After spending most of the day Friday lazing about after the gym and pool we went out at about 5.15 pm to meet Dan for a drink with the Uncles. Let me explain, the Uncles are Dan’s friends Tommi and Kiat. There are other people too like Andy and Rajif (not exactly sure about his name, apologies to him if it’s wrong) but I’m not sure if they are Uncles too. I think he calls them the Uncles because they’ve kind of looked after him since he came to KL something like three and a half years ago. Tommi and Kiat are both lovely guys but I think it would be fair to say they are both quite high on the nut job scale!

We took the train to KLCC and then the long walk to Bukit Bintang where we stopped to eat in Johnny Rockets which is exactly what it sounds like, a burger bar. The best you could say of it was that the service was quite quick which can be pretty unusual in KL.

Leaving Johnny Rockets we set off for the 15 minute walk to the Rockaway Bar and Grill to meet Dan. Walking through Bukit Bintang during rush hour on a Friday it would be easy to be overwhelmed by the frenetic pace of everything going on all around. Crowds of people, beggars everywhere and mad traffic! I’m so glad I never have to drive in KL, the volume of traffic is unimaginable. I’ve never noticed the beggars before today either. They seem to be everywhere. Whereas in the UK lots of beggars have what I always think of as the sympathy dog, the beggars in KL seem to have upped the ante so you’ll see lots of Muslim women with a small child in their lap. It’s pretty pathetic really and I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone give to them but having said that I don’t spend all my time watching them so who knows. Arriving at the Rockaway we were greeted with hugs and hand shakes from everyone with Kiat shouting about “MOM” and “DAD”. I think he was already on the way to being drunk and as seems to be the norm, they were playing some kind of indecipherable dice game.

As soon as we sat down two beers appeared and then kept reappearing as we drank them. Not a good start really for two drinking lightweights like Lynne and I. Sitting there with a crowd of nine people all laughing and joking and playing dice games where the loser has to drink you couldn’t help comparing it to the drinking culture at home which seems to be to get pissed and fight. As I was getting slowly drunk myself, a bottle of whisky appeared on the table and all of a sudden I’m presented with a glass and off we go into drinking oblivion. When Lynne and I came out we expected a quiet (ish) drink with Dan and Kiat but this was shaping up to be out of control. The bottle of whisky was Tommi’s I think. In KL you can purchase the bottle and leave it behind the bar with your name on it. Then any time you go to that bar you have your very own bottle ready and waiting. The people who own the Rockaway also own six other bar/resaurants on the same street and as Dan seems to know them so well they were quite happy for him to have menus from all their establishments when he wanted to order food. Could you imagine that happening in the UK. I don’t think so!

I sat watching Dan and the others playing this weird dice game which even after 45 minutes of trying to figure out still left me baffled. At about 9 o’clock Kiat and the others decided we should move on. The plan was to go to a karaoke bar. That sounds innocent enough doesn’t it? Well, read on! Apparently the problem with Kiat saying he wants to go to a Karaoke bar is that he’s all mouth and trousers and somewhere between leaving the Rockaway and getting to the Karaoke bar, the others, Dan included all predicted that he would disappear and go home. For this reason, Dan went with Kiat in his car (Kiat driving in spite of the fact he’s well pissed by this time) to make sure he didn’t scuttle off home. That left Lynne and I travelling in Tommi’s car who, incidentally was equally pissed!

So, picture the scene. Lynne and I in the back of Tommi’s car which is parked in a drive in space at the side of the road, ie, not parallel parked. I hope that makes sense. It’s a large Kia which I know nothing about but actually seemed really nice. I do think they’re starting to catch up with the Europeans in car design but hey, I was drunk too so what do I know! So, Tommi reverses out of his space into the traffic all around us and proceeds to drive down the road. We’d probably only gone 50 yards or so when he uttered his first “oh fuck” and then about 10 more times in quick succession. Being drunk ourselves in the back of the car (Lynne slightly less so) we both thought this was highly comical. The problem was he wanted to turn right into another street but for some reason didn’t feel able to do so. I looked up the street and could only see traffic coming towards us. Tommi carried on by and about a hundred yards further on decided to do a three point turn whilst acknowledging himself as being drunk but also saying, “ah well, if the Police stop me I’ll just pay them the 50 Ringet bribe and carry on”! So, now we’re heading back in the opposite direction towards the street he wanted to go down in the first place. This time he managed to make the turn and as we entered the street he said, “unfortunately, this is a one way street but don’t worry because I do this all the time, welcome to Malaysia”

As luck would have it we didn’t meet anything coming the other way so Tommi got away with it this time. Once again I can only reiterate my happiness at not having to drive in KL myself! The rest of the journey was relatively incident free and we reached our destination safely only for Tommi to jump out of the car and walk away with traffic stacking up behind us. Lynne and I got out wondering what the hell was going on just in time to see Tommi throw his keys to another guy who it turned out was the valet parking attendant. Whilst waiting for them to park the car Tommi put his arm round my shoulder and took me aside because he apparently felt the need to share with me the fact that he came here as a young man 20 years ago and this was where he got his first blow job! Too much information was my instant reaction, but he was laughing hysterically at this very sordid revelation. We watched the attendant park the car and then go through the same process with Kiat’s car while secretly wondering what the hell we had let ourselves in for, then we went into the building which turned out to be what looked like a slightly downmarket shopping mall. We got the lift to go up to the 5th floor and on exiting the lift almost immediately saw lots of attractive young women hanging about. Cutting a very long story short we were quickly shown to a room (of which there appeared to be many) which had three screens. One was the menu for songs and the main one ran videos with song lyrics for you to sing along with. Within five minutes we were presented with a large bowl of fruit, two bottles of whiskey and loads of ice and water. There were two or three young men attending to all the drinks and soon most of the whiskey was dispatched into lots of small shot glasses to so you could top up any time you were low.

Now this is where it gets a bit sketchy for me. We had probably been there for about 10 minutes when an older lady came in followed by eight very attractive young women who proceeded to line up against the wall in front of us. We had had a great night up to this point and I don’t want to sound self righteous or anything but these girls lined up against the wall while the men with us selected four out of the eight to come and sit with us made me deeply uncomfortable. There were at least two of the girls who looked at least as uncomfortable as I was too. Anyway, the chosen four came and sat amongst us, sang some karaoke (badly) and shared drinks. Dan, to his credit had a girl sit with him and immediately introduced us as his Mom and Dad which I can only imagine she would have reacted to with a degree of disbelief. I can’t imagine Tommi would have had his Mom and Dad with him when he was getting his first blow job! Apparently none of this is unusual in KL and after about half an hour the girls all got up and left presumably to go and sit with other lecherous men with maybe less honourable intentions although it was noticeable that as the evening wore on one or two of the girls did come back and spend more time with us.

