Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (Jan.1-3)

Kuala Lumpur (KL)

We stayed 2 nights in KL. We arrived in the late afternoon and asked the cabbie to take us to our landing hotel. It was right in the middle of Chinatown which we were looking forward to as Chinese food was something we were all craving. “The Swiss Inn” presented us with a small 10x10 room with 2 bunk beds and a small washroom. A big let down from “The Swastika” but a good time to get into a new frame of travel mind.
China Town

Being back in a city was a bit of a shock at first. People and traffic and noise almost seemed overwhelming. Having the incredible selection of food was more than welcoming. Chinese the first night, Indian the next day, more Chinese food and more Indian food were more than delicious.

We were sent on a run around to find the Indian Consulate. After a taxi ride around the city we finally arrived at the Visa office not far from our hotel. We found out that we had to fill out the forms, leave them for 5 working days, return once they were processed, hand over our passports for 24 hours and then return to collect the passports stamped with an Indian visa. So while the process was underway, we booked our flights out the next morning to Kota Kinabalu, Borneo (which is part of Malaysia), paired down our bags from 4 to 2 (left 2 bags at the hotel) and went out for Tandoori Chicken.



Pairing down the bags was a big awakening. It seems that everyone, especially me, has a lot, of unnecessary things and an overabundance of clothes in their bags. We are going to have to do a mailing or dumping of clothes when we return to KL.

The other big event in KL was my (Lianna’s) purchase of a new digital video camera. I had been using a digital camera with required tapes. First of all I was finding the camera to be cumbersome and secondly I ran out of tapes and had no idea where I was going to get more. Caleb had been trying to convince me for months to get a smaller digital camera so I decided that in KL I was going to do it. So the last afternoon we headed to the shopping area, a recommendation from the tourist centre, and went in search of a camera.

To tell you the truth, the supermall of electronics just terrified me when I saw it so I went into the first digital camera shop, and after a short time of Caleb and Mark asking all the questions, I said OK lets get this one. Mark pulled out his wad of cash and started counting. He handed the money to the sales girl who then proceeded to count it but when she came upon one bill that had a small tear in it, she stopped and said she could not take it. (This bill was for 100 ringgit, approx. $36 CDN). Mark was not happy by this, he was actually trying to get rid of it as it had been refused at another place already. He spoke to the manager, but no go. The sales clerk finally told him that she would go with him to the bank down the road and if the bank machines took it, then ok. He disappears while I was setting up my supposed new camera with another sales clerk.

They were gone for what seemed like half an hour. At this point I was not sure where he had gone. Caleb said he was going from store to store trying to get rid of the bill. Artemis had no idea where he was. The sales clerk put my camera in a bag and we waited. Finally he returned with the store clerk. The bank machine would not take the bill but she had bought him a coke and he had taken out more money.

I had my camera but we still had that damn bill. Artemis was dying for an ice coffee at that point so we said if she could get Starbucks to take the BILL, then she could get a coffee. Starbucks refused the bill.

Mark was fuming about this bill by now. We headed to another mall where we thought we would see a movie. We arrived there to find that nothing was playing but there was a big bookstore nearby. Artemis had another chance to get something she wanted, if the bill was taken. She went to the cash with her book, as we all waited patiently outside the store. We put the image of her getting the book and walking out of the store into our minds. We waited. After a number of minutes she came strolling out with a huge smile on her face. She had done it! We ran out of the mall and jumped into a cab happy to have gotten rid of the ripped bill.

Off to Borneo…
Lianna