Malaysia

Sucks to be in ofc after a long vaction. Phew I had good and bad times in these five days
Ok on Friday I got some Malaysian Rhinghit (RM)…..exchanged for 200 sing dollars……I got 450 RM and later did some shopping I got a Ray Ban glass and a Swiss Knife boy that knife is really sharp a gentle touch on my finger and there it was bleeding…any how I was excited abt my trip. The next I got up at 5 30 and got ready by 6 15 and left for Kranji it is 20 min by train. From there I had to take a bus to reach the border. Boy for the first time I saw a traffic jam in Singapore. It was all crowded with people, cars, buses and bikes. The immigration office is very impressive, as soon as I stepped into the counter the officer asked me where is the white card? The white card is an immigration-sealed card with your details on it given to you at the time when you enter the country. This is supposed to be with your passport when you leave the country. Now I did not have this card….I had left it in my hotel. The lady officer just shouted at me I was shocked and said ok I did not know that. After that another immigration officer escorted me to a higher officer who asked me a few questions and got the same form filled and stamped my passport and let me go. Now I was in no mans land, I was walking along the two countries border which is just a bridge. The Strait of Johor is all that separates the two countries. I entered the Malaysian immigration office filled up my On Arrival Form and got it stamped and there I was in Malaysia. It looks like Singapore from a distance but beware it is a hallucination. I was wondering where should I board the bus to go to Kuala Lampur (KL), when private taxi driver approached me and asked where I wanted to go , I told him I need to board a bus to go to KL. He said that the bus interchange is 5km from the immigration office and from there you can get a bus, he offered me to take me for 20 RM to the interchange. After sometime I though ok lets go. He talked about India, bollywood and actor and actresses. People there are mad about hindi movies. On reaching the interchange he told me that a VIP bus would cost 60RM to go to KL. I saw the bus and then agreed for it. On boarding the bus I asked fellow commuter what is the price for the travel and he told me it is 25RM, damn there you go I was cheated to the core. I got out of the bus and asked the guy who gave me the ticket why have been charged so much and you know what answer he gave me the TEXSI driver told them that I am his friend and that is why I am charged like that. So much for a Malaysian friendship. I did not have the number of the texsi that I had traveled in to complain to the local authorities. By now I was pissed off arguing with these thugs, extortionists, brutes, cheaters…..et.al I went and sat back in my seat all fuming like steam engine. The bus was like the economy class of Indian Airlines. So my journey started at 10 AM to KL. The place where now I am is called as Larkin in Johor State. So five hours of travel in the bus. It was kinda good , the highway was awesome and the surroundings were all green. The country is a lot greener than Singapore.

So at around 2 30 I enter KL. I saw a lot of construction going on and was welcomed with huge jam……after half an hour I reached the bus interchanged. In this half an hour I had the first impression of KL. The city is dirty, open drainage, litter thrown all over….not different from any of our Indian cities. So on reaching the interchange when I got out of the bus boy the place stank remind me of my visit to Chennai. Yuk and it was raining. I searched for my hotel recommended by my friend who had been earlier. I checked out the room, it was good enough for a bachelor. It was like the first class compartment of Indian Railways…..i guess they are better space wise. Again I did a mistake of not checking out the rest room as this was supposed be a common one, man it sucks when I went there to the loo………..wooooooooooo it was worst than my hostel loo yuk disgusting. But I had to catch on other things rather than brooding. So I got down and had lunch a Kerala Parata. The thing that annoyed me was everything here is written in Malay and not in any other foreign language. It was raining, but I decided to go on. I depended on my legs rather than a cab driver or the bus.frankly I was pissed off by now and miss Singapore badly. After 15 min of walk I reached Menara, the fourth largest communication tower in the World. It is at a height of 421m. it was a majestic structure built by man. I went up the tower and boy o boy what a view of Klfrom that height. It was marvelous. There was a guided audio which would say what is there where. I spent about one hour in the tower looking at clean KL from the top. The Petronas Twin Tower was visible from here and it was looking good. So I moved on to my next destination

The Petronas Twin Tower was awesome, a steel and glass structure of 88 floors. Actually you can go half way up in the tower but that is only in the morning and my timing was really bad. Anyhow I was much higher than what the tower could take me. I entered the tower from the main enterance. It was a red carpet welcome for any body. In the main enterance there is a chandelier, it was marvelous. As I moved on boy I entered into a world of shopping. Forum mall is no where near it….it is atleast twice its size. It has all the brands in the world not even one missed. It has 6 floor in all.just too good, I don’t think anybody could have covered the entire mall in one or two hour. I just saw one floor completely I was damn tired by now, hungry and tired. I went to the backside of the tower, there was a fountain and a open place for the crowd to just hang out in the open. All kind of people and age group come here. Sadly the girls were not that pretty.L. I had to wait for one hour for seeing the tower by the night all illuminated. There is a kid’s corner with a mini pool. The scenic beauty is good and no words can match it. So as I was waiting for the lights to turn on I was again feeling hungry and tired. Was looking for something to drink. KL has developed a lot of things but there is no maintenance, no system, they have all rules but only in paper, the drivers don’t value the lives of passengers or the pedestrians. Slowly one by one the lights were turning on and I was capturing all this on my camera. Once all the light were on it was so beautiful, black sky and light bluish green light on the tower was so good and the contrast was really good.