By now it was getting on for midnight and after consuming a lot of whiskey and much awful singing, we left the karaoke bar. We all jumped back in Tommi’s car and I was thinking that maybe he was going to take us home. Nah, after drinking a skinful and eating various things as the evening went on they then thought it would be a good idea to go to another food place. I think even Dan was thinking this might be a last snack to finish off with but Tommi had other ideas. Having double parked right outside the door of this late night restaurant Tommi then proceeded to order enough food to feed the five thousand. I was already on the verge of exploding and sat there awkwardly while an old man with no teeth put a bowl of rice in front of me and urged me to eat. I smiled and thanked him politely and then ate about three grains of rice before giving up. I was never happier to hear Dan say “we’re off now, our car is here!”

Apologies for the total lack of photos in this blog but it just wasn’t that kind of evening, although I do now wish I’d had the presence of mind to at least take some with my phone. It’s difficult sometimes to think of every activity in terms of a blog, especially when you’re steaming drunk!

 

 

 

It’s Friday of our second week here in Kuala Lumpur and we’re beginning to settle into a nice routine. Every morning this week starting Monday, we’ve spent 45 minutes or so in the gym. The first morning I only used two machines, running and cross trainer. Not having done any particularly strenuous exercise for a while coupled with no longer going to work, I think I was probably as out of condition as ever. So that first morning really did me in even though I took it relatively easy. However, five sessions later and it’s beginning to get easier and I’m slowly doing more each time. This morning I did 11 minutes on the running machine although I didn’t feel great about the running today. Some days the breathing just doesn’t feel so good and others you feel like you’re flying, maybe just biorhythms or something, I don’t know. Another 11 minutes on the cross trainer and then 11 on the cycle. The first time I went on the cycle I did the equivalent of two kilometres according to the machine but by this morning it was 3.3 kilometres so I’m definitely making progress. it’ll be interesting to see what progress we’ve both made by the middle of September when we return to the UK. Although after an initial feeling of home sickness for the first few days I’m already beginning to think I won’t want to return to the UK!  After the gym we always spend half an hour in the pool which cools you off a treat, I’ve wondered whether the dip in the pool might be the reason I never seem to get any aches or pains after the gym. Who knows? Is it likely that using the pool to cool off properly after exercise might eliminate after effects? If there’s anyone out there reading this, let me know in the comments if you have any theories! It’s an Infinity pool and I’m guessing it’s at least as long as an olympic sized pool. Most days we have the whole thing to ourselves but occasionally there’s a young guy who teaches swimming usually one on one with a young girl. Sounds like a shit job but somebody’s gotta do it I suppose.

Right next to the pool there’s a barbecue area where this morning there were six young Muslim women and their children having a get together around the table. They weren’t doing anyone any harm but the noise was roughly equivalent to about 200 school girls having their high school prom. Jibber jabber of the highest order!!

Earlier this week, Wednesday to be precise. We spent the afternoon at the Zoo. Lynne booked a Grab through the App on her phone and we made our way there, arriving at 2.00 pm. The taxi driver was one of the talkative ones which is nice but unfortunately we struggled to understand anything he said. It’s funny how some drivers talk non stop and others sit in stony silence. Jumping ahead slightly the driver for the return journey had  a Chelsea FC badge in his car and I commented on it thinking we might get a conversation out of him but no, we were to be disappointed, apparently he’d had his personality surgically removed! 🤨

Anyway, back to the Zoo, Zoo Negara to be exact. My reason for visiting this particular zoo was that it apparently has a first class Giant Panda Conservation programme which I thought would be interesting. So, arriving at 2.00 pm we paid 82 Ringets each (£15) to get in and almost immediately through the entrance we entered the butterfly garden. Here you get the chance to walk around with butterflies flying all around you. It’s nice but the biggest prettiest butterflies never seem to land long enough to be able to photograph them. We quickly moved on to some more interesting subjects, ie, the first animal display was a rather magnificent female Giraffe with her young calf?

Looking at this lovely animal you can’t help but be reminded of the occasional pictures you see of proud hunters posing with their fresh kill. I mean really, how difficult must it be to stalk and kill one of these proud beasts. They don’t really pose any danger to a human and they can hardly hide now can they! I saw one the other week where a woman (American of course) posed with a black Giraffe that she had just killed. The animal was obviously classed as rare and my only hope is that Karma does really work and she gets what’s coming to her in a big and not very nice way! Ok, short rant over!!

As we moved on we came to a large lake and walking to the edge Lynne and I both exclaimed at almost the same moment that it was like something from Jurassic Park. This is called the Milky Stork Exhibit and reading about them since, I’ve found that they are considered in danger of extinction in the wild. However, in this so called exhibit there seemed to be hundreds if not thousands of them and the noise they made was cacophonous to put it mildly. They were everywhere, in the trees all around us and flying all around. Strangely in light of that reference to them being endangered in the wild, I couldn’t see anything that stopped every one of these birds from flying away any time they liked. I took photos of hundreds of them in the trees but they ended up looking like a forest with lots of indistinct white things in the trees so I’m not including any of them here, they’re simply not good enough.

Moving on we saw what I’m pretty sure were Emu’s, whatever they were they’re bloody ugly looking things. Here’s the evidence.

We soon came to the Lions and Tigers. I’d heard them roaring almost since we got to the zoo and couldn’t wait to see them. You never know if you’re gonna be able to take photographs without fencing. In this instance I’m happy to say that all that separated us from them was a low concrete wall and a stretch of water. You’d think a Tiger wouldn’t be deterred by such a small obstacle but they seemed pretty relaxed when we got there. First were the Lions. A male and female who looked happy enough in their enclosure but I couldn’t help thinking the male Lion looked a bit down at heel. I don’t really know but I imagined from the look of him, that he was quite old. This gives me another chance to sing the praises of the Nikon D850. You wouldn’t believe how much of the original picture I’ve cropped out to achieve this image. I would estimate that I’ve discarded something like 85% of the original file and I’m still left with relatively good detail. I hope you approve!

