Touring Ubud & Night Theatre!

After a wonderful nights sleep we awoke early to head into the nearby breakfast market (it wasn't actually called that, it just happens to be the main reason we went). Deciding that we would be healthy, also for monetary reasons, we took the long sloping walk into the centre of Ubud.

As we walked it was nice to see the street in the light of day and identify everything we had come across the night before. Strolling through the streets we soon came across lots of women carrying a wide range of goods in baskets balanced expertly on their heads; if this wasn't an indication we were heading in the right direction I don't know what would be!

Having only spent an evening in the area it seemed remarkably westernised in certain ways, and traditionally Indonesian in others. The main reason I mention this is because we came across our first Starbucks, we came close to missing it entirely as it seemed to blend so seamlessly into the background. Deciding that it was worth a picture (and that alone) we headed off in search of the local food on offer.

It didn't take too long to find the market once the concentration of women with baskets on their heads, and those on mopeds, increased. The most remarkable thing that struck me first was that, despite appearing to be quite touristy, there was almost no-one there who wasn't Indonesian. A couple of tourists wandered around sporting cameras as big as their heads, sadly we were the same. As I was pondering the reasons behind this Lena brought it to my attention that it was still before 8am... I'm not my quickest in the early morning.

Walking through the market place I was struck by the sheer amount of items and the vividness of the colours on display. Deciding to try and spend wisely we made sure we didn't buy from the first person who offered us something, no, we bought from the second! Very keen business minds operating here! The food is question was a couple of pieces of what were pandan flavoured bites with some desiccated coconut; I have learnt from past experiences that I don't dislike panda but equally I don't really enjoy it that much either but they were alright, nothing special.

Sensing that something more filling was necessary in order to keep me upright so early in the morning we headed into narrow and tall alleyways of the market where the bright vidid colours were replaced by the warm earthy colours of wood. Following our noses away from the bad smells and towards the better ones and the distinct sounds of sizzling we came across a small stall selling all manner of satay sticks. With hunger threatening to overtake me I quickly tucked into the offering.

With my hunger at bay for the time being we wandered for what felt like hours through the labyrinthian maze, fortunately no minotaurs though. The only real purchase of the morning was a sharks tooth necklace that had been chopped in half in order to provide a smooth surface to rest against my neck; this did nothing to confirm its authenticity but was a nice feature.

Once we had found our way back to the main road Lena and I decided that we should head off and find some of the temples and old buildings that each town has. In each town/city in Bali there are 3 temples that are representative of 3 different stages of life (I could be wrong on the meaning but there are defiantly 3...). On our way into the centre of Ubud we passed one although it isn't really that impressive; the impressive part was that at the main intersection of the town stood a MASSIVE wooden construct adorned with bright colours, apparently the local 'king' had died. I put 'king' in quotation marks simply because the term 'king' here is basically comparable to a town mayor and to commemorate his life they were building a massive memorial...that they would burn down. Sadly we would be leaving before this could happen so instead we just got to see all the local artisans making this huge thing!

We strolled into the temple and found a collection of sarong clad men cutting and shaping various parts that would be later added to the massive effigy. As countries go Bali is quite strict about their temples and requires people who visit to wear sarongs and to not be menstruating, fortunately this wasn't a temple as such so I was safe...in both instances. Having stopped off to visit this massive thing we continued our journey into Ubud, turning off the main road and head down one of the only other major roads going through the town. Nothing much was happening as we went, just looking at the wonderful views that surrounded us, but as we reached a clearing with a large expanse we came across a school and a group of students walking in a regimented manner; it would later be revealed to us that they were rehearsing for the upcoming independence day (another event we would sadly miss :( ).

As we reached the end of our walk we came across our goal; the monkey forest! A sacred ground filled with loads of monkeys who took great pleasure in eating bananas and stealing stuff they thought was bananas. The entrance to the fine temple was rife with the little blighters, the bigger ones seemed to herd the smaller ones like a primate version of Fagan. Once we moved into the middle of the temple we came across a smaller temple and found that to get inside we would have to don a sarong which the attendants tied around us. Having paid visits to many (many) temples I found this one to be quite earthy, it seemed to steer clear of gaudy opulence. Soon after leaving the temple we found ourselves at the other end of the temple undecided on our next course of action; deciding this was as good a time as any to have a sit down we were soon accompanied by an inquisitive monkey. We soon discovered the source of his interest; our map. Grabbing the thing with both hands and his teeth he tore it, I thought it would probably be better to let him have it as he ran off across the temple flaunting his prize before the other monkeys.

It became apparent that the day was wearing on and we were both getting incredibly hungry. With our appetites coming to the forefront of our minds we set off to find the famed babi guling. The main component of the dish is a large amount of suckling pig with flavours that seem to verge on orgasmic! It wasn't the most well presented food but by god did it taste good. Perched on the floor we ate our bowls clean and licked our fingers on any hidden morsel. With our hunger now safely locked away we strolled around some more and found ourselves drawn to a young man dressed in traditional Balinese dress; turns out he was selling tickets to some night theatre, well there is our evening entertainment sorted out then!

Having been travelling through Ubud for the better part of the day we were exhausted and the climb back up the incline felt impossibly difficult but somehow we persevered. Hot and sweaty we rested on the bed before diving into the pool to cool off, such joy there was being able to frolic in the cold refreshing water.

With the evenings entertainment fast approaching we settled into...a big feast. The cook made a fantastic array of traditional balinese food for our sampling. Like so many other dishes I have had this holiday I had a tendency to favour the fried ones. The food was simple but delicious, a sort of build your own dinner (buffet, I think its called :) ).

For the second time today we made our way down the hilled slope in order to seek our prize, a theatrical experience under the stars, but first we had to get there. Along the way there were numerous people selling tickets to the nights festivities and every time we saw another temple we thought we had found it but alas. The road seemed far longer than it had before and it only got longer as we had to pass another temple, but as we were starting to wonder if we were being scammed, we found it! A modest location, adorned by numerous plastic garden chairs, we quickly took a seat with a good view. Having arrived early we had the joy of trying to figure out what was about to unravel before us (in other words: we read the programme...).

As the theatrical extravaganza went underway we soon found out that our modestly sized venue was about to become a little crowded. Dozens of men clad in sarongs (and little else) came into the temple. Forming organised concentric circles they began a chant that will forever be bored into my memory, even as I type this I can hear it creeping into the forefront of my mind (great I forgot my next point). The story, unfortunately, was told entirely in the local dialect and Lena could only understand passing words as they were a little unclear, even trying to follow along with the programme did little to remove the cloud of confusion.

The theatrical event went on for ages, a variety of different characters came and went. Finally we reached the finale! A man dressed as a horse proceeded the kick the ever loving s**t out of some burning wood and coals and then danced around whilst they were herded up for him to do it again. A child kicking the leaves sprang to mind but far more badass!

Taking our long, long, long walk back to our comfty residence we stopped off for another variation on satay which looked a lot like fish paste on popsicle sticks. Despite the odd appearance they were fantastic!

With the food settled in my stomach both Lena and I settled in for a good nights sleep, fully prepared to do it all again tomorrow.

A noisy morning in LCCT... A quiet evening in Bali

*Sigh* Once again we find ourselves in the hellish place known only as LCCT. Unlike our last visit we have timed things much better this time with far less time spent dawdling about praying for our budget flight.

Breakfast was provided by our friendly airport cafe and consisted of Nasi Lemak (for myself) and toast with runny eggs (for Lean). Now normally the time taken to be served isn't really much of a concern but having timed things to perfection it was definitely NOT the time for the service to be slow. With about 45 minutes to eat and get to our departure gate I (naively) thought this would be plenty of time. Half an hour later we only had our drinks, needless to say the food was eaten at a speed approaching some kind of record. On a plus side, it was the first time hearing my name being called in an airport informing me that it was the last call.

Swallowing masticated egg and toast we raced (waddled, we were wearing flip flops after all!) to the departure lounge. As we reached the security check we tried to move as quickly as possible without rousing any suspicion of ulterior motives; would have been just our luck to have a 'random' screening...

Sitting comfortably in our seats we set about sleep and digestion. The trip was several hours and it flew by (pun definitely intended :) ). As we got closer to our destination of Bali we saw a cheeky mountain top peaking through the clouds; a pimple on the clear heavenly landscape of clouds outstretched before us.

Coming in to land in Bali I got the distinct impression we were going for a water landing and the pilot had neglected to inform us, but apparently the runway was right next to the sea and we touched down just shy of the end of the runway; at least thats how it looked from our position. With a nerve wracking landing we disembarked to the wonderful hot and humid weather of Bali. Strolling through the tiled airport we were greeted by a constant supply of guards who guided us to the visa queues (yay!). Having been unaware of the visa I needed to pay I was less than thrilled when it turned out to be $25... with this visa in pocket I set about the long task of making my way through immigration; I really shudder to think how much of my holiday was spent being given the once over by immigration staff :).

As Lena patiently waited for me to appear, bleary-eyed from security, she had proactively collected the luggage so we could just stroll straight out of the arrivals lounge into the waiting masses. First thing we spotted was Lena's friends driver, Made (pronounced mar-day) who had been waiting for us for around an hour. Having been quite delayed coming out of arrivals our first port of call was to pick up auntie Denise's son Rudetia (I know for a fact I have spelt this wrong, Lena, when you see this chastise me and correct the spelling :p).

