Malaysia

Well…what can I say about Kuala Lumpur that isn’t negative….

Our experience of Kuala Lumpur over a period of three days was really not the best.

Firstly to get to KL we had an awful 19 hour bus journey from Krabi which got us into the city at 5.50am. I was already ill with a heavy head cold so travelling for this long on a coach which I swear was below freezing really wasn’t what I needed.

We also had no idea when we next had to get off the coach, or when we could next buy a drink or go to the toilet, so we just had to sit there and ‘enjoy the ride’.

The one time we didn’t want to get somewhere on time, we did. We had a hostel booked for the following night but thought we’d go and drop our bags off even though we wouldn’t be allowed in.

We searched for about half an hour going around in circles, with some very weird man following and shouting at us from his moped. We couldn’t find it and the streets of Chinatown in KL at night-time really aren’t the most welcoming, so we went to McDonalds.

We used the wifi there to look up where our hostel was supposed to be again and also had a bit of breakfast. Eventually we found it at about 7am and the lovely man on reception said we could go and make our beds and go to sleep for a couple hours. He didn’t even charge us.

The Central Market is supposed to be one of KL’s biggest tourist attractions but none of us really know why. It’s not even like a real market either, it’s far nicer than that. We had some food at a local food place so that we could try some real Malaysian food, but we didn’t really like any of the food we had and they charged us about four times the amount on the menu.

One thing I really do not like about Asia is that they charge white westerners a much higher rate than anyone else. They assume we all are super rich so think it’s ok to make us pay more. The thing is, we’re travelling and on a travellers budget so we actually have less money to spend than most of the local people who were eating in there. You can’t argue it though and you can’t complain, you just have to pay it.

Anyway, we went to see The Petronas Towers which at night-time look amazing! They’re so tall and shiny, we couldn’t stop staring up at them.

We paid to go up the KL Tower which is the tallest communications tower in Malaysia. There is a viewpoint level where you can walk around in a large circle looking out over the city. It was interesting to see but we had no idea what any of the buildings were so got bored quickly.

We weren’t allowed to go up to the other levels as we weren’t rich enough. You can eat in a revolving restaurant but of course we couldn’t afford that. So down we went.

We visited the Pavillion shopping centre which is probably the nicest shopping mall I’ve ever been in. It worked really well and was so clean and modern. It was nice to be somewhere developed where there was actual toilets and English shops. It was just sad we couldn’t afford to buy anything.

As Malaysia is a very religious country, alcohol is heavily taxed which meant that buying drink here costs about three times the amount we were paying in Thailand. How ridiculous.

All we wanted to do was to sit in a bar and have a drink, where there would be other people and we could waste some time. Apparently you can only do that in KL if you’re super rich and can afford to go into one of the swanky bars in the centre. We couldn’t so didn’t touch a drop of alcohol and were back at our hostel by about 10pm each night.

I went to a pharmacy to get some sort of medicine to try to make me feel better and he gave me some pills. He said it would help to shift my cold etc. When we got back to the hostel we Googled the pills and they are made from breast milk. Brilliant. I love a bit of breast milk to make me feel better.

We couldn’t wait to leave KL and wanted to change our flights so we could go to Australia earlier but there was no availability. We nearly cried.

We went down to another city called Malaka which was apparently a really fun place to visit. I can tell you know that it isn’t.

To be fair it is quite a pretty place, there’s a lot of flowers and sparkly lights around, there’s just fuck all to do. Even less to do than in KL.

We wondered around the Jonker Street which is known for it’s café’s, bars, restaurants and shops and found……..nothing. Nearly everything was closed and shut up, we struggled to find somewhere to even have an afternoon drink. It’s the most stupid of places.

I know we’re here not in peak season, but still, you’d think it wouldn’t be a struggle to find somewhere to have a drink but it really was. We managed to find a cinema in a very odd shopping centre so went to watch ‘Man on a Ledge’ as it was one of the only films in English. It was actually really good! Go and watch it.

So that filled up a couple hours of our day, we were back in our hostel by eight pm where we’re virtually the only guests.

We are going to Singapore early as we can’t stand Malaysia anymore. We’ve had enough of breast milk tablets, no alcohol, no bars, no people, no socialising, and people staring at us.

We have been called Charlie’s Angels quite a few times though, which I like. I bagsy Cameron Diaz.

Farewell Thailand-the good and the bad

Here is a list of things we’ve thought about since being in Thailand. There are many many more things we have wondered about, but there’s simply too much to write about. Some of it is stuff we have found annoying and stupid, and some is just us being curious George’s.