The I hope you approve comment in the above sentence was added because without it the justify function stretches all the words on that line out so that in theory you could have two words and they would sit on either side of the page. That looks quite stupid and I don’t know how to get round it. In actual fact I’m not too bothered whether you approve or not, if you’ve read this far you’re probably not quite the ticket anyway! Just saying!

In the next enclosure was a lone Tiger. Absolutely stunningly beautiful creature and quite happy to sit as close as his enclosure allowed for photo opportunities.

I was enjoying photographing these magnificent beasts but quietly thinking I can’t wait to return with a bigger lens. In the next enclosure were two White Tigers. They seem to spend most of their time in the water at the front of the enclosure. With the camera on live view and the articulated screen pointing down I managed to hold the camera up and get pictures from less than six feet away. Unbelievable to be that close to these animals and there be no danger. The concrete wall was topped with iron railings angled inward so I don’t think there’s any chance they could get out. I certainly wouldn’t want to be there if they ever did. You don’t realise until close up how massive they are! Anyway here’s a picture of a slightly grubby looking White Tiger less than six feet away.

There are a number of other big cats but not in such big enclosures, I came across this Cheetah resting in the shade. Unfortunately I could only photograph her through the wire and the assumption that it was a she was based on the way she hissed at me as I took the picture! Unfortunately the effect I seem to have on most women.😫 Beautiful creature though and I was probably four feet away at most when I took this.

Moving swiftly on we walked on until we got to the Elephants enclosure. I wasn’t quite as impressed with this as there were two Elephants and they weren’t doing a song and dance routine. Joking aside they looked happy enough but I couldn’t help noticing that every tree in the enclosure had what looked like electrical wiring around the trunks. Was this there to keep the animals away from the trees for some reason? If so I can’t imagine it enhancing life for those Elephants. Walking on we came to the star attraction, for me anyway, the Giant Pandas. This is an indoor display and very impressive. It’s a huge building purposely built with lots of different terrain and climbing opportunities to keep the animals entertained. Unfortunately when we walked in there were three Pandas all fast asleep. I wonder if that’s mostly all they ever do? Still it was interesting to see them given how rare they are these days. It was nice to see them so well looked after, Zoo Negara clearly takes Giant Panda Conservation very seriously. Thankfully as we made our way through, one of the younger Pandas seemed to wake up and have a good stretch and yawn giving us a good display of all his teeth. Absolutely no fillings either!

After leaving the Pandas to their sleep we walked on up the hill to see the Orang-utan. They have a huge area given over to them so it was a little surprising to see only one Orang-utan out and he seemed to be at the door waiting to be let back in. He was a magnificent big guy with incredibly long hair all over his body. He didn’t seem too pleased to see us though and I had to be  pretty quick on the shutter to get a photo of his face as he kept it turned away from us most of the time we were there.

Leaving the somewhat grumpy Orang-utan behind we carried on to an area called Savanah Walk. There was a viewing platform in the middle and looking in either direction it was possible to see Ostrich, Zebra, more Giraffe and Rhinoceros. Absolutely amazing that with a little imagination you could be in the wild with all these creatures free to roam around you. I have to say that while I’d wondered what a zoo in Malaysia might be like I find myself very impressed overall. It’s fair to say that some of the pathways and facilities for Humans might have seen better days, but there is no denying the animals seem to be very well cared for. We only gave ourselves three hours to look around (closing time at 5.00 pm) and there was still lots we hadn’t seen when it came time to leave. I have no doubts we will visit again (with a longer lens) having thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon which seemed to go by so quickly.

On the way out we kept seeing bins turned over on their sides with all the contents strewn all over the place. There were a number of those big Milky Storks about but I couldn’t imagine them upturning bins like that to get at the contents. As we got close to the exit we found out who the culprits were as there was a small troupe of Macaque Monkeys feeding out of the last bin before the exit. Little buggars! I wonder if that’s a daily occurrence when they know all the bins will be full of all sorts of discarded goodies?

 

 

 

Lynne and I have been back in Kuala Lumpur for almost a week now and I’m experiencing something like my first writers block! This is because for the first week, we’ve done very little that you could call interesting. The journey from Birmingham to KL was uneventful, going quite smoothly thanks to Emirates. For the Birmingham to Dubai flight I sat next to a young guy who must have been 6’6″ and his knees inevitably strayed into my space simply because he had no choice. The strange thing was he watched films on his phone for the entire duration of the flight. The reason I found that so strange was that the Emirates entertainment system is so brilliant. The choice of films, tv series, drama and sitcom, music etc is absolutely limitless! Still, I suppose the choice is all his!

The layover in Dubai was unusual too, in as much as there seemed to have been a deterioration in facilities, ie: there were a number of escalators not working and when it came time to transfer to another terminal, as we’ve always had to previously, instead of a rapid train, we were bundled onto a bus for an uncomfortable and seemingly endless ride through the darkness to the next terminal. The flight from Dubai to Kuala Lumpur was more comfortable as we had pre booked our seats and managed to get them upstairs where we had two seats to the side on our own. This flight was delayed by about 40 minutes due to congestion on the runway so we were on the plane for more than an hour before it taxi’d onto the runway and took off. I didn’t manage to sleep for more than half an hour or so through both flights combined but strangely I felt fine by the time we arrived in Kuala Lumpur in spite of the fact we’d been up for 25 hours or more by then. When we got to immigration I thought it was going to take forever to get through as the waiting lines of people looked more like a football crowd but thanks to an extremely efficient system and the large number of officials checking passports we were through in a little more than 15 minutes. At the baggage reclaim we had to wait longer than usual as Lynne’s bag came out within 10 minutes, but mine didn’t appear until getting on for 15 minutes later. I never quite understand how two bags that go on together can come out at the other end so far apart!

After a very comfortable ride in the pre booked car (Toyota Vellfire, ugly but amazingly comfortable) we arrived at Dan’s apartment at around 5.15 pm. Having started to unpack  we went out to an Italian restaurant to ensure Lynne and I would have to stay awake, thereby resetting our body clocks to local time. That was the theory anyway, I don’t know if it works but I can honestly say that by the time I was eating desert I could have slept standing up!

On Wednesday we both woke at about 10.00 am having slept a straight 12 hours. We did  nothing much for most of the day until later in the afternoon we decided to walk down to the local mall to get some food in. On arriving at the mall we found that the supermarket we had always gone to previously was boarded up with a small note informing us that it was closed until further notice for refurbishment. Well, that could mean anything couldn’t it! How very inconsiderate! Having wandered around somewhat aimlessly for another half hour we decided to return to the apartment and continue our slow and boring recovery from jet lag.

