Week 2 - The Batu caves and Tourist Experience

My second week at work was rather uneventful. By now I was fully settled in with offers flowing in for visits to various places that I asked to go. Sunday I would be paying a visit to Batu caves and Thursday night I would get my first taste of Malaysia 5 a side also known in these parts as Futsal. Wednesday night brought some laughter for the team for the week. Those who know me, know I like to trim the own sides off my hair and not trusting the Malaysia hair dressers I once again took on this task myself. Only this time was with some rather funny consequences. I slipped and took a large chuck of my hair off with a blade 0! There was nothing I could do but shave the other side, but not a stripe! Just really short and hope the other side would grow out in a week. So a number one all round. Turning up to work the next day looking like the 52nd member of solid crew I gave the team a good laugh. I'm supposed to be managing these guys, if my manager did that I would not be able to take him seriously but oh we'll, I think they found it funny and work went on.

Audition for Malaysia So Solid Crew was a hit

 

Thursday I played Footsal for the first time. I needed to do some exercise as all the cake and sweets I was being fed at work were taking the toll on once quite toned stomach. These Malaysians gave me a run for there money. Not being the most skilful of footballers it took me some time to settle in but I enjoyed every minute. It also turns out football is quite difficult when you can’t communicate. We played from 10 till 1 in sweltering humidity. I was dead by the end of it and was probably lost 2 stone in water.
 
Friday was a rather uneventful night but I went to meet my good friend Ginny and Zoe who were staying in KL for 2 nights. After I went out in Changkat with a lad from work for a relatively quiet night as I had made plans to get up early to meet Ginny.

Donkey Ride round KL Tower

The next day I took them to KLCC and showed them round. A stark contrast to Thailand where they were a few nights ago with huge shopping malls and the Petronas towers. To be honest I'm still not sure how all these Malaysians shopping malls survive as there doesn't seem that much money here maybe there is a big divide between the rich and the poor. They have more designer shops then London and the clothes are more expensive and there are 2 of these multiple £million shopping centres within a mile of each other. I'll give them one thing though; they do have a trendy fashion sense over here not far off London's Shoreditch areas. Possibly due to the influence of a few top shops. If an All Saints springs up somewhere before I leave I wouldn’t be surprised. After we had a look round the KL communication tower but refused to pay the expensive price to go to the top. We then headed to the bird park only to get stopped on the way by a thunderstorm. Luckily thier hotel was nearby so we managed to take shelter for an hour. We decided to go our separate ways and meet later after a change of clothes for some food and some drink. We went the Pavillion, the other shopping mall for food where we had an amazing meal of BBQ chicken and duck. So I know sounds like and every day meal but it tasted amazing and all for £3 a head. We then had a few beers, watched the football, while they told me all about their amazing travels for the year and some things I have to look forward to. It makes me rather excited for my few little travels round Asia. I also enjoyed watching Spurs lose to Wigan and Man Utd beating arsenal. Then it was home time to get some sleep ready for the early start for Batu Caves.

Monkey at Batu Caves Chilling

 

To be honest I didn't really know much about the place apart from it was good to look at and was a historical ground for Buddhists. We got there about 9 to climbs the 300+ steps before the midday heat. I'm glad we did. Before we descended on the stair way to Batu caves we chilled at the bottom waiting for a couple of others where an old wise Chinese man preceded to tell me that Malaysians refuse to come here because they were lazy and obese whilst looking at my friend who took offence. I just found it rather funny. We then took on the tiring task of climbing to the top and boy was this tiring. When we got to the top we were greeted with an impressive sight of limestone caves with the sunlight beaming through. Other than this, a few tourist stools with handmade items and a temple prayer building there wasn't much else to do so after 10 minutes we made our way back to the bottom.

The Stairs to the top, one day ill have a statue like this

 

 

After we went for breakfast and then off to the national monument. This was then followed to a trip to the old palace where I got a Royal Malaysian history lesson. I found this quite interesting with Malaysia being under British rule all those years ago. After the history lesson came my favourite part of the day. Believe it or not this came in the form of the trip to a good supermarket. I went crazy and bought enough food from 2 weeks and they even had a non halal section. Hello Mr bacon sandwich!!! Now I had enough food to cook for 2 weeks and make my much lived chilli. Superhot with the Chilli’s here so I headed home and cooked one up. By the time I had finished it was quite late so I headed for bed so I was ready for my third week at work!

