Day 16 – What time is it Alan?

With a title like that, it must be Sarah writing today’s blog.

After a strange night of broken sleep for both of us, we were up at 8.30am, showered, packed and out of our hotel room by 10.45am.

As mentioned yesterday, we had arranged for the hotel to get us a taxi to the airport for RM80.  Unlike the lovely car we arrived in, we were concerned this taxi would fall apart before making it to the airport.  We were also concerned at what it was going to cost us as we realised after a short while that the meter was in fact on.  We watched as we climbed to RM80 and then over, finally arriving at the airport at RM115.  He waited for Alan to pay him and even though we knew what the meter said, Alan asked him how much.  He then asked “what did the hotel say?” and Alan said RM80.  He said he would accept that even though it was more on the meter.  Had Alan handed over RM115, the guy would have taken it, no question.

He let us off outside the Jetstar area, or so he said.  Wrong.  He left us off at the opposite end of the terminal.  Must have thought Alan needed the walk to lose some of that holiday weight. Hey, I’m allowed to be a fatty on holiday.

Check-in wasn’t yet open but we joined a queue and eventually someone came to serve us.  We then bought a KL magnet, yay, and then went to McDonalds.  Alan said, ‘great, let’s have breakfast’.  Ah, Alan, it’s 12.15pm!!  He has no concept of time.  He then opted for a normal burger instead. I don’t need to know what time it is when I’m on holiday.

After immigration and two security screenings, we were on our Jetstar plane which took off 10 minutes late and arrived in Singapore at 3.30pm.  Unfortunately, Singapore have different rules here and make us go through immigration, collect our luggage, go through customs and then back to check-in for our next leg.  Thankfully immigration wasn’t as slow as when we arrived a couple of weeks ago and we were through there in about 25 minutes.

Even though it was still four hours until our flight, I saw a Qantas check-in counter which takes early check-in and there was no one in the queue.  A few minutes later the bags were gone and Alan had me on the skytrain from Terminal 1 to Terminal 3 looking for the Hard Rock Cafe.  We had both looked at the website which said it was in the transit lounge but Alan didn’t want to risk it so we trapsed all over Terminal 3 and guess what, we didn’t find it.

So we returned to Terminal 1, went through immigration and once on the transit side, took the skytrain again to Terminal 3, this time having success.  I have to say though, after seeing almost all of Terminal 3, it is much nicer than Terminal 1.  However, Terminal 1 is undergoing an upgrade and will be open in 2012.

We sat down in the Hard Rock Cafe, looked at the menu and Alan said “I’ll have the lunch special”.  I said “Alan, that is between 12 and 3” and he said “oh, what time is it”.  For god sake Alan, it’s 5pm.  Do you have a clue today??? I always have lots of clues. We both settled for the caesar salad with fried prawns and a milkshake, which was great.  We were able to use up the rest of our Singaporean and Malaysian money, except for S$1.60 that Alan forgot was in his pocket.  The rest of lunch when on the credit card.  I wonder what the S$1.60 is being saved for.  Only Alan knows.

We boarded our very full Qantas 747 flight and took off about 20 minutes late.  Then we were told that the entertainment unit wasn’t working and they were going to reboot the system.  Unfortunately it never came good so we had no entertainment during the flight.

There was a lot of male flight attendants and, unfortunately, they were dreadfully slow.  It took ages to get our dinner and then 45 minutes for them to come back and clear away the trays.  Then, this morning, they turned on the lights at 5am and we didn’t get our breakfast until 5.45am.  With the flight landing at 6.25am, they were very rushed to get the trays cleared away before we started to land.

So, that brings us to the end of this trip.  We had a great time, as usual and who knows, we might go on a trip again in the near future.

Day 15 – Last Full Day

Sarah here with the blog for our last full holiday day.  Tomorrow is a travel day but I’m sure there will be one more blog coming our way.
Alan woke up delusional this morning when he thought I would climb the 272 steps to Batu Caves.  I told him he was dreamin’. Ok Darrell.