1. Does Prince Charles collect toilet seats?
2. Why do certain men have massive moustaches?
3. What money do they use in India?
4. What is the Thai Chinese parade supposed to look like?
5. What’s the reclining Budda made of?
6. Where did they get the money to build it?
7. Who built it?
8. What’s the average wage of a Thai person?
9. Do Thai people get bored with eating vegetables, rice and noodles for every meal?
10. Why do Thai taxi drivers think that by beeping their horns we are going to suddenly want to get a taxi? If we wanted a taxi, we’d get a taxi.
11. Who invented the squatter and why did they think it was a good design, it clearly isn’t
12. Why do you have to take our shoes off in some shops but not in others?
13. What goes into a real Pad Thai?
14. Do they import there tomato ketchup, or do they make it in Thailand?
15. Why do some Thai women smother their faces with white paste? We know they want to look whiter but why do they put it on like face paint? Why don’t they just use a whitening foundation?
16. What did Phi-Phi look like before the Tsunami?
17. How much is the average Thai house?
18. Why don’t they have recycling bins for bottles and cans as they go through the rubbish to take out the bottles anyway?
19. Is Chang really somewhere between 3-11 %?
20. Why do restaurants bring your food out in a random order and not together?
21. Are you supposed to tip?
22. Why do Thai people always presume we’re from London or Manchester?
23. Why is the King everywhere?
24. When he dies, how long will it take to change all the calenders, posters, billboards etc.
25. If he dies half way through the year, will they change the calenders?
26. Who designed the awful bus system? Has anyone thai or anyone who created it actually tried out a bus journey, and do they think it’s good? because we definitely do not.
27. Can you buy cutlery sets here? or just forks and spoons together.
28. Can Thai people drink the water from the tap?
29. What are the pink eggs and what are the green noodles?
30. Why do Thai people lie so much?

Good bye Thailand, it’s been an experience, mainly all good, but some parts frustratingly annoying.

Diving in Koh Phi-Phi

We wanted to try out diving so opted for the half day diving experience. Everyone in Koh Tao told us to do it there as it’s cheaper than the southern islands but when we arrived here there really wasn’t much difference.

Also here they promote the half day experience a lot more than in Koh Tao, there it was all about getting your PADI divers licence in four days. We didn’t know if we’d even like diving though, so why would you sign up to something that you may not like?

Anyway, we booked through Princess Divers (we highly recommend) and chose to go in the afternoon as we don’t like to get up early. We had to be at the centre at 1.30, from there we walked down to the boat where they explained all the equipment and safety stuff to us.

Looking fit Diving

I was so scared! I was more scared than excited, the thought of being down under the water breathing completely baffles me. Luckily I didn’t panic or anything and was actually fine.

Our instructor Kayla was so so good! She was patient and didn’t push us to do anything, and she waited until we were all comfortable before moving on. We couldn’t have wished for a better instructor.

The most important thing to remember is to breath. If you try and hold your breath then you become more panicky and it doesn’t help. They teach you to take long deep breaths in and out using your mouth piece whilst your on the boat so you can get used it. You practice everything floating around in the water first, so you can get used to it all, then they take you down under the water to practice more skills.

After all this you then decent down to a maximum of 12 metres, having to constantly blow out your ears as they pop and can hurt.

To begin with I was just thinking, this is really weird, I’m under the water and I can breath, and there are fish, and I cannot take my mouth piece out, and I cannot suddenly go back up….oh shit.

But after a couple deep breaths and a bit of time adjusting to it all, it become normal and I could just then enjoy it all.

We saw clownfish like Nemo, that was awesome! We also saw sharks, puffer fish, eels, two turtles which were amazing, a fish that looked like Gil from Finding Nemo, loads of yellow fish, bright blue ones, even saw a fat sea snake.

The coral wasn’t as bright as I had hoped, apparently it’s a lot brighter off the Great Barrier Reef. It was still wiked though.

I could have spent hours down there looking at fishs and just swimming around, but we only got an hour as our tanks of oxygen were emptying. I can see how people become addicted to it.

Our faces afterwards hurt though. One of my ears hadn’t popped, and Ninehams jaw was aching (so much so she nearly spat out a chunk of banana in a restaurant). It was a bit like coming out of the dentist chair after having braces fitted, that sort of aching feeling. I also had blisters all over my feet from the flippers.

We all looked hilarious in our wetsuits and scuba gear. It really isn’t a flattering look. We all looked like we had something actually wrong with us, our faces in the masks just got so distorted it made us all look super weird.

Me and Bie had a laughing fit in the water just from looking at each other. It was hilarious! I’ve never seen anyone’s face be so funny!

When we were getting out of the water the second time, Bie had a jellyfish sort of wrap itself around her arm so she had jelly like stuff stuck to her. I then felt a sharp pain on my arm about 20 seconds after hers, I also got stung.

