Day 84- A Mosque, Hindu Sacred Site, Royal Malay Palace, and Subway Restaurant. Which One Doesn't Belong?

On my previous day's failed attempt to find Chinatown, one thing I did manage to find was the contact for a tour company known as "Reggae Tours".  They offered a tour of seven of the more popular tourist sites in Kuala Lumpur via a minibus and it was only RM70 ($23 Canadian) for the full day.  So even if it sucked, we still wouldn't feel that bad!  Before any touring could take place though, we had to fuel up on Colleen's preferred choice of chow, Subway.  The mall was extremely quiet as it was it was officially the first day of the Chinese New Year (February 10).  It was definitely a bit of an eerie feeling (see: haunted mall).

With our freshly inhaled foot longs resting in our belly, we headed back to the hotel for our tour pickup.  Although he was running quite late, our driver Jebb eventually showed up with a crew of about eight or so other passengers.  He informed us that both of his drivers had called in sick that morning and that he was in fact the owner of the company and rarely drove.  It's good to know that calling in sick on a holiday is a worldwide problem!  Having Jebb as our driver actually turned out to be a good thing (IMO) as he was super knowledgeable, friendly, and was really good at answering all of my nerdy questions about Malaysia and the sites we were visiting. 



Colleen getting her "mosque" on.





The first stop on our whirlwind day tour was at the International Mosque of Malaysia.  We had to throw on some robes (cannot remember what they are called, no disrespect intended Muslim people) before giving ourselves the quick self-guided tour.  With one site down, our second stop of the day was Little India, which was a different Little India than the one I had visited the day before.  Who knew a city could have multiple Little India's?  This was followed up by a visit to the National War Memorial and then a visit to the Royal Palace.  And by visiting the Royal Palace I of course mean that we just went to the outside gates and stood there and stared at the guards or whatever they are that stand there seemingly perfectly still all day.  I felt sorry for their horses more than anything.  They, like the people were meant to stand there all day "at attention" if you will.  Lots of time to day dream about eating carrots and visiting the glue factory I guess.



Not too sure what I'm doing here.





War Memorial. Looks like every other war memorial around.
 



So close, yet so far from the Royal Palace.


The chaos that is Little India.

After we mowed down the first four stops of the day, our next destination was a little out of the city, the Batu Caves.  The Batu Caves are a series of sacred Hindu caves and temples and it is in fact one of the largest Hindu shrines in the world outside of India.  On this day, we learned that it happened to be one of the busiest days of the year at the temple and there were thousands of people everywhere who had come to the temples/caves that day.  Many of the men and women had shaved heads and there were even babies with freshly cropped crew cuts.  I think it was safe to assume that the local barber wasn't going to be going out of business anytime soon.  Many of the people with their shaved heads were also covered in some weird powder and were walking around barefoot.  While I wasn't about to take my devotion that far, I did decide to hike up the nearly 300 stairs to the main cave/temple.  Colleen decided it was not for her, so I was left to explore on my own.  After reaching the top of what felt like Mount Everest, I was greeted by monkeys and chickens that were running around and a series of temples in caves.  The whole thing was really quite bizarre if I say so myself, but hey to each their own!



Batu Caves.



Looking down from the top of the stairs at the Batu Caves.



That is a shit load of stairs.



Sweet hairdo man.



Thankfully the walk down the steps was a little easier than going up, and after rounding up my fresh-legged girlfriend we were back on the tour bus and headed to our last two stops of the day: Independence Square and some street with old-style Malaysian architecture that Colleen and I could give two-shits about.  One bonus of the tour was that I was able to sleep (much to the amazement of Colleen) on the rides between various stops.  It sure helped to keep me feeling fresh!  All-in-all though, I must say it was a great value tour and a good way to spend a day in KL if you are ever in the neighborhood.



Independence Square. Will Smith is nowhere to be seen.