Straying out of the airport we got our first taste of life in Indonesia, and let me tell you, its dominated by motorcycles. With the roads being what they are in Bali it is far, far, far (far, I tell you!) easier to travel via motorcycle. No sooner had we ventured out of the car park, we were surrounded by all manner of motorbike, with all manner of rider; the easiest ones to spot were the backpackers who had their bags as their riding mates... For around half an hour we travelled the roads, encountering few vehicles with more than 2 wheels. Upon reaching Rudetia's school we picked him and his friend up and headed back off to what would be our home for the next few days.

On our travels back to our accommodation we dropped off Rudetia's friend who kindly invited us in to see a traditional Balinese house; the best way to describe the style of house is open plan. The house was spread across a large area with rooms separated by grass and open air. The dining room was completely open with a roof; must have been amazing in the summer evenings but an absolute pain during the rainy seasons. Despite this little niggle it was an amazing house and was SO different to anything I had seen before I was quite taken aback; it also raised questions about where we would be staying...

With anticipation and excitement dancing through my head as we made the decidedly shorter journey to our final destination the trip seemed far longer. Pulling into the garage I couldn't quite figure out what I should expect. Coming through the adjoining door we were greeted by a pool separating 2 buildings. As we were to decipher, one of the buildings was for guests; more specifically, us! As we came in we were greeted by Denise and her husband Silvio who showed us around our private little building, with its own en suite and the only air conditioning unit in their whole complex (score!). Their house was impressive, but a lot more centralised than the more traditional house we saw earlier in the day; it had 2 floors but felt as breezy as the open plan house.

In addition to being shown around the house we were introduced to the 4-legged family members, a collection of 4 female dogs; 95, Ski, Ski's mum and a 4th who's name eludes me at this time. As we were being introduced we began talking of the evenings activities; having spent such a disproportionate amount of time travelling and queueing meant that most of the day was already gone. With Silvio providing us with maps and advice we decided to head down into the nearby town of Ubud to see what the nightlife had in store for us. With a traditional Balinese dinner waiting for us when we got back it was hard to resist our hunger pangs as we walked down into the town centre.

As we trekked from the house (called the 'BALI PATHFINDER') we came across 2 temples as we came to the main road. Something we noticed as we walked was the abundance of small, square, plates that seemed to adorn almost all houses, temples and stores. Note to self: find out what they are.

Having made it to the main road we managed to make it about 100m before the allure of Bali satay enticed us in. Buying 10 sticks we stood tantalisingly close as the boy grilled the skewers to perfection. As I tucked into the satay I noticed a distinctly different taste and texture to those sampled in Malaysia; thinking it was a difference you would expect to find I continued eating. Shortly after finishing Lena informed me that it was almost certainly not meat but rather bits and pieces of the animal (which animal, she refused to elaborate on) that you would't normally define as meat.

With my appetite now set to cautious we carried on down the road. Having not made it too far down the road I was quite surprised at how quickly the night had drawn in around us. Finding ourselves standing on the dark street with a slew of motorbikes flowing around us we decided that venturing outside of the lights was probably a quick way to get ourselves lost. With weary legs we called it a night, not before grabbing a grape yoghurt smoothie thing from outside one of the convenience stores.

Oooh, that reminds me: Circle K. Like the Pepsi & Coke wars the 24hr convenience store battle was being waged in Asia with Circle K taking the title in Bali. To be honest the difference between the stores is visual alone, with both offering what you would expect in the respective countries. Aside over, back to the main narrative!

As we came back to the Bali Pathfinder on the less favourable uphill slope we had to fight the tiredness and lethargy that plagued us. Beds called us with their inviting song but first, dinner. A nice traditional meal was prepared when we got back and we tucked into some very fragrant and flavourful dishes. Sadly my favourite piece of food was fried, curse my love of fat!

With dinner over we retired to our bed, preparing ourselves for the long day ahead!

Chilling before Bali

Well Bali is calling us, and as such we spent much of the day preparing for the event. Sadly packing is not that interesting so instead we will focus on lunch and our semi-dinner that we had in the evening.

For lunch we departed from our carnivorous antics to sample some vegetarian dishes. The place we visited didn't serve vegetarian dishes exclusively, although there were a lot. To augment our veggie dishes we had: some pandan chicken, which is drumsticks which a pandan leaf wrapped around so that the flavour of the pandan leaf permeates the chicken; and secondly, a whole red snapper in a tomato based sauce. As a very big fan of the meats I found both the chicken and fish to be very well cooked and generally delicious, then we moved onto the vegetarian options and the reviews were slightly more mixed bag. The food presented wasn't bad, rather it wasn't my taste: stuffed vegetables, including stuffed bitter gourd which as it sounds was so bitter it brought fresh wrinkles to my face from screwing it up so much; flat noodles topped with fried garlic, pretty nice although the noodles were very slippery, I much prefer the vermicelli type mee hoon; fried dumplings and pastry were delicious, cementing the realisation that I was in love with all the Malaysian food that is bad for you *sigh*.

After lunch we spent the rest of the day packing and digesting, so when dinner rolled around we weren't really in the mood for anything large so the decision was made to go out for some dessert and a drink at this place called Murni's. The dessert place was called Secret Recipe, a shop that originated in America but had sadly never made it across the pond to the UK (sadly). We ordered 3 desserts to sate our sweet teeth: lava cake, basically a small chocolate cake with a liquid chocolate centre; strawberry and marshmallow cheesecake, which proved to be really tasty; and lastly, tiramisu, a dessert I was left than fond of but I found the sponge to be almost impossibly light and I make attempt to hide the fact I ate a lot of the sponge!

We ate quickly, partly due to only having 10 mins before closing time and partly due to general hunger. As we stumbled out into the humid night we went next door to Murni's for a BIG drink. I feel the concept of Murni's needs a little explanation; the shop is open 6 days a week for an ungodly amount of hours each day and never seems to drop in business, even in the early hours. The popularity of this place means that the restaurant has tables running down the sidewalk for almost an entire block in both directions, they used to fill the car park before the police closed it down due to the shear number of people that would block traffic! The drinks we had were HUGE ice blended drinks with some local fruits (longans) floating at the top. I had a mango blended drink whilst Lena's dad had a strawberry blended one; both of which were sublime.

With the evening coming to a close we went to sleep quickly as it was an early start for Bali!

Going Malacca(n)

Another weekend in KL rolled around; having exhausted a large chunk of the best touristy things to do in the city it was time to branch out! With our gazes set further afield we decided to set out for the state of Malacca; the third largest state in Malaysia (thank you Wikipedia!). Not quite realising how far away this place was I had gone to bed quite late; I only managed about 10 mins into the journey before I was unconscious, I really hope the snoring wasn't bad...

Prior to the long drive we headed for some Dim Sum Breakfast, with all the usual dishes being served although there were a few new ones that I hadn't seen before, including this bright yellow treat filled with sweet butter. I will never wrap my head around the idea of butter, on its own, being used as a sweet filling.

The main interest of going to Malacca was to visit an historic site that showed how the old Malaysian natives used to live; it was set to be a very educational day. Sadly upon arrival the dismal weather took things from being slightly unpleasant to exacerbating the bad start to the day. As we pulled into the site we thought it looked oddly quiet, apparently the entire place was closed for the whole of August; we had missed being able to go by 1 week, arrrghhh!

With the main activity for the day gone we decided to make the most of the time available and headed across the lot to a slightly disheveled looking place which was apparently a bee museum. Now I am neither a fan of bees or the stuff that some people tolerate them for; I, of course, am talking of honey. The sole saving grace of this place was it had a roof capable of shielding us from the rain, although the rest of the place felt like it was an overly large garage someone had converted to turn a quick buck. The place consisted of rows of euthanised bees and hornets who had their corpses held in place to show how all the different variants of bee and hornet used to live. The second aspect of the place was some honey testing and shop at the middle of the place, not being a fan of honey I politely turned down the offer but Lena and her dad tucked in; if your a fan of honey this stuff was apparently quite nice.

It feels like a shame because if I liked honey I could see myself becoming quite a connoisseur of the stuff; for those of you unaware the taste of honey is dependent on the flowers the bees pollenated (no Wiki needed here, pure Jack-fueled knowledge!) and it would be quite a thrill to differentiate the flowers that made up the honey. I am going on quite a tangent here, back to Malacca!

With the trip to the bee...place, sorry I cannot call that a museum, we headed off out in search of some culturally enriching places to visit. Thankfully we didn't have to move too far as just down the road was an authentic looking hut which provided information about all the cultural history of the tribes that existed across Malaysia. It was quite small but for an entrance fee of 40p I don't think I should have expected much. Another thing I just realised is that this place was operating a few hundred yards down the road from the far larger, and far better, cultural village, so being able to survive in any state was quite impressive. Again, like the bee place, the cultural heritage site was quite small so we found ourselves completing our time there within an hour.

Once the cultural aspect was polished off he headed off to a gator farm to see us some big ass dinosaur-era beasties! The one thing I remember thinking as I headed in was 'how the hell are they going to justify the price?', if you think about it gators aren't exactly the most sprightly of animals unless food is on the table, so unless someone throws their kid in things aren't going to get very exciting. I was thankfully wrong and found the places central attraction was the gators with a supporting cast of other reptiles and, rather oddly, a miniature collection of Malaysian landmarks. Initially when we walked inside I kept getting the feeling I was in Legoland as we walked straight into the miniature land.

