Thankfully we were leaving KL today. Despite our vast improvement in accommodation standards we just weren’t fans of the city. We found it dirty, busy, hot and generally tiring. Not to say that the Malays themselves weren’t fantastically warm and generous people.
After having a comfortable nights sleep we were fully revved up to do some KL exploring on our last day in Malaysia. First off we wanted to grab a phone card so that we could call a hotel on Phuket in Thailand to reserve a room. This proved to be one of the most challenging tasks we had undertaken in our entire time spent in Malaysia. No-one seemed to know what we were talking about and kept saying they did not sell phone cards despite the nice shiny phone boxes standing there on the street. Great.
Temporarily abandoning project phonecard we went down to the nice side of town and the Petronas towers. Which were of course shut on a Monday so we couldnt go up them. Still they were very impressive to look at. This side of town was clearly the rich side of town with beautifully manicured gardens and swimming areas. The shopping plaza was full of your regular designer stores: gucci, prada, chanel etc etc. A complete and utter contrast to the other side of town. Not dissimilar to the vast contrast experienced in Singapore. We resume our phone card hunt and after visiting the tourist desk were instructed of one place that sold them. SCORE. Unfortunately the place only sold expensive ones but we had no choice. With the treasure in our hands we hunted down a phone box. ALAS the card was not working. This was NOT our day. After about what seemed like a zillion tries we finally got it to work and managed to chat to our desired hotel only for the phone to cut out midway through. Of course it then refused to work again. We just hoped our message had got through…
We made our way back to our side of town and went to use the internet at an internet cafe as the connection at the hostel was super slow. As we sat there SG starting giggling and saying Oh my God. What was going on?? She turned to me and pointed to the guy on the computer next to her… He was shaking vigorously with a folder in his lap holding his hand cunningly moving rapidly behind it.. SG couldnt handle it and went to the desk to complain and was given a different computer but after that she couldnt stand to be in there. (She later told me the guy was watching a couple of women wrestling- fully clothed..) I hung around to update some stuff online only for the computers to all go off. A trip to the bathroom proved to be horrific and after my hour was up I was out of there….
We picked up our bags and headed to the aiport to take our flight to Thailand. At the aiport I vainly went to try our phone card again to no avail. SG moved seats whilst I was there and explained to me as I sat down again in our new spot that the guy opposite her had been scratching his trousers ferociously. Just wasn’t her day!!
Going through customs in Thailand and SG’s passport was considered a joke by the officials. (She only had a four page temporary passport.) Otherwise it was highly uneventful.
Trying to find transport was not so simple.. The busses had finished running despite the fact it was only 9pm and so the only option was to take a share taxi at a not so cheap price. Still with no other options we hopped in one with a Kiwi couple and a Dutch lad. After we had been going for about 10 minutes they dropped us off at a travel agent and we were all assigned a different person to talk to. It was already evident that Thailand was going to be far more a hard sell culture than the laid back Malay style. After 5 minutes of no we dont need that or that or that they let us back into the taxi. Back on board the Kiwi guy recounted the story of an Australian couple that were also in the agents. The guy had picked up a can and was offered a note of some kind and was duly told they didnt have change. He put the note back in his pocket and promptly opened the can declaring that he’d had enough of the fucking shit. He then told the story of how his wife and he had been sailing in Indonesia and were hijacked by pirates. The pirates were getting ready to rape his wife and pretty much kill him when they discovered they were Australian (aka not British or American) and decided to let them go. Instead of going home they had decided to carry on with their trip. I am sure I probably could have not done that in their situation and I admire their bravery to stick to fingers up to the world and say fuck you we will carry on and we won’t be held down.
Driving across the island and through the larger towns such as Pa Nang it reminded me of a cheesy seaside resort back home. Bright neon lights everywhere, red faced, red bodied, middle aged people everywhere… It just oozed tacky. We had opted to stay out a bit further and on arrival our hotel was nice and quiet and the room, to put it bluntly luxurious compared to what we had been staying in in Malaysia. It was evident an increase in standards was going to be encountered here! No more dodgy toilets!! Which was a great relief to SG. Utterly knackered and feeling a little melancholic I opted to go to sleep whilst SG went for a wander of the local area.