Thursday was much the same, we did pretty much nothing all morning and just as we were contemplating going out the heavens opened and it hammered it down with rain non stop for more than three hours! Consequently we didn’t leave the apartment all day so by the evening I was starting to feel properly stir crazy! I did manage some photography though if only from the balcony of the apartment. Using my new camera, a Nikon D850 I took this scene. It was just a quick knock off really, no filters or anything but the dynamic range of the camera means that with a correct exposure there is no loss of detail. It’s not the greatest composition ever, just a shot of all the high-rises looking in the direction away from the city which given the fact that we’re located something like 6 miles out of the city shows how huge Kuala Lumpur really is!

By Friday we just had to get out of the apartment, so not long after lunch we walked down and got the train into KLCC. The only problem was we absentmindedly got the train on the wrong side of the station. The first we knew of it was a young Muslim woman popping back into the carriage after she’d left to tell us this was the last station. In a moment of confusion we got off the train only to be told by a guard on the platform that we could still get to KLCC on this train so we got back on and tried to work out where we had gone wrong. Well obviously we had gone in the wrong direction and reached the last station (Gombak). Fortunately the train obviously just goes back in the opposite direction but we didn’t realise that at the time and still spent the entire journey trying to work out what the hell we had done. I have to say that these senior moments are coming thick and fast now, I don’t think it’ll be long before we both need full time care!😜

Anyway we eventually got to KLCC and set about taking a walk in the park at the back of the Petronas Towers. As we were walking I noticed a large steel sculpture of a whale in the middle of a small lake. As I made my way to try and photograph it one of the female park attendants wagged a finger at me to let me know I was about to enter a lady’s only area. I sheepishly retreated having been well and truly told off! How frustrating to see a potential photograph of an interesting subject with the Petronas Towers as a background and not being able to get to it. I promised myself I would take that image somehow, but more of that later! Everywhere we went there were Indian men (I think) offering to sell us lenses for our iPhones even though neither of us has one. I felt like asking them what they thought this big black thing hanging around my neck was! After a short walk around KLCC park we decided to walk over to Bukit Bintang. As far as I understand, Bukit means hill. I don’t quite know how this relates to Bukit Bintang because it’s a densely populated city area with not a hill in sight anywhere. To get there on foot means a mile walk through mostly covered, air conditioned walkways. When we arrived we sat down in a Cafe in Pavilion Kuala Lumpur (another big mall) for afternoon tea (ooh how very colonial). Very delicate little sandwiches and cakes which Lynne and I devoured like a pair of navvies on an unauthorised lunch break! Afterwards we walked across to Low Yat Plaza. This is yet another large mall but devoted entirely to techy stuff like computers and camera shops. Brilliant! Except that having just bought my new Nikon D850 I wasn’t looking to buy anything so a bit of a waste of time really. On leaving Low Yat Plaza we exited from a different exit than the one we entered through and promptly got lost! Funny how if we ever get lost it’s always my fault.🤔

It just occurred to me that I started this blog by saying I was suffering a writers block, well that was yesterday and I think it’s safe to say if you’ve gotten this far I’m sure you’ll agree I’ve gotten over it!

Back at KLCC we decided to find somewhere to eat and settled on a place called Dotty’s. It was only as we sat waiting for our food that I realised this used to be Harrods Cafe and that we had been there before. Afterwards we were about to head for the train when Dan messaged Lynne that he was in KLCC himself so we went to meet him. He didn’t want the bother of the train and called a Grab so we went home in comfort.

Dan was home for the weekend so on Saturday morning we went out for breakfast. Dan booked a Grab and off we went with no idea of where we were headed. The plan was to meet Shanthya. Shanthya was, is, used to be, might never be again, one of Dans girlfriends, who knows? Anyway after a long journey that took us through one area I would loved to have stopped where there were derelict cars parked alongside the road which had been there so long there were trees and grass growing out of them. Literally nature reclaiming them. We counted three old Mini’s slowly sinking back into the earth along with an old Morris Minor with a rusty patina which looked like it hadn’t moved in 30 years! Not exactly what you expect to see eight thousand miles away from home in Malaysia. Frustratingly we had to pass all this by for breakfast with the aforementioned Shanthya. When we got to the agreed meeting place we headed for a restaurant which I’m happy to say was full. Happy because it didn’t look very clean (understatement). Like so many Malaysian restaurants of the type it looked like a downstairs room which had two walls removed and filled with not terribly clean tables. They must be doing something right as the place was absolutely rammed! Thankfully we moved on to a place further along in the same block which only had one wall missing! Shanthya recommended various dishes including Salted Egg Squid (lovely) Fish Balls (revolting) and Chicken drumsticks. I don’t eat a lot of meat nowadays anyway but the Malaysian habit of chopping chicken, bones and all might just have me going fully vegetarian. Apparently it creates more flavour to chop the bones too but I can’t quite see how and for me at least there’s nothing appealing about picking meat off of splintery chopped bones, yuk!! Whilst eating breakfast we listened (mostly) to Shanthya talking about a job interview she was due for next Tuesday. Also she had just returned from holiday in Istanbul. I wouldn’t have thought it possible for someone to talk for so long about two subjects but she managed it. Thankfully I zoned out after about 5 minutes so it’s just as well we weren’t tested on the subject afterwards.

After breakfast we went our separate ways as Shanthya left to study for her interview and we got a Grab to take us back to the apartment. Later in the afternoon we went out again to the KL Tower where we came across a tourist attraction called the Upside Down House. I’m not gonna say too much about it except it was shit! It’s basically a house that’s upside down so you get to walk around on the ceilings and it takes all of three minutes to see and it very definitely is crap!! After being ripped off (well Dan was) by the upside down shit house we went on a hike around Bukit Nana. This was supposed to be an opportunity to see wildlife and birds but all we saw were the biggest freaking ants ever! I only noticed them because one was crawling up my leg and I’m glad he only got half way because you definitely wouldn’t want something that size nibbling on your man plums! I thought for a minute we were in a remake of Honey I Shrunk the Kids but this time it would’ve been Honey I Shrunk the Pensioners! Of course I’m exaggerating massively but never the less, I moved pretty damned quick once I noticed the swarm of monster ants.

Another Grab took us to KLCC where we stopped for a beer and cake although I was the only one to have a beer after the others pointed out how expensive it was. Depending where you go, not everything in KL is cheap.