Back at our hotel we decided to steer clear of the mall for dinner that night, as the service issues were borderline unbearable.  We opted instead to eat at a bar across the street from our hotel .  One thing I must warn people of: drinking is generally not a cheap hobby in Malaysia. I found it amusing that on the way in the gentleman asked me if I was Muslim and refused to show us the alcoholic drink menu until I verified (by honor system of course) that I was in fact a non-Muslim.  I must say, working security at a nightclub in Kuala Lumpur has got to be one of the toughest gigs around.  Keeping track of all your patrons religious beliefs has got to be mind-boggling!

~Brentski~

Day 82- Welcome To Malaysia. Where Most People Are In Fact Not Malaysian At All And More People Speak English Than In Most Canadian Cities.

Faster than we could say "Singaporean-Malaysian Cruise" our two night cruise was over.  We awoke bright and early at 6:30am and headed down to the main dining room for our last all-inclusive meal.  In keeping with the theme of the cruise, the wait staff managed to get our order wrong and the food also happened to be rather crappy.  I think it was safe to say that we wouldn't be sailing with Royal Caribbean anytime soon again.  Making our way off the ship we had to scan our "cruise identity" cards so that they could keep track of everyone leaving and to make sure everyone's accounts were up to snuff.  As Colleen went to exit, the card machine started beeping rather excessively and everyone was staring at the two of us.  This was in turn followed by her being whisked away by a handful of employees who told her that her account had not been paid.  It turned out that Visa had decided to put a hold on her credit card, which in turn caused her to become the centre of attention for everyone within gawking distance of us.  Thankfully after a quick phone call we got everything sorted out and the crew released Colleen with her sparkling clean criminal record sheet still intact.



If that doesn't look disgusting, I don't know what does.



Now that the cruise was in the past, it was time for us to lug our backpacks across the city to the bus stop.  Luckily we had a few hours to kill before our bus ride to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, which was a good thing as the two of us weren't moving too quickly with our 35-pound backpacks in temperatures that were approaching 40 degrees Celsius.  After much pissing and moaning (mostly from Colleen I might add!), we made it to the bus terminal where Colleen immediately sent me on a mission to find a magnet and post card to commemorate our visit to Singapore.  I figured this would be easy given the fact that we were near a major transportation hub.  I was severely wrong.  I marched around for over an hour trying to find her these God-forsaken mementos.  Let me just say she better not ever lose that magnet, cause I lost a lot of bodily fluids to track that fuckin' thing down!



Street feline trying to kill me!



By the time our bus arrived and started to load up a little after noon, I was looking forward to the air conditioning more than anything.  The bus had some of the most spacious accommodations  I have ever seen for this mode of transport and the seats even had some massage mechanism built into them (I couldn't figure out this technology).  The bus ride itself was pretty uneventful, minus the fact that we had to get out with all of our luggage at the Singapore-Malaysia border to clear customs.  This was definitely a hassle bitch, but on the positive side Colleen added a couple of stamps to her passport which excites her almost as much as topless pictures of Charlie Hunnam.  The bus ride ended up taking a couple of extra hours as the traffic was quite heavy due to the Chinese New Year holiday and the fact that we had our daily dose of torrential rainfall. 



I'm not making any promises.





We made it to Malaysia!



 

Arriving in KL (Kuala Lumpur) a little later than we had anticipated, the bus dropped us outside of Berjaya Times Square.  Berjaya happens to be one of the twenty largest shopping malls in the world and its vast amenities include over one thousand stores, a multi-level movie theatre, a bowling alley, an amusement park, an archery range, and a ton of other stuff that I can't be bothered trying to recollect at this exact moment.  Our hotel (Furama Bukit Bintang) was supposedly located only a couple of minutes away, although it probably took us closer to half an hour to find as we were extremely disoriented and overwhelmed by our new surroundings. 

 

Colleen seems unimpressed with one of the largest shopping malls in the world.



...But Colleen they have a roller coaster.
 

