Day 5 On the train
The train ride from Oxford was easy. There was a transfer but everything was running on time. I saw my first nuclear power plant though:
It's pronounced noo-coo-lur
The ride went past Bath and I could see why quite a few people had recommended it; it looked interesting. More on Bath later.
Proof I was in Bristol
Invisible hostel
I'd marked my map with 3 hostels that were all close to each other so I jumped on another train from Bristol station to take me to them. The problem was, none of them were there. I checked on the net and, for one of the three, apparently there are two streets with the same name in Bristol and the hostel site marked the wrong one on the map. I gave up on the other 2 hostels because they didn't have great reviews, I couldn't find them either and the area seemed a fair walk from the centre of town. After a 2 mile walk I found the Rock n Bowl hostel and checked in.
Quorn
In the supermarket they had a section of this fake meat stuff and the pictures on the box make it look pretty nice. They lied. I had a cottage pie and it might've tasted exactly like one with real meat but it still wasn't any good.
Day 6 Exploring
Today I went for a walk and found some street art.
Street art
More street art
And more art
I also saw two interesting signs:
I imagine it like cow tipping but with flies
Such a British (polite and proper) way to phrase it
And a stereotypical Aussie bar:
Looks like a fair dinkum bar
Then I found my way to a park.
Brandon Hill Nature Park
Which had a nice tower that was free to climb and gave a great view out of the city.
The tower I climbed in Brandon Hill Nature Park
The stairwell in the tower had this take on the coins in the fountain thing, which seems to be popular:
People throw change in the vents in the tower stair well
The top of the tower is a decent height:
At the top of the tower
...and gives some excellent views out over Bristol.
View from the tower in the park
View in the other direction from the tower in the park
After the tower I followed the trail through the rest of the nature park and saw some art:
Art... I think
...and some little forest friends, who weren't shy:
Friendly squirrel
Cute squirrel
After the park I followed the river to go see the suspension bridge but on the way I found a D-shackle I liked.
Sucks when there's no-one to hold the camera, but I made do
I also saw a jetty that looked like a bit of an OH&S problem.
Possibly not the safest jetty
Then I got my first look at the bridge.
Still no-one to hold the camera
There was only one thing to do; climb up the hill to walk on the bridge. There was a good view point part way up the hill.
Panorama of the bridge from the view point
Gotta prove I was there. Thanks to the bench that took the photo for me.
You get a good view from the bridge although the river looks a bit dry.
View from the middle of the bridge. Not much water in the river
This picture obviously doesn't show it but from this vantage point, you can visibly see the bridge bouncing.
The bridge
And a silly one.
Where's my 200mm spanner?
After walking all over the bridge I was still in a climbing mood so I went to the park above it for some more photos. Probably looks like I wanna have this bridge's babies eh?
Panorama of the bridge from above
At the park above the bridge
Then it was back to the hostel where I met my new room mate, an American guy and had a bit of a chat.
Mr Wolf
In the evening my American friend and I were invited to go out to a local club with a group of people from the hostel. This club is called Mr Wolf's and we had an amazing night. There was a band up first followed by some DJs who played a mashup of rap, reggae, drum and bass and probably some other stuff. Everyone had a great dance even if it was a bit of a sweat box.
Day 7 Bath
Today my American mate and his Welsh friend, who joined us at the club last night, went to Bath for a day trip.
The reason Bath has it's name. Roman baths
It had a unique feel because all the buildings in the town are the same colour.
A street in Bath. Note all the sandstone
I had a giggle at some of the interesting street names.
Funny street name in Bath
And this dude.
The spongebob christmas tree (aka pizza) in Bath
We had a walk around and relaxed in one of the parks for a bit. Once we couldn't ignore our rumbling stomachs, we headed for a place called Grillstock for a drink and a burger.
At Grillstock in Bath with my Welsh and American friends.
I was happy, I just wasn't ready for the photo.
After Bath we caught the train back to Bristol where the Welshman, who was a Bristol local, took us to a bar on a boat that served local ciders.
The (first) cider I had on the boat bar. Intense colour.
We then went to a place called The Canteen, a student bar, then grabbed a kebab for dinner before going for one last drink at a bar called Start The Bus.
Day 8 Lazy
The hostel doesn't serve breakfast so I went to the supermarket to get some milk and cereal. I only needed a small milk and I literally ended up a pint sized milk *giggles*. I spent the morning working out which train to catch to Cardiff and talking to some of the long term-ers in the hostel.
