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Tuesday, February 27 After my last post, I spent a couple more nights in Melaka before returning to Kuala Lumpur on an early morning bus which I'd bought way in advance, fearing for the swarm of city dwellers returning to the capital. KL was an absolute blast besides not managing to get in touch with my cousins and a long-lost friend from my pre-university days in Melbourne. To make the long story short, let's just say that despite all the major advancements with mobile phone technology, these darn little machines are still at the mercy of batteries, and a powerless phone meant no phone numbers, no means of contact. Well, if it's any kind of a consolation, I ended up running into three baffled-looking Japanese girls at the entrance of Le Village, the built-in-1918 guesthouse where my cousin had graciously booked me in at for my KL stay. They had just arrived from the airport and were trying to figure out how to get into the building, made impossible with the absence of the guy at the registration desk. Since I'd checked in a couple of hours earlier, I knew the combination for the gate and let them in. Luckily this time one round, one of them spoke fluent English so there was no need for any embarassing French episodes. It turned out that they were from Osaka and two of them were going to backpack all over South East Asia for a good couple of months. As our guesthouse was conveniently located (just round the corner from Chinatown), we decided to hit the tourist circuit: Jalan Petaling, Central Market, Jalan Alor, Bukit Bintang, KLCC, Little India, Chow Kit, Kampung Baru. Yes a lot of walking indeed but we also managed to figure out our way around the terribly disconnected network of public railways such as the KL Monorail, LRT, KTM(?!). A little foot reflexology in Bukit Bintang was the perfect way to end the night. Of all the things I saw in KL, I must say that the the Petronas Tower was by far the most impressive. I'd seen it from a distance during my 2004 tour with Whence He Came and Buddhistson, but it was simply incredible to behold at close range. If only the majority of the other modern architectures of the world could take note and try to be something equally outstanding. The Petronas Tower is a marvel at any time of day, from any angle or distance. We also spent an afternoon taking a 45 minute bus ride (for only 2 ringgit!) out to the surrounding state Selangor to visit (according to Lonely Planet) 'the psychedelic Hindu galleries of Batu Caves'. I'd been there when I was about ten years old, but I remembered little from the experience (other than being terribly disturbed by seeing a photo of a 5-legged cow), so it was a delight to climb the monkey-infested 277 steps up to the cave entrance. Highlight of the climb was seeing Mihoko attract the attention of 5-6 hungry monkeys with the packet of prawn crackers that she'd brought over from Japan, and getting pretty freaked out in the process. In the end one of them managed to successfully grab the packet from behind and quickly ran off to a safe distance. She wasn't particularly impressed by the monkey's feat but the rest of us burst into laughter and the monkey with the packet in hand actually made for a pretty cool advertising image. We spent the afternoon taking delight in the tranquility and coolness of the cave interiors before catching a bus back to town, in time to catch the vendors setting up their nightmarket stalls along Little India. The journey back to Hong Kong was smooth and glitch-free, albeit a little long and overdrawn. I'd left my hostel at 9:30 am, but didn't get back to my doorsteps until almost 12 hours later. Next time I think I'm gonna break it up with a stopover in Macau. I returned to HK with 39 rolls to process. I've uploaded on here the snapshot ones taken with my XA4. If you're sick of reloading again and again, you might want to just want to click here.
Thursday, February 22 Between her broken English and my butchered French, we managed to make enough sense of one another. Yes, never had I imagined that I would actually hold a French conversation, in Malaysia of all places, with a Japanese and a Moroccan, but that was precisely what happened on the first night whilst I got myself acquainted with the people hanging about in the lobby/bar of the guest house. Naturally mine was as rusty as an age-old nail but at least (I think) they understood. Yuko and I did the standard Melaka tourist circuit, which was extremely easy to do on a bike. We wasted 3 ringgits on the Malacca Maritime Museum, which gave a very detailed (but perhaps nationalistic) account on the history of Melaka but the dim ambient lights, despite providing an appropriate mood for the exhibition, made all the text rather difficult to read. We also spent a significant chunk of time wandering around in Chinatown, getting lost in the sea of cars and pedestrians. I had wanted to sample the (over-rated?) Chicken Ball Rice of Melakan fame, but the queues at all the restaurants were so long that it just wasn't worth it. Instead I indulged myself in plenty of Nyonya Chendol and Laksa, which was probably a whole lot better anyhow. Shoot... time's up once again. Off to KL tomorrow at 11 A.M. I'll try to finish this up later. For now I'm going to spend a little more time cruising around the streets (which is a lot more spacious and quiet now that the majority of the out-of-towners have taken off), as well as getting the bike back to the Discovery Cafe before 1 A.M.