Getting in the spirit for the Chinese New Year.

Some interesting things I observed in my first couple of hours in Malaysia:

1) Since it is a Muslim country many of the women wear head gear.

2) The actual percentage of "Malay" people is quite low.  In fact Chinese immigrants make-up 30% of the population, while Indian immigrants make-up a further 15%.

3) I was ignorant to how widely spoken English was.  Just about everyone spoke English and the signs for all the stores (at least in Kuala Lumpur) were in English.

4) Our hotel room had an arrow on the ceiling pointing towards Mecca.  You know, just in case I need to make a pilgrimage.

5) It is not the easiest country to find a beer in! Because of the fact that it is a Muslim country (albeit a liberal one), all of the convenience stores that did sell beer would have signs on the refrigerator doors stating that Muslims were not allowed to purchase it.  But what if the Muslim wears a disguise?

 

Once we got settled in to our room, we headed over to the mall for some good old fashioned Western food.  Unfortunately for us we decided to eat at Nando's, where we received some of the worst service I have ever seen.  I had read that most restaurants in Malaysia tack on a 10% service charge to your bill, so none of the staff seemed to give a fuck if you actually got served or not.  I mean, like 10-15 minutes to grab me a Diet Coke that was ten feet away.  And it's not like they were busy, they just truly did not give a fuck.  We would discover in the coming days that this was par for the course in just about every restaurant  around and my patience (or lack thereof) was being thoroughly tried.

All those people and their damn "Paking".

~Brentski~

Day 80- Singaporean Cruises. Where White People Fear To Tread.

Having enjoyed our two-week transatlantic cruise immensely a couple of months prior, Colleen  was super-desperate to go on another cruise while in Southeast Asia.  During our hasty research the previous week, we had found a two-night cruise aboard one of Royal Caribbean's cruise ships that departed from Singapore, did a quick day trip to Melaka, Malaysia and then promptly returned to its beginning port a couple of days later.  The Chinese New Year was fast approaching (the biggest holiday of the year in this part of the world) and it was likely that a lot of local people would be on the cruise as a sort of "mini-vacation".



Pulling out of Singapore.  About to rain; as usual.



Speaking of the Chinese New Year, let me tell you if you ever intend to travel in parts of the world with a large Chinese population during this particular holiday that you should book your travel well in advance.  Since Colleen and I had been flying by the seat-of-our-pants so to speak, we were booking most of our flights, hotels, etc as we needed them.  Originally, we had planned to fly out of Singapore.  We couldn't find a reasonably priced flight so we had decided after our cruise that we would take a bus from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and then figure out what the hell we were doing from there.  Such is life. 

With our newly altered travel plans, the girlfriend and I headed down to the Singapore Cruise Terminal, with Colleen super stoked about her second ever cruise.  The first thing we noticed was the fact that the cruise passengers were 99.5% Indian and Chinese.  I guess this should not have been surprising, given the fact that these two ethnic groups made up the bulk of the population in Singapore, but it just seemed odd.  Usually when you think of cruises you think of old white people and families with fat middle-aged American parents toting their soon-to-be fat American kids from buffet table to buffet table.  Once we got the initial culture shock out of the way, we boarded the 20-year old ship and made our way to our room.  We were pleasantly surprised to see that we had been upgraded from an inside room (what we paid for) to a room with a balcony.  While the ship was certainly a couple of rungs down the ladder from the Celebrity Equinox we had been on previously, it was still a nice ship that had apparently just been in dry dock (see: not on the sea) for a month undergoing some renovations and upgrades. 



Who invited Derek Zoolander on the cruise. Blue Steel!



