so excited to see a city again we were off to Kuala Lumpur!
Kuala Lumpur had a super cool name so it had to be awesome right? Wrong false advertising!
To start off we were at the airport waiting for our plane where we picked out this annoying kid who screamed decibles before unknown to the human ear. we both said we would kill ourselves if she sat anywhere near us. Guess where this lovely child sat....directly in front of us! In addition to this being our roughest flight yet we had to listen to this child scream the whole way there. KL 1. Kaitie and Caroline 0.
After arriving at the airport we got our bags and met the dumbest girl ever (like we mean dumb! it would be a miracle if she still is alive!) She was standing behind us at the currency exchange place asking about the rates. After attempting to explain the simple calculation to her 3 times we gave up as her stupidity was too frustrating and well she was being a b*tch! However she must have found us endearing as she wanted to become our new best friend. She asked where we were staying and if we wanted to share a cab. Although tempting we told her we were not staying where she was (lie) and pulled out our best ditching maneuvers that in the end were successful!
Next was to find a shuttle to the city in order to get to a hostel(in which we did not have yet). Apparently not a good idea to not have accomodations arriving into a city on a Friday night. WE booked the shuttle bus that was to depart at 5:30pm. We looked at our watches and with relief it read 4:00pm. As we were starving we said that's sweet, lets eat! We went to McDOnalds, got two big macs and began to enjoy our lovely meal when all of sudden we both looked at eachother with fear in our eyes as we remembered our conversation on the plane about the time change we will be experiencing in KL. As our watches read 4:25 it was actually 5:25..5 minutes before our shuttle was to depart! Looking at eachother again and laughing we continued to eat our big macs! because in the words of Caroline Smith "eating McDonalds is like peeing, once you start you can't stop halfway through and expect to be satisfied!" After finishing our very satisfying meal we now had to go convince the security guard to let us back into the arrivals area to switch our bus ticket. Luckily after explaining to him our situation he found it quite funny and let us through after sharing our misfortune with his security guard friends so that everyone could laugh at kaitie and caroline. As Kaitie looked at the schedule, panic set in as it appeared that the next bus was not until 9pm. thankfully it turns out that they leave every half hour and our ticket was still valid even with our stupidity. KL 2. Kaitie and caroline 0.
We got on our shuttle which turned out to be longer than expected (over and hour to the city) we were transferred into a small cab to take us the rest of the way. This is where we met some more lovely people. A guy from Italy and a girl from Argentina. Creepy, annoying people who must ave thought that the sound of their own voice was the most beautiful thing in the world. We beg to differ! Not only were our new friends super annoying but they were also extremely cheap, which as backpackers is necessary however KL is known for its bed bugs so if you go cheap expect company in you bed! Finally we were let out of the cab to search for a place to stay and for some reason our new friends thought we should all stay at the same place (in a four person dorm room...nice and cozy....hell no). kaitie and Caroline both looked at eachother with fear and disgust in their eyes as they knew ditching maneuvers must be put into action once again! As we knew their weakness was money kaitie told them that "we are tired and are just going to check into a hotel for the night!" SUCCESS!!
our first hostel...what can we say other than uber sketch!...thats really all we can say!