Quickly we passed by the small village in order to get to see the animals. Finally we saw the big pens where they were all housed, now these things were huge and the ones that had decided to keep in the water were barely visible; scared me to think of the pant-shitting terror you would feel if there was no pen and you happened to be by the riverside. As I had suspected earlier the big beasties were just lying there, wallowing even, in their pens and seemed to either not care or were irked that there were people there to look at them.

Moving past their pens we went and had a look around the place: a small aviary, pretty pointless considering the better one we saw in KL; a reptile house, pretty sweet once I realised a chicken in one of the cages wasn't an exhibit but rather dinner for an anaconda; lastly, the gift shop! It says a lot about a place when you are enjoying the gift shop more than the rest of the place... The main thing we took away from the place was presents for the family, which I will not mention in order to not ruin it for them :).

Our time on the peripheral of the state was over and we headed further in to the state. The next stop was a Batik shop which is a particular style of clothing in Malaysia which is equivalent to black tie except, you know... way more colourful. The main selling point of this place was you could make your own Batik cloth and hand draw the design yourself. The way this was conducted was to take a piece of the silk Batik cloth, and using liquid wax, create the outline for the design. The wax acted as a channel for the ink to flow across the silk without it spreading too far. The designs were very intricate and elaborate; this became apparent when it took Lena over 2 hours to complete her own specialised design!

With much of the morning gone we headed off to the touristy section of Malacca. As we were going through the state I did some research on the place we were about to visit just so I looked like a know it all... also because Lena it was a better use for my phone :). As we wandered through the idilic streets lined with plants and small bedsits we spotted a local woman selling freshly made treats. The food was a small chewy piece with a coconut flaked covering; as you bit into it the soft centre spilled into your mouth, if you could remove any sexual connotation from your mind I would really appreciate it!

With the treats wetting our appetite we headed for some of Malacca's special dishes; chicken balls. The chicken balls are just rice balls flavoured with a bit of chicken; whilst they may sound rather bland the story behind them is quite sweet. The creator was trying to find a way to get his children to eat his rice balls and decided that added a little bit of chicken flavour would be an inexpensive solution to his little predicament, thankfully it worked and soon people across Malacca were doing the same. Sadly chicken rice balls never really moved much further than the state, meaning we had to try it whilst we were here.

After the filling lunch of chicken rice balls, and various other forms of chicken, we headed off to the are populated by the Portuguese (and then the Dutch) during the times of old! The whole are is symbolised by a collection of beautiful red painted buildings and a couple of forts pointing both inland and out to sea. Like so many areas of interest the tourist touts had set-up shop, somewhat spoiling the experience. The place we stopped off was the centre of the red building district; the Melacca Church. A remarkable collection of red painted buildings with the centre being devoted to the Christian faith, as brought over by the conquerors.

Having gotten our fill of the first tourist site we decided to walk down to the big fort on a hill built to protect the new rulers of Malacca from any subsequent invasion. Getting there proved to be a little trickier as we only had a rough idea where this thing actually was, we thought about our options before deciding we needed to try one of the trishaws. The guy got paid £2 to take us both to the place; had we been more confident in our own ability we would have realised we were less than 100m from the place and had just paid for the guy to take us round the corner, cheeky bugger. I don't really begrudge him because trying to haul me was probably worth it and I did get to ride in a trishaw!

The next two places we visited, a car ride between them, were both forts constructed by the Dutch, which were never breached by invaders. Both places had a full collection of cannons, all of which were bolted down. Apparently a few enterprising thieves had decided that the very heave, and very unsecured, cannons were worth a fair bit of money so there had been a spate of thefts until the local government nailed them down.

After all the sightseeing we headed off for some food, another Malacca only dish, but first we went to the area right by the sea where the Portuguese had settled upon arriving on the Malaysian shores. After a drink and playing with some little noisemaking things, they were basically bits of paper with some combustible powder inside which made a noise on dropping, we went in search of dinner. Much like the chicken balls of lunch the food of Malacca we were having for dinner hadn't really left Malacca, but for entirely different reasons. The dinner was a steamboat but instead of there being a boiling pot in the middle filled with water the one we were eating from was filled with boiling hot peanut sauce. Whilst it is easy to maintain boiling water, this stuff required far more management, including regular stirring to prevent the bits sinking to the bottom and sticking to the container. The level of maintenance is the main reason why this idea hasn't left Malacca, this is also supported by the fact that most people add the peanut sauce after boiling the item anyway, so it doesn't really add much. In reality the dinner was delicious and having the hot sauce made it taste even better; the best though was this bread like dish which absorbed so much of the sauce that is was, far and away, the best thing about this Malaccan dinner!

With our stomachs filled we headed home, not before taking a small detour to look at the huge oil refinery that Lena's dad helped to build. The thing was huge! It supplied most of Malaysia and the area we stopped off gave us a wonderful view of all the HUGE tankers lining up to be filled. Quite a sight!

Going to the government... for an Identity Card

Well today was just one of those days where we had to get something done; get an identity card. Ever since the end of the Second World War and the beginning of the time dubbed as 'the emergency' it has been required for every Malaysian to carry an identity card for their own safety. Sadly Lena's was getting close to lapsing so off to the... identity card building (I think). Not exactly a glamourous day, but hey, sometimes you just gotta get shit done.

After driving through what seemed like a never-ending stream of traffic and spending far too long trying to actually find the building we needed, we went and had ourselves some lunch at a little place called strawberry fields; Lena had been there the last time she needed her card renewing. The place felt like your standard cafe; nice food, but lacking that certain friendly family touch you get with more local food. Even though the place lacked a homey feel you couldn't really fault the food, to be honest I could be remembering things wrong as one of the dishes was just kickass; chicken coated in fine egg floss. The bite sized pieces of chicken were just delicious, and the thin strands of crunchy egg were fantastic; I still haven't the faintest idea how they were able to make it that wispy.

After lunch we headed off to, what I thought would be, a long queue but when we got there I found it to be remarkably efficient; it could be the side effect of having my expectation of the government office at rock bottom. With our trip over really quickly we headed home for an afternoon of chinese TV and messing around with a pomelo; that's not an innuendo, look it up!

For dinner we went out to a restaurant that Lena's dad went to before many years ago, I think it was famous for some kind of fish? It doesn't really matter because after finding our way to the restaurant they were sold out for the night so we had to make do with another place just round the corner. No amount of good food served could make up for the worse dish; stingray. Let me paint a picture for you, we tuck into the stingray and after a few bites we get the unmistakeable smell of ammonia, apparently the truck bringing the fish also delivered the bleach; never knew the two were regularly shipped together, needless to say we didn't order another one...

Movie & A Pizza

Yesterdays experience with Nando's had soured me to the whole experience of western food in Asia, but my will had one more attempt left in me before it submitted, battered and broken. I decided pizza was on the cards for today, like Nando's of yore I had resisted the urge to try one of my favourite dishes whilst here in SE Asia. Seeing as I had seen numerous pizza places around KL I decided that Pizza Hut would be a fine (alright, mediocre) choice for lunch.

Something I was going to have to get used to was the muslim nature of the country and that meant a lot of franchises chose to go halal in order to appeal to the largest cross section of the population as possible, but in my world that meant only one thing; NO BACON! So my original choice of meat feast went right out the window, no pig based pizza for me... The alternative used beef bacon and was the equivalent of the super supreme in the UK. Once again the awesome flavours of Asia blew away the tepid taste of overly oily pizza. Damn you Asia and the flavours you have; damn you East India Trading Company for being such dicks and not bring such awesome flavours from Asia to stay!

From lunch we went to dinner, with a western theme once again. The place known as Ship; famous for steak and an assortment of seafood. For the first time I can remember I got to have escargot with garlic cheese and it was awesome, I can't believe I survived this long without them! The rest of the dinner was super-sized and awesome, I got to have a mango drink served in a mug bigger than my HEAD! The steak was cooked to perfection but sadly the sauce wasn't as good as Lena's, which made me sad :(.

As it was a day of firsts and the night was still young we went off to Baskin & Robins to try my very fist ice cream cake. It was pretty damn nice and seeing as it is so hot here in Malaysia it was the best way you could improve cake!

A Taste of something Western

The urge was too great, I had to cave in... Nando's. There it is out in the open now, I've made it nearly a month and I just couldn't resist the chicken cravings any longer. As it turns out I should have gone cold turkey (metaphorically).

Lena had led me to believe, perhaps trying to inflate Malaysian cuisine, that almost all sit-down restaurants in Malaysia have Pepsi on tap. Sadly this was not to be the case in Nando's, which I think is quite ironic considering it is one of the few places in the UK which actually DOES allow free refills. With this bombshell dropped the meal would have to do a lot to drag itself out from the pit it had thrown itself off (in my mind it did so into a sea of Pepsi, but that's just me). Things didn't get off to a good start when I realised I had made a mistake and they did actually have Pepsi on tap but it wasn't out in the open, and if you have been skim reading so far; for shame!

The food itself was nowhere near as good as that back in the UK but I have a theory about that. I am now looking back on the meal and nothing stands out as being bad: the chicken was well cooked; the bread was fresh; the toppings were crisp and added all the right tastes (I had a chicken burger btw). The thing is that I have been spoilt with flavour here in Malaysia, sometimes a man does long for the food of home but a lack of it had built it up in my mind to the point that I had almost deified it. Back to good old Malaysian cuisine for me then!