We left the hotel at 9.25am and immediately noticed that it was the hottest morning we’d had the entire trip. You really need a hat, Sarah.

We walked to the monorail and got it to KL Sentral and then found the information I had was correct, there is now a train to Batu Caves although it doesn’t appear on any of the rail maps and when you get the ticket it only says to Sentul which is four stops before Batu Caves and cost RM1.00 each.  Seems like the computer system hasn’t been updated with the new line.

Alan’s school friend, Calvin, said that Malaysians don’t use the train and he’s right.  It is all tourists and Indians. It is so slow, I can understand it. 

When we arrived at Batu Caves station, it is only a few minutes walk until you can see the big dude at the bottom of the stairs.  I was already pretty sure that I wasn’t going to climb them and once I saw how steep they were, it just confirmed it.  Sarah made it up 36 of the 272 stairs.

After a few photos with Alan clowning around (testing out if he could slide down the railing to get back – he couldn’t), he took off for the top, leaving me in the shade and a bit of a breeze. I thought it might be easier to slide back down the handrail rather than walking down all those stairs. Unfortunately there were big knobs in the way every so often. I was pleased to see I wasn’t the only one choosing not to climb and I struck up a conversation with a Iranian lady who was waiting for her husband to return.  She thought I was Russian! That's understandable. You do sound a bit Russian.

When Alan took off for his trek, there were no monkeys around but about 10 minutes later, tons of them started coming down the railing, many of them with little babies hanging to their chests.  So cute!









Alan had been gone a while and I started to get concerned.  After a previous episode of Alan not eating, climbing a set of stairs, having his blood pressure drop and him passing out, I worried that I might in fact have to climb the stairs and go looking for him. Thankfully, before that happened, I caught a glimpse of him coming back down and I was waiting for him with a bottle of cold water. When I was close to the top I remember thinking to myself that I really should have had something to eat and drink before making the climb. Oh well, no harm done. When you get to the top, up the 272 stairs, you then go a short way before heading down and then up yet more stairs which eventually brings you into a large cave area which looks up to the sky. There's also some temple thingy in there. And monkeys. And pigeons. And monkeys chasing pigeons.

A few more photos and a chat with an Australian couple and we were on our way back to the train station, not before we saw an elderly lady in a burka faint.  I don’t know how they get around totally dressed in black when it was 33 degrees with humidity at 92%,. At the top it was about 45 degrees and 150% humidity. My sunglasses kept fogging up in the cave.
The train ride back was RM2.00 each and was a painful trip where I think we could have walked faster, and that was when the train was going.  We must have come to a complete stop at least 6 times and NOT at the stations.

Finally happy to be off the train, we walked back to the monorail.  This was decidedly a lot busier than we had seen it and were wondering whether we’d be able to get off at Times Square but did manage to push our way out.  Seems pushing is the only way as ‘excuse me’ doesn’t work.

Times Square was huge.  We were there for a spot of lunch but also for Alan to ride the indoor rollercoaster, the Supersonic Odyssey which is the second longest indoor rollercoaster in the world. It also has a 48 lane bowling alley.

The shopping centre is spread out over 12 levels with over 1,000 stores. We hit the food hall on Level 10 but before deciding on what to eat, we took the opportunity to look into the entertainment area and, lucky we did, as we spied a Kenny Rogers Roasters restaurant so we headed down there to eat before facing the rollercoaster.  Probably not the smartest idea in the world.

Lunch was great, the service, however, was a little strange.  We ordered garlic bread, caesar salad, a ham, tomato, cucumber and mayonnaise sandwich on wholemeal for me and a 1/4 BBQ chicken with 3 side dishes for Alan and a milkshake each. I had said to Alan on the train that I wanted, for lunch, a ham salad sandwich and a chocolate milkshake. Both the meals came with a muffin and Alan ordered chocolate and banana.

