Since being on holiday, I'm grateful for small things

I'm a bit overwhelmed at the moment because there is SO much to blog but if I don't start it will only get worse so here goes.

Cool weather
After the heat in Thailand and Malaysia, I am loving the cooler weather here in Jhb. We literally lived in shorts and skimpy tops with slops. I walked out of the airport building on Wednesday and revelled in the cold! Lovely.

Drinking water
Those of you who know me well are aware that I drink at least 2L a day. It is so, so nice to just open the tap to get water and not have to buy bottled water.

People that understand me & who speak English
The Thai people speak very, very limited English (and understand, I'm being very generous here). The Malaysians were a tad better but I found them unforthcoming. For example, here is a typical conversation:

M: Are there any ATMs here?

Malaysian: Yes (that's it - not yes, they're right over there)

M: Where will I find them?

Not having to do sums before shopping
This is to work out the cost of the item in Rand. In Thailand, R1 bought about Thai baht 4.70 on average. And in Malaysia, R1 bought about RM0,45 (ringgit)

Brown bread
My mother-in-law bought us some brown rolls and I swear, they tasted like a gourmet meal after having being starved of fibre for 2 weeks.

Muesli & other fibrous cereals
At both the hotels, there were only kiddies cereals like Coco Pops, Rice Krispies, etc. (in other words, non-healthy stuff). We craved All Bran and Weetbix and on our first morning back, Dion had a huge bowl of fibre sticks (I don't know the proper name – Fibre something – I call them fibre sticks) and I had All Bran.

I'll add more as I think of them!

Our last day in KL - 31/10/06

We had a lovely late morning – went to breakfast late and took our time eating and then coming back to the room. Went to use the hotel’s internet facilities (big mistake – very expensive!) Had showers as late as possible (because our flight was only leaving at 1am and then we still had to travel 10 hours.

We then checked out and left our bags with the concierge and caught the hotel shuttle to The Curve, yet another shopping centre. It would return at 9pm which left plenty of time to get changed into flying clothes before our taxi collected us at 10pm.

We got to the Curve and drew some more money. Before hitting the shops, we found a public phone so that we could confirm our taxi and flights with our tour operator. All fine. Then we tried to phone Carey-Anne so that we could perhaps meet up for supper. Each time we’d hear her say Hello? Hello? And when I spoke, she couldn’t hear us and put down the phone quite quickly too. After the second call, I just left it. It seemed like too much hassle and I was getting stressed. So that’s it.

We were then hungry for lunch (this was about 3:30) so we went to Thai Express and split a curry because we wanted to save ourselves for supper. Delicious!

We then happened upon Borders and I’m not joking, spent the next couple of hours in that one store. Well, it is the biggest bookshop I have ever seen (like Macro, but for books) with two floors. You know this is heaven for us. We loooove bookshops. We spent some money there and much later, went to have a quick supper before the bus arrived. Got some pastries from a bakery for dessert and left. My one regret there is not going to Ikea – I read such a lot about Ikea from American blogs and then I was within walking distance of one and didn’t go. Oh well.

Things to do when next in Malaysia
1. Get new specs made
2. Go to Ikea
3. Take taxi to KL tower

We got back on time and we were so exhausted that we decided to go up the road to the KFC for a quick coffee. There was a lady in a wheelchair outside who was making personalised keyrings out of metal. Very pretty and I got one. However, I have since bashed the little ball to smithereens because the little tinkling was driving me battyJ

When we got back, the taxi driver was waiting. Since he was early, we quickly changed and then left with him. Remember the airport’s an hour away, even with no traffic at that time of night (10pm).

There were no problems checking in so we strolled around the airport for a bit, had some more KFC and then waited for our 1am flight.

I can’t even remember much of the flight back because I was exhausted and slept a lot but I do remember that we watched Click together and it was very good.

I love to be away but I’m always very happy to get home too. So on the flight already, I’m thinking that I have to do this and that when I get back.

Oooh, it was so good to get back.

And the weather was nice and cold which I love!

Suria KLCC and walking the city - 30/10/06

This is the Suria KLCC shopping centre at the bottom of the Petronas Towers.