Day 4 Check in
I stayed at Oxford Backpackers and the hostel seemed ok. The room smelled a bit like shoes but my shoes stink too so I can't really complain.
Exploring
Oxford is quite small so it was easy to see a lot of it in a few hours. I walked past the castle that still has the old keep (looks like a mound) out the front.
The keep
I also saw Christ Church.
Just inside the gates of Christ Church
Selfie out the front of the church
Looking back at the front of the church
I kept going with my lap around the town and saw the gardens of Christ Church and spied some other church towers above the tree line and came back through the main street, that was packed.
Packed main street
I then walked through part of the university and saw some interesting and no doubt old buildings while eavesdropping on some of the tours.
Then I headed back to the hostel and met some of the people in my room and had a bit of a snooze because I clearly hadn't beaten jetlag in one day. When I woke up, the sun was still up but it was definitely dinner time because the sun sets so late. A bit of a change from the 5:30 winter sunsets at home.
Pub
In the evening I went to the local pub with a few people from the hostel for a few quiet beers and a chat.
Day 5 Next stop
The next place to visit was an easy choice because I just kept heading west on the train to Bristol, which looked like a big city in the area.
Thoughts on Oxford
It's quite small.
There are schools of the university scattered everywhere.
There are a lot of tours run through the city including open top buses and it feels fairly touristy.
I probably won't go back because it doesn't seem to have anything to make it different the second time.
Day 4 The flight
The incident where MH17 was shot down only happened a few days before and although I was flying with KLM, the flight codeshared with Malaysia Airlines under MH5632 so I was a tiny bit worried. The pilot did come on the PA system and tell us that we were going around the Ukraine but that would also make our flight longer. The flight turned out fine (obviously, I'm writing this) and the person next to me never showed up so I had an extra seat to myself. I watched Wolf of Wall Street, American Hustle and Gravity, which were all good and then part of Divergent, which wasn't so good. I even managed to get 3 hours sleep in, which is huge for me on a plane.
Transfer
My flight landed in Amsterdam and I had to transfer to one to London. Schiphol airport is huge and for a bit I was worried I wasn't going to make it but the gates opened late so there was tonnes of time.
Peak hour?
It was still quite early in the morning so I thought I'd stay in the airport until after peak hour but it was only just as I was leaving that I remembered it was Sunday, doh! I caught the tube for what felt like forever, found a hostel and checked in. It was pretty crap with 4 triple bunk beds in a small room and not really enough room for any bags but I was only there for one night.
Dinner
I was having dinner with family tonight and I thought I gave myself lots of time but because the train line out to their house was shut, I had to catch the substitute bus. Then the bus had to crawl through a traffic jam because of a festival that was on. I ended up borrowing a phone from a very nice Russian guy on the bus to call my family and let them know why I was so late. I eventually made it and we went for dinner at Chom Chom, an all you can eat place and we ate too much but it was totally worth it.
Day 5 Where to?
I didn't have anything planned but Oxford looked ok so I jumped on a train headed there. I know Oxford university has prestige but hopefully a visit will teach me something.
No pictures for this blog :( I didn't do anything new in London to deserve one.
Day 1 Leaving home
So it begins again! I'm off for 7 weeks to attend two family weddings in Europe and try to see places I missed last time. I picked Kuala Lumpur as a stop over because it made for cheap flights, it's somewhere warm and I've been there before so it'll be a bit easier to get back into traveller mode.
My flight left at 10am so it was an early morning, for me anyway, and although AirAsia had been given a bad review by people I'd spoken to, they left on time and it's the first flight I've been on that wasn't full so people could move around and space out.
The flight was easy going, the food was good and I had a decent chat with the Malaysian lady who sat next to me. Once in KL, I managed to catch the trains and walk to the hostel all by memory although I was only there 8 months ago so I guess that's no huge feat.
Almost everyone in my room had only arrived that day so we all clicked and were keen to form a group and do stuff. A few of us went for a walk to Chinatown for dinner and grabbed a slushie (frozen fruit juice) drink on the way back although I wasn't game to get pearls/bubble tea ball things in mine.
In the evening we hit the rooftop bar, something that was mentioned quite a bit in my last post about KL. I had a bucket of rum and coke, which was possibly overkill but certainly let me sleep through the loud music easily.