With that little revelation behind us we went out to dinner with a relative of Lena's over from the land of Oz (I couldn't be assed to type out Australia... and have ended up typing far more; goddammit!). The dinner of choice today: seafood steamboat, now we're talking! The dishes served up offered quite a cross section of crustaceans. The highlight of which was having to throw LIVING jumbo prawns into the boiling soup to cook them. To indicate how alive these prawns were, they had to have a plate over them to prevent them jumping across the table; a fact we only found out once we removed the lid. It became quite apparent that I was now becoming quite desensitised to the killing and dismemberment of crustaceans to the point that I was happy being chief 'terminator'!

After dinner was done we headed for some after dinner dessert! Unfortunately that meant road side durians... oh no. Thankfully it was open air which meant I could keep down wind of the smell. With the smell of durian puncturing my sense of smell for some time to come we called it a night :).

Sushi Time Woooooo

Once again sushi was had. For the second day in a row. At this point what more can one man say about sushi. It's lovely when you have it in small enough quantities but at this point I'm pretty sure I could have opened my own sushi shop with the amount of the stuff coursing through me at this point. Although I have to say that vegetable maki is so mediocre it barely registers as sushi, I love cucumber, but a small sliver wrapped in sushi and marketed as something to compete with eel, salmon, tuna, even chicken is really on the end of a losing battle.

With lunch done and dusted we headed off for a massage at a place recommended to us by Hang. It looked to be recently opened as there were a lot of discounts, I wasn't complaining :). We decided to each get the 2 hour massage including an hour long foot and leg massage. Now not being a frequenter of massage parlours I was unaware they weren't meant to comfortable for the newly indoctrinated but the pain I felt was pretty...painful. In retrospect I should have indicated my dislike, or screamed. Although I did feel more manly for persevering and not being bested by a midget Malaysian.

Freshly reeling from the massage some cake based therapy was now definitely needed, with that in mind we headed off to The Foundry for some strawberry cheesecake and some vanilla cheesecake. Now after having my body tenderised for a couple of hours this cheesecake was the bomb!

When getting back from the cake place we were greeted by the tubby little biter, Kiera. Lena's male cat who was given a girls name before they realised the plums dangling below :). No sooner than I had slipped off my flip flops than Kiera descended on them like some podgey stalker of... the day.

Hang heads home :(

Well it was going to happen sooner or later; Hang was heading home... but before she left on that plane for the more seasonal world of killer animals (Australia) we went and had lunch in 1 Utama. The eatery of choice was Sushi Zenmai, a place we had visited a few weeks prior with one of Lena's friends. To make things even better Belle joined us. Lunch went well, the food was good but the service was quite poor. It was at this point that things got difficult because when we went to pay we wanted to avoid paying the 10% service charge added to our bill because we didn't think the service was up to standard but apparently this OPTIONAL addition to the bill couldn't be removed without managerial approval. When the guy turned up he wanted to know why, apparently piss poor service isn't a good enough reason. He said something about it being lunch so service would be bad, okay fine, but you shouldn't expect people to want to praise you for what you indicate is poor service.

After our battle at the checkout (we won by the way :) ) we went and dropped Belle back off at KPMG where a fire alarm was going off for some reason, sparking temporary joy in Belle, but alas it was just a drill so everyone was filling back into the place so we had to leave Belle there and head back to Hangs house for our sad farewells. It was originally Lena's plan to go with her to the airport but Hang didn't want a long drawn out goodbye so we said our farewells at the door. Later we learned Hang worked her way through a box of tissues on the plane ride to Australia :(.

With our goodbyes exchanged we spent the rest of the day feeling a little down, I know Lena did. So when her dad get home he took us out to a Korean BBQ for dinner. The food was alright not great, I'm not sure if we weren't really committed to the whole meal thing anyway. The one surprising thing I found out about the cuisine was that they had 9 bowls that surrounded the main cooking surface which were replenished whenever we finished one; that was pretty cool. It was a shame that most of the dishes were quite bitter.

Recovery, Ahhhhhhhhhh

With Bangkok now behind us I did what any self respecting person who has been on holiday is wanton to do, relax. And relax I did.

I seem to recall doing little other than catching up on my internets and eating any manner of junk food I could find. This post may be lacking in depth but it makes up for it in shear honesty!

Now with this restful period behind us its time for some more kickass adventures, wooooooooooooo!

Bangkok comes to an end :(

Light streamed through the window on our final day in Bangkok. Our plane was due to leave in the late afternoon giving us a morning to look around Bangkok. We heard from a friend that the Chatuchat market that only ran on weekends was the perfect place for some low budget shopping so off we trekked.

The one thing up to this point that we were remised to have not tried was the Tuk-tuk, but thankfully the hotel had one which they used to ferry people to the main road. After getting someone to give us a lift to the station we set off in the Tuk-tuk. Now, we were only going down the street and it still managed to feel completely unsafe, thank god we chose not to take one through the much more crowded tourist section of the city.

We now had this whole navigation thing down so found ourselves dropped off at the market gates with much of the morning still available for shopping! This market was huge and I don't think we managed to see it all and that was with us walking most of the time, so many shops, and so many pet shops. Once we strayed into animal territory we saw tonnes of puppies of every breed in the handbag category along with a fair few labradors. It was tough prying ourselves away from all the pretty pretty animals but there was no chance we would be buying any so it was only just a sense of "aw how cute, look at their little paws, awwwwwwwwww!".

Several presents were bought and drinks were consumed in quantity; thankfully the market was covered meaning we didn't have to expose ourselves to the ravages of UV but it did get quite hot under all the covers, hence the drinks...

It was during this time of liquid refreshment that we came across teh tarik, which to the layman is pull tea; and to clarify things further it is performed in a way which seems to defy gravity with its awesomeness! Apparently Lena had been trying to find someone who could perform this the whole time we were in Malaysia, only took a month :).

Having wandered around for most of the morning we went back to the hotel and picked up the bags and took a taxi back to the train station where we caught our SUPER useful express train to the terminal. It was at this point that I was starting to get a little sick of airports, I was starting to wonder how George Clooney did it in 'Up In The Air', but I am going off on a tangent. Airports. The Thailand International Airport was pretty kick-ass with lots of places to eat but due to our awesome budgeting skills (LOL) we only had a few baht with which to buy food. We managed to settle on a place which somehow offered food almost 10 times cheaper than anywhere else and was somehow not being inundated with backpackers, trey confused! (feel free to say that last part in a French accent, I know I did).

3 hours later we were back in sweet sweet KL, just had to negotiate immigration which was fast becoming my own personal hell. As I was queuing up some fat arse-hole pushed his way through all the barriers by disconnecting the snap barriers and then yelling at people as they didn't immediately move to the newly opened spot. I was trying to keep composed, immigration tends to frown on a full on brawl in their lobby...

Another day in the airport done!

Grand Palace, now with Scams

With a few tours of the city under our belt we felt that it was our turn to have a go at it on our own; Lena & Jack: Gone Rogue. With visions of ourselves passing out on the street due to a combination of exhaustion and mall nutrition we decided to stock up at breakfast with a VAST meal.

As we were once again up early we had the foyer to ourselves, pretty much, so were able to run wild when getting our food. There was so much that I felt a table for 4 wouldn't be sufficient for holding it all. Upon cramming the last morsel of food down my throat and waddling out of the door we made our way to the bus stop to take us into the city tourist area. Feeling like we had the bus thing down we followed our route through the city, and unsurprisingly we felt we were able to see more of the cities sites this way compared to the tour we had taken a couple of days ago.

As we made our way across the river we decided to jump off a little bit early and wander into the main section on our own; in my eyes this proved to be more of a hassle than it was worth. No sooner had we disembarked than a "kind" man came up to us and offered us some help. Apparently the kings mother had died and the Grand Palace was now closed off to only Thai's so that they may pay their respects, it would open at 3pm; don't worry though, there was another tour of other temples they could help us with. It was at this point we started to call bullshit. If we made sure to get into a white topped tuk-tuk we would be safe and not ripped off. At that exact moment a white topped tuk-tuk appeared and the man offered to take us to a whole collection of temples for 20 baht, a steal! They had justification for this, as the kings mother was dead they were helping out tuk-tuk drivers by giving them all free petrol for today only, so act fast to avoid being ripped off by others.

If we were suspicious of being ripped off before, we were now certain of it; no country would willingly give away free petrol unless they have some unregulated brain injury. As a clincher we had been warned about this type of activity on that ripoff tour a couple of days ago; now as much as I hated the treatment of me and Lena on that day they did offer some sound advice, "if anyone offers a tuk-tuk for less than 100 baht they are trying to scam you". I feel like this sentiment could be extended to, "if ANYONE in Bangkok talks to you whom you don't know they are trying to scam you".

When the tuk-tuk driver finally twigged that we weren't going to use his services he got irate, finally calling us stupid for passing up such a great deal. No sooner had we rounded the corner on our way to the Giant Swing we saw that "kind" old man talking to a whole group of white topped tuk-tuk drivers; the git had the cheek to smile at us as we walked past.