Wednesday, February 21 I suppose I should backtrack a few days and just give a loose summary on what's happened since Macau International Airport. The interior of the AirAsia airbus was surprisingly new and clean. Naturally the flight was stripped of all luxuries and services, but that was to be expected. The Nasi Lemak was worth every bit of the 9 ringgit. The flight departed and arrived on time. I think having unassigned seats allowed for the passengers to be loaded in somewhat more efficiently. Got in to KL International Airport at 9:30 pm and conveniently missed the Skybus (express transportation into KL Sentral) by a few minutes. I knew that stupid customer officer stopping me for an x-ray scan - in the green 'nothing to declare' passage - was gonna cost me. Next bus wasn't due to leave until 10:15 and the journey was going to take a whole 1 hour and 15 minutes. By the time I checked in to my hotel it was 11:30 but luckily my colleague Iris, who happened to be there with her mother, was still kind enough to come out and feast on some late night calorie-inducing goodies with me. The three of us headed over to Jalan Alor, which I suppose is the touristy food street of KL. Expensive by local standards, but everything was still a bargain compared to HK prices. I mean, you can't go wrong with paying 6 ringgit for a dozen satays. We indulged ourselves in our little food crawl until 1:45, by which time we could barely move. It amazed us that people (by the truckloads) were still out and about at this hour, filling up the tables at every hawker stall. We returned to Brickfields, bid farewell and walked in opposite directions, their YMCA hostel a stark contrast to my 2-star Florida Hotel. I'm not really a man after luxury but the bathroom that seemed to drip from every 'pore' in the ceiling was a little too much, nevermind the windowless 'box' of a room. Oh well, I just needed a place to crash for the night until my cousins came to pick me up at 5 am. Originally I had thought about not bothering about a hotel, just roaming the streets until the crack of dawn, but a shower and a 2-3 hour snooze (regardless of location) made for a nice way to end the day. I'll save my Penang/Ipoh/Gopeng segment for another time as I'm left with a mere 13 minutes on this computer. I guess I could extend my time but I need to be back at the hostel in a half hour or so anyway so I probably shouldn't ramble on for much longer. Speaking of the hostel, I managed to check myself in to the Eastern Heritage after a long and arduous journey from Gopeng via KL, and it's everything that I had imagined it to be. Set in a 1918 Peranaka house, the interior has remained intact for the most part. Setting foot into this establishment, as well as walking around Melaka is like stepping back in time. I don't think much has changed here in the last 50 years. I'll describe it in more detail after tonight. The journey down was a different story though. We left Gopeng at 1:15 and were pleasantly surprised to not be met by a traffic jam of any sort. Got in to KL at around 3:15 but the crazy city traffic kept us on a slow crawl all the way to Puduraya Bus Terminal, the infamously dodgy place that one must go to catch the inter-state buses. By the time I showed up at the ticket counter at 4 pm, all seats for Melaka buses for the day had already been sold out (due to the Chinese New Year). I tried numerous counters but in vain. By what seemed somewhat of a miracle, I approached one lady at a counter who asked me if I was interested in a shared taxi instead. It costed a little more but I was desperate to get over to Melaka so I agreed. Inititally I was a little skeptical about getting into a cab with a handful of strangers. 'What if it's a scam to rob me somewhere along the way?' was my initial thought. But I felt at peace about the decision and went along. The driver sped all the way down the highway, taking full advantage of the 'emergency lane' when the traffic came to a standstill. The only minor drawback to all this was the Malay power metal tape that he had on infinite repeat. The 3-4 songs on that tape got pretty old after a couple of re-runs. We got in to Melaka Sentral in about 2 hours but then the real pain came of waiting for a bus into town. CNY celebrations were in full swing and there was talk of the King coming in to visit tomorrow. As a result, roads were blocked or diverted. Add to this the near impossible task of tracking down the correct bus to board. None of the drivers seemed to know any basic English, nor did the horde of dodgy-looking guys hanging around the station. Thankfully a very kind middle-aged Indian gentlemen asked me if I was going on bus no. 17. It turned out that we were both waiting for the same bus. Without pleading for help in the slightest bit, he proceeded to assist me with both the purchasing of the ticket on board the bus, as well as telling me where to get off and how to walk to the Eastern Heritage. In the end I had to walk a whole 20-25 minutes to get to my destination but I was nevertheless thankful for the man's small act of kindness. This so-called 'random act of kindness' occurred once again earlier on as I was walking over to this particular internet cafe. There I was, standing out like a sore thumb in the middle of the road with a map wide open, when a passing motorist pulled up alongside and asked if I was trying to go somewhere. Can't imagine that ever happening in HK. So that's a pretty good start to my 3 night stay here. Tomorrow should be an adventure-packed day.
Friday, February 16 I am currently sitting in front of a free internet terminal at the Macau International Airport, which is a much welcomed sight in light of the barrenness of this spanking new and squeaky clean airport. It fares pretty poorly in the duty free shopping department but that's probably a good thing. In about ten minutes my flight to Malaysia should hopefully be ready for boarding. It seems like a good chunk of the flights are experiencing delays at the moment. I'm off to KL to spend Chinese New Year with the relatives on my mother's side. It's been a good number of years since I've visited them so this should make for a rather memorable trip. Hong Kong is lame for me during Chinese New Year anyway as the majority of my relatives (on both sides) don't live there. This is my first attempt at trying the no-frills budget airline Air Asia that is taking over South East Asia like a storm. And as a budget airline, it truly lives up to it's name. The boarding pass resembles little more than a supermarket receipt. Should be interesting to see whether this is reflected also in the quality of the aircraft and the service. In case you're wondering why I'm flying out of Macau, that's the closest airport to Hong Kong at the moment. It took me a couple of hours to get out here, which isn't all that bad when it can take an hour to get to the Hong Kong airport anyways. Plus I'm in love with Macau so it's always good to be here, although I haven't really had the chance to do much exploring this time round. My bus passed by the brand new Lisboa casino though and it looks even worse in real-life than in the photos. An impatient hoard of passengers are waiting for me to move away so I better stop here. So until next time, enjoy the photos of Macau that I took over the course of 2006. Unfortunately they don't really do the place any justice. |