Day 2 Batu caves
It took ages to get everyone organised and we kept adding more and more people to the group but we eventually left around 12 and as a group of 8, made our way to Batu caves. There were lots of monkeys out and about but none of us fell victim to their thievery. The monkeys did try to steal some water from two Japanese girls that were near us but two guys from our group bravely chased them away. The monkeys that is, not the girls.
The group at the bottom of Batu Caves
Last time I was here I missed The Dark Cave but it was open this time so we had a look inside but didn't feel like paying for the tour so we took off.
The group went to McDonalds for lunch but I stayed strong and got Subway instead... :( we're the worst westerners. I wanted Malaysian food but there wasn't much in the train station.
Bars that aren't on the ground
In the evening the group got as dressed up as backpackers could and we went to the Petronas Towers for the mandatory selfies.
Being an idiot with the fountain at the Petronas Towers
We had dinner in the food court, caught the fountain show and then made our way over to the SkyBar, where we ordered a beer tower and some cocktails.
The group in the SkyBar
The next stop was the HeliBar, which is a bar on a helicopter pad and we made it there ok but this place had a dress code that most of us failed. It wasn't all bad though because we could just make the last train home. We almost didn't make it because we tried to buy 11 train tickets at once and the machine kept rejecting us. After some help for the attendant, we did catch the very last train back to the hostel.
Then, you guessed it, roof top bar!
Day 3 Working
I had to check out today and because lots of "the group" were either hungover or had left, I thought it'd be a good chance to try and do some work. Oh yeah, I'm trying to work remotely during this trip to help pay for it and give me something to do in the quiet times.
I'd met another guy doing the same and he told me about Co-work Spaces, which I'd never heard of before. Basically you rent a desk in an office for the day so you can get some work done. I found one that was open in KL and made my way there. The bad news was some company had booked the whole thing out but the good news was they let me sit in one of the empty conference rooms and use their power for free.
In the evening I grabbed my bags, said goodbye to everyone and went to the airport for my flight to London.
The trip is over. Actually, as I write this it's the 30th July 2014 and I'm sitting in my hostel in Kendal, England because I'm already on my next trip. I fell behind on my blogging while I was travelling because I was too focused on creating content, and then never really caught up when I got home. Guess I was too busy working to save for this trip.
I was away from home for 170 days, saw ~45 cities/towns although I didn't actually count that and went through around 30 countries.
What's changed?
I don't feel like I've changed drastically although there are a few small things that I can identify that have changed.
I'm more confident meeting new people because I had a lot of practice. I probably met at least 2 new people per day on average over the whole trip.
I'm more confident getting around and between cities.
I enjoy hiking more. It's not like I ever disliked it but the times I went walking amongst nature on my trip are some of the most memorable
I'm not worried about having nothing booked. I'm a planner so going to Europe with nothing booked was a little scary. The fact that I survived it means that my approach of knowing where I can go/what I can do but only booking things as needed works well.
Did you try new things?
Of course I tried new things. I went cheese tasting for the first time in Amsterdam. I slept with an eye mask and ear plugs for the first time although it happened a lot more than once. Speaking of sleeping, I left home not being able to sleep on planes, trains, buses, etc at all but now I'm a bit better because I can manage to get a few hours of sleep in those uncomfortable seats. I'm still not like some people who can sleep for entire trips.
There were also a lot of things that aren't quite as good for you that I tried: lots of local beers, the local fire water all over eastern Europe, lots of goulash, space cake, Shisha and Snus (the nicotine bags from Sweden).
Did you see everything?
Although I saw a lot, there are still a lot of things I missed:
Portugal
Scandinavia
Ireland and the UK (apart from London and Brighton that I did see)
Baltics
More of Spain
Italy (apart from Venice); Rome, Naples, Florence, Pisa, Cinque Terre
Switzerland
St Petersburg
Flyboarding in the UK
Romania
Bulgaria
Morocco
Sicilly
Iceland
Ukraine (Chenobyl)
Kosovo
Bosnian pyramids
More Greece exploring
I wanted to try couch surfing but it never happened because it takes more effort to organise. I also feel like I could've tried to hitch hike more in eastern Europe although I did it once for 5 minutes in Cappadocia, Turkey but there were more opportunities.
Was it hard/lonely?
