We had very much enjoyed KL
thus far, and hoped that our little mini-adventure would continue til we left,
scheduled in for Wednesday the 3rd Oct. As we had demolished the
small bottles of booze the night before we had allowed ourselves extra time to
sleep in the morning. Neither of us had a hangover or anything, as it seemed to
us that the small 40% bottles may not actually be 40%. We never really even got “nicely drunk” on them, and we
were wondering if there was something lost in translation about the strength of
the liquor. But it hadn’t stopped us buying it for a second night running so we
were unconcerned… especially at only £1.50 a pop!
Our jaunt for the day was to
head into Chinatown and see the other market street that we had avoided the day
before due to the heavy rain. It looked pretty good, but Petaling Street was
supposedly the main one. It was another covered street with the usual items for
sale: clothes of all descriptions, foods, trinkets, and countless iPhone cases.
I had also noticed that there seemed to be an awful lot of Union Jack/Union
Flag articles around the place, and wasn’t sure if this was anything to do with
the Olympics, or just a fashion trend. I even saw some Union Jack canvas shoes,
but I certainly wasn’t going to purchase them.
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| "Where's the RM5 watches den??" |
It was a lovely place to walk
round, not too “touty” and if you didn’t show any particular interest the
people just let you be. James found an inside bit too, which was just as
impressive as the outside bit, maybe even more so. I tried my hand at haggling
for a few bits and bobs (I can’t say what as they may be Christmas presents for
someone reading this!) but didn’t want to insult the sweet old lady in her
little store so I paid going rate. It was still a flipping good deal at full
proce anyway! There was a food court upstairs and we sat down for a nice bit of
sizzling food (served on a heavy hot black metal plate) marvelled in the
realisation that we were in Malaysia. Again, these things just seem to hit us
every now and again and we have to take a step back to make sure it’s really
happening.
 |
| Nom nom nom |
After we had been fed we walked
round for some supplies: James needed suncream, and I needed shower gel and
deodorant. We eventually found another large shopping mall and had a quick look
round (after having to spend RM1 to put our bag in a locker first) and managed
to grab a couple of things. The “quick look round” turned into a fiasco as
James was herded into a busy queue, apparently by the manager, which then took
phenomenally long to process. It seems that not many people pay on cards over
here, and there’s certainly no contactless technology or “wave and pay”
machines.
Next up was the KL Tower. It
was reasonably near to the hotel so we set out to get up close and personal
with it, as we had seen it from far away on a number of occasions. It was still
hot, and the heavy bags were causing much sweating. By the time we had crossed
a very busy dual carriageway and got to the tower we were red in the face and
moist to the touch. We had a brief cooling-off period in one of the rooms near
the entrance to the tower, and happened to catch a free stage show of
traditional Malaysian dancing. It was alright, but nothing to write home about.
Although technically that’s what I’m doing here I guess. Anyway. We weren’t
going to go up the tower, we felt there was no need, as we have been up
numerous towers and tall buildings, and the view may be hazy anyway. So we
headed back to the hotel and attempted to figure out our next steps that would
take us up through Thailand.
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| The KL Tower... |
After a couple of hours of work
we had figured it all out. Almost. There was still a number of grey areas, but
we at least had a vague route planned that would take us towards China. It was
getting near to dinner time so we headed out to The Strip, just down the way
from our hotel. We named it The Strip after walking down it the previous night
and being collared by people offering massages, watches, taxis, food and
drink…you name it! I was in need of some more Ringgits so we wandered round
trying to find an ATM that I could use. I found one in the big Bintang shopping
mall that was incredibly plush, but not before we passed a dispute in the road
with taxis blocking the way through and lots of people watching on. We weren’t
sure if we would have another “Sydney” on our hands, but nothing kicked off so
we continued on our way.
The best-looking place we could
find was a Thai restaurant called Som Tam, and we grabbed a table and ordered
some food plus a large Tiger. The beer, or course. It was pretty good nosh, and
we broke our seafood duck for Asia. I hadn’t intended to, but the lady seemed
to decide that I would have what James was having and that would be that. I
wasn’t going to argue; it looked good, it was late and I was hungry. We spent a
few more hours researching future travels when we got back to the hotel, we
didn’t feel the need for another quarter
bottle of brandy/rum/vodka. Not that it would have touched the sides anyhow…
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