First off thank you to all those that got in touch to explain what halal meat was. It wasn’t exactly what we thought but at least it’s not some strange animal from an alien planet.

So as I mentioned yesterday, today we have been traveling from Penang to Malaysia’s capital city, Kuala Lumpur. I also said yesterday that we would need to make sure we got up for breakfast in the morning. With a long bus ride to come we were going to need to stock up on food, plus we were still yet to start packing our bags.

Unfortunately with a mix of Soph feeling sick and the sound of morning prayers outside the window, neither of us had much sleep. During the night I checked my phone and saw my Auntie Kay had commented on our website. Considering sending us an alarm clock to make sure we had our breakfast. Haha, I thought. Then I had the great idea of turning my phone off so not to waste any battery during the night. My phone that a had our alarm set on it. Now off.

When we did eventually wake up it was gone half 10. Breakfast missed again and now less than half hour before the bus was picking us up. What a start! Scrambling together all our stuff we just about managed to make it downstairs in time to get picked up. The minibus was picking us up at 11 and taking us to the city bus terminal ready for the noon trip to Kuala Lumpur. So we waited. And we waited. 11:30 soon past and we still hadn’t moved. I went and asked the miserable bitch from the other day what was going on. She told us to keep waiting….

It wasn’t until well gone 12 that the minibus eventually arrived. Apparently according to little miss moody on reception, we would still be able to get on the bus. The bus that left over 10 minutes ago….

When we got to the bus terminal we had to hand our ticket into the office and get our seat numbers. We were pretty sure we would  be turned away because we’d missed  our bus. But it turns out nobody is ever on time here and they just make it all up as they go. We had our bus but we were starving. Plus in the rush to pack our bags I hadn’t had a shower either. Hot, hungry and most definitely bothered, we waited for our bus to turn up.

When it did eventually get there it was well past 1pm. From our previous experience of bus journeys around Asia, they consist of over the top air con, almost no leg room and a piss smelling toilet that fills the whole bus with its stench whenever someone opens or closes the door. This bus was different in every way. Firstly the seats were huge. They could almost lay down flat and had leg room a giraffe would feel roomy in. There was no toilet to stink the place out and the air con was weaker than if I’d put an ice cube in my mouth and began blowing. But on the whole I thought it was quite nice.

Soph however. She hated every second of the journey. As I said at the beginning she had a very bad night and she’d not been well at all. So while I’d slept most of the way, she sat uncomfortable from start to finish. The bus did jump around quite a bit and it was quite warm, but she really, really hated it. It probably didn’t help that some local sitting behind us was burping his way through the alphabet throughout the journey.

5 and a half hours after leaving Georgetown we arrived at KL Sentral. The main bus and train terminal. We grabbed our bags from the lower deck of the bus and headed inside the terminal. It had started to rain pretty hard so we were grateful for the shelter. But Soph’s large bag must have been leaked  on during the journey because it was totally drenched. It literally needed to be rung out before we could put it on.

We headed over to the taxi rank where we joined a long queue of people all waiting to get home from work or, like us, find their hotels/hostels. Thankfully a woman in the queue recognised the fact we were new to the city and told us we needed to buy a ticket from indoors first before waiting.  When we started getting closer to the front we could see how rubbish the taxi system was here. The taxi drivers were refusing to take people to certain places for reasons such as, they didn’t want to drive to that part of town today, or they’d just come from there, or they were simply lazy dicks that simply couldn’t be arsed to do their job.

We were pretty lucky that our driver was more than happy to take us. But once we started moving he decided to tell us he would be unable to take us to our hostel as it was in Chinatown where they have a very busy night market. So we would  need to make our own way there. Our way to a place we had no idea where was, with no map, in the pouring rain.

The night market in Chinatown is massive and very busy. It’s a pretty mental place to be on a good day. But with four heavy bags, a poorly girlfriend, an empty stomach and a tropical storm above our heads, it was a nightmare. And it got no better when a local tried to help by pointing us in the wrong direction when we literally two doors away.

Once checked in we headed out to grab some food. We found a restaurant opposite the hostel in the very centre of Chinatown. Just as we were paying the bill I saw something move behind where Soph was sitting. I double looked to see a fat old rat running from the kitchen and behind some chairs. How nice.

Back at the hostel it was time to trim the facial hair. That’s my facial hair of course. Soph wants to leave hers a little longer. With no razor and no trimmer it was down to the scissors to do the job. Do not try this at home. Soph started things off by using a comb to make sure all was even. I then finished the job by chopping off the finer bits to give a real close shave. Not sure I ever want to go through the constant fear of slicing through my windpipe ever again. So either I will have to put up with the beard from now on, or buy a razor. We’ll see.

So today, on the whole, has been pretty rubbish. Soph even marked it as the worst day of our trip so far. So I apologise if today’s blog entry is a little miserable but I suppose we are a little miserable today. Then again when you realise you are traveling the world and don’t have work in the morning, you remember to forget all the crap.

Thanks for following x