I travelled on my own and I met a lot of people who were doing the same, so it's not a strange thing. I also met quite a few locals/group travellers who seemed shocked that I was on my own and the common question was "Is it lonely?". It's not. I might be travelling on my own but I'm never on my own because it's so easy to meet people in hostels. I really enjoyed being a solo traveller for a few reasons:
You can always move at the pace you want to.
There's no compromise on what to see like there might be with a group.
It's easier to squeeze onto transport/get into hostels when there's only one spot left.
You can form a group out of solo travellers to do things together but because they're all independent, they won't be offended if you go off and do things on your own.
I don't feel like it was that hard either. Admittedly I played it pretty safe and didn't put myself into situations where I might not have transport or somewhere to sleep but I just kind of cruised through the whole thing. At the start though, looking forward, it did seem quite daunting but I guess that's like a lot of things in life, they seem a lot easier once you've done them.
Random thoughts
I had a lot of time to think while I was travelling and here are some of the **sarcastic voice** profound things I came up with.
Every time you meet someone, you both have an impact on each other. That impact will change both your lives but in most cases, probably not by much. I met so many people while I was travelling and I hope that I've had a positive impact on all their lives. For me, I feel like all the people had a positive impact on me but not for any particular action or event, just because I can look back and feel happy knowing I made so many new friends, heard lots of stories and made lots of great memories.
I've taken the Myers Briggs personality test a few times and each time, I score borderline introvert-extrovert and I think this trip has helped me make sense of why this might be. When I'm at home, I have more projects on the go than I'll ever finish and I'm happy when I'm on my own working away at them (the introvert Tom) but when I'm travelling, I don't have anything to occupy my time so I become more extroverted to meet people and go do things.
I was surprised that I met quite a few people who live in the northern hemisphere who didn't know that the southern hemisphere has the opposite season. I guess they don't learn about the southern hemisphere like we learn about the northern?
Is the blog just about eating and drinking?
I had a few people ask me this and it wasn't my intention. Eating is something you do a few times a day and most times, the food was new or at least interesting so I thought it worth mentioning. I do enjoy eating too though.
The other thing to remember is that the amount of space something takes up in the blog doesn't have anything to do with the space it took up in my life. For instance, I might spend 5 hours catching buses and climbing a mountain and it'll get one paragraph and a few pictures but then I might spend 30 minutes trying a new dish that I enjoyed and it'll still get a paragraph and a photo.
Are you sad it's over?
No. I didn't leave home to run away from anything, I just wanted to go exploring and escape winter. I had an awesome time while I was away but it's not something I could do forever. I think 3 months is a comfortable time away for me.
I also didn't find it hard to get back into the swing of things at home. After only one week, it was like I never left and this isn't a bad thing. I was ready to come home.
What did I miss while away?
I certainly didn't get home sick in the first 3 months but after that, there'd be days where I didn't meet anyone new and I'd feel a bit lonely, home sick. Also, because I wasn't trying to escape anything at home, there were things that I missed:
My job. Seriously, I enjoy my job.
My routine. When I'm at home, I know what I'll have for breakfast/lunch/dinner, I know what I'll be doing most days, I know where I'll sleep. When I'm travelling, I don't know any of those things and it's exciting at first but after a few months, it gets pretty draining.
My stuff. I'm a bit of a hoarder and it's really hard to hoard things when you move every 2 days and have to carry all your stuff. This was, however, a good lesson that I am still something without my possessions.
Clean clothes. You have to carefully time when you wash things when you're travelling because you need to be in one place long enough to let them hang out and dry. This means things might not always be as fresh as at home.
Power points. It's a constant battle to find places to charge your gadgets.
Good internet. This is very rare because although all hostels have free WiFi, there's normally so many people that it barely works.
My motorbikes. I rode one of my bikes everyday for a few months before I left so I think I was getting withdrawals.
Going to my mate's property at Morgan. One of the simple pleasures in life.
Working on my cars. I love building things and I wasn't building anything (tangible) the whole time I was away.
Privacy. Hostels don't have much although I did well at finding it when I needed it.
GTA5. It came out while I was away and I was aching to play it.
One thing I didn't miss at all was winter. Although I still had quite a few days where I was rugged up as much as I would've been back home though.
What will I miss when I get home?
Despite the things I listed above, there are certainly things I'll miss about travelling when I get home.
How nice everyone is. There's a certain type of person you'll find in a hostel; someone who is looking to meet other people and who is open minded enough to leave their country to experience other cultures. This means that everyone is generally a nice person.
