Malaysia Malaise

In Hat Yai, Thailand I saw the bullfight, so we finally make a plan. Since our ultimate goal now is to get to Indonesia with a 60 day visa to finish our South East Asia trip (you only get 30 days at the airport). Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia should be the best location to sort everything out. There is a night train from South Thailand to KL. Unfortunatly no beds are available, so we take a seat for the 14 hr trip. Mika says it will be like sitting on an airplane.

A 2hr trip gets us to the Malaysian border. We pass customs and need to wait an hour for the 6:00 PM train. We then get a message that there is a two hour delay. Two hours later we are told that there are problems and the train will be ready at 1:00 AM. The restaurants at the station are closed. Mika goes to see about upgrading to a bed. The station manager who sits comfortably smoking in his air-conditioned office under the no smoking sign wants to charge a much larger fee than required to upgrade to a bed. We are not carrying any Malaysian Ringgit anyway. By now the station restaurants are closed. We could demand a refund but are stuck in a border town. Everyone is left to sit here without food or water (just what we have with us) or any updated information from the station manager or his incompetent staff. I guess this is what happens when the government run train line has a monopoly.

Train delay refugees

Finally at 2:00 AM - eight hours late - we board the train. Figuring that many people have cancelled their trip. Mika asks the train guy for a bed. He says he'll check. I fall asleep before he comes back. Like in an airplane sleep is of course terrible. And like everywhere in South East Asia the air-conditioning is on full blast. Around 8:00 AM and five hours of much interrupted sleep I give up and just stay awake.

Mika's self-mummification  

We get to Kuala Lumpur tired, unwashed and seven hours later than originally planned. We are still without Malaysian money and need to wait 40 minutes for someone to fix the one working ATM that will accept my card. We get to our Chinatown hotel and take much needed showers and naps. We drag ourselves out of bed and wander around Chinatown like zombies. Today is a wash and no chance of getting anything done. It is also Mika's birthday. Luckily she decided a while back to forgo celebration in KL and will have a "birthday week" at a yet to be determined beach location in Indonesia.

Selecting birthday cake at our favorite Malaysian chain

That night, still jet lagged from our train journey and siesta, we go to bed very late and so get a late start the next morning. We decide to take the monorail two stations to get close to the Indonesian Embassy. After the first stop Mika realizes that her bag is open and wallet is missing. She immediately suspects some fishy guy who was standing too close to her a few seconds ago and is now long gone. The good news is that Mika never carries credit cards or much cash. She loses 30 Malaysian Ringgit (US $10), passport size photos and a photocopy of her passport. Apart from feeling violated and thinking about how many meals in Thailand we can buy with the stolen 30 RM, we are also concerned about the copy of Mika's passport which right now must be in the hands of the Chinese Mafia.

We go to a police station and the officer informs us that we have to go to the tourist police office to report the theft. We eventually make our way to the tourist police station which is housed in the complex with the official Malaysian Tourism office. Mika makes the report, and they say that they have never heard of anyone doing anything with just a copy of somebody's passport. Sitting next to Mika is an Arab man who lost a load of cash and his passport to a pickpocket. Mika also calls the Japanese Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, and they do not worry about a stolen photocopy of a passport either. They obviously fear the resourcefulness of the Chinese Mafia far less than we do. Running around all day to sort out the snatched wallet, the Indonesian Embassy is closed by the time I get there. Mika is too tired to go to the airline office. This is all the rail company's fault.

On the Monorail

and on the street

We wake up late again the next morning (Wed, Sep 8) and call today a do over. The malaise of the first two days in Malaysia never happened. We finally make it to the Indonesia Embassy and get some information about obtaining a 60 day visa. No one at the window can tell us for sure if we will be able to obtain one or not. Apparently our traveling fate is to be decided by the unseen boss who may or may not grant us our desired 60 days. We also find out that they are going on holiday tomorrow and will not open again until Sep 14 for the celebration of Hari Raya - the end of Ramadan and new year. Our next errand is to buy our airline tickets. We get off the train to a monsoon and wait a half hour in the station just to cross the street. Tickets are a little more we want, but do manage to buy our passage to Indonesia for Sep 17.

During the storm

and after the storm

Since we cannot do anything about our visa until after the holiday we make the move to Malacca two hours south of Kuala Lumpur. This is a national holiday and many people are moving around the country. We look forward to a new city and leaving this bad spell behind us.