 

Once we got settled in, Colleen and I did what all good cruisers do: head straight to the lunch buffet!  We ordered a couple of adult drinks and settled in with our mountains of food.  Sadly, they forgot to put the most important ingredient in Colleen's drink...the alcohol.  We had been told that the ship had a ton of new staff right now, as is usually the case when a ship comes out of dry dock.  Being the non-confrontational experts that we are, we were too afraid to go complain, so we just relegated ourselves to the fact that it was a rookie error and moved on to go watch some Russian contortionist do things that I still can't figure out if they turn me on or repulse me.  This was quickly followed by a ten minute blackjack session in the casino where I lost $100 and proclaimed my disgust for all things gambling related (these feelings never last).



Freak between the sheets, no doubt!



During the reservation process for our cruise, we had requested for a table of two at dinner time, so we were a little surprised when we were seated at a ten-person table.  Initially this was ok, as for the first half-hour we were the only people there.  Eventually we were joined by two other couples and some random guy who was sitting by himself (can't say I've seen this on a cruise before).  It was a super awkward dinner, as one of the other men at our table kept constantly berating the wait staff and his wife/girlfriend was beyond embarrassed.  I shit you not, when I say he requested three different types of water, two appetizers, and then had to try three different main courses before he found one that was up to his ridiculous standards.   He also felt it necessary during his Hitleresque dinner to demand the dessert menu while he was still eating.  To say it was an uncomfortable dinner for all involved would be a major understatement.  To make matters worse, the wait staff were really slow and terrible (we shall assume they were some of the new recruits).  They spilt our bottle of wine on me (no apology), served us super warm water, never checked  on us once, and to top it off we had to go and procure our own bottle of wine that they had stashed away from the table as they were supposed to pour it for us.  If you aren't going to pour it, just leave the damn thing in front of me; it will disappear quick enough.  I guarantee it!  On top of this the food was super bland and when we wanted to pay for our wine and leave we couldn't find a staff member for the life of us.  By this point we were so pissed off and wanting to get out of there that we just decided to leave without paying for our wine and figured we had pulled a fast one.  Sadly, the inept wait staff still managed to track down our room number and charge the wine to our accounts, but at the time it felt like a minor victory. 

Doing our best to put our dinner experience behind us, we headed over to check out a Village People review that was actually pretty entertaining.  The cruise director was dressed up as the construction worker, while another portly (and exceptionally white) member of the staff was dressed up as the Native American.  His Sketcher shoes made the whole thing feel that much more authentic.  One thing I must say about the Chinese tourists is that they sure loved their YMCA.  They were singing and dancing along as if we were at a Bon Jovi concert for Christ's sake.  Once we had our fill of the cheesy shtick, Colleen and I headed up to the bar/nightclub for a couple of drinks.  Instead of a nightclub atmosphere, we were greeted by large packs of men standing around in groups, not drinking and just looking generally like perverts on the prowl.  Needless to say it was a sad state of affairs and after a couple of drinks and Colleen feeling like she had been eye-fucked enough for one night we made our way back to our room.



The shoes just authenticate the performance that much more.



Back in our room we searched high and low for our breakfast card to place on our door for room service the following morning, but I could not find it.  I had to ask at least four different people who were all quite rude about the situation if I could possibly have a new breakfast card.  It was literally as simple as handing me a piece of paper.  All of them insisted that it was in my room on the desk (it wasn't) and basically called me a liar.  Eventually, a gentleman brought one to our room for us, but in keeping with the ridiculously bad service decided not to knock on our door and just barged right in.  What if Colleen and I had been having a mud wrestling match or had our dominatrix gear setup?  That would have been doubly awkward.  To say I wasn't impressed with Royal Caribbean so far would be a fair assessment of the situation.  We did our best to drown our sorrows by ordering three plates of room service, which I quickly devoured before passing out in a gastro-induced coma.



Don't judge me.

~Brentski~

Note:  I realize this posting may make me sound like some kind of "service snob".  I am actually the furthest thing from it.  As someone who has worked in the industry for years, I actually despise said snobs.  The service was THAT BAD, made even worse by the fact that it was on a cruise where service is usually far superior to that which you receive elsewhere.