How easy it is to start a conversation. There are three questions you can ask anyone in a hostel: Where are you from? Where have you been? and Where are you going? Can you imagine starting a conversation at home with Where are you from? It probably wouldn't go so well.
Constant stimulation. You see and experience so many new things every day.
I sometimes made a joke that you only ever need 3 days of conversation when you travel because you'll never know anyone for longer than that and you can recycle it with each person. That being said, if you know someone for 3 days, it probably means you've spent 3 solid days together and you'll feel like you know everything about them.
Languages
I encountered lots of different languages and I often felt bad that I only knew English. Most people who weren't native English speakers said I was lucky that I was raised to speak English, which is only true because it's used so widely and not because it's a good language.
While I was away, I had a strong desire to learn another language and I had some Spanish audio tapes but once I got home, that desire totally evaporated. There's no reason to know another language when you live (my life) in Australia. The hard thing is, which language do you learn? There's nothing as widely useful as English except maybe Mandarin.
I also spent a lot of time thinking about the phrase "that doesn't translate into English". Is it possible that the language I speak limits the concepts I can understand?
History
Australia doesn't have much history in the scheme of things. Actually humans don't have much history in the scheme of things but I digress. Europe has a lot of really old buildings and all of them come with lots of stories about what they did, how they were built and what life was like in that era. I enjoy history and I got my fair share on this trip.
Travel methods used
I didn't always pick the cheapest, which is reflected in how much I spent, but I tried quite a few methods of transport during this trip.
Flights
Ferry, both overnight and short day trip
Camper van
Coach/bus
Taxi
Private transfer
Scooter
High/low speed trains
Sleeper trains
Metro (these are amazing)
Trams
Overground suburban trains
Bicycle
Canoe
River boat
and of course walking. Lots of walking.
What was your favourite place?
This question gets asked a lot but it's really hard to answer. I don't have a single favourite place that trumps all others although if I were forced to pick somewhere, I'd say Kotor because everything just worked. The weather was nice, I met great people, the scenery was awesome, there were great walking trails and I had my birthday there.
My profound realisation is that travel is all about the people. Who you meet is a huge factor in how much you enjoy the place. I went to the Eiffel Tower on my own and it was ok but I've done other things, that might be considered mundane, with the most awesome people and it'll be something I'll remember forever. It's all about the people.
Day 1: Flying over
The flight wasn't as bad as I was dreading. I watched The Hangover 3, Now You See Me, World War Z and the start of The Internship plus I even had a bit of a sleep, which I was pleased with because it meant that during my travels, I'd gotten a bit better at sleeping on transport. The food was great too, I don't know why everyone knocks airplane food.
Getting to the hostel
Kuala Lumpur has a train, the KLIA Ekspres, which makes getting into town simple. It's a half hour ride and you get to see some of the countryside too, which is extremely green and lush with some farms and pockets of huge buildings. I then had to catch the metro two stops and it was really well set up with machines that let you buy tokens (in English) and it's also super cheap; you can go pretty much anywhere for 30 Australian cents. I did arrive at peak hour so I had to squish into the train but it wasn't so crowded that I couldn't fit.
Rooftop bar
Once I was at the hostel, The Reggae Mansion, I had a bit of a nap before heading up to the rooftop bar. The drinks aren't cheap (but still cheaper than Australia) but you get a pretty good view of the KL Tower and the Petronas Towers. Everyone at the bar seemed really friendly because I joined a table of people and started having a chat. Another Aussie guy and I ordered a beer tower but for the rest of the night we were drinking buckets because it was cheaper than beer.
There was also a guy on the mic organising activities and I didn't think of it before he said it but he told everyone to stop calling him Mr Chow (from the Hangover) and it was hilarious because he really did sound and look like him. I think he might own the bar so hopefully he doesn't read this.
When the bar closed we organised a bus to take us to the street with all the pubs, not that I had any idea where that was, and we carried the party on there. I caught a taxi with some other guys who said they were going to the reggae hostel but it turns out there are a few of them so I ended up not really where I wanted to be. I think I was actually quite close to my hostel but I had no idea so I walked for about 20 minutes in the wrong direction and then had to walk all the way back, all the while with only 4% battery on my phone and trying to decipher the map. I eventually made it home at 5am, not such a good way to beat jet lag.