We started to speculate what would come first and were surprised to learn, it was the muffins. Sarah scoffed at me when I suggested we might get the muffins first.  Then came Alan’s chicken and then we waited another 10 minutes before we got the garlic bread and the drinks.  Another 5 minutes later came my sandwich, because it takes 25 minutes to make a sandwich. The salad never arrived which was probably a good thing as Alan’s eyes were bigger than his stomach. I reckon I could have fitted it in. By the way, the muffins were amazing. We almost bought some more to bring back to the room but they would have gotten squished in my backpack. I could really go for a muffin or six right now.

After a quick bathroom break (some of us had been wanting to go for two hours but you can’t always find one when you need one) we headed for the rollercoaster, only to discover that you can’t just buy a ticket to the rollercoaster.  You have to buy a ticket that allows you access to the whole area and it wasn’t worth the money just so Alan could go on the rollercoaster.  That was his rationale.  I think it had more to do with the fact that he’d eaten enough for four people at lunch and wasn’t ready to see it again. My tummy hasn't been the best today so I don't think going upside down several times straight after a big meal would have been the best idea.

We returned to the monorail station to find it pretty packed but we managed, just, to get on the next one.  I was half concerned my butt was going to get stuck in the door.  Thankfully we only had one station to go because, whether we liked it or not, we were going out the door when it opened.  People do like to push.

It was now 2.30pm and the storm clouds were forming again so we returned to our room, having done everything in KL that we wanted to do.  I went and had a lovely swim before we retired for an afternoon nap, my first in about 8 days, very rare for me.

Dinner we again hit the hotel restaurant for a light snack.  Not sure how Alan had room for more food, but he did.  Again, we encountered strange service.  The lady who seated us gave us the menu for the expensive Italian restaurant and we had to ask for the cheaper menu. The drinks took forever and I had to eventually ask for water for the table when last night we were automatically given it and when it was brought, it was hot water in glasses.  I then had to ask for iced water and she seemed to get annoyed.  It was pretty much the last we saw of her and I eventually had to go up and refill the water glass myself.  We saw her off complaining to another staff member about us. The restaurant was a lot busier than last night. We were the first ones in there tonight but by the time we left it was probably half full.

We started with a caesar salad and for the first time, got beef bacon although we had seen it around.  We then both had fish and chips which was nice.

Before returning to the room we went to the lobby to see if we could get a definitive answer on how much it will cost to get to the airport tomorrow.  We’d had it quoted between RM80 and RM150. On the walk back to our hotel this afternoon there were a group of taxi drivers sitting outside their cars so I asked them how much it would cost. One of them replied RM50, but then his buddies nudged him and he looked at us and realised we were foreigners and the price changed to RM150. I looked into the high speed train but it was RM70 and we still had to get KL Sentral to get it and we weren’t going to try putting our bags on the monorail.  Thankfully we spoke to someone who gave us a direct quote of RM80 and has ordered it for us at 11am tomorrow although getting him to understand we wanted to be there at 12 midday, noon, lunchtime was a bit of an ordeal. Yes he seemed to think we'd be checking out at 11am but wanted the taxi at midnight.

Now all we have to do is pack, and hope that our towels from yesterday get a little drier before they go back into the suitcases.

I still don’t have my KL magnet yet for my collection.  We thought we might be able to get one at the little gift shop in the lobby but no.  They have no magnets but a surprisingly large quantity of KY Jelly, okay! Hopefully we will get one at the airport.

So tomorrow, 2.25pm flight to Singapore and a 7.55pm flight home, arriving in Sydney Sunday morning.  Can’t wait to see my kitties.

Day 14 – Water water everywhere.

Alan is writing the blog this evening although I have the hiccups, so don’t be surprised if there are some spelling mistakes.

Finally we have gotten to the most fun part of our holiday. Sunway Lagoon was our destination for today. It doesn’t open until 11am, so we were able to have a bit of a sleep in this morning. We left the hotel around 10 this morning and walked up to the monorail station. We’re old hands at this monorail caper now, so catching it to KL Sentral was an easy task. We got off at KL Sentral and walked the short distance to the train station. Short??  OK. This was our first time catching a train in Malaysia so we worked out what we had to do and found our way onto the appropriate platform. Sarah decided to stay with me on the train despite there being a ladies only carriage that she could have ridden in. Maybe she should have gone for the ladies carriage after all, because there was an Indian dude sitting near us who was leering at her for the entire train ride. Yeah, he was more than a little off putting.