Luckily for me the jellyfish only seemed to brush along my arm so it hurt a lot for a while then went, but Bies turned into disgusting lumps on her wrist. It was vile. We had to put vinegar on it on the boat.

But all in all it was one of the best things I’ve ever done! Nothing compares to it. I can’t even begin to explain how awesome it was, there’s no words to describe it. Just go try it!

Koh Phi-Phi- Ninehams Birthday and Getting Drunk

Ninehams Birthday Meal

I loved Phi-Phi as a place. I don’t know why exactly, I just did. It’s by far my most favourite place I’ve been to on our travels around Thailand.

There was lots of little shops with jewellery, shorts, dresses and beautiful hand crafted goods. A million restaurants and little eateries, with the standard food stools dotted around, a couple ice-cream shops, and a lot of dive centres.

The most important thing about Phi-Phi was that they have bakeries! We haven’t seen one bakery since we left England, and I’m not going to lie, I nearly wet myself with excitement when I saw the first one. We only actually bought two donuts between us all, but it’s the fact that they existed which was the exciting thing. The donuts were bloody good too.

Drinks were slightly more expensive on Phi-Phi than other places we’ve been, and people didn’t seem so keen on the old buckets which was upsetting.

We found a great bar called ‘Banana Bar’ which was a rooftop bar which overlooked the whole place. It had lots of cushion floor seats and bamboo chairs, darts board, and they held beer-pong competitions most nights. To get up to the roof you had to climb some really thin steep wooden steps whilst holding onto rope. It was not the easiest thing to do, especially when a little bit intoxicated but when you got to the top it was ace.

one too many...

England should definitely have more roof top bars, they should just stick some big heaters out there.

After drinking either at our hostel, Banana Bar or Sharkys, we’d head down to the beach. It seemed to be the place where everyone goes to get their dance on, get even more drunk, or pass out in the sand.

There was a random pole outside one of the beach bars which drunk people climb up onto. They then either dance, look stupid, or jump off into the crowd of merry dancers. The problem with this last part is you have to have a group of strong men to catch you. Normally it was ok, but we did witness a guy face-plant the floor which was incredibly funny, but also a little worrying.

We spent a lot of our time at these beach bars having a blimin good time.

We randomly bumped into Freddie (from Koh Tao) on the beach drunk, this has happened quite a few times in all three destinations we’ve all been at. It really is a small world. It’s nice to see a familiar face when you travel and move around so much, that seems like a strange thing to say about a guy we met less than a month ago, but strangers become friends quickly travelling.

We also met some Aussie lads, well two different groups of guys, who we somehow ended up spending quite a lot of time with as we kept on bumping into them. The funny thing about Aussies is that they are very similar to us English, but different at the same time. You may say ‘same same but different’.

The good thing about them is they like to drink, they like to drink a lot. This works well for us as we also like to have a little tipple or too. A lot of nationalities don’t seem to want to drink in the same way we do.

One of these groups said to us that we were the nicest girls they’d met on their whole entire trip! This obviously is true as we’re awesome. They also bought Nineham a lot of drinks on her birthday. What nice chaps.

We also met a collection of other people including a guy who was super tall so we named him the Green Giant, a guy who I thought was Swedish but turned out to be a vegetarian Australian (still don‘t believe this), a 19 year old English guy who was incredibly annoying and many other randoms-some good, some bad.

Ninehams Birthday

Me and Bie tried our best to sort out a good birthday for old nelly burgers to have, but sadly it didn’t quite go to plan.

Our biggest issue was she was always with us, the only time she wasn’t was when she was in the bathroom, but this quite obviously didn’t give us enough time to do anything.

We wanted to buy a birthday card, banner, baloons, badges…the works! But because Thailand is silly, we didn’t find one birthday card, badge, banner or anything in-fact. We had to stick to postcards together to form a card, we bought a weird yellow flower bow thing as a replacement for a badge, and drew on her in gold and silver pens as we couldn’t find a banner.

The presents were also a little shit. We wanted to buy her some random Thai stuff, which we did thanks to Seven Eleven, but we also wanted to buy her something nice. This also didn’t happen.

So her presents were fishy fish strips, some crisps which you have to dip into tomato ketchup (actually really nice, and fun), some blueberry pastry squares, and some seaweed crisps. We also got her a muffin with a tooth-pick in instead of a cake and candle.

It all sounds a little shit but there really isn’t much choice here. Maybe Thai’s don’t celebrate birthdays….

We went on the Maya Bay and snorkelling boat trip during the day, then wanted to go for steak for tea, but this also didn’t happen. When we got to the steak place ‘Aunis’ which is supposedly the best steak in Phi-Phi, they were completely full and were told we’d just have to wait outside until a table becomes free.