Stair way to ..........

 

Caves view

 



 

Palace History

 

 

First Week and KLCC

So the first day at work was rather eventful. Thinking I had been clever and finding the office building the previous day and after been told this was the main office (clearly the security guard did not understand me) I ended up nowhere near I should have been. After a phone call the manager, lots of misdirection, I eventually got picked up in a taxi and arrived 45mins late covered in sweat and not smelling my usual Jean Paul Gaultier best. After this I settled down and went round the office and met everyone. The people I would be spending most of my working time with, and socially were the Superusers who I nervously met in a locked away Training Room. I’m not one for standing up in front of groups of people and introducing myself and I was kind of suspicious of why they were in a separate room. Turns out 2 days later I would be in here myself, making myself at home and being made to feel extremely welcome. The first week at work was largely uneventful and I even managed to walk to work the remaining 4 days without getting lost, although the telling 12-9 shift had started to take it out of me especially when I wasn’t sleeping well on my bed, which I’m starting to wonder if the mattress is made out of wood and pillows made out of duck beaks instead of feathers.

Some old run down Malaysian houses I pass on the way to work

 

 

Tuesday night would bring my first visit to Changkat with the lads from work for a leaving due. Changkat is a strip of bars that would expect to find in Malia or Kavos, but instead of being filled with 18yr old pikeys you have a few old expats, a few tourists, lots of Malaysian locals and a African hooker trying to convinve me to go with her by grabbing and pulling my nose. This strip of bars is 30seconds walk from my hotel so I got the feeling I would be spending a lot of time here and I was right. Tuesday night was rather low key, a few pints and some food. Thursday I was back there again, again low key with one of the lads from work giving me the rundown of where and when to go and some tastes of the local street food. Friday I would end up here again. This time less low key. At 1am I found myself quite drunk sitting at a bar on my own (the guy just left) with 4 Malaysian girls offering me drinks and cigarettes to join them. I kindly obliged and went and sat with them and tried to understand there broken English and make some small talk. I ended up having a dance till about 2 while be offered a few free pints but one of their lad mates I met inside. I said my goodbyes and headed home feeling rather good but slightly tired from my dancing and late night.

Underneath the Petronas Towers

 

 

Saturday feeling slightly hung-over I got up for breakfast and decided I would go for a walk and enjoy some of the heat. I headed to KLCC Park where the PETRONAS Towers are situated, the tallest twin towers in the world. It was starting to become hard to gage, just how tall buildings are as in KL a 40 story building is a regular occurrence. These are 80+ floors high however and tower above everything in sight. What happened next was rather surreal. I would be standing there, looking rather Essex in my vest and chino shorts, when 4 young lads asked for their photo. I didn’t really understand but I took the opportunity to feel like a celeb and let them flash away. Next 5 girls over and all had there photo taken. I decided to move and go sit down on the other side of the manmade lake. Next a family with a 1/2 year old kid come and sat next to me, passed me the kid to hold while the mum and dad sat either side. I thought this was rather strange by now and decided to leave. Since I have been here, I have been told I look Ryan Gosling so maybe it was a case of mistaken identity or they really do just love a westerner. After this I continued my walk round the park and chilled out for an hour taking in the rather tranquil surroundings writing this blog.

KLCC Park lake 2

 

 

Following my Ryan Gosling experience I just went for a walk with the purpose to almost get lost. I stumbled across the slums of KL and found some wild dogs having a fight. This was such a contrast to the area I was in only a few miles back down the road. I ended up back at the giant shopping mall not far from my hotel and proceeded to make my way back. I was very hungry and thirsty by now and the skies looked like they were about to open up. That night I would go out for Halloween. It’s not that big in Malaysia but they still put the effort in and get dressed up. I met a lad from work and wore the only Halloween thing I could find. Some light up devil horns I bought from a guy on the street. I had a funny night, met some lads I would be spending a few more nights out with, who looked after me, feeding me shots most of the nights, getting me blind drunk and introducing me the Malaysian ladies. I did however manage to have my photo taken with the Malaysian Jamie Oliver. Not that I would know this till Monday morning. I just assumed it was a crazy old guy getting in the Halloween Spirit. Sunday, obviously all the days were catching up with me I woke up at 5.30pm in the afternoon and it was safe to say, that the day was a right off. Week One in Malaysia had lived up to my expectations and I hoped there was more of the same to come. 