Feeling rightly smug that we had thwarted the first, would-be scammer we set off with our heads held high and map in hand. Now I didn't realise this but apparently being white in Bangkok with a map out is like having a bullseye painted on your head. We had barely made it 500m before another "friendly" tuk-tuk driver parked next to us offering us some help; once again things turned ugly when he found there would be no fare today, Lena bravely returning his crude English swearing whilst I stood there and store back stone faced.

On our way to the Giant Swing this happened once more, this time the guy was being grade A retarded. I'm not sure if the That people have a poor impression of foreigners intelligence or they don't just get more retarded the further into the pollution you go. We could literally SEE the swing, no walls, no barriers, just a monument in the open and this guy was trying to convince us it was closed to foreigners until 3pm. This was getting old.

The swing itself was a little more disappointing than Lena had imagined. God bless her she had envisioned an actual 20m tall swing that people could literally swing on. In reality the swing was just a monument that sat in the middle of roundabout near to another temple. Moving on from the swing we made our way towards the Grand Palace, hoping to avoid more annoying scammers, this was not to be. I foolish didn't memorise the map before leaving the hotel meaning I had to occasionally confirm street names and get us on the right track, I wasn't doing too badly as well. Like a lion looking hungrily at a gazelle I imagine I made some scammers day, giant white boy with map looking lost; perfect. Unfortunately I was too strong for their scammer-fu, we were just saying thank you and walking right past anyone that was willing to talk to us.

Horrah! We made it to the perimeter of the Grand Palace but alas there was no obvious way to get in. To the uninitiated the Grand Palace is huuuuuuggggggggeeeee, and having to walk the perimeter was no easy feat in the midday sun. This did not deter scammers from trying their same tricks mere meters from the Palace itself. The longer we walked around the perimeter the more we started to believe that we wouldn't get in and that the scammers were in fact right; how weak of us.

Scammers were operating within a few hundred metres of the main entrance and were dressed like proper guides, and sporting the numbers for the tourist police; as if this act of honesty was somehow meant to make their words any less bullshit. I have to admire the balls to pull of this stunt: mere metres from the entrance; wearing fake tourist police uniform; standing next to an armed guard of the Grand Palace; telling us we wouldn't get in despite the stream of people clearly moving into the Palace.

With the scammers now behind us we moved into Palace and were told Lena would need to cover her legs as a sign of respect. The Grand Palace thoughtfully provided a service where we could hire clothes for this but AMAZINGLY people were trying to scam us here as well, the goddamn staff! We were told there would be a 1 hour wait (lies) and that we could hire the clothes across the road for 30 baht. A mere 10 minutes later Lena and I were wandering towards the inner section of the temple, feeling safe in the knowledge that there couldn't POSSIBLY be any more scammers within the temple.

After all the build-up of getting into the Palace the actual place itself cannot really compete. A massive collection of photos taken by Lena, myself, and kind passersby paint a wonderful portrait of the palace and all the various different sections of it. The pictures also show it to be beautifully brightly, this is due entirely to us showing up at the hottest time of the day when everyone else was wandering around the Palace jumping between shade like a collection of brave vampires.

Having spent a few hours wandering around the Palace taking in all of the olden beauties, shiny buildings and UV we moved off from the Grand Palace with the intention of catching a river boat down towards chinatown. On the way we sampled some hawker food and drink. It was as we were wandering around, slightly lost, we were approached by someone offering us to go and see a free museum. Being as cautious as ever we were presently surprised to find it was on the up and up. The wonderfully kept, and air-conditioned, museum told the history of Thailand and how it had amazingly avoided invasion during a time in Asia when you could pop out for breakfast and find a new government in place when you returned.

Feeling slightly better about our fellow man we headed off with fresh directions and a purpose; river bus. Although trying to find the river bus amongst the far more extortionate river taxi's was proving to be slightly more difficult, but after asking someone who wasn't approaching us first we managed to find the right place. Cruising down the river was wonderful, with the wind in our hair and soothing our obvious sunburn we relaxed as we waited for our stop.

Stepping off into chinatown was quite interesting, as we were nowhere near. To add to this chinatown didn't open until 6pm, so we were left to wander around the streets of chinatown for a few hours sampling bits and pieces where people had opened early. It was at this point that Lena decided it was time for a proper Thai massage, something I wasn't really interested in. For the next hour Lena was bent, twisted, and massaged in ways that would normally be reserved for pretzels; whilst all of this was going on I had my feet up downstairs being served tea by the owner of the place :). Once again we stepped bleary eyed into the dark streets of Bangkok, chinatown was really open and in full swing. We sampled some octopus skewers on our way out, the heat had finally gotten to the both of us and we just wanted to cool down.

Getting back proved much more simple than the last time; I was finally getting acquainted with the streets, shame we were leaving tomorrow. When stepping through the threshold of the hotel we just stood and admired the air conditioning for a few moments before settling for a couple of hours in the pool. It was whilst in the pool that I discovered I had the mother of all blisters, a punishment for wandering the streets for far too long...

Motherf**king Elephants!

This morning we returned to our roots, having been treated to a thoroughly splendid first night at the hands of the man running tours out of the lobby we decided that we would return to him after a slightly disappointing tour at the hands of the "professionals'; take note those air quotes were said in my head with a healthy dose of sarcasm.

Breakfast was large and filling, keeping us sated for much of the day. First stop on the tour was the floating market Thailand was famous for; being quite far out from the city itself the addition of a tour guide was a definite necessity. After a long car ride we were deposited in a tourist oasis in the middle of what appeared to be nowhere. The floating market consisted of a stretch of water littered with stalls on either side that was negotiated by an old lady; it felt a lot like the Cam in many ways, except with many more people trying to sell you stuff.

Now while we were on this river I managed to display a fine masterclass of haggling; people would speak of my accomplishment for generations! What great feat did I achieve you ask expectantly; I talked a woman down to 20% of her asking price, I... AM... A... GOD. Or far more believably is that the prices are so ridiculously overinflated here that if they were to ever sell something at that price they would be set for quite some time. After being whisked around the whole market in 45 minutes we were able to stroll along the riverside market where everything was suspiciously much cheaper despite being identical, what is this trickery?

As a spectacle the floating market was well worth it, but as a place of business it was severely overpriced. I still have no idea how they find people gullible enough to buy things there. As we were leaving it was revealed to us that the products being sold had all been bought in Bangkok and brought out to the river to be sold on to gullible tourists who didn't have the luxury to be able to walk away at will.

Shortly after realising that purchases made at the floating market would not be a wise choice we moved onto our next stop of the day; ELEPHANTS! Not too far from the floating market we pulled into another nondescript place which seemed to exist solely to entertain tourists. As we parked all we could see were elephants with little chairs on their backs.

After payment was made we clambered aboard the elephant and off we went. As we walked off we found out our elephant was called Patsup and our herder was called Jack; this I took to be fate! The further into the trail we went the fewer elephants we saw which is probably what prompted our herder to do what he did next. Jack offered us the chance to sit on the elephant for real, without the addition of a harness, being a little apprehensive Lena took the chance to go first. With our herder now walking on the ground and taking pictures for us Lena was free to sit on Patsup's head. After seeing how much fun it was and thinking I would be a fool for passing up such an opportunity I took my turn. Moments later I had one of the largest land animals betwixt my thighs, my feet nestled safely behind his ears. Apparently my positioning was not sitting well with Patsup who with a quick trunk grasp repositioned my foot to a more suitable location for the both of us. It was at that point I realised how easily the elephant could repurpose me as a flail but chose against it for whatever reasons, or moral code, the elephant might have. This was easily the highlight of the day, if not the trip to Bangkok.

With the ride coming to an end we were off, not before helping ourselves to some cold water provided for another group, mwahahahahahaha. And just like that Jack and Lena, master thieves, were off to their next location (I imagine us as the Asian equivalent to Bonnie and Clyde).

The next stop on our tour was not one that we agreed upon but seeing as we were a bit ahead of schedule our guide thought we might like to see some really kick ass temple out on the outskirts of Bangkok, its this type of treatment which elevated this guy above the vultures of yesterday. The temple was a little quieter than those we had seen previously, the buddhas were under renovation so tarps and scaffolding were rife but the beautiful temple itself and the gorgeous glazed tiles were in pristine condition. In addition to all this the temple grounds seemed to house a superb collection of trees from across the world with each trunk sporting an identification tag.

The detour proved to be a worthwhile one with some stellar photos taken, upon our return to the car we found that our guide had bought us some bamboo rice which had been soaked in coconut milk and cooked over a fire in the middle of the jungle, it was given to us in the bamboo it had been cooked in! The rice was quite starchy, very sweet, and generally delicious; I wish there had been more in each stick!

With our detour over we made our way to the final location for the day; The Rose Gardens. The place is a popular tourist attraction with large grounds covered with authentic Thai houses and showing people the way of life in the days of old. As we arrived the heat of the day was approaching its worst so we took some time out to try some of Thailand's desserts to try and cool down. The main ingredient I have found in most desserts in SE Asia seem to include ice and it was no different here. Using a combination of jack fruit, jellies and ice they managed to create a refreshing dessert that provided us with newfound energy, off into the gardens we strolled.

