Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Boy has it been all go. The fact that we didn’t even book our flights until 4 days before departure, and weren’t even sure where we were going up until that point, proves how manic we have been. Without delving too deeply into things, our previous university job in China had turned pretty sour. The people were lovely, and the students amazing. But the complete lack of communication, room and class clashes, atrocious pollution due to living next door to an incinerator, and being completely excluded from all university activities forced us to search for another job. It may have been a blessing in disguise as we found one situated in a gorgeous city, right next to the beach, and with a rather fat pay rise! But sorting out all of the visa work, trying to get our old university to sort out paperwork (which was the job of the most useless administration lady on earth), and moving city left us with very little time to plan a trip. So once we had moved and gotten our passports back we searched for flights, finding direct return flights to Malaysia for a very cheap price. …Malaysia it is!
Logically, the first stop was Kuala Lumpur. We had visited KL 7 years ago for only a couple of days, and it really didn’t linger in the memory. So we were determined to do more exploring and sus it out. However, because we didn’t even really know where we were going next, we used most of the time doing shopping, relaxing, drinking bucket loads of coffee (which is largely absent in China), and planning the rest of our trip. Not overly exciting, but much needed. We weren’t helped by staying in a hotel that was so loud and cramped that sleep was not possible in large doses. Great.
We did manage to get around and check out Bukit Bintang, the main shopping area, Chinatown, and the Lake Gardens and had our fill of cheap curries. But all that we really concluded was that KL isn’t really made for walkers. It’s great for shopping, but not great for real walking or exploring. The one thing that did hit us was the diversity. Every race and type of person was there, which took some getting used to after the homogeneity of China!
We decided to come back at the end of our trip to give it a proper go. Take 3 as it were! But for now, we need a bit of quiet, a nicer bed, and a couple more days to sort out exactly what we were planning to do for the next 7 weeks…So we decided to head north to Ipoh, hoping to accomplish all of that.