After arriving at Subang Jaya station we got off the train and wandered outside trying to figure out how to get to Sunway Lagoon. There was a ricketty old bus which we just missed, so we took a taxi instead and soon arrived at the front gate. Sunway Lagoon is five theme parks all rolled into one. We thought we’d give the extreme park and the scream park a miss, so we bought a three park ticket which gives entry to the adventure park, water park and wildlife park.

It was getting close to midday by now and very hot. We made our way to a couple of water rides which I went on and managed to get very wet in the process. At least that cooled me down a bit.


We had one of our aeroplane carry-on bags with us today because we had towels with us, so we needed to find a locker to store that in while we explored the park a bit. We thought the best idea would be to find a locker down by the water park area as that’s where we’d be spending most of our time today, so we trudged off down the hill.

Along the way we stopped off to look at their two tigers, both of whom were having a nap in the midday heat. I went and had a ride on the rollercoaster while Sarah took refuge from the heat undercover. The coaster was ok, nothing special really. Next we came across the suspension bridge which extends across almost the entire park. Indeed it is the longest pedestrian suspension bridge in the world. We walked about halfway across before returning. It was so hot out there. It didn’t move around too much but there were metal grates that you could see through and I don’t like that.

 

We were thankful when we came upon escalators  to take us down to the water park. We were hungry by now so we stopped at a food outlet. Apparently Sarah’s chicken burger was the worst thing she’s ever eaten. My fish burger was not much better. The fish was very dry and the bun had to be at least 3 weeks old. If only we had walked another 10 yards around the corner we would have found a couple of other food stores. Oh well.

Finally we made it to the water park and went off in search of the lockers. We found them and paid the RM5, only to then realise that our bag was too big to fit in the locker no matter how hard I pushed and shoved it. Oh for crying out loud! Well we left our valuables in there, like Neville and Trevor, and other things like the camera, my watch, your wallet and our shoes and took the bag with the towels in it with us to the beach area. At last we were wading out into the lovely warm water. For some reason they have the deep section roped off, but we were able to have a nice swim around anyway. There was barely anyone in the water with us at all.

We spied some people going down a small slidy type thing over yonder so we swam over to that and I went down it a couple of times. I somehow even convinced Sarah to give it a go, but I’m not sure what the other people nearby thought when she came sliding down with her legs spread apart wide as wide can be. I had a couple more turns. It was fun apart from the nose full of water I got one time. As you know full well, Alan, you have little control on the thing.  Just ask the mother and baby you almost wiped out on your first try.  Oh and you forgot to mention that you got so much water up your nose on the first time down, you almost drowned.

Next we walked around to the wave pool, where a show was going on so we couldn’t get in there. There was another pool behind it which had nobody swimming in it because the water was freezing in there. Naturally enough, weirdo Sarah went for a swim in this pool. The water was not cold at all.  You’re a weirdo for wanting all your pool water to be bath temperature. I sat and watched. During this time the rain began to fall fairly lightly. Shortly after that, the show in the wave pool finished so we went over and got in there. The waves weren’t very big for a wave pool really, but fun nonetheless.

We went back to the main beach area and had another swim in the big pool. By now there were some menacing looking grey clouds looming so we kept an eye on them. They seemed to be closing in from two sides so we made our way out of the water. I mean we didn’t want to get wet or anything. Weirdo. As we stood by our locker drying ourselves, all of a sudden the sky opened up and a deluge began to fall. Within seconds the lightning and thunder were coming at a fast rate and the amount of water falling was amazing.

