Malaysia

Here are the Malaysian photos:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLandingSignin.jsp?Uc=p9195pl.6s46xo4p&Uy=dwnsxi&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=0


1-15
After crossing the border we got to stay in our nice bus all the way to Kuala Lumpur (KL). We arrived in KL around 8:30 p.m. That makes another day of riding buses. Luckily we were able to find a hotel without too many problems and we could walk from where the bus dropped us off. The hotel looks like a typical American budget hotel. The whole reason we made a beeline for KL is that we have to get our Indian visa in order before we head there next week. Hopefully we can do it here or else we will have to go to Singapore earlier than we anticipated. Apparently the Indian consulate is a fair bit out of the main part of town, but we are going to head there in the morning. KL is a huge town and we could see the Petronas towers on the way in. Just a few years ago they were the tallest buildings in the world.
I don't know how the weather is back home, but here is what we are looking forward to: http://www.myforecast.com/bin/detailed_forecast.m?city=70748&metric=false
hot!

1-16
Well, last night wasn't that great because we were winding down for the nighnt watching TV on our bed when I looked down on the bed and saw a bed bug and he was full of blood! We have read that a lot of places in Malaysia have these critters and now our room has them! Well we pulled out our sleep sacks and put that on top the sheets and went to bed. When I woke up at 6 a.m. I immediately jumped in the shower for a thorough scrub. This ordeal was completely repulsive, luckily we only saw 3 or 4 of them, luckily there weren't hords of them.
After we cleaned up we went down for our free breakfast, which was really good for the price. It's a shame there are bed bugs here because we really like the hotel.
(for more info on bedbugs, check this out: http://www.uky.edu/Ag/Entomology/entfacts/struct/ef636.htm )
After eating we tried to hop a local bus to the Indian consulate, but we couldn't find it, so we just took a taxi. The taxi driver took us straight there but as soon as we stepped out of the taxi some guy was yelling at us to give him our passports. We looked at him, like, Yeah Right, You Must Be Kidding, and then we saw some guy with forms and he wanted $5 for the visa form, but Linh informed him that they are free inside the consulate, and there wasn't much he could say about that. So we went in a joined the throngs of people applying for visas and about 2 hours later we had finished our business. We have to return on Thursday or Friday to pick them up. On the way out, we could see a fight going on beyond the gate. A couple of guys slapping each other like girls. That was interesting. So we skirted the fight and its onlookers and walked up the road a bit before getting a taxi back. If this is just the Indian consulate I wonder what India is going to be like!!!
We went back to our hotel and checked out and now are trying to figure out what to do for the next few days.

Linh found a place on the internet and we walked to check it out. When we walked in the place looked fantatasticly clean. No carpet on the floor. Fresh paint on everything. I did a thorough inspection of the mattresses and beds and everything looked new and clean. We don't have a private bath, but the people here are really friendly and we decided to stay. The nice thing about this place is that it is away from the bus station and there doesn't seem to be nearly as many scuzzy people around here. After checking in we went walking about tow.
KL is a really big metropolitan city with lots of tall buildings. It is also fairly compact which is good for walking. There are Starbucks all over the place around here, even right across the street from each other, just like home. Unfortunately the prices for Starbucks are just like home, too. So we are going to do without. A cup of coffee there would cost more than dinner! Food is pretty darn cheap here and we went into a shopping center and clothes seem cheap too. Cheaper than anywhere we have been up to this point. After dinner we came back to our guesthouse and watched Mr. and Mrs. Smith on DVD. It's funny because here and in the rest of southeast asia the dvd's are recordings of a movie screen and sometimes you can hear the crowd laugh at the parts. Occasionaly you can see someone stand up to walk out or something. They put subtitles on the movie, but they rarely match up with what the people are saying.
We stayed up late talking with two Canadian girls who are staying here also.

1-17
We slept in late for the first time in a long while. It has been a while since we aren't in a hurry to get somewhere.
Eventually we walked to the big Times Square skyscraper where they have a 10-story mall inside with an indoor amusement park. We ate lunch at the food court and then Linh did some shopping while I read magazines in Borders. Eventually the shopping ended and we came back to our place for a breather and used the internet. The internet is fairly cheap here.
After a while we got up off our lazy bums and went to go see the KL tower. This is a really tall communications tower that you can pay to go to the top of. We went right around dusk, so we got to see the city in all its glory in daylight and at night. It was quite a sight. After that we indulged in some ice cream and bought some mangosteen in a market. Mangosteen is a fruit that neither one of us has had and I loved it. We may buy some more tommorow.

1-18
We slept in and then decided to go out on the town. We walked to the Petronas towers.Very tall, shiny buildings. There is a top end shopping mall on the bottom few floors. Every designer brand name had a store in there, Tiffany, Cartier, Gucci, Armani to name a few. Anyway, we got there in time to score some of the free tickets to visit the pedestrian bridge that runs between the two towers about half way up on the 41st floor. We had to wait about 2 and a half hours until our time slot to up. We bought some coffee and walked around looking at all the things we couldn't afford. Eventually our time came and we went up. It was really cool because even though we were only half way up the building we were lookin down on virtually every skyscraper around us. After that we went down and had an affordable dinner inside. Then we decided to ask the price of the movie tickets at the theater inside. It was only $1.75 per ticket! So we watched Pride and Prejudice. It was pertty good for a chick flick. By the time the movie was over it was dark outside and we realized we had spent our entire day in one building! This city is truly the land of shopping malls. There seems to be a huge one on every corner. On the way home we had some dim sum at market stall and bought some more mangosteen. We went back to our hostel and chowed down. And now Linh is watching a scary show on the Discovery channel and I am typing away. We are going to check the status of our visa for India tommorow. If we get it, we are probably going to head on to Singapore.

