May 31, 2005 Archives
I won't have a summary until HK, and as the novelty wanes, the lesser get posted. Thus, sticking to the essentials...
Singapore (The Merlion, and me, thanks to my most portable tripod <3, - and then K rightly points out that the Merlion is useless on Land and Sea alike).
Kuala Lumpur (The Petronas Towers at night with my improvised tripod: a road-side fence... They really dominate the KL skyline, nothing else is even close, except the KL Tower perhaps, which is built on a hill).
In the same vein.
Anyways, I should go out see some sunshine. Kuala Lumpur is the same time zone than Hong Kong, but slighly-to-a-lot westward than it. I saw the Twin Towers already, but couldn't climb up for lack of tickets (for Got's sake, I arrived at freakin' 2PM, and it isn't closing before 5!). It rained a bit (so a lot, according to Canadian standards) at 4-ish, and I walked from Puduraya, dropped my things, went to the KLCC, then hiked on the Putra train/sub line to Chinatown, and did a bit of walking around the paradise of teh fake goods (DVDs of all movies that came out this week, along with some that probably aren't even out yet - take *that* copyright protection).
It's hot. But not that hot, cuz of cloudiness. There is nothing to see, because I neglected to read my travel guide, and I am tired. It's been like that for most of my trip: tired wherever I go. Simply because I've been jumping from places to places for the past two or three weeks - ever since Vietnam I think. There was one week in HK before Shanghai/Huadong, and two after it, and then it's been at most half a week in HK since Vietnam on ... May 5th? I stayed a week in HK after Vietnam and went to Guilin, and then it was Shenzhen the day after returning, and then off to Singapore/Malaysia after one day rest in HK.
After spending a few days in Singapore, I crossed over to Malaysia two days ago. Singapore-JB-Muar. It's dirt cheap, 12RM (about 4CAD), for a 3 hours trip into the Malaysia "jungle" (on an expressway). A surprisingly modern country - not as much of a surprise after all this publicity from Wee. I met up with his family (while he was still in Montreal (we called him yesterday, but he was sleepy and grumpy)) and we went to Malacca, while having lots of yummy food I never tasted before.
Today, I'm in Kuala Lumpur. Another bus ticket on the Mayang Sari bus service from Muar for a mere 10.40RM. Prices are sometimes low, sometimes high, compared with North American standards. Yoghurt can be 1/3 of the price paid in Hong Kong, but then you have commodities such as shampoo and soap that cost as much as in Canada. The country is by all means on par with the other richer countries in Asia such as South Korea and Taiwan and Hong Kong. Well almost. But it's got oil, and is a muslim country, the first one I visited so far, and probably one of the most foreigner-friendly there is out there. Chinese make up about 24% of the population, while Malays are 58%, and that upset my previous conception that mostly/overwhelmingly Malays supposedly live in "Malay"sia. It's a multicultural country for sure... not in the same way as Canada I'm sure, but this will probably be the object of long debates with Wee upon returning to Canada.