This place was amazing. About 6 floors of gorgeous expensive shops like Gucci, Prada, Gorgio Armani, Marc Jacobs, Burberry, Escada, Hermes, Chanel, Cartier and Nina Ricci.

We walked a lot and just window-shopped but we bought some Burger King food here (interestingly, at this Burger King, the dispensers have tomato sauce and chilli sauce for the chips – nice) and a delicious cinnamon bun. That’s the bun you see in the bag I’m holding. Yum! I totally indulged in cinnamon buns in Malaysia – so many places do the most beautiful cinnamon buns (I love everything with cinnamon).

I also bought these two watches and I now regret not buying more because they are lovely and weren’t badly priced at all (30 ringgit for two).

We then decided to walk to the KL tower since the information desk told us it was only 10 minutes away. Well, we walked and walked and walked and still no sign.

Eventually I was so hot and bothered and thirsty that I didn’t care if I ever saw the tower or not. Dion agreed, more for my sake than for his, and we decided to take the monorail back to our street, Bukit Bintang. After we bought tickets (they were 2.40 ringgit for both of us, per stop), we got some water at the shop. I swear that was the best water ever! I still have that water bottle and whenever I look at it, I remember that day.

We took the monorail and got off near one of the plazas. We went in and because of the gorgeous blast of aircon, we got our second wind. We bought ourselves MP4 players and lots of books, CDs and a new Bible for Dion at Chosen Treasure, a Christian bookshop. We stumbled upon it quite by accident trying to find a particular technology store. This place had such wonderful stuff and again, we regret not buying more, because of baggage restrictions.

And then we really were ready to go back to the hotel. We ate lunch at Burger King quite late so didn’t want a proper supper – Dion went to get a bun from the 7- 11 and I had Tesco Ritz biscuits (like our bacon kips here in South Africa) for supper. We then packed our bags (mostly) because although we still had a full 25 hours left in Malaysia, we had to check out in the morning. I later managed to arrange a late check-out for us at 2:00pm.

Kuala Lumpur city tour 2 - 30/10/2006

The National Museum was not very impressive (old and some parts very dirty) and museums are not my thing at all. The only reason I went is because we were in Malaysia. By this time, due to the extreme heat, I was ready for the loo so went in search of a toilet. When I discovered that they charge to let you in, I had to find Dion to get some money. They also charge for toilet paper! I don’t mind paying to pee BUT then the toilets must be clean and they were not. I will just say that my thigh muscles received a nice workout because I could not sit on those filthy seats. At one point I left Dion looking at museum-type stuff and I went to the shop (much more my style) where I got us some wooden bookmarks with pewter animals inlaid. I felt like a real fuddy duddy in the shop at one point because there were like stacks of children and they were all making such a noise and I found myself involuntarily saying “sshhh” to which they all went “sshhh” to one another (is there an echo in here?)

The war memorial however was probably for me the best part of the tour. First off, it is housed in absolutely beautiful gardens so you have to walk quite a way to get to the statue. I could easily have spent another 30 minutes there, just looking at that beauty.

The memorial itself is in the middle of a pool with lots of Jacuzzi-like jets of water spouting periodically. Absolutely gorgeous.

I love running water, any running water. In fact, right now I’m typing this on my laptop next to the pool where our water feature is providing the perfect accompaniment to this beautiful day – okay, I just took a picture now to show you).

We took some nice pictures and our Sri Lankan friends took this weird picture of us. He was into strange shots and I must say this turned out well.

(There were old people on the tour with us who couldn’t walk very much and after about an hour of on and off the bus, they just sat on the bus. I found this quite sad because you save up your money to visit other countries and then you can’t even appreciate the country properly because of health issues, SO take care of your health!)

I can remember virtually nothing about this part because it is blocked out because I was so cross. The bus stops somewhere. The guy said we have 10 minutes before we move on – fine. Dion and I cross the road and walk around taking pictures (oh, now I remember – it’s where the two rivers meet – that’s what Kuala Lumpur means) and I then said that we’ve got to get back so we can get there in the 10 minutes. The robot took forever so we were a little bit late but the guy saw us standing and waiting for a green light.