Waiting for the bus to Malacca

One Lumpur or Two?

Well our Indonesian visa ran out, so we came to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It is a great place to get anywhere else in Asia. Our original plan in KL is to sort out a visa for India, but it turns out this is an unwanted hassle. The visa is expensive, mine anyway. For US citizens it is about US $90, US $25 for Japanese. The Indian office cannot tell us when it will be ready "a minimum of five working days," which means we cannot buy our airline ticktes yet which means they will be even more expensive last minute. So we decide to scrap India and will stay in South East Asia. Not a terrible option.


View Larger Map

Five years ago we were in Kuala Lumpur for a couple nights of our honeymoon. With a nice 5-star hotel room including lots of food we barely saw anything of the city so we are looking forward to exploring a bit. Walking on the street KL feels like the proverbial melting pot. Besides the Malay, there are very large Chinese and Indian communities. Sprinkle in the Arab, Western, and smattering of African tourists there is a real cultural hodgepodge. It is a predominantly muslim country, but, unlike Indonesia, we are not woken up at 5 AM with the call to prayer (though this might not be the case in other parts of the country).

Malaysia has a pretty good economy. Things are more expensive than in Indonesia. Like Singapore, the city is full of glass, steel and concrete skyscrapers, cars and shopping malls. Construction cranes and large apartment buildings abound. The city is growing up, literally. However, unlike Singapore, KL maintains an active street life and grittiness you find in other Asian capitols. We can still get good meals for under two dollars. Littering and jaywalking are definitely not illegal in Kuala Lumpur.

Kuala Lumpur is well air-conditioned

Most of our meals have been Chinese soup, noodles and Indian food. These places always have locals and can be incredibly inexpensive. We have eaten Malay food a few times. It is very similar to Indonesian, but we seem to like food in Indonesia better. It is quite possible we are just not finding the right places. Once we get out of the city we will try much more Malaysian food. We have also found a local cake chain we like. Between 3-6 we get a large free coffee with cake purchase. With 160 outlets in Malaysia and 50 more in SE Asia I am sure we will find them somewhere else.

A restaurant in Chinatown

This costs 2.50 Ringgit (US $0.80) at Indian places.

We start off our visit in the Bukit Bintang area which is sort of downtown. There are many hotels, restaurants and shopping. The low-end hotels are really horrible here. Not seedy, just dirty and not well-maintained. A double room in a windowless cell with shared bathroom and a continental breakfast of toast with jelly and undrinkable coffee will cost 60 Ringgit (US $20) -- a lot of money for backpackers. They use guidebooks to lure in tourist after tourist without the need to maintain or improve their facilities. I really would only recommend them for lone travelers who need the cheapest dorm bed possible.

After bouncing around -- 1st hotel, nice enough but over of our budget; 2nd exactly like description above; 3rd the cheapest we found 40 Ringgit (US $13), but no floor space to put our luggage and the worst laundry service ever. Our last two evenings we find a US $20 hotel online on the main tourist drag in Chinatown. Very clean, our own bathroom, wi-fi and tv in the room, and nice size. Step outside and it is wall-to-wall shops selling fake shoes, purses, dvd's watches, sunglasses...do I need to go on?


Standing above everything in KL is Petronas Towers. Eighty-eight stories high it is the fourth largest building(s) in the world and the iconic image of Kuala Lumpur. Visitors can go up for free to the Skybridge connecting the two towers on the 41st floor. The Skybridge's main purpose is a support to limit swaying. Going up to the Skybridge requires getting in line before 8 AM to secure a reservation for during that day. Tickets go quickly and by 10 AM are gone. We do this, and come back for our time slot, but it is not so interesting. Viewing the towers from the ground is actually a more impressive sight. If you want to go higher, the 84th floor for example, you need to have business or a friend at Petronas, the government-run oil company.

This installation is part of the Malaysia-Japan Video Art Exchange at the National Gallery

We really like it here in this city. The balance of street hawkers and urban amenities really fits our travel lifestyle. After lots of ping-ponging of ideas of where we should go (India, Mynamar, Laos) we decide to stay in the country and see more of what Malaysia has to offer. This means we will probably eventually make it back to KL for another welcome visit.

A 35 minute bus ride out of the city gets you to Batu Caves. A Hindu temple inside a cave.