Me and a very crazy camp Chef Wan











The Jouney Begins......

My adventure started at Heathrow terminal 4 where I checked into the business class lounge about 12. The check-in desk girl accidentally told me I was going to Manila which I found quite funny considering work did mention they might send me there at one point during my discussions of trying escape England. I was greatest by a cup tea and was the only one in the lounge. At around 1 the food came out and people must have been able to smell it as with 10 min it was starting to get busy. Full of quite charters its all a bit boring really. People just sat reading the paper or in their phones and Laptops avoiding eye contact at all costs. I feed on the posh free food whilst watching bargain hunt on the TV. I’m quite upset with myself though that I didn’t take the opportunity to have a complimentary massage by good looking French girl. Feeling a bit tired and extremely full from my 10 courses it took me a while to start on the free drink in the lounge. Too many spoilt kids floating around for my liking. Some people clearly earn too much money and over feed their kids with posh chocolate cake! The rich get richer, the rich also get fatter in my opinion. They should consider paying for a good gym membership and not that chocolate cake desert. Another thing I noticed was lots of chinos and matching Louis button bags going round. Anyway I sat there until 5 min before take-off when I boarded the plane and sat in my well…..bed as it goes.

The plane took off and I was immediately greeted with a bowl of nuts and orange juice with the option of a newspaper which I declined. I picked up the food and drinks menu and told myself I was going to go through the whole list but I only managed once meal and 10 whiskey and cokes. Annoyingly the guy in front of me had managed to start his film 2 min on the plane ahead of mine. My only hope was he would break before me and go to the toilet. Much to my disappointed he didn’t and I ended up fast forwarding mine by 5 minutes to get in front of him. I got through 3 films in the time it took to get to Dubai where we changed over.

I tried to sniff it to see but all I got was cool minty sneeze

As soon as I got of the plane you could feel the heat hit you. Again I rushed through to the lounge where I relaxed with a chicken biryani which was stupidly hot with no warning, guess I better get used to it. I also see my first toilet with a hosepipe and even now I’m still sure what really goes on with those things. Anyway back on the flight, feeling slightly drunk I decided to sleep but asked the flight attendant to wake me up before breakfast. Gutted they had sold out the Farmhouse so I had to have a blueberry pancake before touch down in KL.

So how does this work. Turns out ill be seeing many more of these but not quite as nice as this one
 

Getting off the plane I had a long journey to get to passport control at KL and my luggage. A short monorail journey and I made it. At which point I realised I didn’t change any money so I then proceeded to the cash exchange. Coming out of the airport I jumped into the taxi and asked for the meter. It should have been 80ringit but was 130 in the end to KL as somehow the taxi driver got lost for an hour trying to find my hotel. In the end after I first thought he was just running the meter up but he started to get quite pissed off which when I decided to phone my manager in KL and get him to give directions. Not really what you want on 5 hours sleep and boiling heat in a foreign country. Finally I got to the hotel, my apartment and passed out on the bed where I slept till 1pm the next day.

Clearly MILF has a different meaning in Malaysia!

 

 

Sunday was quite boring, I went for a walk round the shopping mall and tried to get my baring’s round central KL, which I managed to a point. I’m 30seconds walk from the strip of bars which is handy or maybe not so much for my liver. It turns out KL is quite a lively place in the evenings but expensive for a beer. Being a Muslim country I they don’t drink so they tax drink highly.  Experienced my first KL “shower“.  When it rains here it really rain and boy did it rain. Got soaked with no umbrella walking home to my apartment. Being the outgoing and willing to try anything I thought I would try some local cuisine so I sat down to a Subway followed by a KFC later in the day. I also managed to find the office building so I was ready to go in the morning…….or did I……………

A KL "shower"