Day 2: Petronas Towers and Batu Caves
I made it to breakfast, not feeling too awesome, but it was a great breakfast with wedges and fried noodles. Just the thing I felt like. Much later in the day, once everyone was feeling up to it, we headed out to go see the Petronas Towers and the absolutely spotless park next to it. We wanted to see the fountain show at the towers but because it was still daylight and there wasn't anything to do to kill time, we caught the train out to Batu Caves. The caves are very impressive with a huge flight of stairs (271 actually) and some huge statues. There are also monkeys that are cute but also really cunning so we had a few laughs seeing them steal water bottles from people.
At the top of the stairs, in the cave, there are a few chickens walking around, which isn't something I expected to see. There were also lots of pigeons at the top and bottom of the stairs. We took some photos before heading back into town.
Now it was dark, we went back to the Petronas Towers and got some dinner in the food court. I ordered something that was meant to be chicken noodles but the "chicken" had a really strange texture to it, like it was too soft. Not one of the best dishes I had in KL but trying new things, eh? We missed the fountain show but we went out and took the mandatory photos in front of the towers.
To the bar!
This is starting to be like Athens because we went back to the rooftop bar again tonight. We played a few games of pool this time and I'm not very good but I'm proud to say that I pulled off some really lucky shots. The night ran pretty late again and at the end we ended up at McDonalds, which broke my "no fast food" streak that was running for a few years before that, oh well. I ended up in bed at 4am, still not beating that jet lag.
Day 3: Lazy day
I didn't achieve a lot today although I did go exploring and found some great nasi goreng. The hostel has a cinema in it and one of the movies they were offering was Fast and Furious 6 but they need a minimum of 3 people to play a movie. I couldn't find 2 friends so I paid for 3 tickets, which was still cheaper than a movie ticket in Australia.
Day 4: Shopping centres
I made breakfast early today and it's a totally different crowd to the one that comes later. There were a lot of Asian school kids, but I don't think they stay at the hostel, they just come to eat.
The day's mission was to go exploring and the first stop was Jalan Bintang, which is a street that has a lot of shopping centres and they're all massive! I walked through a few of them and they all seem to have 12 floors and so much space that the top floors are either empty or not filled. One of them even had a theme park INSIDE of it (the park is called Times Square). I also had a look in the Low Yat Plaza (I keep thinking low fat), which is completely filled with tech stuff.
Day 5: Theme park
My friend from Seattle, that I first met in Paris, turned up today. We hadn't planned to meet up, it just randomly happened 5 months after we both met and after we'd both been travelling through two different continents.
I suggested that we should go to the theme park that I found yesterday and an Aussie guy and my friend were keen so that was the plan. On the way to the theme park, we stopped past some of the computer stores to see if we could get photos recovered from a dead SD card but no-one seemed to know what was going on with it. I get the feeling they were more into sales than fixing things.
The park wasn't very busy so we had the chance to ride the rides multiple times. We did the roller coaster (Supersonic Odyssey) three times, the Space Attack twice, Ooort's Express once and the DNA Mixer once. Once on the DNA Mixer was even too much because we were all sporting a hangover and it shook up things in us that we didn't want shaken.
After the theme park we went for a wander through the mall and in Tiny Taipei we found a store that sold waffles on a stick, so we had to give them a try.
KL Tower
The next stop was the KL Tower. It wasn't that far away but it did start raining while we were walking there so we got a bit wet but it wasn't cold so it wasn't all that bad. When we arrived at the base of the tower it was still quite foggy but we decided to pay to go up to the observation deck anyway. It turned out to be fine because we stayed up long enough to see the flog get blown away and it also got dark. This meant we got "day" and "night" photos from up there. As we left the tower, it was still raining lightly but we could hear a strange noise. After a few seconds I figured out that it was a stream of water landing on car roofs and noticed that it was moving. It turned out to be a stream of water falling all the way from the top of the tower and the wind was blowing it around. Obviously we all looked up to see where it was coming from but just as my two friends did, the wind blew the stream of water right over them so they got slammed in the face with huge rain drops. Rain is dangerous stuff! After some swearing, everyone was ok and we headed off to get dinner.
On the way back to the hostel we had to avoid some drunk guys who were hiding in a shop and throwing firecrackers at people who walked past in the street to scare them. We made it back and hit the rooftop bar again for some drinks and played some pool.
