it, the cheapest option was a bus and a bus meant 24 hours, not all in one go but still a bit much even for us hardened travelers. The problem is that when you travel long distances on a bus it’s similar to a plane, you do everything in your power to pass the time as quickly as possible and it turns into a battle between you and the journey. Comfort becomes the primary concern and as the scenery passes it’s nothing more than a distraction from your book, every bump is an annoyance and every delay is infuriating… Don’t know if you can tell but what I’m getting at is that if we had our own transport (for instance a Honda 250 Baja) the journey becomes part of the trip, something to enjoy and experience instead of hassle and agro.

We hadn’t left ourselves enough time for a break so when we finally got on the bus we had to get some sleep… That’s where the trip to the Cambodian pharmacy comes in and we are out like lights… Well until that is a man a few seats away starts snoring with such ferocity that it sounds as if someone is actually sawing wood with a chainsaw on the bus, even a good dose of Valium couldn’t block that out so drastic action was required. When we got aboard the VIP bus we were given a small pack lunch containing a few cakes, drinks and a couple of boiled sweets and seeing as we had eaten the cakes already the sweets became the tools of silence… We tried subtle measures to snap the man out of his chainsaw like slumber but that didn’t work so the sweets were hurled and several direct hits later the snoring was over, but as I’m sure anyone who has to deal with snoring knows – it will come again and soon… Ear plugs in and the Valium did the rest.

We woke up this morning in Hat Yai once again and with a few hours to kill until our connection to KL we set off in search of strong coffee and breakfast, we found a lovely little family run Chinese cafe decorated with picture frames filled with old money from around the world, in one was an old note with Saddam Houssein on it!

Our bus to KL was as good as we could have wanted, luxurious and comfortable… And no snorers but it was long and there is nothing like one long bus journey to highlight how long the next on is.

Finally we arrived in Kuala Lumpur, 27 hours after leaving Bangkok and to top it off Georgie had come over feeling rough… Really rough.

We had one final bus to catch from the center of KL out to the airport where we had planned to sleep, but on the way to the airport bus Georgie started throwing up all over the shop. We had no time to hang about, although our flight wasn’t due to leave until the next morning it was an early one and we knew we would miss it if we stayed in the center, so I took the two backpacks (now stuffed with goodies and weighing in close to 25kg each) and Georgie took the small ones. We made it to the airport and attempted to get a room at the only affordable hotel nearby – Tune, only to be turned away… A few other backpackers were also turned away, apparently they had no rooms but it really seemed like they just didn’t want a bunch of smelly hippies dirtying the place up. I humped the bags on once again and we hiked back to the airport (got to be close to a kilometer both ways) luckily Georgie had started to feel a bit better despite the blow that we couldn’t have a bed so as I type she is asleep on the softest seats we could find and I am WIRED on a few too many coffee’s… We have five more hours until the next monster journey twelve hour flight back to the UK and to be honest I cant wait…

Don’t get me wrong I’m not moaning or ranting, I am merely relaying the events of the last few days and despite it all, the buses, the back ache, the sick, no sleep, no beds… It’s what it’s all about and I’d do it again in a heartbeat!

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With a good nights sleep behind us both we woke up to an 8:30 alarm all ready to see the sights of Kuala Lumpur, while enjoying a nice coffee on our lovely roof terrace the day before I had seen a tourist bus stop just outside our guest house called the “hop on, hop off” bus which boasted to circle the city and stop at all the major sights.
We knew it would be a really very touristy day but seeing as we had made plans to leave KL we decided to indulge…

Well the thought that I had jet lag beat was short lived! I only managed an hour and a half of kip before I was wide awake so I spent our second day in K.L sitting out on the roof terrace at 3am while Georgie did what she does best… Sleep!

I decided to at least try to get my head down just before the sun came up, so at around 5am I sloped back down to bed and eventually fell asleep… Around midday Georgie woke up from her mammoth nap and feeling a little worse for wear we dragged ourselves up and    went in search of coffee. We found a lovely little street stall selling thick, strong, sweet coffee just around the corner and even got chatting to a crazy lady while we woke ourselves up!

Seeing as its all very easy to get around in K.L we went for a ride on the monorail, heading towards the mighty communications tower. Why is it the every city in the world has some sort of London tube equivalent but its always cleaner, cheaper and easier!? Anyway we started to get a bit peckish and just below we spotted a Hard Rock cafe as we scooted along so we hopped off , also we wanted to pop in a grab a badge for Georgie’s papa. 

By the time we were out of the Hard Rock it looked like the Mother of all storms was about to roll in so we literally took a rain check on the communication tower and instead opted for some shopping mall fun at Times Square… Not that we really wanted anything and Georgie has turned over a new leaf by watching what she spends, she really really wanted to ride the worlds longest indoor roller coaster which we found inside Times Square but I was having none of it and she didn’t fancy it much by herself… We settled instead for a Dr Fish foot massage performed no less by a tank full of very capable little fish!

Initially it is most ticklish thing I’ve ever done but after a while the little blighters calmed down and it became quite relaxing having hundreds of tiny pairs of lips sucking all the dead skin off our feet!.. I recommend it!

We are trying to save money where we can and for all its good points there isn’t a great deal to do in K.L, its a great place to chill out and take in the sights and smells, and amazing food is everywhere, so with that we popped into a China town side street and had us a slap up Chinese at a street stall. Then we retreated up to the roof terrace to chill out and iron out the idea of Georgie’s La La Land video diary ( we are lugging this Mac about so we decided to use it proper ).

And that’s how we saw our day out, by the time dinner went down we were both pooped so in the interest of getting ourselves adjusted properly to Malaysia time we headed off to bed…

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