On Sunday Dan left at 2.00pm to fly to Singapore for business so later on Lynne and I went for a walk to Melawati Mall to get some food shopping. Sunday doesn’t seem to be any different to any other day here in Malaysia. The shops are open just as long as other days so we didn’t have to worry about early closing at all. We ate in a place we’d been to before called the Manhattan Fish Market but soon regretted it as both the food and service was mediocre at best.

That brings me to Monday and as I’m writing this (Tuesday) we have actually been here exactly one week. This was the first time since being back that we went to the gym in the morning. I only went on two of the machines this time, the running and the cross trainer. After half an hour I was knackered. Whilst running you can check your heart rate and at one point mine crept into the 130’s. I don’t know if that’s good or bad but it seemed a lot to me so I decided at that point to call it a day. After that we went in the pool for half an hour and cooled off. I’m sure this will turn out to be a regular routine as long as we’re here in KL. Finally we waited until near sunset to go into KLCC with the main objective of getting the shot which wasn’t possible the other day as the area was restricted to lady’s only. We managed to get there just as the fountains light show was beginning. We stood and watched for ten minutes or so but I’d have to say it doesn’t come near the Vegas version at the Belaggio although Lynne didn’t agree, she thought it was “luvleee”. Having made our way to the location where I could have the steel whale as foreground for the twin towers we found an old Chinese guy doing his exercises. Nothing wrong with that you might think, but this guy was surely a bit nuts. Every two or three minutes he’d run off a couple of hundred yards down the path and then back again. Every breath seemed to be accompanied by a huge grunt but the worst of it was that every time he got back he stood for a couple of minutes clearing his nose with loud snorts which almost made me feel physically sick. Utterly disgusting!

I hurried to try and take the photograph I had in mind and get the hell out of there. Unfortunately it was much darker than I had planned for so that the whale was in almost total darkness and I was finding it difficult to achieve a focus exactly where I wanted it. Long story short this is the resulting image and considering the darkness I think it speaks well of the Nikon D850’s dynamic range that I was able to pull so much detail out of the shadows. As soon as this shot was done we got out of there as quickly as we could and the nut job Chinese bloke almost knocked us down on his way back to his snorting spot. Dirty bugger!

After escaping the mad Fu Man Chu we went back to KLCC and had dinner at Chinoz On The Park before getting the train home.

Hopefully my next blog won’t be quite as long a ramble as this one but I’m glad to have covered a whole week in one go. Watch this space!🧐

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More than a week has passed since my last blog and If I’m absolutely honest, not a lot has happened. We’ve gotten as far as looking at flights and hotels for the different destinations we’d hoped to visit whilst here but that’s as far as it got. Myanmar was my favoured destination but it’s proving difficult to find flights that aren’t extremely expensive. That came as a surprise as I was under the misapprehension that everything was going to be as cheap as chips! First reality check, done!

On Thursday this week we were getting ready for our third attempt to find the Kuala Lumpur Bird Park when Lynne asked me if I’d mind not going today as she wasn’t feeling well. She had an upset stomach which was unexpected as we’d been in the gym and the pool that morning and everything was fine then. In fact we spent every morning except Friday in the gym. It’s frigging hard work but the pool always feels great afterwards. So Lynne is poorly with a bad stomach again. After a couple of days we were all in the kitchen when she let slip that she had been drinking water from the tap in the bathroom just to take her Statins. Daniel was quick to point out that not even the locals drink water from the tap which is why he has a filter system which provides hot and cold water instantly. Anyway, I suppose that explains why she’s ill having only eaten much the same foods as Dan and I.

Now as I write It’s Tuesday and we’re into our 4th week. Yesterday Lynne was feeling much better so we set out and actually made it to the Bird Park. We were both convinced  that we had visited a bird park in Sydney years ago but never this one in Kuala Lumpur. However, as we walked around, things began to be more and more familiar to me and I started to suspect that we had indeed been here before! As we entered an aviary with all kinds of parrots including Lorikeets I knew we’d either been here before or somewhere exactly like it. We decided to pay the exorbitant price of 2 Ringits (37p) for food to feed the birds. The food is actually a small cup of milk mixed with honey which the Lorikeets seem to love. After Lynne had taken a turn feeding them I took the cup and the birds came to me. Unfortunately one Lorikeet decided he would rather sit on my shoulder and attempt to bite chunks out of my ear. All very funny to anyone watching but not the most pleasant feeling for me. I think he was really wanting to steal my glasses.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As we continued our walk around the park it became ever more evident that we had been here before and we were finally convinced when memories of trying to photograph the ostriches came flooding back. This time we watched other people feeding them and remembered that Ostriches are horrible things and don’t seem averse to taking the odd finger along with the celery sticks on offer!

Without even intending to we just happened to be passing the open air theatre at the moment the bird show started. We wouldn’t normally have gone out of our way to see this. All it consists of is half an hour of parrots doing various tricks. What I found more fascinating was the Kingfisher which turned up as the show started and sat within 10/12 feet of the stage  seeming to watch the whole thing. After the show finished we made our way to the exit. It had been another hot and sticky afternoon of walking. On leaving the bird park we discovered a quicker way to get back to the train station which taught us that on our previous attempts to find said bird park, we had passed quite close to the entrance a number of times without even knowing it! As I was writing just now I received a text from a friend saying he had just read my last blog. Well, it’s nice to know someone is reading it. Many thanks Graham!

In the past week we’ve had numerous thunderstorms. It always seems to be about 6pm that they start. Each time I find myself thinking this is the mother of all thunder storms until I remind myself that yesterdays was just as intense. They often go on for 2 hours or more and I’ve taken literally hundreds of photographs trying to catch the fork lightning. The theory is that if you can achieve a 2/3 second exposure, then you just keep hitting the shutter immediately the last shot finishes. That way you’re bound to get something. The only problem is it’s pretty hard on the camera. I wasn’t joking when I said I’d taken hundreds of photos. In the space of 2 nights I took something like 600 photos. About 10 of them had lighting strikes in them and 5 of those were worth looking at. You can see all 5 in the following photo, which is a blend of them all. For my first attempt at lightning photography, I wasn’t too displeased with it.