Day 6: Deja Vu
6 days is a long time to stay in one place when you're travelling. It also means that you'll probably be on your second set of friends because the other lot have already left. My current bunch of friends hadn't seen the Batu Caves yet and because they're free (the caves, not the friends), I was happy to go see them again.
Just like last time, we saw water bottles stolen:
The Aussie guy that was with us had a bag of chips and an ice cream and the monkeys wanted both. They weren't afraid to jump up to try and grab them and in the end, he decided he'd sacrifice the ice cream to distract them some we could get away. He throws the ice cream just before the video starts.
Back at the hostel we watched a movie: Side Effects and then went over to the Petronas Towers to take photos and get something for dinner. After the towers we headed back to the hostel to the rooftop bar. At the bar I learnt a trick for the perfect high five every time; look at the other person's elbow, not their hand.
Although I'd already seen all the tourist things we did today, I still had really good fun because the people you do it with are what makes it worth it.
Day 7: Taking it easy
I was running out of energy so today was a recovery day. My Seattleite friend and I went shopping for a KL magnet and tried to get an ice cream sandwich from Chinatown because it looked interesting but they didn't have any.
In the afternoon I watched the movie Oblivion with a Danish friend before we went out to find something for dinner. We ended up at a restaurant where they seemed to have a bunch of people working there who'd be assigned to customers and do everything for them. So the guy who served us also went out the back and cooked the food and served it to us. I guess it's a good business model to encourage people to work hard.
In the evening, a bunch of English lads that I met in my room and I tried to go to the SkyBar. It shouldn't have been that difficult but we couldn't get a taxi that would take 5 people and one of the guy's shorts split as we ran across the road so we chalked it up as a fail and went to the rooftop bar because it was easy.
Day 8: Last day
Today was really about killing time before the flight. I did some blogging, bought some sunnies in Chinatown, wandered through the shopping mall district again and found an arcade to play a few video games in before catching the train out to the airport.
The flight went fine and I got to watch the rest of The Internship as well as The Great Gatsby and part of The Lone Ranger.
I was pleased that Australian customs let me bring in the cheese I'd bought in Amsterdam as a present, so we're off to a good start.
Welcome homes don't get much better than my family meeting me at the airport to take me home. During the drive home I felt like everything was so open because all the houses are single story and so spread out. It's probably because I'd spent most of the past 5 months in big cities.
Thoughts on Kuala Lumpur:
there's so much advertising for Samsung (and phones/gadgets in general) and fast food like McDonalds, KFC and Burger King
most local people are dressed very smartly, despite it being hot
there are some really tall buildings
most of the city and roads are in good condition but, like any city, there are still some poor, run-down bits
it's quite humid, but not so much that you can't survive however it's perfect at night
public transport is cheap but still frequent, punctual, clean, all that good stuff.
it has that "Asia" smell, which may just be humidity. I like it though
all the buses are turbo diesel and the have no mufflers on them so they're stupidly loud. The drivers drive them like race cars too, which sounds pretty funny
lots of pedestrian crossing have no lights so you just have to make a mad dash across the road
Trying to fit in a kids ride at Times Square Theme Park
My friend from Seattle and I on the Space Attack
This is the Space Attack
Always inappropriate
Waffle on a stick (with ice cream)
The rooftop bar of my hostel seen through a telescope in the KL Tower. It took me forever to find
The city and Petronas Towers from the KL Tower
In the KL Tower. It sucks taking photos in here because the windows reflect the light from all the shops.
At the base of the KL Tower. Imagine water falling from the top of this thing into your face.
Coloured trees near the KL Tower
Enjoying a bucket at the rooftop bar
A statue at Batu Caves. He has people in his chest.
The main part of Batu Caves. 271 steps.
Monkeys at the caves
Another monkey
And another monkey
AND another one. I'll stop now
A skylight in the cave
Looking back at the entrance to the cave
Umm, what?
Dusk Petronas Towers picture but not from the usual spot. We're in the park
The typical tower picture
The Petronas Towers from the bottom
Great food in Malaysia
The view of the Petronas Towers and KL Tower from the rooftop bar
Making friends with the Aussie guy
Sometimes you have to take photos from a funny angle to fit all the towers in
I ordered this thing not knowing what it is. Turns out it's tofu
Some of the ATMs are like calculators and not like phones. Super annoying
Decorations for Deepavali. It's all coloured rice
Inside one of the shopping malls. There's 3 more floors below the green stuff and another atrium (so twice this)