We gathered up all our stuff and began to make our way toward the exit. We had a long way to go and the walkways and staircases were fast turning into rivers and lakes. We stopped off in the wildlife section for a bit of relief from the storm. We would have liked to have seen all of the wildlife section but it really was just too stormy. They had some cute stuff which we saw like hedgehogs and sugar gliders who were hiding their heads but their butts were hanging out, hiding from the storm noise and two ferrets who were fast asleep, upside down, who didn’t have a clue what was going on.


We were already saturated of course, but the storm was just so fierce that we wanted to get under cover for a bit. Back out into the typhoon and eventually, after some very close lightning bolts, we got to the exit. We went to the changerooms and tried our best to dry off with extremely wet towels and put our semi dry clothes on.

Neither of us were looking forward to the idea of a train and monorail ride back to the hotel, so we decided a taxi would be the best option. We bought out taxi ticket and after a few rejections from taxi drivers who didn’t want to take us, finally we found one who was willing to come all the way here. A$10, can’t complain about that cost. The traffic getting out of the Sunway area was horrendous. Luckily our driver knew a shortcut through the loading dock area beneath the shopping mall so that got us out the other side much quicker.

After a stop for refuelling, we then came to a massive traffic jam down the road a little way. We sat in that jam and went probably less than a kilometre in about an hour or so. eventually we came to the problem. The road was flooded and five lanes were merging into one. Thank goodness our taxi was prepaid and we weren’t on the meter. During our extended wait in the traffic, we struck up a conversation with our driver Kenny. He turned out to be a great guy with lots of stories and jokes and he wanted to know all about us and our families and everything. He made an hour and a half journey interesting and a lot of fun. I wish he would have switched off the air conditioning though. We were freezing our backsides off sitting there in wet clothes.

Back in our hotel room and dry at last. Ahhhh that felt better. We couldn’t face going out again tonight so we went downstairs to check out the restaurants in our hotel. We saw steak on the menu at Checkers restaurant and I’ve been craving one for the past couple of weeks so we went in. There were only three other people in the restaurant, on the table next to ours. Whilst waiting for our meals to arrive, we started to talking to them. They were in their 60s, a couple from England and her sister from Ireland. We had a great old chat and laugh. The guy was full of funny stories. The restaurant runs a full buffet as well as a menu.  There was so much food and no one to eat it.  I wonder what they do with it.

Our steaks were great and the garlic basted vegetables were delicious. So much so that I even ate my cauliflower. Not my zucchini or asparagus though; I couldn’t go that far. We still had room left after dinner so we thought we’d try out the dessert buffet. So many yummy treats to choose from. Sarah and I ate 17 desserts between us. Right now I don’t think I can move. Keep in mind that these are little desserts, about two mouthfuls and yes, Alan ate more than me.  Wish I had my camera with me when he stuck his spoon into the chocolate fountain and then into his mouth … leaving just a few chocolate drops over their tablecloth.

Back to our room for the night after a full and fun day. Sunway Lagoon was fun despite having our afternoon cut short. I don’t think either of us have ever seen such a huge amount of water fall from the sky so quickly. The lack of people there today was awesome.

The plan for tomorrow, our last full day here, is to get up early and visit Batu Caves, followed by a trip to Times Square. Apparently there is a rollercoaster there! Yay!

Oh I forgot, we saw a dead motorcyclist on the road outside our hotel this evening.  We aren’t 100% sure he was dead.  He may just have been resting. Then again, I don’t know why we don’t see more of them. Yes of course, just having a rest in the middle of a wet road with a blanket completely covering his body.

Day 13 -

Alan has to write the blog because apparently Sarah can’t see tonight.  I’m having a little eye problem.  In any event, it was your turn.

After the shambles that was yesterday, today could only get better. We arose early enough but in our usual style we procrastinated and didn’t end up leaving the hotel until about 11am.

We decided we just couldn’t face the hop on hop off bus for a second straight day, so instead we gave the monorail a try. After buying our tickets and figuring out after numerous attempts how to insert them into the automatic gates to the platform, we travelled the journey of one station and got off again. We studied the map and figured out the quickest way to walk to the KL Tower, despite it being about 1000 degrees by this stage. Actually it wasn’t too bad at that stage. Passing by a KFC, we saw a big banner advertising a new product. Fish donuts. Ok then.