The houses themselves were very nice and well maintained, just would have been nice if we could have actually seen them up close. Either the houses are occupied in which case they are superbly maintained considering their constant use or they are laying there for people to photograph. This raises the question why would anyone willingly live inside a tourist attraction? With that question working its way into my skull we found ourselves slightly lost within the grounds, but the beauty of the place kind of diminished any sense of worry. We soon found ourselves back where we started and just in time for a cultural show and elephant dance. Now, had we visited the gardens before the elephant ride I would have been jealous of the herders getting to play with the elephants, but as it stood I found myself relishing in a sense of smug satisfaction that I got to ride on on of them; boom! Suck it, everyone else.

After smugly watching some elephants we moved onto the highlight of the Rose Gardens; the cultural show. For the next hour we got to see a cross section of Thai culture dating back hundreds of years, some of the best parts were demonstrations of Muay Thai and other fighting styles performed in Thailand. There was of course some flair thrown in by those performing but for the most part it was really entertaining with a bit of audience participation at the end, which Lena dutifully joined in with.

With the tour for the day done we returned to the hotel to assess just how badly burnt we had gotten during the day. Being as white as I am all the burnt sections came across as a nice shade of red. A dip in the pool was definitely on the cards. Not being a fan of aftersun, it makes me feel far too oily, we instead opted to take some of the heat of our sunburn by taking a nice long dip in the shielded pool. Away from prying eyes and destructive UV we regained a uniform body temperature... mostly. To the touch we were still red hot but that would be over soon enough, some peeling should see to that!

With our bodies now in a state of semi-cooked(ness) we felt it was time we consumed some cooked foods instead of becoming them. Up to this point Lena had been the one working the connections in SE Asia but I had something up my sleeve; a friend from my MET course back home was Thai and happened to be working in Bangkok during the summer so we agreed to meet up for dinner and drinks. Having not had much luck getting truly authentic Thai cuisine so far Mart (my mate) took us to an authentic Thai restaurant.

Stepping out from the Mini Sports Car we ascended the steps to a non-descript looking restaurant that proved to be tastefully decorated and exuded a sense of poshness (which is apparently a word, who knew!). We started with a small aperitif served entirely on a spoon, which introduced us to a taste that would be quite prevalent throughout the rest of the cooking; lemongrass. The taste is quite refreshing and is a theme running through a lot of Thai cuisine (I have to say I'm guessing this :) ). The next thing to arrive was an assortment of brightly coloured bite sized morsels which all had their own distinct fillings but all proved delicious, and served to wet our appetites. The main meal was a mixture of chicken curry, fish cakes, soup and a noodle dish. All were delightful and offered distinctively different flavours to those experience elsewhere in Asia.

After dinner Mart took us for a drink in a hotel bar called the long table. It offered an open air bar many floors above the ground. The real clincher for making the place brilliant was the stupendous view of the Bangkok skyline at night; full of colour and bright lights it served to remind us that the place seemed to seldom sleep.

Temple Tours & Platinum Mall

Waking up early when on holiday, urghhhh. Even so the alarm bells were ringing and we had a day to get on with. The tour we booked with the travel company at the airport was meant to be picking us up at around 9am so we felt it was in our best interests to be down and having breakfast by 8am, yay.

The continental buffet breakfast wasn't exactly varied but you could have as much as you wanted and we appeared to be the only people there, so the less the better! Settling down to munching we were approached by the guy who took us out on our tours yesterday, he had brought us some Thai satay sticks to have with our breakfast, all free and all delicious. Everything started to seem too good to be true, and we were about to find that out with the tour. I am going to say now that the tour was by no means bad it just felt incredibly rushed and this was topped off when our guide told us to meet us back at the car for a certain time, and she smiled as she said that if we were late they weren't waiting, bitch!

Well back to the start. We were picked up late by 15mins from the hotel but at least we were in a nice air conditioned car. As we pulled out from the hotel our guide turned round and proceeded to talk to us in clear english giving us some information as we went on our way to our first temple situated in the touristy centre of Bangkok. It was during this exchange that we realised we were conned leaving the airport, not by the travel agent, but by the trains! We paid 300 Baht (about £6) for 2 people return, but we discovered that there was an alternative to the express train for a total of 180 Baht; the discriminating factor between the 2 lines? The express got you to the airport an extra 15mins early, whoop de freaking doo!

Well as I was reeling from the robbery we approached our first temple, Wat Traimit. To the uninitiated the word wat means temple in Thai and is uttered about as commonly as the word 'the' as they have so many of the things throughout the country. The sun was baking and I could feel my skin protesting beneath my shirt, let alone the exposed stuff! The temple itself was pretty impressive and swarming with tourists, the main reason this seemingly average looking buddha got its own place was the fact it was constructed from solid gold. Apparently at the time of some invasion the buddha was covered in plaster to avoid robbers and subsequently misplaced amongst all the others, whoops... When they found out to due to some spectacularly careless removal men they decided an upgrade of temple was in order.

Leaving the place we kind of felt we were going to get a little shafted on this tour as it didn't seem all THAT impressive, this was swiftly bludgeoned when we saw the next temple; Wat Pho. Wat Pho houses the sleeping buddha, a gigantic reclining buddha coated in gold as opposed to solid gold construction, which would have definitely have bankrupt someone. In addition to its large stature there was some metal pots that give you luck if you drop a coin into each of the 100 or so; nice idea in theory but it kind of shatters the peacefulness of the place when you feel like a collection of small woodland creatures is performing their own rendition of 'Stomp' somewhere within the building.

As we left, boarding our own private tour car, we were offered to go and see the optional third temple. Apparently the fat Americans this woman was used to taking around usually couldn't be assed with completing the whole tour so used to skip the marble temple; over my dead plums were we going to miss out on something which we f**king paid for!

When we arrived the temple (Wat Bowonniwetwihan) really didn't seem like much, the only thing it had going for it was it was very white on account of all the marble, something that spoke to me (being part albino and all). We sauntered around for a while before begrudgingly returning to the car.

At this stage we were expecting to be dropped off because when we first boarded the car we told them that we wanted to be dropped at platinum mall, but apparently we needed to go round all of the sponsored facilities. We were kindly treated, at no rush (a first for the day), to two jewellery stores and a suit makers. Later when we made it home we found the suit makers were as bad as suit makers could get in Bangkok with many falling apart months after completion. So all in all, the temples were nice but those taking us around were money grubbing to an extreme.

Stepping from the car we moved across to Platinum Mall for some retail therapy but found the place to be quite expensive due to it being a retail outlet, so unless we were planning on buying in bulk we weren't going to see any savings; seeing as Lena and I didn't often have clothes that overlapped it was unlikely we were going to find any real deals. The main purchase of the day was some 3D manicured nails that Lena bought. They looked really nice but moved her hands from dextrous to art exhibit for most of the day :).

When in Platinum Mall we stumbled across another intriguing thing about Thai Culture; the food court. Now I am not one for much on Thai history but unless there was some massive change shortage among food suppliers there could be no other reason why you had to get a prepaid card before buying ANYTHING! Sure it makes things easier if the place were heaving, but at all other times its a nuisance, like when we were there...

Leaving the mall we made our prayers to our respective gods and attempted to cross the street to get to the Platinum Market. Haggling was well and truly on now! Purchases were made left and right, the nature of these cannot be revealed right now as I don't wan't to spoil the surprise for anyone who is on the receiving end of one of them :).

With shopping done we went for some relaxation therapy before retreating to our hotel fortress for the evening. Now, finding a massage parlour of any quality at the lower end of the price category in Bangkok is akin to closing your eyes and throwing a dart at a board... in the next room. As we walked down a side street on our way toward some sort of station we were inundated by countless places, deciding one was as good as another we trudged in. The next hour of foot and shoulder massage was passable but more painful than enjoyable, but this may have been down to the distance covered during the day.

We walked, bleary eyed into the darkness and found our way, somehow, to the MRT (railway station); ignoring any taxi driver who was offering to "help" us to get to our destination. Once within the safety of the train the journey was uneventful and the walk home proved quite easy.

Having made it back with time to spare before bed we headed back the way we came, after refreshing ourselves of course. Dinner was served to us around the corner from a 7-Eleven and was amazingly delicious. It could have been a lack of food and water all day or that those Thai people sure knew how to cook a mean Pad Thai; either way we were happy!

In addition to the Pad Thai we had some sour sausages which proved to taste truly awful, we weren't quite sure if they weren't just off. The whole thing soured us (HA!) to the whole idea of street food which was sweetened with the thoroughly pleasant experience mere moments later. Once our stomachs were filled we came across a stall selling crickets but we were sadly too chicken to try them.

That night we slept soundly till being woken up around 7am the next morning...

Ladyboys & Ping pong balls; Typical Bangkok!

I feel I have been spoilt with airports in my life, not airlines. I soon realised on the flight over to KL from London that I was missing out on a world of middle class flying, the days of being treated like cattle in the sky were OVER...at least until today that is. We were flying the eastern equivalent of EasyJet known as AirAsia. I feel I have taken a tangent from my original point; I have been spoilt by airports.

Now I am not going to claim I am well travelled, far from it (have I mentioned this is my first time outside the EU), but I have seen my fair share of airports domestically. There is always something about airports that fills me with joy, it's that sense of excitement about what lies ahead. I know all the food is overpriced and I can't even get a can of coke past airport security but it still manages to seem enjoyable; this brings me to LCCT, the low cost terminal of KL. The nerdy brother to the cool and suave KL International Airport.