We didn’t want to wait so went somewhere else and order three lots of pasta as our mains, and nachos and onion rings too. This is the most food we’ve eaten in the entire trip. We were so full we actually felt sick, but it was all delicious.

The Boat Restaurant

After this we went to a bar to get drinks, then to our fav Banana Bar, then onto the beach. Standard.

I managed to wangle some free shots as it was Ninehams birthday which I was very proud of as they cost 80 Baht a shot. Nineham suddenly became very drunk, sort of out of nowhere, which lead to us departing the beach at a respectable 1/2am.

On the walk home a random Norwegian guy got down onto his knees and sang her happy birthday in Norwegian. It was very good!

She was vomming until about 3pm the next day though.

Chang

I was going to dedicate an entire blog post to Chang, but I thought that may be a bit over the top.

The drink Chang is a Thai beer which either comes in a botttle or can. It’s the cheapest beer you can buy which is why nearly all travellers drink it. The problem with Chang is that apparently the strength of it goes from 3% to 11%, so you never know how much alcohol you’ve actually consumed.

It used to be made illegally and so was a pirate drink which is why the percentage differs, well this is what we’ve been told anyway.

We’ve had many a Changover since being here but for some reason we just can’t stop drinking it. It’s fun to chant as well or make rhymes too, which is something we do like to do.

Chug a Chang Challenge is a favourite game of ours.

CHANG CHANG CHANG

Koh Phi Phi- Maya Bay

Our boat to Koh Phi Phi (pronounced pee-pee) was a fairly small boat, we managed to get seats this time but there was a lot of ants and other insects crawling on us the whole time. Nobody was sick though which is always a bonus.

We Found Freddie

Finding our hostel

On arrival to Phi-Phi we were greeted by somebody who seemed like a really nice friendly English girl who told us we could get our bags carted to our hostel for free. We sat there waiting then she said she’d just check to make sure we did have a reservation as sometimes they just cancel them for no reason.

She rang up and apparently they told her we didn’t have a reservation and that they were fully booked. She then tried to persuade us to book a new hostel through her, but are not silly sausages and knew she was just trying to con us. So off we went with our huge backpacks in the midday sun, trying to find our hostel which was up a mountain.

When we eventually arrived at Golden Hill Bungalows, we were all drenched in sweat. Not like when you get hot normally and may have a light sheen, we were actually dripping and all as red as a person can possibly go.

When we got into our eight bed mixed dorm, we were greeted by more heat. There was only two fans for the whole room, but there was two bathrooms which was a treat.

The hostel turned out to be one of the best places we’ve stayed in, as it was run by an English couple, Johnny and Sharon. They cooked REAL chips and English sausages which actually made my life. We were lucky enough to be there on the grand launch of their brand new swimming pool and bar, so got to experience it in all it’s glory. It was ace!

The worst thing about it was the massive mission to get to it. You had to walk out of the centre and up soooo many steps to actually reach it. This meant that whenever you wanted to go out or go home, you got boiling hot and always looked bloody awful.

It overlooked what we liked to call ‘the Olympic swimming pool’. This was actually a giant reservoir with dirty brown water which stank. We like to make up names for things and we often rhyme or sing stuff too, it keeps us entertained along the way.

Boat trip to Maya Bay and around

We paid to go on a half day boat trip which took us to Monkey Beach and Maya Bay, with snorkelling and swimming in between.

It only cost us 250 baht which is about £5, we had lunch included to which was a salad sandwich with tomato ketchup and mayo. They call that a vegetable sandwich here for some reason. We all quote liked it but the English couple behind were disgusted. But what did they expect on a long boat in Thailand for a couple of quid. Ungrateful Idiots.

Monkey beach was simply some monkeys up trees which didn’t really interest me. Next we stopped to snorkel for a while. I don’t know if I’ve ever even tried snorkelling, but it scared me a lot. I kept on thinking I was going to swallow water and drown which is extremely silly as you are floating on top the water.

I saw some fishes though which was cool, and Nineham started talking to a random guy thinking it was Bie…hilarious!

Maya Bay (where The Beach was filmed) was a bit of a let down. It was a lot smaller than I thought it would be and there was a lot of boats and people around. I presumed you’d get dropped off on one beach then have to walk to May Bay, as to not ruin the scenery, but that wasn’t the case.

Very merry on the beach

It was still pretty and nice to see but I’m glad we just did the half day tour as even having one hour to spend there was too much. We took the classic traveller photo of us stood in front of the two cliff halves and on the beach, and when this was done we wanted to go home as it was Ninehams birthday and we wanted to get ready and go out.