The first day we made our way to the KL Tower (which is a mini CN tower). Disappointment sets in as we were first told that it was free (it wasn't). As we made our way to the observation deck we walked around to see the city from all different angles. Lets just say there was nothing to see. The only intersting part of the observation deck was kaitie almost being arrested for a bombing plot! Making our way to the elevators to go back down kaitie's bag set off the security alarm. Rattled and scared as she thought someone may have put something in her bag to frame her (by the way they hang people for crimes in malaysia).She handed her bag over to be searched and after a few minutes of rumaging and finding nothing they apologized and let us go back down. THe elevator man asked "Going down" to which Kaitie answered with a very serious face "YES" and proceeded onto the elevator. Still rattled she didn't realize that he actually said "Bring a bomb?" as a joke! Luckily Caroline picked up on it howver still responed "Yes" because she found this whole situation very humerous. KL 3. kaitie and Caroline 0. As our tickets also included admission to this mini zoo we thought we would check it out! This zoo had monkeys, lizards, birds, racoons? a skunk? and some other lovely creatures. However to get to them you had to walk through the whole building. Walking into the first part Caroline screamed, her eyes began to well and her body shake as she said "That is the biggest F*cking snake i have ever seen in my entire life" Please note that there was a whole room filled with enormous snakes (like eat a human being easily size snake) and many other size snakes. Caroline thought she was going to pass out so she latched onto Kaitie for support. kaitie likes snakes so actually enjoyed this exhibit very much and liked seeing Caroline squirm however Karma is a bitch! After making our way to the end of the building we entered a new area filled with many monstorous, poisonous, tarantula spiders (like eat a human being easily size spiders)The tables had turned and now Kaitie was latching on to Caroline as she was worried that they were going to crawl all over her. We later named this horrible place the "house of Horrors" as it was the home of both of our biggest fears! KL4. Kaitie and Caroline 0
THe next day we switched out of our sketchy hostel into a new one called The Rainforest B&B which was true to it name and very nice with comfy beds. This was also the day we decided to venture to the Batu Caves the home of the biggest shrine. After a long crazy city bus ride to the caves we climbed the 272 steps into the cave in the 35 degree plus humidity mid day sun (idiots). Once again massive let down as when we made it up the final steps this overwhelming smell of garbage set it as the cave was filled with garbage from people littering throughout the day. It turns out that the shrine was not even located in the cave but at the entrance meaning the stairs were unecessary. KL 5 kaitie and Caroline 0.
With disappointment after disappointment we decided we needed to treat ourselves in order to salvage any hope left for our last day in KL. So what better way to treat yourself than something sweet. And by sweet I mean cake. And by cake I mean a whole cake. yes kaitie and caroline bought a whole cake in which they shared that evening with smiles on their faces and mouthfulls of blackforest yumminess! kaitie and Caroline 1 (finally)
The next day, our final day thank god, we planned to go see the Petronas Towers (the famous building from ENtrapment). As our alarms went off at 630am due to the fact that the lines start early in order to get tickets to go up to the observation deck that day we finally came to our senses. WHy would we go up to an observation deck to see a city that we do not like and of which we have already seen from a much higher tower. We turned over and went back to sleep. In the afternoon we finally made our way to the Towers took some pictures as the buildings were pretty cool. However Kaitie and Caroline were more excited by the mall attached to the towers as it housed some of their favourite stores (Chanel, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Prada, and every othee famous designer in the book). As we both contemplated just going shopping and returning to Canada we came to our senses as we did not want to end our trip in KL plus we still wanted to see what the rest of the world had to offer.
Luckily the next day we had a flight to Bali, Indonesia. We left our hostel with just over 3.5 hours to spare before our flight, and were told that the shuttle buses to the airport take an hour, and leave every half hour. We took a cab to the bus terminal and got our tickets. We were then told that they do not leave every half hour, but ever hour, and we just missed one. We sat a tad bit worried that we would only have about an hour and a half once we got there, but figured we'd have at least 45 minutes to check in. The bus finally showed up (not in the terminal, but in the middle of a busy street (random?) and got on hoping for the best. We got stuck in some traffic, but were excited when we reached the highway hoping we culd make up some time. Once on the highway, the bus pulled over. Huh? They made us switch to another bus, on the side of the highway. KL has some great highway rules. We were on our way, finally, to the international airport. We arrived just about on time, with 1.5 hours to spare. When going to exit the bus the driver informed all of us confused passengers that our international flights were not in fact departing from the international airport, but the next stop. Crap. There were signs everywhere so we were hoping we would get there soon. Half an hour later, we are still driving. We are soooo gonna miss our flight. Damn you KL! We pulled up to the airport and ran as fast as we could (with our 15kg bags on our backs) and searched for our check-in counter (of course the furthest one away). Our desk had already closed, as it was now 50 minutes before departure, but luckily there was one couple still checking in, so they let us check in as well! We rushed through security and made it to our gate with 15 minutes to spare! Thanks for one last kick in the ass KL! Final Score, KL 6, kaitie and caroline 1. Or so we thought! In writing this huge blog, KL recieved one more point, all the way from Singapore! It decided to time out and erase itself. Hour down the drain. Thanks KL!
We had never been so happy as to leave that city, and never to return again! On to Bali!
