I can’t believe how quick our time in KL was, less than 33 hours in total and it flew by! I liked KL and I’m glad that we made a quick stop here, but I am glad that it was quick and that next week we will be away from a major city. We got dressed, packed our bags, checked out of the hostel, and headed to the Batu Caves, which are about 8 miles north of Kuala Lumpur. We were told the bus ride there was only 45 minutes. But there was so much traffic that it ended up taking almost 1.5 hours to get there, I think we could have walked faster! We climbed the 272 steps up the limestone hill and went into the caves. They are about 100 meters above the ground and 400 million years old! Inside there are many temples and temple caves. On our hike we met an interesting guy named Dylan from California. He was on a layover en route to Australia. We ended up spending a couple hours with him. It was interesting to hear his travel stories, I’ll be interested to be in touch with him on facebook and see how his trip to Australia went!
For the rest of the afternoon we walked around Petaling Street in Chinatown, which is full of shops and hawker stalls trying to sell you fake bags, DVD’s and clothes, I felt like I was in China again! There are so many fresh fruit stands here with exotic fruits, we tried a fruit called rambutan which kind of tasted like aloe, but was really good! We had to head to the airport at around 3:30pm to catch our flight to Thailand. We had read that dried fruit is really popular in Malaysia but we barely saw any until we got to the airport. We found a store full of every dried fruit you can imagine, I was excited! We were allowed to sample and taste as many as we wanted, so we went crazy and tried everything- even dried rose petals which were delicious!
The flight to Phuket, Thailand was quick- only one hour and twenty minutes. We had booked the hostel that we’re staying at online and didn’t have a printer to print the hostel details. Jess has internet on her phone so in the past we’ve had no problems getting the address of places on her phone and giving it to the taxi driver. However we had horrible luck when we got off the plane and realized that her internet for some reason doesn’t work here in Thailand. We went to the tourist information desk and they had never heard of the hostel and didn’t have a list of the lodging options for Patong Beach. We asked if they could look it up on the computer, they said no. We asked if they had a phone book, they didn’t. We were annoyed and running out of options when this tall blonde lady approached us. She said that she was also going to Patong beach and wanted to know if we were interested in sharing a taxi. We were a little sketched out, but didn’t know what else to do but to head in the right direction. The taxi ride was about an hour, during which time we desperately tried calling home to have someone Google the address of the hostel for us. The Australian even let us use the internet on her phone which was nice. We finally found the address, but the taxi driver didn’t know where it was- just our luck. The Australian was a mystery to Jess and I. She was very nice, but a little off in our opinion. She had no luggage with her, the first thing that we both noticed. She said that she was here in Thailand to go to the dentist and would be staying 2 weeks to get imprints and molds made. Lastly, she said last time she was in Thailand she came to go to the doctors. All very weird to us. As some of you may know, “The Beach” starring Leonardo Dicaprio is one of my favorite movies, and ironically enough it takes place in Thailand. The Australian women reminded me exactly of one of the leader of the hidden tropical island, Val, who only goes to mainland Thailand to go to the doctor and dentist. So weird! Regardless the woman was super nice and even insisted that the taxi driver wait while she went inside to have the concierge find the address of our hostel. It took about 15 minutes and the taxi driver got really annoyed. Since Patong beach is set up with one-way roads and we’d already passed our hostel, he refused to go back, but dropped up off about a half a mile away from the hostel. We still weren’t exactly sure where we were going but we started walking. We actually ended up walking down the major road that has tons of nightlife and great bars. We scoped it out and decided that Thailand was great instantly, and that we had to take part in the nightlife! After walking in circles and asking dozens of people for directions who had no idea where our hostel was, we finally found it and checked in.
Our room is great. We share a king sized bed and the room even has a mini fridge and a safe. We have our own private balcony and share a bathroom with another room, but so far haven’t met the people in the other room. I showered quickly and we threw on dresses and were off to experience the night life first hand. We had a blast! Our first stop at a beach party on Patong Beach. There was a DJ, lots of dancing and people on the beach were lighting sky lanterns which are kind of like luminary kites that fly up into the sky. Again, they had the same sky lanterns in the movie “The Beach” when Leonardo was being welcome to the hidden island in Thailand- I was so excited to see them. They were beautiful! We decided that it was then time to hit a club where we did a shot and got drinks then danced the night away.
We could defiantly see the “sex-tourism’ which we were warned about. We have no encounters with prostitutes and actually have felt really safe here. Phuket is know as the “sex-tourism” capital of the world, and we’ve definitely seen it, but we were able to find parties and bars that are for tourists only and don’t allow Thai’s in (because so many of them are actually prostitutes). We found this all very interesting, but had a blast regardless. We were getting tired by 1am and decided that we should head back to the hostel and get some sleep.
Bye for now!
Love,
Katie.
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