So, now it’s Wednesday and I still haven’t finished this blog. Last night we were invited along with Daniel to a restaurant to celebrate the last day of Chinese New Year. I actually wasn’t that keen to go because it felt like an intrusion. The whole event was a get together for Daniel and a group of his mates all put together by the restaurant owner Chris who Dan had met just a week earlier. He also runs a business providing so-called access solutions, simply put, that means ladders and scaffolding. Kiat had recently placed an order with him for scaffold towers and while Dan was chatting to him happened to mention that they were planning this get together at which point Chris offered to host it at one of his two restaurants for free. Well, that was an offer too good to refuse, but my personal reluctance to go was based on not wanting to look like we were tagging along just for a free nosh! My reservations turned out to be unfounded though as all of Dans friends made us very welcome and Chris seemed thrilled to have us there. He couldn’t have been more attentive and the food which he described as a fusion of Japanese and Western was fantastic. The evening started off with most people drinking beer and in-between beers arriving there was a tower of beer in the shape of the Eiffel Tower you could resort to as back up.

The first dish to arrive was a small appetizer which was fish liver and fruit. The fish liver was delicious, kind of like fishy Foie Gras! The next hour or so saw a variety of different foods arrive at the table including plates of fried anchovies which I’ve never eaten in my life. Having tried them I have to say they reminded me of the pork scratchings we get at home but they were really tasty! By now the food was coming thick and fast along with the beer and wine. One of the main dishes was a large bowl of various fish, veggies and noodles which the custom is for everyone to gather round with their chopsticks and having poured the sauces in, on the count of three they all dig in and throw the food up in the air thereby mixing it all together and then fill your plates. All great fun and just ever so slightly mad but once again the food was amazing. The best however was yet to come. We were presented with what I can only describe as a Sushi Boat with different cuts of raw fish in it. There were two of these for around about 10 people to share. Much to my delight no one else seemed interested in eating the octopus which you can see at the right hand end of the dish. I ate all but one piece and Lynne had the other one.

It’s way beyond my writing skills to describe how excellent the food was that night but it was almost surpassed by the entertainment to come, most of which of course was courtesy of Kiat the class clown. He decided to get the Karaoke machine working and started singing along to various old BeeGees songs. At one point he asked me what my favourite song was and without really thinking about it too much I said Stairway to Heaven. This started a whole conversation about who performed it and when Daniel told him it was Led Zeppelin, Kiat asked who the singer was and when Dan answered that it was Robert Plant, Kiat replied “oh, Addicted to Love”. Instantly the whole room collapsed in hysterical laughter. Kiat is just such a naturally funny guy you can’t help liking him.  At one point in the Karaoke session even I sang a song (can’t remember which, well and truly drunk by now) and Kiat proceeded to sing Lionel Ritchie’s Truly to Lynne. After the ensuing hysterics died down we then played a dice drinking game. The game is played with seven dice and you roll them into a pot and, depending on the combination of 1’s or 5’s you either end up drinking yourself or nominate someone else to drink. The strange thing is everyone seemed to nominate Kiat in spite of his protestations! He must have been so pissed by the end, I dread to think what his drive home must have been like!

Finally we played a game in another room where you throw ping pong balls into any one of 7 cups of water at your opponents end of the table. Each time you get one in, and it’s a lot harder than it sounds, that cup is taken away and the first one with no cups left Loses! Needless to say, Dan won as usual. I don’t think I ever met anyone more competitive!   Git!🤨

All in all, a fantastic evening with some great people and I can’t remember when I ever laughed so much. Dans friend Tommi dropped us home and I barely remember tipping into bed and conking out instantly! Brilliant🍺😴

 

 

We’re at the end of our second week in Kuala Lumpur. Since my last blog we’ve spent a lot of time just relaxing. Because of Chinese New Year we’ve avoided going to a lot of the so-called attractions because thanks to the holiday most of those places would have been heaving with people. Saturday morning (Feb 2) the car which we’d used to go to the Genting Highlands on Friday, wasn’t due to be returned until after lunch so we took the chance to go to a small restaurant called The Daily Grind for breakfast. The menu was completely pork free. I had a normal kind of breakfast but with beef bacon instead of pork. That was a new one for me as I never knew there was such a thing. It was nice though and if I’m absolutely honest I’m not sure I’d be able to tell the difference between beef and pork bacon. After that we drove to a garden centre and had a look around. Dan was after some potting compost for the plants at work, once more, living life on the edge! Getting there meant driving through what looked like (to put it kindly) some of the poorer areas of KL. Having said that though, almost right alongside these poor areas you could find large impressive houses or even mansions with security that turned out to be embassies of various country’s, Qatar being one of them. It seemed strange to see such obvious wealth alongside such equally obvious poverty. Then again, what we see as poverty seems to be the norm for a lot of the people here and they don’t seem unhappy at all.

After finally dropping the car off we got the train to go to yet another Mall. This time it was the Mid Valley Megamall. Whoopee!!!! The journey should have been two train rides but when we got off the first one it turned out there would have been a 25 minute wait for the next one and Daniel assured us that the station which was way underground would be deeply unpleasant as there is no air conditioning so its like an oven. I was happy to take his word for it and instead we went outside to get a grab (taxi). Arriving at the Mid Valley Megamall you realise it’s just like every other mall but much bigger. Consequently you just know you’re in for an afternoon of scintillating excitement. I thought we Brits were obsessive shoppers due mainly to our shit weather but the Malaysians have us beat hands down for the exact opposite reason that the malls are a perfect escape from the heat. Lynne had been having problems with her iPhone not taking a charge which turned out to be because of fluff in the charging port. I had been trying to persuade her to have a Samsung phone if only for the brilliant camera. So far she had resisted all my persuasions but suddenly while we were at Mid Valley she decided it might be good just to take a look at them. 45 minutes later and £650 lighter she had given in and now all three of us have identical phones! Brilliant, I’m sure that will cause some problems in the not too distant future!