So after that I started walking back to a place called Chinatown. On the way there were a few pubs and clubs. I was taking snaps when a guy got excited and started waving at me to take a snap..huh he was having one hell of a time with his pals. I could see a lot of foreigners here mostly Australians. As I walked back I had to pass through the Menara, it was looking like a ring studded with diamonds. Great view. I reached Chinatown it is typical national market, all pirated stuff available at a damn cheap rate. Cds, dvd, clothes, shoes and watches. I just walked about and realized that the place has no ending, it was just going on and on and on. I was hungry and searched for a place to eat, I found a road side hawker and asked if he had fried rice and he had it. I asked for one plate and it was really good. I had one more and finally it filled my tummy. For those who would say how much does he eat the quantity in the fried rice is just one cup of rice. After having dinner I walked back to my room……I reached my room freshened up and went to call up my colleague. He is a Malaysian and lives in KL, there are a lot of people who are Malaysians and work in Singapore, they can earn more,many of them commute daily. Idiots mobile number went to the voicemail…..could not speak to him atleast he would have told me what to do. Infact he had chalked out a plan for me for this vacation. Ok I am very tired and desperately wanted to sleep. My room had a fan and not
AC, it was damn hot and I could not sleep properly. I decide to go back to Singapore the next day once I am done seeing the places in KL.
Next day I got up at 8 30 freshened up myself , had three slices of bread and checked out from the hotel. With my back pack I headed for the Batu Caves. It is on the outskirts of the city and took me one hour to rach there by bus. The bus was pathetically maintained……like our old BMTC buses fitted with AC. Anyhow the sight of the caves was really pleasing from a distance. The cave is situated on a hill top. The cave is formed by the melting of limestone. Inside the cave …….guess what we have Subramanya Swamy temple. Yes the cave is the place to Hindu gods. I had climb up the hill to reach the top of the hill, it was a steep climb. The climb was not as much as we use to climb in Chamundi Hills.you have breath taking view here at the top the hill. The cave has really strange and weird structures, all in the shape of inverted cones. A lot of Hindus settled here in Malaysia come here and shave their heads, I guess Tirupathi of the East. Sadly the temple has been decorated with the signatures of the visitors, very typical Indian temple. The walls of the caves have been adored with peoples names and I Love You’s. the last temple is situates at a different level in the cave abd here the top of the cave or the roof is open letting the sun light to fall in. oh great dat was just great. Mind you I did not have a bath. Gods Must be CrazyJ. I was there at the top of the cave for an hour and descended down to the art gallery that was present there, it was nothing but the statues of all the gods. So finally I headed back to KL. On the way I got down at National History Museum. It was a good place, got to know a few thing about the country. Did you know that Proton is the National Car of Malaysia? It is present there like the Maruti 800 in India. From there I went to the Sentral Library , it is adjacent to the museum. We cannot go there just had a look at it from outside.there were a few more buildings present there, just looked at them from outside mostly government establishments. After that I visited a few shopping malls……..ha did not buy anything from here. I had done enough shopping already in Singapore. I returned back to Chinatown to buy some CD’s and a Malaysian T-Shirt (I had seen this the previous day, it had some Malaysian sign language….nice one). I bought three audio CD’s Nirvana, Limp Bizkit and GnR and two DVD’s The Terminal and Madagascar all this for 30 RM. CD are cheap there. I thought of getting more but I did not want to land in trouble with the Singapore customs.so I headed straight back to the bus terminal where a bus was waiting to go to Singapore and boarded it. It was 3 PM and I was hungry, there were few Singaporeans and I asked them how will the route be and where in Singapore will he stop finally. They were kind enough and offered me something to eat and after they heard what happened to me they were shocked. One of them is working in SG software. He intends to come to India sometime in August.so after nearly five hours of journey we reached the border…..this time again I had problems with the Singapore immigration office. They said I don’t have a multiple entry visa to Singapore, and that my visa had expired. I told them that I have visa till 20 Jul, they said that when you get extension of visa you don’t get the multiple entry visa . anyhow they asked me to fill up the form and let me go. In the mean time the bus that I was traveling had left me and gone.they are supposed to be waiting for me. I went back and told the immigration officer what had happened and she was kind enough to escort me to another bus which would take me back to Singapore. The border is pretty far from the nearest bus stop or MRT……..so I reached to a know place and headed back to my room. Boy what a relief to be back home.