Two Rivers meeting

Then we get to the bus and he shouted and screamed at us all the way about how we were late and we must do things like that on our own time! We were both shocked and absolutely gob-smacked. (I just asked Dion why we didn’t say something – he says it’s because it was so unexpected and we couldn’t believe it). That guy could learn a thing or two about hospitality from the Thai people.

On the bus, he publicly berates us again but like this…you don’t go off and do your own thing blah blah blah. Then and this is the best bit – he says we can be dropped off either at our hotel or somewhere along the way. So he goes up the aisles asking each couple where they want to be dropped off and when he gets to us, he ignores us totally and moves onto the next couple. Amazing! So childish and unprofessional. You can believe that if I’d been in Jhb, I would have given him a piece of my mind. Being half way around the world in a not-very-friendly city I just shut up counting down the minutes till we were off that bus and away from Mr Congeniality. Fortunately after about 10 minutes we were dropped off outside the Petronas Towers shopping centre, or Suria, the proper name


Detour into the weirdness of people
It’s sort of unspoken but when you’re on a tour, you sit in the same seat throughout. You adjust the airflow to your liking, fix the curtains on the windows and so on. Well, there was a certain couple who didn’t care about tour bus etiquette. We were sitting in the 3rd or 4th seats from the front. We got off at the first stop and got back on only to find that our seats had been taken. Fine, I thought, two can play at this game. So next time we left the bus, I made sure they were off first before us and I put my top and water bottle on our seats. Well, that worked – when they came back, they went to other seats and we had our original seats again.

However, they again took other people’s seats. And I heard the one lady mutter something, so when we stopped before we got off, I said to her, “they did the same thing to us. Put something on your seats – should keep them for you”. She had some stuff from the shop so she left her parcel and that seemed to do the trick.

I suppose I’m a bit of a saddo because I felt really vindicated by this J

some architechture in KL...

This was probably the worst city tour we’d ever been on, due to the tour guide’s abysmal behaviour and the fact that I felt cheated since they rushed us at some of the most stunning places and yet we could easily have spent an extra 10 minutes here and there if the tour itself was the 3 hours they said it was.

Kuala Lumpur city tour 1 - 30/10/06

Well, since Dion was now fine, we could at last go on the City tour (3 days into our 4-day stay).

We made sure we were earlier for breakfast but seems like the whole hotel had the same idea so there was even more of a queue. At least it went fast so we had a lovely breakfast and were back in the lobby by 8:40 for our 8:45 pickup.

They were very late – only arrived at 9:00 and they didn’t seem to know about us so good thing I had our receipts because of course, the concierge who we booked with was not working that shift.

We went on the bus to a central point where they split us up depending on what tour we’d bought. Got our yellow stickers and we were on our way at about 9:25.

First stop was the Petronas Towers.

The bus parked in such a position that we could get good pictures of both the Petronas Towers and the KL Tower.

That was quite cool, especially since we weren’t stopping at the KL Tower on this particular tour. We also met a Sri Lankan couple (both of them very good-looking) and he showed us how to take different shots with our digital camera so that we could get interesting shots of the famous towers.

Next we visited an arts and crafts centre. They mainly had batik crafts and pewter in there. We had a demonstration of the batik artists. It was amazing how the guy draws all these flowers and leaves completely freehand. What was even more amazing is how the second guy then colours in the material - not a drop of paint outside the lines. (one of my weird things is I can’t colour inside the lines – don’t know if it’s lack of patience or what – but I just can’t do it).

There are 25 million people in Malaysia and they are mostly farmers – top exports are rubber, palm oil and tin (pewter is an alloy of tin). So at this craft centre, there’s a huge pewter selection of goods and of course, we were encouraged to buy, buy, buy. I’m not one for ornaments though so thanks very much but no!

We then went to the King’s Palace and took pictures with the guards, in front of the very impressive gates. Some years on a particular holiday (I think it’s Diwali) the King opens the palace and you can walk through. The guide said that on those days everybody goes through because it’s for free!

Kuala Lumpur - still no city tour 29/10/06

And incidentally, our 11 1/2 year anniversary!