Sunday February 3. We had yet another car for the day and Dan drove us to Melaka. Melaka is about a hundred miles away and took roughly 2.5 hours to get to. Having arrived we then needed to find Kiat’s (Dans friend) house. After a short drive around, that proved fruitless Dan phoned Kiat who then came out to meet us. We followed him to his house where his wife provided us with drinks to cool off. We were introduced to his 85-year-old mother who remained seated in a wheelchair having recently fallen, injuring herself thus needing hospital treatment. She was however, obviously still as sharp mentally as ever! After a short chat and being introduced to some more of the family we headed off into the town in Kiat’s car. The car was a small nondescript hatchback and it was fascinating to see the different driving style of the Malaysians. Kiat got in amongst the busy traffic and just pushed in wherever he wanted. It seems quite acceptable to switch lanes and cut in front of people and there never seems to be any hint of road rage. In fact I found myself cringing a couple of times but nobody as much as blew a horn in annoyance the way we might do in the UK. Once the car was parked we commenced a walking tour of Melaka with Kiat as our guide. To say it was hot would be a massive understatement and the walk soon became somewhat of an ordeal. I don’t want that to sound as if we didn’t enjoy ourselves because we did, but blimey it was bloody hot. I was already peeling and itchy from our ill-advised time at the pool the first day or two and I wasn’t going to risk more sunburn so I was wearing a baseball cap to cover my bald bits (my entire head). Melaka is quite a popular tourist destination and being so close to Chinese New Year it was very crowded so opportunities for any kind of photography were very limited. I should try to do more street photography including people but I’ve never been particularly comfortable approaching people. You never know what their response is gonna be. We visited another Chinese temple where people were praying and whilst wandering round an old Chinese lady came and gave us an orange each. Apparently this is good luck. Having thanked her I then thought, well she looks like a bit of a character so I asked politely if I could take her photo, “No no no” was the answer and she couldn’t get away quickly enough! Which perfectly illustrates why I’m uncomfortable with street/people photography. Landscapes are much easier and don’t ever run away!

The rest of the afternoon was spent walking and sweating profusely not necessarily in that order although we did stop for drinks a couple of times. We visited a house museum called the Baba & Nyonya Heritage Museum. The house is a representation of late 19th century and early 20th century Malaya. It gives a fascinating glimpse of the richness of the culture along with the opulence that was fashionable in many pre-World War II Peranakan homes. I copied most of that last bit from an article online. What!? There’s no way I could know that stuff now, is there?

At about 4.30 pm we decided to make a move to start the journey home. This came as a huge relief as Kiat had talked about how nice Melaka was at night with everything lit up. That would have meant maybe another three hours of walking around in the heat. I didn’t think I had another thirty minutes left in me let alone three hours so I was glad to go back to Kiat’s house for drinks before leaving. While we were there Kiat told us about his time spent studying in the US, Kansas to be exact. Apparently he spent 5 years there and also time in Canada before getting his degree in Structural Engineering. He plays the group clown but he’s obviously a clever guy too.

The journey back was straight forward although we did see one dead monkey at the side of the road. It took just two hours to get back to KL and we had to go to another mall (kill me now) to get some shopping. I’m sure this is gonna get interesting at some point when we get our act together and do some travelling but until then we’re just mooching about settling in to life in KL. The days since the trip to Melaka have been spent around KL, on Wednesday we drove up to a Forestry research area expecting to do some walking. The entrance fee was 15 Ringits. That’s about £2.80 but once inside we found that none of the walks we wanted to do were open. The only one we could do was up the side of a waterfall. That would have been enough to keep me happy, I love photographing waterfalls. Unfortunately this one had half the population of Malaysia taking a bath in it! Seriously, there were people splashing about everywhere in the water meaning photography would have been impossible. We did walk up as far as it was possible to go but without having a chainsaw that wasn’t very far. Having given up on that we wandered around for a short while but there wasn’t much to see, just a few monkeys in the trees. Writing off this portion of the trip we decided to head back to KL and go to the Botanical Gardens which is within the city itself. When we got there we walked around the gardens which are incredible but once again we only spent just over an hour before we were beaten by the heat. Back at the car we decided to head back to Desa Park where Lynne and I had gotten slightly drunk a few days previously. As soon as we came out of the carpark we were right on the doorstep of S’mores bar so we sat down to eat.

Because of Chinese New Year everyone with any sense apparently all leave the city and go home to family for the holiday. Consequently, whilst Dan was driving us around, there was only a fraction of the normal traffic on the roads. You still see instances of idiot driving though. As we were traveling along a motorway I noticed a motorbike with two people on it doing a quick u turn in order to travel the wrong way down a slip road that was obviously meant for traffic to enter the motorway not leave it. Apparently that happens all the time. Dan was telling us about a friend of his who got stopped for drink driving. When he asked the police if they could deal with the matter at the roadside they agreed to and demanded 300 ringit which is about £56. When he said he had no money because he’d spent it all on drink, they asked if he knew anyone nearby who could get him the money. He replied that he didn’t know anyone locally so they rooted through his car and settled for a Casio watch which had been in his glovebox. Unbelievable but true! From all accounts it’s not unusual for the police to accompany people to an ATM to obtain their bribe, oops, sorry, fine!👨🏼‍✈️🍺😜.

Thursday we spent the whole day in the apartment and never went anywhere. It was great just chilling out with no pressure to do anything. The most notable part of the day was the storm that hit about 6.00 pm. It started with rain that looked beautiful glinting in the sun but slowly the sun disappeared and the rain got heavier and heavier as time went on. Before long visibility was down to the point where we couldn’t see any of the high-rise blocks or the mountains in the distance. I can honestly say I’ve never seen rain like it. Thunder, lightning, the whole works. Afterwards as the sky cleared the I took this photograph of a fantastic scene just before sunset.

 

Well, we’ve been in Kuala Lumpur just over a week now and so far it’s been a whirlwind tour of various shopping malls. There’s never a day goes by where we don’t visit a shopping mall for some reason or other. On Monday, Lynne and I went into the city to meet Dan for lunch. Unexpectedly for us we also met a couple of his former colleagues. One whose name was Kiat, was obviously the comedian of the group and had us laughing all through lunch. His tip for a happy life was, every morning when you first get up you must laugh at your face in the mirror! He also demonstrated exactly how to laugh which had us all in bits.

Since we had such a great time for Lynne’s birthday we’ve had a couple of days where Lynne and I have spent an hour or so in the gym in the mornings and then gone straight to the pool afterwards. Never really having used a gym before its been quite interesting to use some of the machines. I’ve enjoyed using a running machine. Previously I’d not done a lot of running for some considerable time (years) due to having badly arthritic toes but on the running machine you’re running on a slightly cushioned surface and I’ve found it not to be so painful. As well as that I’ve been using the rowing machine and a cross trainer and even doing a few weights. It certainly gets the heart pumping! The first day we spent an hour in the pool, it was something like 35 degrees and the floor was too hot to walk on in bare feet. To anyone with more than two brain cells this should have set the alarm bells ringing but Lynne and I never gave it a thought as we were in the water most of the time and only later when we returned to the apartment did we realise that we were both burnt to a crisp! Duh!