To say I dislike LCCT is putting it a bit mildly. To any casual observer there may be no reason for such unfair treatment of an innocent airport but there is. My reasoning is twofold: having to have a baggage scan PRIOR to CHECKING-IN the bag and having no toilets beyond the security check. OOh I thought of another; having to walk across the tarmac to GET to the freaking plane. Rant over.

We boarded the plane to Bangkok feeling rather sleepy, having had to be up early to catch the bus to the terminal. The arrival was a 2 step process: Lena's dad dropping us at the bus stop at 7.30am; the second step was the 1 hour bus journey to the airport. Sadly once we were there we had a long wait on our hands as our airplane didn't depart until 1pm. To try and keep ourselves conscious while we waited for the plane. This involved a McDonald's breakfast and some McDonald's ice cream dispensed from a small kiosk set-up on the edge of the fast food restaurant. For RM1 we got a small whippy cone which was really appreciated in the heat, Lena got a slightly more expensive version called a 'chocotop' which involved dipping the ice cream cone into liquid chocolate and letting the temperature of the ice cream solidify it on the surface of the ice cream.

After boarding we found the flight went quite quickly as we spent the entire time sleeping, waking only when we came into land. As the cabin depresurised and we disembarked I was struck by the lack of humidity and slightly reduced temperature; it seemed as though the weather here would be far more mild than I anticipated, fantastic!

The airport on the other end of the journey was more accustomed to what I was expecting and I was relieved to find collecting baggage a breeze, if only because queuing at immigration took so long...

Once our bags were gathered and we had our bearings we had the task of figuring out how to get to the hotel. We decided on the cheap option of taking the train coupled with a short walk to our hotel. On our way out we asked for some directions at a tourist centre and found ourselves walking out with a half price city and temple tour for the following day, we were off to a good start! With our spirits rising high we made our way to the train station and booked an express train to our stop buying return tickets that we would need at the end of the week to quickly drop us off back at the airport.

Our trip into the city gave us a chance to admire the scenery and the very fitting temples that dotted the landscape. A brief 15 minutes later we found ourselves at the end of the line looking for our next connecting subway to take us to Sukhumvit road where we would trek on foot to our hotel. As we exited a kind man showed us the way to the station where we found there was an airport scanner for us and our bags, upon setting it off we had to open them up to confirm to the poor overwhelmed guard we were not harbouring any illicit device. Feeling slightly shaken by that little transgression with the law (apparently deodorant is highly dangerous to the Bangkok subway system; who knew!) we were once again on our way. The subway wasn't nearly as nice as the previous (and shiny, don't forget shiny) train journey we had taken. Lena, being all Asian looking was fitting in nicely whereas I was sticking out like a sore thumb but thankfully I had gotten used to all the glances by now.

Departing at Sukhumvit was an easier affair although getting our bearings was proving to be much harder. After wandering the streets trying to find our bearings we got a friendly Aussie to point us in the right direction. When we eventually gave up and flagged a taxi it was much to our chagrin to find out we were no more than a street away from our intended destination. Oh well.

Getting inside the place looked a little run down but we were to expect that from what reviews had said, considering the price we got on the room it was an acceptable price to pay. Once checked in we made our way up to the room, it...was...massive. Put any room we had in Cambridge to shame and I think it probably cost less per night and it had breakfast included too! Deciding we had had far too much time with our room we headed downstairs to start crossing some of our items off our list: ladyboy show and ping-pong show. Bang! One night of debauchery in Bangkok. The tour guide that operated out of the lobby was really friendly and gave us competitive pricing along with private drive there and back, we were off to a good start with this holiday malarky.

When we got to the ladyboy show it was packed with lots of tourists just as curious as we were to see these ladyboys in the flesh. Now correct me if I'm wrong but when attending a ladyboy show you are going in expecting every one of the 'women' to be ladyboys, this was a concept Lena was having trouble with. Apparently she interpreted the ladyboy show more as a game of 'find the pickle', with every new 'woman' on stage Lena explained 'she can't be a man!' as if the makers of the show were trying to get you to pick the ladyboy out of a lineup. Was quite cute really :).

Between venues our driver kindly took us for some food, the last food we ate was the McDonald's at the airport and that was a looooonnnngggg time ago. He took us to a small street shop and to our surprise, bought us dinner. Mind you this wasn't michelin star quality but it was still an unbelievable gesture I wouldn't have expected from anyone, much less our tour guide.

After the show and our complimentary Pepsi (yay) we moved onto the ping-pong show. Now when we asked for this the guy behind the desk said he could take us somewhere but it wasn't going to be on the list of tours, rather a more private, wink wink affair. When we turned up the place was distinctly less touristy than the last place, some might say sleazy. The appearance some places generate I suppose, but when your clientele are drawn to you so they can watch women do unrealistic things with their vaginas I don't think decor factors into things much. We paid and realised that in order to do everything we wanted we were going to need to change a few more ringgit. Now we were led to believe we were just going to be watching some mildly older women do things with their nether regions, imagine our surprise when we walked in on some acrobatic sex show. Thinking we had made a mistake we were about to head to the door until we realised that it was the finale of the show and we were just about to catch the next loop. What followed was the most bizarre lineup of women doing things you could only imagine or conjure up in your worst nightmare, depending on your sensibilities and sexual preference I suppose.

We left feeling rather dirty and were glad once we were back in a locked car heading in the opposite direction. Quite a first day.

Bangkok's Waiting!

Sadly not much of interest happened today unless you are some fanatical packing enthusiast in which case, enjoy!

Packing.

As we were planning on shopping and making the most of the loose hand luggage rules in effect we only paid for a single piece of check-in luggage with the return trip hand luggage packed inside. Apparently there was some ruling which meant we could get onto the plane with a laptop bag and hand luggage. Jackpot. Having only been travelling in the EU and never being one who tries to game the system I was apparently missing out on a whole world of additional luggage, I was practically salivating at the exploitation I was going to inflict on Air Asia, MWAHAhahahahaha!

I am way too excited about packing.

Bird Sanctuary & Fireflies

Another weekend day, meaning we were going to be out and about. First stop the seksyen 17 market for some breakfast. As I was about to hop into the car there was the startling revelation: we were walking. Now I may have mentioned that it is hot here and to be fair it wasn't 10am yet so the heat hadn't quite reached egg cooking on the side of the road temp yet, but to me it didn't feel a million miles off.

From where we were it wasn't more than a 5 minute walk to get there, as far as I was concerned it may as well have been on the other side of the city. The heat was getting to me fast and I was jumping between spots of shade like some kind of vampire. It was just the same when I managed to make it to the market, thank merciful heaven for parasols! As I wandered I was struck by the variety, and even more struck by my ability to screen the things I did and didn't want; I felt a milestone had been reached. At the beginning of the holiday I strolled the stalls looking vaguely at the food offered to me having little idea about any of it; now I had a growing database of dishes and vocabulary that would get me by in the wild open expanse that was the market place (to anyone interested I read that last bit in the voice of David Attenborough).

The breakfast cultivated at the market consisted of: Char Siew Pau, one of my favourite dishes here although many consider it a basic item more akin to toast; Nasi Lemak, one of my favourite breakfast dishes, served with a wonderful piece of rendang chicken; Pork pau, it may shock you to learn that those buns come filled with something other than char siew, and they still manage to kick ass; lastly, peanut and sugar pancake, not as good as the first one I ever had something about it just doesn't live up, I blame a lack of sugar.

With breakfast over we were stumped for things to do and ended lazing around the house for a while before the idea of the bird sanctuary was tossed into the air. Its amazing how things you never really consider doing at home suddenly gain traction when placed on foreign soil, oh well! To be honest I think Lena's dad wanted us out of the house for a bit, but I digress :).

With an eventful drive there, we were navigating on some mumbled and vague directions, we made it to the park. Now the one thing that makes this sanctuary stand out is that it is the world's largest open air sanctuary with massive nets suspended over the whole thing; it was visible from KL Tower it was that large. Once inside our first section had vibrant coloured birds fluttering around our heads a few inches from our faces, it was quite fun. After we moved from this section I thought we would get more of the same but ended up finding the truly exotic birds were in cages although looking at their beaks and general demeanour its hard not to support caging them, couple that with a child's enthusiasm to charge headlong at anything shiny and your bound to end up with injuries.

As we strolled around the grounds I found myself getting oddly accustomed to the heat, it may have been that it was a little cooler than usual with a slight threat of rain. Soon after this revelation we stumbled across a little photo taking opportunity with a collection of colourful exotic birds, for a scant RM10 we could take a whole collection of photos with a lot of birds. As we were taking the photos one of the birds spotted the beaded bracelet I got from one of the temples and every time he thought the keepers weren't watching he would try and eat the beads and was getting more and more frustrated as the band pinged them out of his mouth.

Further into the park we stumbled across a chick hatchery with some freshly hatched chicks trying to walk and move, it was so sweet to see, especially since they were less than a few hours old and were noticeably tired. In addition to having the eggs there were also a collection of much fluffier chicks and ducklings to play with, and play I did! I can't remember seeing so many since I was young and it was so fun to relive memories of old, I was kind of amazed at how light they were, it appears as though the fluff makes up a large proportion of their size :).

When we found our way home, an apparently simpler task, we sat down to some good home cooking. Fried chicken was on the menu and it was gorgeous, almost an equal to a certain colonel people are in a flap over...