We’d booked places on the City Tour through the hotel’s concierge the previous night so we had to get up nice and early to get breakfast and be ready for collection at 8:45.

Well, when we got to the dining room, there was a queue of about 6 people before us (it was a HUGE hotel and obviously everybody decided to get breakfast late like us). We were just about to be seated when Dion realised that he forgot the breakfast tickets in the room, so I was seated while he went up.

I waited for a reasonable time and then I went to start getting food. You feel weird just sitting there “taking up table space” when you can see the queue of hungry people, staring at you! Eventually Dion pitched saying that he was sick and nothing was staying inside (must have been the beef hot pot). I felt quite pleased that I had Imodium (and all the rest of the little medicine bag I take everywhere when we travel) and for once, the stuff was being used. He couldn’t have any breakfast so he went back to the room to take the pills and rest. Meanwhile I finished my breakfast (no sense in both of us starving, now is there?!) and then explored the hotel a bit – gym, swimming pool and so on. I had to also tell the concierge that since D was sick, we wouldn’t be able to take the City Tour and would have to postpone.

I checked on D where I found him battling to concentrate on his book because of two very naughty boys in the room next door. You could see that their mother was all out of ideas so she just let them run loose. They were banging on the interleading door and running around their room making a noise. They left soon after I got back so we left it for the moment.

I grabbed my wallet and went to the plazas. I went to the Low Yat Plaza, Sungei Wei Plaza and many others. The strange thing with these malls is they are all inter-connecting. Basically you walk from one mall right to the next. The only way you know that you’re in another mall is that the tiles in one mall would be, say brown, and the tiles in the next mall are green. I only figured this out after a couple of hours when I started feeling lost and didn’t recognise shops and so on. Eventually I had to ask someone for the nearest exit to the street. He pointed it out to me and when I got outside I was like waaayyyy down the road, far from where I’d gone in. It’s actually a miracle I even knew where I was with my warped sense of direction. Although there were lots of food shops which are always good landmarks for me!

Side note – in Thailand, I knew exactly where we were at any point by our proximity to the Dunkin’ Donuts J

I bought a Brian Tracy book (Eat the frog) that I’d wanted for a long time but that I never saw in SA, a Malaysian magazine, two gorgeous silver rings and some keyrings.

By this time I was hungry so went back to the hotel to see if Dion was feeling any better. The little boys were back and the noise was not better so we decided to move rooms. Because they’d upgraded us, we had to take the normal room that we booked and paid for, which apparently had a not-so-wonderful view. We were totally fine with that because of course we’d already taken our pictures!

So we moved rooms and boy what a relief that was! Dion was also feeling better so we went out together again. He was still not well enough to eat though so I decided to have a small burger at KFC. Delicious! When we were walking through the hotel lobby, all the porters, concierge, etc. kept asking Dion how he was feeling. He felt like quite the star!

I then tried to find some shops again that I’d seen earlier when walking around, almost to no avail. It was only through my photographic memory that we eventually found the place. But at that point, we decided that if we saw anything we wanted, we’d just buy there and then as there was a good chance we wouldn’t find the shop again. Remember the street we were on (Bukit Bintang) is called the Shopper’s Street of Malaysia as there are 8 malls next to each other in less than 1km. And each of those malls has 6 to 7 floors, each of which is like one of Eastgate’s floors. Crazy!

So Dion bought me a beautiful leather bag at House of Leather. I liked a particular style but they had it in the wrong colour, so the assistant phoned around and said they’ll get it from another store. I asked how long it would take thinking a couple of hours but she says…10 minutes. Sure enough – 10 minutes later, we went back (not daring to venture very far in case we got lost) and bought it.

For some reason, the specs and sunglasses are really, really cheap. I bought this pair for 120 ringgit. If I’d had normal weak eyes (my eyes are both outside of the range, so they charge me extra for my lenses, and that’s besides all the other stuff I usually get added, like anti-reflex and hard coatings, etc.), for lenses and everything they would have charged 250 ringgit, which is R550!!! Cheap as anything – we would have paid at least R1500 here. Anyway, I wasn’t prepared to pay for everything since the medical aid probably wouldn’t refund us for the specs, so I just got the frame. In retrospect, I should have just had the specs done, because with all my fancy stuff, just the lenses will cost be between R1800 and R2600. So I’ve said to Dion that next time we go east, I will take those very frames with us, and get them to make my specs.