We made it to the entry road to the tower and luckily there is a shuttle bus which comes every 15 minutes, otherwise it would be an exhausting steep climb up the hill. The driver smelled bad, but at least we didn’t have to walk. Once there, we purchased our tower tickets which include a visit to the animal exhibit and a drive in the Formula 1 simulator.

The lift took us up 276 metres and we were each given our own headphones for a commentary as we took in the view. The commentary was annoying so we both did away with it fairly quickly. The view was fantastic and there was virtually no haze or smog today so we were very lucky. We found the vicinity of our hotel but it was obscured by other buildings. We also saw Batu Caves off in the distance, where we’ll be visiting on Friday.


Back down again and it was time for me to have my Formula 1 experience. You would think that being a professional driver I would be good at this sort of thing wouldn’t you? You would be wrong. I suck badly. I think I spent more time in the sand traps and on the grass and crashing into walls than I did actually on the track. Oh well! You would think having the tongue out would help the concentration. It didn’t.

The third part of the package was going into the small animal enclosure. There was a cockatoo falling asleep at the entrance. This place was sad and depressing. There were lots of snakes, lizards and spiders which we’re used to seeing in smallish enclosures, but the other animals we’re not used to seeing in this environment. It was very hot in there and obviously some of the poorly treated animals weren’t coping well in the heat. Monkeys, sugar gliders, raccoons and rabbits all in small cages. There were prairie dogs actually physically chewing on the steel bars of their cage trying to get out. Oh and they really shouldn’t feed live mice to the snakes during visitor hours. Poor little guy, he looked terrified. The only good thing about the place was seeing a two headed turtle. The mouse was gone when we went to leave.  I really wish we hadn’t gone into the place.



Anyway, we had seen the Hard Rock Cafe from up in the tower so we decided to head there for lunch. We caught the monorail one stop and luckily the Hard Rock was next door to the station. It was nice and cool in there and we had the lunch time special with lots to drink.

Out into the heat again and back on the monorail to bring us to the station closest our hotel. We walked from the station to the hotel via a big shopping centre which was lovely and cool inside, although very boring as there are a distinct lack of shops in there. Strange! We hung around the room for the remainder of the afternoon, waiting for 7pm to arrive as we had arranged to go out to dinner with Calvin, an old friend of mine from school who lives here in Kuala Lumpur. It was a nice relaxing afternoon.  I was wearing very little, lying on the bed, watching something on my computer with the headphones in so not to disturb Alan. He got up, said something to me that he knew I couldn’t hear because of the headphones and the next thing I know there is a housekeeping woman in the room.  She sure got out of here in a hurry after seeing me.  Alan said she knocked and then came straight in.  I asked if he had locked the door when we got back. No, of course not.

We met in our hotel lobby and Calvin drove us through the very heavy peak hour traffic to a Swiss restaurant. We pulled into the parking lot only to find that the place was closed for renovations. Oh dear! Never mind, there are plenty of other restaurants around here to choose from, so we went to the Petronas Towers and after navigating our way from deep underground in the car park, we found an Italian restaurant on the ground floor with a nice view of the fountain area. It was a truly delicious Italian meal. I’m sure we all enjoyed it greatly. I did, I did. Calvin very generously picked up the bill as our host for the evening. We’ll be more than happy to take him out the next time he visits Sydney.



We took a few photos of the twin towers before returning to the car and driving to the “old English” area of Kuala Lumpur. There’s a building which I can’t remember what it is, but it has a replica of Big Ben atop it and we managed to get some photos of it plus the KL Tower and Petronas Towers all in the one shot. I’m so clever!  Wow, you managed to frame a photo.  Good on you Alan.

 
It was starting to get late by this point so Calvin returned us to our hotel and we sais our goodbyes before coming up to our room. The plan for tomorrow is to catch the train to Sunway Lagoon, which is a rather large theme park sort of area. Let’s hope it’s not too crowded. It has a big beach area and a really large suspension bridge I can’t wait to see.

