kuala lumpur

arrived in kuala lumpur (KL) yesterday. KL is the capital of malaysia and a crazy, bustling city. such a difference from neat, orderly singapore... we spent the whole of today lost in the non-sensible (to our western minds, at least) streets. making it more interesting to navigate is the complete lack of pedestrian right-of-way!

to start the adventure from the beginning though...
i was really excited and a little bit nervous to make the leap from safe, clean, orderly, english speaking singapore to malaysia, starting with the bus trip. we got to the bus station to find that the express (easy) bus wasnt going to be leaving for another 2 hours so instead we took the cheaper bus route (no complains, really) by taking one bus to the border (one hour) and then changing buses to get one to KL. a little more difficult that in sounds since during that first bus route you have to get off the bus twice and go through both singapore and then malaysia customs - trying to get through before the bus leaves you (almost happened to us both times since we were the only westerners on the bus so took longer to get through than the malays and singaporians). once we got on the 5 hour bus to KL though, things were silky smooth... had big reclining seats so slept most of the way! and all together it cost half price switching buses! more difficulty came when we got into KL, because the bus depot that we were supposed to go into was closed (typical KL from my 2 days of experience!) so got dropped off outside of the city and had to try to find a bus to our hostel from there. finally managed though by the time we got in we were pretty knackered and only went to dinner and bed.

today was the day of being lost around the city! also managed to sneak in an hour massage in there (its too tempting with the prices here!) and figuring out how to get to taman negara, our next destination (leaving tomorrow morning!). in between the lost we checked out the Lake Gardens, Orchid Gardens, and Planetarium (worth its RM$1 a hundred times over for the blasting air con in the middle of the day!!). in the morning i discovered a brilliant tradition - people on their way to work stop at street vendors to pick up little paper wrapped packages of noodles and such for their lunch, for about RM$1! okay so you might not immediately see the genius, but just imagine instead of preparing your lunch every morning, you can sleep in those extra minutes and pick up a prepackaged, healthy delicious lunch on the way for the same price! well i thought it was a little something different that was nice :)

speaking of food, i havent even mentioned yet how INSANELY good the food is here! in singapore staying in little india i had some of the best meals of my life, and everything here has been soooo good so far as well! flavorful and spicy and yummm! plus its so inexpensive i now eat about 8 meals a day... probably not a good habit to pick up on after getting back into good shape in australia, but i figured for my first week i should allow myself to eat any and all of the amazing food i pass by :) next week ill start being more reasonable (maybe!)
another malaysian fav (that i hear is even bigger in thailand) is the packets of freshly cut fruit from street vendors, again for about RM$1 (which is US$.25, by the way) - yummy fresh mango and cut pineapple and anything else, already cut up and ready to eat, fresh and so delish! the best possible snack in the heat of the afternoon...