I should just accept the whole thing will be out of order

More because I have internet access than anything else, here's a quick update.

I'm in Vang Viane at the moment.  This place is almost paradise, broken only slightly by its discovery by the gap-year travellers.  I don't want to generalise and condemn everyone who has the gumption to get up and go somewhere when they're still young, but really, unless you're going to be an alcoholic when you grow up then you're not going to find yourself by drinking your own body weight of BeerLao and then jumping off a platform into a river while listening to pounding house music.

Luckily most of the people who could make this a bad place confine themselves to one end of town and so the rest of us can go out and do/see incredible things without being bothered by them.

For instance...

Today we took some motorbikes and headed off to a cave halfway up a mountain with a lagoon to swim in.  Yesterday we went tubing through an underwater river.

Right now I'm in an internet cafe using a computer that is lousy with viruses, so there's no way I'm sticking my memory card with photos into it, but I have some good ones to share when I get back.

More when I can.

A Day In KL (12/04/10)

This particular morning started off with me being woken up at an ungodly hour by some terrible creature booming its early morning call right outside the hotel room. There was a certain awful irony to this as one of the things I was looking forward to about this holiday was getting away from the sodding blackbird that wakes me up every morning in Tunbridge Wells. Ah well, c’est la vie. At least I had to get up there or there abouts, putting me firmly in the time zone.

Breakfast in the hotel café was a curious affair, at least by my standards. Probably yours too.

There was curry, toast, rice, anchovies, peanuts, sambal, pancakes, porridge, beef strips, and a whole host of other foodstuffs, not all of which were what you’d commonly associate with the first meal of the day. Still, I guess if you’re catering for a constant stream of people who’re not sure what time it is and might be feeling like an evening meal or lunch at that point, and operating in a country where these things are eaten for breakfast, I suppose it makes sense in it’s way.

After breakfast we strolled through the hotel lobby and had a chat with Felix, the jolly man who was responsible for all the transport out of the hotel. He arranged for Edwin to come to the hotel and give us a tour of various points of interest in and around the city.

Edwin seemed a little lack-lustre and unenthusiastic about the whole affair, but this, it transpired, was down to him having done the same tour every day for the last 7 years. It probably gets a bit samey after a while.

So we realised that perhaps he wasn’t going to be that informative or chatty.

First port of call was the royal palace. A gate and some informative placards – took a photo of the gate, read the placards and we moved on. This was just a stop off on the way to the first real attraction – The Batu Caves. A big hole somewhere near the top of a limestone cliff. You get up to it by climbing the 272 steps that are guarded by a huge statue of Lord Murugan. Our guide sort of suggested that this was the tallest statue in the world, which seemed implausible to the both of us. Turns out that it’s the world’s tallest statue of Lord Murugan. Which is cheating a little bit. Still. 42.7m is a big statue by any measure. That’s 3.3m shorter than the Statue of Liberty, for example. And yes, I did look it up on Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batu_Caves

So we climbed up the steps and I took a couple of pics of the biggest representation of Lord Murugan’s butt in the world.

Part of the way up are the entrances to the Dark Caves. These seem doubly intriguing, not just because they are the Dark Caves, but because the entrance is sealed and guarded by macaque monkeys.

There are, it transpires, macaque monkeys all over the place and I like a monkey, so I have a huge number of monkey photos from the caves. I’ll post some up here, but if you want to see more, let me know. I don’t really want to inflict that many monkeys on people who aren’t interested.

Up at the top of the steps and into the cave, Vicki almost immediately fixed upon a man with some snakes who was draping them round the necks of visitors for a small fee. She duly paid and I duly snapped. As soon as I get back to England you’ll see what Vicki looks like when she’s in fear of her safety.

Walking deeper into the cave, if it wasn’t already clear it became abundantly apparent that this was a Hindu shrine. This might come across as disrespectful but I assure you it isn’t – I love Hindus for their habit of decorating important places with statues that stray more than slightly into the world of gaudy. Better yet, there’s almost always a story that goes unexplained.

So one respectful wander around the caves later and we started the slow stroll back down, mindful that the steps are somewhat smaller than my unreasonably large feet. 272 steps would be a long and painful descent if done in freefall. 10 would not be that comfortable.

At the bottom we got a fresh coconut to refresh ourselves with before heading on to what was billed as pewter works, but through some confusion turned out to be a pewter shop. With neither of us in the mood for pewter it was a short stop off.

Next leg of this journey was into the heart of KL, and a trip up the Menara KL (aka The Telecoms Tower). Really, very, very tall. It was quite a muggy day, but still we had a good view of the city. Having seen all there was to see from up there, instead of taking the lift down to the ground floor again we took it one floor down to the revolving restaurant and tried to blag our way in, despite not having booked. Sensing the blag, the concierge quoted us a price of 40RM for tea and a slice of cake. This was more than the admission charge so we made our excuses and left, promising to be back after we’d had a word with our driver.