Once dinner was done and dusted it was time for the evenings activity: fireflies. I've only every seen them in movies, more specifically romantic ones but sadly Lena wasn't able to get us there by ourselves so we were chaperoned by Lena's dad. The trip there was quite long and coupled with it being dark I was starting to feel relieved that I didn't have to help navigate. When we got there we paid our admission threw on some life jackets and waited for our turn in the boats. When I caught first glimpse of one I seriously didn't think it would stay above water, it looked like a row boat if the rower wasn't interesting in rowing from a seated position. Matters weren't made any easier when the thing looked like it had been constructed from leftover pieces of wood. As we set off I was reassured by the life jacket sitting on my shoulders as I felt it may be needed at any second.

As we moved off into the dark I didn't notice any lights and was beginning to wonder if I had just walked into a very well executed scam: give me your money or you go overboard, you know that kind of thing. No sooner as I was groping around trying to find a weapon, I saw it. The bushes were beginning to shimmer, again my bullshit alarm was going off, 'well they have clearly strung out some christmas lights in those trees'. It took a while for that feeling to disappear, it was only once we got close enough and I saw the creatures glowing asses that I genuinely believed I was watching fireflies. The flies were very beautiful and we got close enough for Lena to grab one, we had to do it quickly so no-one else could see as they didn't want tourists to start manhandling them too often. They gave off quite a bit of heat from their asses, Lena was able to notice the heat quite quickly. As quickly as the tour began it was over, with us standing on the jetty watching another family take the plunge.

As we trekked back to the car we stopped off in a shop just as they were closing up shop and came across PvZ plushies! Debating which one of our favourite characters was going to make it back with us we decided on the workhorse of the game: the peashooter. Cheap, reliable and iconic. A no-brainer really...

War Memorial & Massage

Another weekend was rolling around and so culture was the name of the game with a late morning visit to the war memorial commemorating all those who had fought for Malaysia over the course of the two world wars and during the 'emergency' that happened with the emergence of communism. The monument was massive expanse with statues strategically placed but one thing struck me more than anything else, the lack of cover. Whilst I would have liked to pay more attention to certain areas I found myself ducking and weaving in and out of shade as the heat was unforgiving in the late morning sun.

Once we had a look around and paid our respects we went to lunch at the place in seksyen 17 that serves the best char siew on the planet. In addition to the char siew we also had some roast chicken and vegetables to balance out the protein overload we were introducing into our systems, also it didn't help that the guy serving kind of forced it on us. This waiter must surely have been family because there is no other reason why he is allowed to get away with so much and the food is good enough that it excuses his assholishness (for the most part). The place sells out of everything by midday leaving the owner to go home, and he isn't doing too badly as he rocks up on a brand new BMW motorbike daily.

With lunch over it was decided that the best way to relax would be a nice relaxing massage with a friend of Lena's dad who would talk to Lena about how to properly use her new camera. The place was really nice and quite expansive but due to some new taxation laws it meant that most of the masseuses weren't in the country leaving it quite empty with the 3 of us (Lena, James and myself) taking up 75% of the workforce.

The massage was a 1 hour foot massage sitting in these incredibly comfortable chairs, the real challenge was not falling asleep! Now the main reason for coming to the massage parlour was to discuss the camera while getting a massage, in the waiting room this was the case, but as soon as we sat down the other 2 were asleep within minutes leaving me to battle with my conscious and watch some truly bizarre Malaysian show that was playing in the background.

After the relaxing massage we went for dinner where the camera discussion continued, no chance of falling asleep here! The place was called Win Soon and it specialised in a dish I hadn't tried, and for good reason, fish head soup. To say I was apprehensive was an understatement. Imagine my surprise when no such head arrived, apparently you are quite lucky to get actual fish heads as they are the best part, but I was in no arguing mood. The fish pieces I had still had some small bones but they were a small price to pay for not looking my food in the face. The dish itself was really rather nice and would be something you would get foreigners if you dropped the fish head part...

Well after this we went off for the delicacy of Durians for dinner, James loved them. Shit. Having tried them recently and finding the taste and texture to be something akin to rotting meat I had no intention of going anywhere near one again. Thankfully when we got there we ate them outside, the worlds best ventilation and to top it off I had myself a couple of mangoes, hallelujah!

Petronas Towers & Drinks with Lingish

Well after the tragedy of getting turned away a few days ago Lena and I came back with tickets in hand ready to take a tour. The tour would throw us out at the viewing bridge followed by a trip to the highest level of the tower to look down on the world below us.

Again we were dropped off at the Petronas Towers at unreasonably early time in the morning (8am) meaning we head around 3 hours to kill before we went in to our 11am session. We started off at one of the more reasonably overpriced places, sitting down to a breakfast of Nasi Lemak, comprised of: a piece of rendang spiced chicken, boiled egg, rice, roasted peanuts, and some spicy sauce. When read out in that order the meal may seem like a mess but it is sooooooo good once you've tried some, and once you have tried the best you are saddened to return to mediocrity. Unfortunately todays serving was nice but not mind blowing, that definition is reserved for the Nasi Lemak in Seksyen 17 market.

After the breakfast we aimlessly strolled the mall until it was time to take our tour. As the time approached we found ourselves at something resembling airport security, which makes sense considering we would be hurled at great speed upwards. As the tour got underway we were led into a little foyer giving us information on the towers history and general statistics, thank god for everything being in English otherwise this pause would have been most excruciating. Shortly after the demo finished we were ushered into what appeared to be an industrial service elevator, then at the speed of...something very fast we were on our way.

The observation bridge wasn't nearly as grand as I felt it should have been. The layout reminded me of an office floor about to be fitted for new tenants, not looking in need of refurbishment but just seeming to exist. With the banality of the interior I was relieved to find the exterior views much more satisfying but sadly the lighting made photography somewhat troubling. Although thankfully there was a kindly man who showed us how to use our semi-pro camera whilst touting a much smaller version, slightly embarrassed but very gratefully we took pictures left right and centre before being hurried to the next stop: the top floor.

Now HERE is where the vertigo set in. After going up the same lift we moved to a secondary lift where we were carried the last few floors, which felt a bit unnecessary. To top it off the transition was conducted with uniformed guards on either side, hardly the picture of efficiency. When getting to the top if I thought the views were good before these were stellar, and when I got close to the edge to look down I got the distinct feeling that I was swaying (that would be the vertigo) and had to move back. I did feel slightly uneasy when I got too close but persevered (how often would I be here!).

With the tour over within the hour we found ourselves back at the bottom by midday and wondering what to do, with the shopping trip fresh in my mind we decided to go back to seksyen 17, which we did using the KL train system, a first for me! The trains were clean and air conditioned which is all I could ask of them to be honest and it was nice to get a different view of KL for a change. To top it off when we got near to home we hopped into a taxi which took us (what I thought was quite a long distance) for RM7 which is around £1.40. Although the taxi did chug a bit when positioned on an incline, most likely due to driving a Proton, the national car.

Well no sooner had we gotten through the door we were planning the afternoons activities. With Lena only coming back once a year she tries to see everyone she can and there was another person to meet, a guy no less! Lingish rocked up and we went to a White Coffee Shop in seksyen 17 where I sampled a wonderful Ribena and Longan Ice Drink followed by a green apple ice drink. Chatting went on for a bit then our goodbyes were said.

Once again no sooner had we arrived we were off for dinner, at seksyen 17. We decided to try a new place we hadn't been before to try Bak Kut Teh which roughly translated means pork bone tea. It was definitely an interesting experience but I don't see myself repeating it willingly, too many nicer things around town :)

Deja Vu with Gen & Seraphyn

With the images of 1 Utama freshly dancing in my head it was time to...go straight back there. Having just been with a friend of Lena's we went straight back to visit an old music teacher who had recently had a baby.

Having gone with a western themed place yesterday we travelled across the world for an eastern themed menu, thats right, sushi! The place was a popular destination called Sushi Zenmai, it was very nicely laid out and the food looked fantastic, now bring on Gen!

Lena disappeared briefly to go...somewhere, leaving me in the queue (yeah the place is popular enough that people have to queue to get in) when a woman with a baby in a stroller rocks up behind me. I'm now in a dilema, do I: A, turn round and introduce myself potentially making myself look like a MASSIVE pervert if it isn't Gen; B, ignore the situation and pretend that I didn't notice her and look like an inconsiderate idiot if it was Gen; or C, smile and hope she understands and introduces herself. I went for C, I mean how many other giant white guys could there be in 1 Utama. Thankfully she took the hint, although if she hadn't then it would have been beyond creepy.

Lunch was great with much of the sushi tasting delicious, it rekindled my love of soft shell crab. The main delight of lunch was little Seraphyn who found my watch quite intriguing several times during the course of lunch. To top off her cuteness she was just on the cusp of forming words so she had a stream of nonsense that just made her all the cuter :). Also she was very well behaved, quietly sitting and watching us eat, only crying out when she wanted her mums attention. Another game she enjoy was 'get Jack to pick up my plush book', no sooner had I turned my back she was dropping it again; towards the end I got good, predicting it and catching it mid fall.

A crowning achievement; I outsmarted a baby...

After lunch and conversation we headed out into the mall for a slightly longer search with Lena visiting Baskin Robins for some Green Tea ice cream. A recurring theme was emerging with this Green Tea thing and I felt it wasn't likely to stop before heading home, it's not likely your going to have people trampled under foot in the UK to get their hands on some green tea ice cream.