Pictures And Words

After 1 year of working, in 3 different jobs, starting with testing sewage, onto testing gold, then on to testing pepsi, I am now back traveling again. In the middle of the last year it felt like it was never going to come, it was only a year, but sheesh it was tough, I don’t know how people work a full time job with no release from it in the near future, the monotony drives me crazy, it leaves me powerless when i am free in the evenings, and at weekends i just want to sit back and enjoy not having to do anything. I have been here for about a week now, and im not sure what day it is already, I have no desire or need to think back through the days and work out what day it is, its just not that important.

Australia was a good country to work in, in fact i’d even say it was a great country to work in. The weather was always alright, even when it was winter, it was never really that bad, raining for a few days on end, but it didn’t have that bitter bite that England has in its bleakest winters, and working in the summer in Australia was great, waking up at 6am and the temperature was beautiful, very fresh mornings a relief from the temperature it was when you fell asleep, which still lingers on on your skin. I have so many pictures, and stories to go along with them from Australia, but since i’ve just spent the afternoon playing with some photo’s from Malaysia im going to post them first.

I got here last week, the flight cost me $AU100, which is about 50 quid, couldn’t believe it (incidentally, i have just seen a flight from Kuala Lumpar to London for $AU198 one way, which is about 99 quid! this offer starts on the 1st September and ends on the 30th November, Air Asia if your interested). I flew into Kuala Lumpar, and when I got off the plane and walked across the tarmac, i smelled raw heat and hot garbage, it was great, floods of nostalgia and good feelings. I got a room hassle free, a little bit more expensive than im used to, but Malaysia is a bit more pricey than other places in Asia. Right away I set out on foot and started to explore the city.

I met up with a guy from New Zeland when I was at the Indonesian embassy getting my visa, he was getting a visa as well, going there for surfing. He was there with a mate, so the next day we toured the city together, we decided to go to the sky bridge that joins the two Petronas tower, its free, but you have to queue up to get a ticket, the queuing starts at about 8.30am, and lasts till the afternoon, they give out about 1500 tickets. It wasn’t really worth it, it might have been more worth it if it hadn’t just started raining when we went up to the bridge.

But as it was, it was raining, it was a pretty murky day, so we couldn’t see so far over the city. Also the bridge is only half way up, they go on and on before you go up there about how the buildings are some of the tallest in the world, failing to point out the obvious that we are only going to go up halfway. Also the queuing up to get the tickets was a shambles, we didn’t know what was going on, people entering the queue from all angles.

It was all good fun though, and we got an extra 15 minutes on the bridge, the ushers were hearding people up and down in 15 minute blocks, and they asked us all to be as efficient as possible, and we were slack as anything, when we got on the bridge we laughed around, looking all over, and the lady called us back, i figured id wait until she did a second call, and she never did! The next group leader saw that we were members of the green team, with green tags, and he said we should have left already and we will now have to wait until the next group goes down, bonus 15 minutes!

After a few more missions out and around Kuala lumpar, looking in all the electronic malls, and other shopping paradises, i decided id had enough for now, since i knew i would be coming back, so i looked at a map and picked a place at random to go to next. Turned out to be the old capital of Malaysia, called Kuala Selangor, with the promise of monkeys and fireflies I was sold.

It was a little dull when i actually got there, kinda sleepy, and nothing there apart from the nature park, a lighthouse on a hill and the fireflies at night next to the river. I went to see the fireflies and that was amazing, just like Christmas tree lights, which does belittle it, but to see it was amazing, they all blinked in unison as well, and there was literally 1000’s of them! They were quite strict about not taking pictures there, i don’t think you could picture them anyway, them being such low light, i think the reason for not taking pictures would be people flashing them, maybe it confuses them all, makes them all move away or something.

I went to a nature park in Kuala Selangor as well, walked around for a few hours, saw many many mud-skippers in mangrove swamps there, also lots of little crabs, and some shells of horse shoe crabs, but no live horse shoe crab. After the nature park that was it really, i was done with Kuala Selangor, there wasn’t anything else to keep me there, and the choice of hotels was very limited, leaving me paying 10 pounds for a night, big stinger, no other option though, seemed to be the cheapest in town.

So i got out of there, catching 4 busses, one after other leading me all the way to the Cameron highlands, and it was well worth it. The air is cool here, I get a great sleep with a couple of blankets to keep me the perfect temperature, the food is excellent and cheap and the room is very cheap, and there is free wifi where im staying! So i will kick back here for the next week or so, exploring the tea fields and insect farms around here.

Sheesh, this post has taken me ages to write, i decided to rely on the image inserting tool that comes with the blogging software, normally id just use some HTML script, hence the different layout, its been so much hassle though. Think ill just stick to tried and tested method next time! I do have more pictures i wanted to put up today, but the editor keeps failing me and its taken too long already, so ill save em for next time. They’re not such special pictures anyway.