My trip to Malaysia

I have just returned from a wonderful holiday in Malaysia, Maldives and Sri Lanka. There were a few ups and downs but for the most part I had a great time! I would like to show you the great things that you can do at each country but if you’re just interested in how I went with my ‘to do’ list then click here.

Our trip started off with a 7 hour-ish flight to Kuala Lumpur from Brisbane International. The flight was great and we were looked after well by the flight attendants. Just remember that alcoholic beverages are free on international flights so ensure you build a great rapport with those that can hook you up with a few beer cans at once. By the end of the flight I was nicknamed ‘happy hour’ by the crew.

We were quite happy to hear we had arrived at Kuala Lumpur. The airport is great because there are signs everywhere. If you get lost in Kuala Lumpur airport then you’re probably one of those people who can’t follow recipes, ikea instructions, treasure maps etc. and should probably not travel alone.

The first thing I noticed about Australia (which Malaysia was lacking) is the warm welcomes and friendly conversations you get with airport staff. In Malaysia, the help desk lady looked as if she was mad at us for asking her a question…. I was a bit dumbfounded by the whole thing. The guy who let us into the country death stared us the whole time he was checking our passports and then waved us through the gates without saying a word. He thought he was a police officer or head of a Malaysian scooter gang or something. He also didn’t do his job right as he didn’t give us back our departure cards to keep. WHATADOUCHE.

Once out of the airport things were a bit better. We made our way to the city which is about 45 minutes away from the airport. Along the way, the drive is fairly scenic with various buildings which are worthy of snapshots:
This seems to be a stadium of some sort. Not sure what it is but it is very patriotic with the flags. I think it looks nice.

I find KOK MOTOR very reliable.

Then there was the Colosseum! It’s strange that they don’t put these on the KL brochures.

But let’s not forget the Petronas twin towers. The tallest twins in the world and what used to be the tallest building in the world before Taipei 101.

Finally we got to our hotel where I found out that Malaysia has no etiquette for queues, door opening or elevators. I have never been so agitated by people in my life. At one point we were waiting at the hotel counter and about to be served when a guy tried to stand in front of us and get served first. I had to physically grab the back of his collar and pull him backwards. He must have thought “how rude of me to do that” to which all I can say is “When in Rome, be an arsehole like everyone else (or something like that)”.

A trip to the China town markets totally made up for the rudeness. This place has stalls upon stalls of knock-off merchandise. Each stall varies but for the most part the quality of the gear is quite amazing. The knock-off Rolex watches are scratch proof and work on perpetual motion (no need for batteries). Needless to say we bought a few of these. They sell at roughly 100MYR which is around $30AU:

Issmeister just wanted to be involved. He has a poo legitimate Casio on.

I also bought lots of clothing. The Issmeister got into this bargaining battle with one stall and he ended up getting 2 Lacoste polos for 30MYR which is about $5AU a shirt. Usually the acceptable price is 2 for 40MYR. I bought lots of polos and many beer t-shirts. I also bought handbags for gift giving. Make sure you don’t get ripped off with a low quality bag. You can get high quality bags for about 110MYR but a lot of stalls try and sell the crap ones for about the same price. Go to a larger stall. They usually have both good and bad quality. Just ask for the good quality stuff which comes with a larger price tag.

I got really sick during our stay in Malaysia and spent quite a few days in the hotel room. I only recovered a few hours before the flight to the Maldives. I caught some kind of China town market flu which gave me instant fever. I was quite lucky as they would have caught me under the thermal cameras and sent me into quarantine if I was still sick at the airport; totally ruining my holiday. I was still able to do a little bit more shopping though….

This is the pavilion shopping centre. It is quite massive. The other massive shopping centre in Malaysia is the Mid Valley Megamall. Both are great places to shop but if you walk down the street on the right of the Pavilion there is a huge line of designer stores. It’s a yuppie street but quite impressive.

Speaking of impressive:

Yes! You are looking at a McDonald’s delivery scooter. Have you ever wanted a quarter pounder at midnight but couldn’t be bothered making your way over to Maccas? Of course you have! Australia really needs to get their act together and get some McDelivery Scooters!

Another thing that impressed me about McDonald’s in KL is the prices of their meals (note that the airport McDonald’s is more expensive). I bought a large spicy McChicken burger meal (which was 6/10 on the spice metre and rocked) for 9.60MYR which is about $3AU. They also sell Ribena and Milo on tap.

Our time in Malaysia was kind of at an end. We had another day in Malaysia after our time in Maldives and Sri Lanka on the way back home but we had pretty much done all the shopping we needed to already.

Oh… and this is pretty funny:

This is a street sign they have near BB shopping centre. It’s a packed street full of people trying to aggressively get you to enter their store or massage parlour. The sign warns of purse snatchers. We should get a bogan warning sign at the Logan Hyperdome.

Anyway…we packed our bags and headed to the Maldives for a very short overnight trip. The plan was to stay there for a few days but my mum wanted a bit more time with her family over in Sri Lanka, so we had to sacrifice beautiful weather and nice beaches for bad weather and smelly alleys.

We ended up having no records of our stay in the Maldives. We arrived in the beautiful Malé where I was as drunk as a fruit bat that found a barrel of fermenting fruit hooch and drank it all. We were drinking whenever we felt bored so the wait at the airport and the fact that this old school 1970s plane they put us on had no personal TVs made me drink my boredom away. The flight was roughly 4 hours and I could tell this plane was from the 70s because the fuselage smelt like old people and it had flamboyant wallpaper. I figured someone else would take photos but alas the rest of the group started feeling sick and started vomiting. All I remember is reading a ‘Welcome to Malé’ sign and that’s about it. Mum says it was beautiful and she doesn’t even like water so it really must have been a lovely place.

We then got on the plane and headed over to Sri Lanka.