Well we were exhausted after trawling the malls and went back to our hotel for some tea and reading, and then decided to walk to China Town. We’d heard such a lot about it but it was quite disappointing. I found it extremely dirty and not very exciting at all.

We had to buy something after that loooong walk so I bought a watch and two apples and Dion bought some roasted chestnuts.

We then had a very late supper (10pm) at Nando’s!!! We were very excited to see a little bit of home.

And that was day 2.

Walking around the city 28/10/06

Beautiful street shot

Dion loves to take street shots and while we're on holiday, I don't much care for all the stopping and snapping. I want to move, move, move! However, when we get back is when I start to appreciate these because they are just beautiful and you get a real sense of the place, looking at the people, buildings, shops, etc.

I've always wanted to take a shot like this. Next time I'll look for an escalator that's not moving!

This is the place where we got supper (that made Dion sick).

Check this out - my hands are the same size as Demi Moore's

Arriving in Kuala Lumpur 28/10/06

When we arrived in Kuala Lumpur, we made our way through customs and found our tour operator very quickly. It is amazing how quickly all the taxi drivers zeroed in on us to try and get us to take their particular taxi into the city.

We waited around for the rest of our party but ended up in a taxi all alone as the other guys had too much luggage so there wasn’t enough space for us.

Our taxi driver spoke very good English which was a refreshing change from the ones in Phuket. We got chatting (as is our custom) and found out the prices of everything from burgers to taxi fare. It took about an hour to get into the city to our hotel, the Royale Bintang.

We arrived at about 2pm, checked in and found that they’d upgraded us to some deluxe room. At this point it was raining and Dion got right to it – taking pictures from the room’s window.

I unpacked quickly and then was dying for a cup of tea so got going with that and then carried on reading my book (The Broker – John Grisham, if you’re interested).

Meanwhile ... Dion’s still snapping away.

After Dion unpacked, we went exploring. The weather was amazing – very, very hot and then sudden rain. It then stops just as suddenly. Weird.

We drew some money and then went to get some food. The food courts in all the plazas (shopping centres) are laid out in exactly the same way. You enter on the ground floor and go down one floor and the entire bottom is food. Of course Dion and I do our usual thing which is to look at each and every place before deciding where to eat. We decided on a hot pot meal.

Now that I’m thinking about it, it sounds quite disgusting but when in Rome… and remember, we were starving. The last time we ate was on our 10:30 flight and it’s about 5 – 6pm.

They do a stirfry-type thing with beef/ chicken, mixed veg, noodles, and then they add two soup ladles full of a soya sauce-type liquid and cook it all up. And then get this – they fry an egg on top of the sauce.

Anyway, after watching all of this, I could only eat about half of it. Dion ate his and mine. We had the most delicious pastries for dessert, all 1 ringgit each (R2,20).

Then we went walking through a plaza or two until we happened on a stunning bookshop, called MPH (Malaysia Publishing House). We happily spent an hour or so just in this one place as well as about 47 ringgit.

On our way back to the hotel, we got some ice-cream cones (delicious) and of course, water, at the 7-11 a few shops away from our hotel.

That’s it for day 1.

Something we noticed in the plazas…there are so many job vacancies in all the shop windows. Coming from South Africa where unemployment is rife, we were absolutely amazed. I don’t think there’s any reason you need to be unemployed in Malaysia!

Flying to Kuala Lumpur from Jhb

Dion and I consider the whole experience part of a holiday so I'm blogging everything from the airport - if you're bored, skip this post.

Dion's mum dropped us off at the airport at 11.40. We bought two locks for Dion's luggage and then checked in.

My bag only weighed 15kg - this is a personal miracle for me. Dion's weighed 17.8kg.

We looked around at the shops for a bit and then had one of the best chocolate croissants ever at Caffe Ritazza. We then boarded the plane. We were seated in the middle four seats, Dion on extreme right, me next to him, empty seat next to me and someone else to the left of that.