1-19
Hmmm........Today we woke up early in an attempt to go get our visa for India. We weren't sure if we were going to be able today or Friday so I thought I would try and call first to see if it was ready. Well, the phone number I had written down was wrong so I had to access the internet to find the correct one. Then I had to wander the streets looking for a pay phone that worked. I finally found one and it was busy every time I called. So I went back to our place and got Linh and we tried to get a taxi. (spelled teksi here). The first 3 taxis I hailed refused to use their meter and quoted me prices 3-5 times a much as it should cost. So we walked to a different area of town and flagged one down and he took us straight there on the meter. I always tip the honest cabbies, they are much appreciated. We arrived to a full house of people again. Not sure which line I was to be in I weasled my way up front and asked the courteous worker waved me away with a flourish of his hand. I then talked to some white guys in there and they said we were supposed to come between 4:30 and 5:00 pm to pick it up. I then asked an Indian guy and he said the same thing. After scrutinizing my receipt I saw those times on there but they had not specified which day, but it is only supposed to take 3 working days. So we decided to walk back to save on taxi fare (it only costs $2.50) and walk back. It was quite a distance and very hot, but we didn't mind the exercise. So we came back to our place and told them that we needed one more night. Unfortunately they had already booked the room we were in, so we had to move to the dorm room that is shared with other people. We went and mailed some post cards and killed time until it was time to go back to the embassy. When we got back there was an extremely long line of people wating so we got in the end of the line. Linh started talking to a German lady in front of us. Through conversation we found out that we were supposed to drop our passports off this morning and pay the balance of our visa. Now, this sucks. So when we got to the front of line we found out that what the German lady said was true. This is extremely frustratiing because we had asked repeatedly what we were supposed to do and when and the embassy personnel just didn't provide us with any useful information whatsoever. Very, very frustrating. So now we have to go back tommorow morning, drop off our passprts and then come back in the afternoon to pick them up and then hop on a bus to Singapore and get there in time to catch our 7 am flight on Saturday morning. We are praying that this visa goes through tommorow or we are screwed. Thankfully the German lady offered us a ride back into the city in her car (she lives in KL). We readily accepted and thanked her. We went and ate dinner and can't wait to go through all of this again tommorow.

1-20
Let the fun begin!
We woke up early so we could get near the front of the line at the Indian embassy. The girl yesterday told us we were going to have to pay 305 Ringgit (Malaysian money) for the both of us for the visas. When we arrived we took a number and were number 23. Thats not bad considering we were 80 the other day. After over an hour of waiting our number is called and we give the guy our passports. Then we have to get in another line to pay. When we have to pay we find that they charge Americans more so we owe 450 ringgit. I go digging through my pockets and find I am short 20 ringgit (about $5.00 ). Crap! I ask if they can hold the application while I find the ATM. There is nothing commercial within reasonable walking distance of the embassy so we have to hire a cab to take us to the ATM. He takes us to a shopping center with a few different banks in it. I put my card in and......nothing. I try a different bank......nothing. One more atm.......nothing. Either we are flat broke (we should have some money in there) or we have a block on our card again. Linh and I talk it over real quick and I decide to get a cash advance off one of our credit cards. I wait in line at the bank until I remember that I have no ID. Hop back in the cab and go back to the embassy. Jump the line and ask if I can have my passport so I can get some money. They reluctantly give it up. Hop back in the cab and go back to the bank. Get a big cash advance, cuz I don't know when the card will start working again. Go back to the emabasy and pay the fee. They assure me the visa will be ready at 4:30 pm. We hop back in the cab and he takes us back into town. Before I forget, we had to hail 4 cabs in the morning before we found one that wasn't trying to rip us off. By now it is 1pm. We arrived at the embassy at 8:30 am. We are starving. We get some food at a mall. Then we go back to our ultra-cool guest house to kill some time. As we are walking up, a Korean girl that had been staying started screaming that someone stole her bag. Come to find out later that she had been sitting outside the guest house, waiting for transportation to the airport and her back was to her bag and some Indian kid ran up and snatched it and ran off. All her passports and stuff were in there. The poor girl was breaking down in tears. But she should have known better. And she said that was the 3rd time she had had something stolen. Linh did her best to console her and counsel her on how to go about getting her passport replaced and stuff. After that Linh took a short nap and then it was time to go back to the embassy. Again we have to hail multiple cabs before we find a good one and he was new and we had to tell him how to get there and lucky for us we had been there a million times and knew the way. We get to the embassy and wait in line for an hour and then low and behold they hand us our visas!!!!!! yeah!!! We must say that that embassy is the sorriest excuse for an embassy that we have ever seen. We hold no love for that place . It was supposed to take three days to get our visa and it all of 5 days. But thank the Lord we got it and can fly out tommorow. We decided to get some exercise and save cab fare by walking back. We went a different way than last time and this time we ended up crossing major highways multiple times, walking through some park in the middle of nowhere before we got back into town.
We bought bus tickets for Singapore and the bus leaves at 8 pm. This bus supposedly goes to the Singapore airport, which is perfect for us.We at dinner at Burger King because we hadn't eaten at one overseas yet. They had free refills! We went back to the guest house and got cleaned up a bit and sat and talked to some people until it was time to get on the bus. The bus left around 8:45 pm and we dozed on and off all the way to singapore. We crossed the border around 1 am. On to the next blog.....