Instead, what we did was wander around the “KL Experience”, pausing very briefly to watch some decidedly untraditional traditional dance.

One thing that this diversion did give us was a clear view of the tower from the base which was the first time we realised quite how massive it is – more than 8 times taller than that statue of Lord Murugan.

Last stop on the tour was the Petronas Towers. Big, shiny and full of shops. I’m sure the architect who designed it and the countless workmen who built it would want it described in more detail and with more reverence, but truth be told, that’s it.

After that it was back to the hotel. Our main task that evening was to meet up with Jude – a friend of Jo’s (Vicki’s sister). We’d not made any significant plans for this and so left it to chance. Chance, it seemed, dragged the three of us to the pool. The remarkable thing was that none of us had met or seen each other before. Jude was on the look out for someone who looked like Jo who appeared to be with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.

We swam past all of once before she recognised us.

Introductions made, we went for dinner. After dinner, decided I wanted a little bit of a shower and a quick lie down.

Woke up three hours later at midnight and decided that I wasn’t quite so much in the time zone as I’d thought.

Arrival I (11/04/10)

Not much to say about the flight except that it was long, but that’s OK because it’s a long way. If it was a short flight to a long way away I’d not believe we were here. As usually happens with me I wasn’t prepared days, or even hours in advance. In truth I spent a few hours on the 10^th running around town buying the last bits that I needed.

We touched down in KLIA shortly after a gorgeously pink sunset. KLIA has a terminal called LCCT (Low Cost Carrier Terminal). Not unsurprisingly this is where the low cost airlines land. And we were flying with one* – Air Asia X, as it happens. No idea where the X came from, but it’s not a rating for the flight in any way. Back to the LCCT - not the most luxurious of arrival points, but probably not the worst – functional, I’d say.

We had a car to meet us at the airport (yeah – I know, low cost airline, paying extra for the car – that’s the way we roll and it doesn’t have to make sense) which it turned out we were sharing with another two guests. Except there was no sign of them and eventually we found out that they had made their own way and already checked in to the hotel. So it would have been quicker to get the free shuttle bus. And only marginally less comfortably.

Still, I’ve walked through the Arrivals gate to be met by someone with my name on a sign. OK, Vicki’s name***. But I was with her, so that counts, I’m sure.

So the car whisked us off through the night, and through the rows and rows and rows of palm trees that fill up all the free space around the airport.

10 minutes later we were pulling up to the entrance to The Concorde Inn Hotel – our home for the next two days. It being long dark by this point I couldn’t tell so much about it other than it being a series of single story blocks that looked suspiciously like chalets. I was a little concerned that I might be staying in the Malaysian equivalent of Butlins.

As it was, it was pretty much like any hotel room anywhere else – shower and toilet on the left, wardrobe on the right and sleeping area right ahead.

The rest of the evening was given over to a meal of noodles followed by fresh fruit – if any of you have never been to the Far East, then it’s worth the trip for the fresh fruit alone. There’s a special joy to be had from fruit with that much juice, flavour and sweetness.

After that, checked out the pool fancying a swim but it was shut so we went to bed.

Now I realise that these are a lot of words you’ve just read about not very much at all. I also realise that you’ll probably know I can be a little, well, verbose**** but don’t panic. The day after the one described here actually sees me have something to talk about.

*Pretty good, as they go. For long haul, at least, the space you get to sit in is not too bad. The food was awful**, but that wasn’t surprising really. It got us here though and with minimal discomfort.

**I think the problem was choosing Western food on an Asian flight. The “Cottage Pie” looked as if it had been conceived by someone who had read about them but never actually seen one close up.

***Vicki did actually stipulate that both our names should be on, but the hotel missed that instruction. Still, lovely thought.

****OK, a gobshite.

By Way Of Explanation

Internet access is not so easy to come by out here. To be honest, neither is time. I’ve come all this way and it seems like an odd thing to be doing right now, sitting in front of a computer and typing stuff up. Especially when there's so much other stuff to do.

But still, I’d like the log of it all and possibly you’d like to read about it.

What this means is that the dates of the posts don’t coincide with the dates that the things happened. Also, at this stage, it will have to be just reading about it as uploading photos isn’t really an option.

I’ll put them on line when I get back to the UK.

Before we go

Hurrah! The start of a new travel blog.

I might even finish this one...

In a few short hours I get on a plane and head off to Malaysia.

From Malaysia I'm going to a big water fight in Laos (also known as New Year). After that, it's Cambodia bound before heading back to Malaysia for the flight home.

I've no idea what internet access I will have when I'm out there, but I've found may camera* and will update this and upload pics whenever possible.

*Yay!