After saying in my previous blog that I hadn't heard many rave reviews about KL, I would have to say that I felt the same. It was just another city really, the only really special thing that I saw were the Petronas towers, which are as cool as you would imagine! Plus, inside, there was a Topshop!
Anyway, I stayed for just one night in KL, and had a very interesting incident in the night were a guy woke everyone in the dorm up by rustling the dreaded plastic bags after arriving at about 2.30am, to then tell me repeatedly that I was in HIS bed and needed to get out. Like I was there just to warm it up for him ready for his arrival! I told him no many times (didn't swear at him shockingly) until he finally gave up and got in the top bunk, and then left about 4 hours later. What a bloody weirdo.
I then hot-footed it over to Melaka, which is a lovely albeit very touristy UNESCO site. There was a great weekend market there, in which a 60-odd year old man had a party trick of pushing a hole into a green coconut using one finger and obviously some kind of jedi mind trick. It looked ridiculously painful, but I was suitably impressed. The food was darn good too - Malay/ Chinese fusion food such as laksa (a seafood noodle soup dish) and cendol (ice shavings with coconut milk and what looked like melted palm sugar).
I had a brand new experience in Melaka as well - bed bugs! In one night, I managed to find 2 rooms with them in after surviving 8 months bug-free! The owner of the guesthouse was very apologetic and put me up in his much posher second guesthouse, and as I was about to leave to go to Singapore, gave me an envelope containing a full refund. So I won't complain too much about a few bites on my arms and a restless night!
Another new experience came my way in Singapore - couchsurfing. I don't know if you've heard of this crazy, wonderful, hippy idea, but it's a website where you make a page about yourself ( a little like myspace) and then look for people in the area you're going to who would put you up on their sofa/ spare bed for a few days. I met a lovely girl called Christel and stayed with her family, who fed me delicious cake and curries and spoilt me rotten. I was staying there with another CS'er, and the three of us went to Singapore zoo for the day. It's an amazing zoo as there aren't any cages - the animals have open enclosures, separated from the humans using moats and hills. It was brilliant. We saw a particularly disturbing thing happen which might stay with me until the day I die - a mandrill get all agitated, then pleasure itself, then eat it's own love juice! Sorry to share such a disgusting thing, but it made us laugh for the rest of the day!
Singapore is one of my favourite cities that I've visited on this trip - it has a great blend of old colonial buildings plus super-modern architecture, and they've kept as many green spaces as possible, rightly earning it the name of the garden city. Plus the food is a mega fusion of all the yummiest Asian food you think of, and there's a lively nightlife scene - what more could you want? In my opinion, it's a bit like Hong Kong but nicer.
Anyway, I stayed for just one night in KL, and had a very interesting incident in the night were a guy woke everyone in the dorm up by rustling the dreaded plastic bags after arriving at about 2.30am, to then tell me repeatedly that I was in HIS bed and needed to get out. Like I was there just to warm it up for him ready for his arrival! I told him no many times (didn't swear at him shockingly) until he finally gave up and got in the top bunk, and then left about 4 hours later. What a bloody weirdo.
I then hot-footed it over to Melaka, which is a lovely albeit very touristy UNESCO site. There was a great weekend market there, in which a 60-odd year old man had a party trick of pushing a hole into a green coconut using one finger and obviously some kind of jedi mind trick. It looked ridiculously painful, but I was suitably impressed. The food was darn good too - Malay/ Chinese fusion food such as laksa (a seafood noodle soup dish) and cendol (ice shavings with coconut milk and what looked like melted palm sugar).
I had a brand new experience in Melaka as well - bed bugs! In one night, I managed to find 2 rooms with them in after surviving 8 months bug-free! The owner of the guesthouse was very apologetic and put me up in his much posher second guesthouse, and as I was about to leave to go to Singapore, gave me an envelope containing a full refund. So I won't complain too much about a few bites on my arms and a restless night!
Another new experience came my way in Singapore - couchsurfing. I don't know if you've heard of this crazy, wonderful, hippy idea, but it's a website where you make a page about yourself ( a little like myspace) and then look for people in the area you're going to who would put you up on their sofa/ spare bed for a few days. I met a lovely girl called Christel and stayed with her family, who fed me delicious cake and curries and spoilt me rotten. I was staying there with another CS'er, and the three of us went to Singapore zoo for the day. It's an amazing zoo as there aren't any cages - the animals have open enclosures, separated from the humans using moats and hills. It was brilliant. We saw a particularly disturbing thing happen which might stay with me until the day I die - a mandrill get all agitated, then pleasure itself, then eat it's own love juice! Sorry to share such a disgusting thing, but it made us laugh for the rest of the day!
Singapore is one of my favourite cities that I've visited on this trip - it has a great blend of old colonial buildings plus super-modern architecture, and they've kept as many green spaces as possible, rightly earning it the name of the garden city. Plus the food is a mega fusion of all the yummiest Asian food you think of, and there's a lively nightlife scene - what more could you want? In my opinion, it's a bit like Hong Kong but nicer.
No comments:
Post a Comment