The flight, although scheduled to leave at 13.40, left at 14.00.

We were served supper at 15.00 our time - I had Tandoori Chicken, rice and chickpeas (absolutely delicious) and Dion had Vegetable Lasagne (apparently also very good).

Then we got to the fun bits and our favourite part - the in-flight entertainment. We watched Dharma and Greg, and Friends, and then I watched The Devil Wears Prada (I was disappointed as I didn't feel it was very good at all… 'bout a 6/10) while Dion watched Collateral.

In between all this watching, I read two of the four Shape magazines I'd brought along to catch up on. I also slept a bit.

They served us "breakfast" at 9.30 our time - very weird. Anyway, this was the usual omelette, sausage, mushrooms, hash brown, tomato, yoghurt and fruit, etc.

The flight landed at 11.40 our time, which was 5.40 local time in Kuala Lumpur. Very smooth flight and landing.

After I mailed my list from the free internet stations in the airport, we rode the express train for a bit to take pictures of everything.

We were desperate for some coffee (D) and water (me) so we went in search of an ATM to draw some local currency.

Guess what? In "the best airport in the world" (I don't know who they bribed to get that rating), there was only 1 ATM which was out of order. Wonderful! However we have credit cards aplenty but……. Yes, you guessed it - none of the food places accept credit cards. So here we are, parched, tired and grumpy and NOT IMPRESSED. By the way, Singapore's airport beats it hands down - it is the best so far out of 8 airports I've been at.

I found the staff very quiet (not forthcoming) and unfriendly.

So we took a few pics and decided to check in for our next flight to Phuket and then find a quiet place to read. At least the seats were comfy.

I force myself to try and find something positive about everything so here goes……. the toilets were spotless. D didn't like the square toilet seats though J Oh, and the trolleys were really cute and easy to steer. There were also lots of cute kids running around.

Aren't I doing well?!

Places to see in Malaysia

Look at this wonderful email I received from Karen (fellow consultant). She mentioned that she had a friend who lives in KL and I asked her to find out what she (the friend) recommends.

Hi Ps M...

Below is a list from my friend over in Malaysia...

Hope this is useful & just in case i don't see or speak to you again before you leave..i hope that you guys will have an absolutely awesome trip!

So here is what she (carey anne fron Maylasis) has to say:

Ok, a list of things to see and do in malaysia...hmmm,thats tricky, there is sooo much!!!Ok well sights to see:

Around KL:
Batu Caves
Fireflies in kuala selangor (this is a 2hours drive from KL, but apparently its well worth seeing)
Chinatown - petaling street
Petronas towers and the fountains and gardens outside KLCC
Menara KL (tell her the R40 to go up this tower is well worth the view from the top!)
Also, she should do the forest walk to get up to the tower, its a little tiring, but its really beautiful.
Lake gardens (behind KL sentral) It's a beautiful park very very nice
Pasar Malam (night market)
Merdeka Square
Bukit bintang for shopping
National Mosque

Food to try:
Satay (chicken is best)
Mee goreng
Nasi goreng
Nasi lemak
Wan tan mee
Laksa
Ais Kacang (its an interesting type of desert they serve here)
Roti Bon - delicious indian type of chelsea bun (although it doesnt have raisins)
Tosai masala
Singapore fried mee hoon
Baked cheese rice and ying yong drink (she must must go to Kim Gary and have the baked cheese rice set - it is sooo delicious) Tell her if she has a free day she must let me know and we can go to kim gary together! I definitely think I will take her up on this.
Naan bread with mint sauce - she must ask for the mint sauce

Places outside of KL
Islands:
Perhentian
Tioman
Redang - these three islands are said to be the best in malaysia. However if she is here after november these ones will all be closed, so she wont be able to go to them.
Penang - northern part of Malaysia - its lovely
Cameron highlands - tea plantation in the mountains - the air is clean cool and crisp, and the strawberries are great!

there are just soo many places, i think its better if she sends me her itinerary and i will advise her what is best to see from there :)

Enjoy your day!

Karen