Day 12 – Out and about in KL

Sarah here again, folks.  It just hasn’t been Alan’s day. Grumble grumble growl.

We had a reasonable night of sleep until we realised this morning that we can hear the building’s elevators from here.  Apparently Alan could hear them last night but I didn’t notice them. However, when you’re trying to sleep, they can be very annoying.

Because of this we left the room by 9.15am. One of our earliest starts yet. We took a walk up to where we ate last night and bought tickets for the hop on hop off bus.  This is where our day started to go wrong.  All the information we had read, told us that this was a good hop on hop off bus.  We do them usually most places we go because it gives us an overview of the city and, of course, we can get off and on whenever we like.

The bus was uncomfortable; no leg room at all, the windows were dirty so hard to take photos out of, is supposed to have a recorded commentary that you can listen through headphones but 80% of the headphones don’t work and the air conditioning was barely working. The seats are really small; nowhere near wide enough for our big bums. They go around in circles covering the same area numerous times on occasions. There are four buses on the route and pick up is supposed to be between every 15 and 30 minutes.  The map they gave was pretty basic but it did list the stops and what can be done there. Unfortunately some aren’t labelled appropriately, which we later discovered.

We got off at stop 14 and went to the orchid garden but, unfortunately, there was hardly anything flowering.


Supposedly at the same stop was the butterfly park but, as we discovered, that should have been the stop before, which required us to walk quite some distance in the heat.  The park was pretty and had other things other than butterflies like turtles, fish, some really scary looking things like scorpions and spiders etc.

      
After walking back to the closest stop, stop 13, we waited for 30 minutes for a bus to arrive.  We sat downstairs this time because of the lack of air conditioning and upstairs the windows don’t open and the roof is made of glass too.  The driver of this bus was dreadful and I don’t think he ever made it out of first gear. We were going to stop 22 and it took a hour.  The guy was so slow that the bus 30 minutes behind us caught up, which of course screwed up the timing for the buses for the rest of the day.

By this time it was 1.15pm and we’d had nothing to eat or drink all day.  We quickly found our way to a shopping centre and looked for a food hall. Actually a store directory would have been a start but we couldn’t find one of those.  We ended up travelling up four levels to find a food hall that was so packed you could barely move.  Finally, we located what I’m sure was the only store directory and we were then in the lift on our way to Burger King. Thankfully it wasn’t too busy so we ate and had a well needed drink.

After that we went back outside and walked around the Petronas Twin Towers and took some photos.  We then, begrudgingly, got back on the hop on hop off bus and returned to the stop we originally started at, although this took another 30 or so minutes. We keep being stalked by a bunch of annoying Koreans plus a family of Australian bogans everywhere we went today.

We then came back to the hotel, using our shortcut we found this morning cutting about 5 minutes off the walk.  We stopped by the pool area and decided, yes, a swim would be in order.  It was 3.30pm by this time.  Alan will complain that the water was too cold but I loved it. It was freezing. Probably around 12 degrees. I only got in for 2 minutes because I didn’t feel like having a shower tonight. It wasn’t that cold.  Probably like 25 and was something I’ve been looking forward to for days; a cool refreshing swim.  The pools in Langkawi were way too warm.

The cloud was quickly rolling in by this time and, back in our room, we watched the storm come over.  In the course of 5 minutes the visibility was cut from about 10kms to the stage where I could just see the buildings on the next block. Then came the thunder and lightning and then loss of internet.

Alan was in the middle of his weekly online poker tournament so he’s not impressed.  We finally thought about the free wi-fi at the place we had dinner last night, so this is where we are now … a little wet but here. And of course I hurt my ankle walking here. Unfortunately he had been blinded out by the time we got here. Poor Alan. Where are my satay skewers? They seem to have forgotten them. Typical!

Thankfully the storm seems to have subsided so we might get back to the hotel a little drier.  Let’s just say, my little umbrella isn’t made for two.