As I’m writing this it’s now Saturday and the preceding few days have gone by in a bit of a blur! We’ve spent time in the gym and pool and on Thursday Lynne and I got a Grab (taxi) out to a place called Desa Park which seemed to be a whole complex given over to restaurants and bars. After eating a fairly mediocre lunch we wandered round and made our way to the local park and lake. Sounds pretty boring I know but it was quite entertaining trying to spot the birds which we could hear but not see. Eventually as we walked round I caught sight of a large Kingfisher, nothing like the ones at home, this one had a huge long beak and we watched as he flew out and splashed into the lake in search of fish. Walking round the lake we headed back to the restaurants which are actually in a complex called Plaza Arkadia. When we got there we decided it was time to make our way back home. Lynne booked a Grab but we were unsure about whether we were in the right place for him to pick us up. How difficult can it be to find the address you’ve just given the taxi company you might ask. Unfortunately the booking was based on where the phone seemed to think we were located which as far as I can make out turned out to be about a mile and a half away. Lynne ended up speaking to the driver whilst we were running around looking for the address the car was booked to. We couldn’t find it and  after a few minutes I think he gave up the ghost and hung up. Cant really blame him! So now we were stranded with no way of getting back. As we were trying to book the next Grab car it had turned 5.00 pm and obviously in rush hour they were all busy. Eventually we gave up and headed for a local bar called S’mores intending just to have a drink. On top of all this irritation I then decided to redo the biometrics on my phone. The reason for this is that the phone has facial and iris recognition to open it instead of putting a PIN number in all the time (because that’s a real hardship right) and it had stopped recognising me since I’d shaved off my beard! You might think that should have been simple, but it didn’t seem to want to work so after 10 minutes of staring wide-eyed into the little circles on the phone trying to get it to register my irises I gave up, telling Lynne the phone (which she bought me for Christmas) was a load of rubbish and having a proper kiddie tantrum!! Twenty minutes later as we decided to eat as well as drink, the afternoon took on a different mood once the drink took effect. We ended up getting slightly merry and having a really nice time so the taxi cock-up was a blessing in the end. Later when we left we gave Grab a proper location to pick us up and the whole system worked like a dream!

I don’t know if it was the drink or what but that night I found it impossible to sleep. The heat doesn’t help but itchy sunburn played its part too. By 4.00 am I hadn’t slept a wink and I gave up and went into the living room to watch you tube videos for a couple of hours. At 6.00 I went back to bed and actually managed to sleep for about 3 hours before getting up.

Friday was a national holiday in Malaysia and the plan was to go up to the Genting Highlands which we can see from Dans apartment when it isn’t shrouded in cloud. That should give some idea of how high up it is. Dan hired a car for the day and he did the driving thankfully! It took something like 40 minutes to get almost all the way there except that on the way we stopped off at a Chinese temple for a look around. The temple is called Chin Swee Caves Temple and was well worth the visit. There are displays depicting 10 chambers of hell showing what can happen when you’re naughty in all manner of ways and to say they’re graphic would be an understatement! Below are a couple of photos to illustrate just how gory some of the exhibits are.

The second photo isn’t all that gory really but I’ve included it anyway as there seemed to be a feeling that he looked slightly like me! I can’t quite work out who should feel more insulted, him or me? We wandered around a pool full of Terrapins while a group of Chinese visitors were letting off firecrackers. I’m not sure whether or not this happens all the time or just this time of year with Chinese new year fast approaching but they were horrendously loud. The Terrapins however, seemed completely unaffected by them, probably stone deaf! Another highlight of our visit to the temple was a walk up the inside of the Pagoda. This entailed 9 flights of stairs with 30 steps each. Needless to say there was some heavy breathing by the time we got to the top but what breathtaking views! Sensationally gory exhibits aside the whole temple complex was fascinating to see. Equally interesting to see were the Chinese people praying and lighting sticks of incense. As usual where there are people praying I felt slightly like an intruder but we kept a respectful silence whilst inside.

After visiting the temple I took the opportunity to take a photograph of the fantastic view from the car park.  This is the result. You can just about see the far off city through the haze in the right of the frame.

We left the temple car park and continued up the mountain road toward the Casino complex at the top. When we got out of the car it was noticeable how different the temperature was at the top. Down nearer the city the temperature was its usual 33 degrees and at the top near the casino it was 20/21 degrees. For those of us unused to the heat it came as quite a welcome relief. The complex at the top is huge and includes a large indoor fun fair that has to be seen to be believed. There are all the usual puke inducing rides all set close to each other with the screams of the people riding them ringing out in the chaos! We sat down to eat in a pizza place. Very Malaysian I know, Neapolitan Pizza. My choice I’m afraid.  Lynne and Dan were polite enough to let me have my own way this time. Consequently we sat in a place otherwise devoid of customers and atmosphere!

Leaving the Casino we headed for home or so I thought but Dan had other ideas. Driving down the mountain back towards the city we were on a 3 lane highway which would have been fine except for the speed bumps all the way down. The Malaysian drivers don’t seem to have much in the way of lane discipline and just drift all over the place. This all made for quite slow progress. I can only imagine the local drivers aren’t to be trusted to drive safely so the speed bumps probably pay dividends in terms of lives saved. Once back nearer the city we proceed via a tortuous route through all sorts of back streets and dodgy looking areas with motorbikes and mopeds everywhere to get to a viewpoint over the city. Dan had obviously asked at work where we could go to photograph the city at night and this led us to arrive at Bukit Ampang with wonderful views of the city in the distance. The entire road was lined with people who all had the same idea. Unfortunately the far off city looked as though it was swathed in a murky haze which was grey and not pretty. Instead of twinkling lights the whole city looked as if it was engulfed in its own all-pervading grey cloud and pouring with rain. I took photos but none which I would deem good enough to share. It was a great location though and I’m sure we’ll try to get back there sometime and hope for better conditions! On the way home we couldn’t resist a last visit to one of the local malls! This time out of necessity though as we were in need of groceries! Having said that I think in the week we’ve been here we’ve eaten in once. When eating out is as cheap as it is in KL it hardly makes any sense to cook yourself!

 

Our second full day in Kuala Lumpur was Lynne’s birthday. The previous day was spent recovering from the previous couple of days traveling. We had breakfast locally which was interesting as we had Roti (something like a flaky pastry that’s actually a kind of flat bread) and some kind of curry sauce. I asked for tea and found that they serve pulled tea made with condensed milk and sugar syrup that tastes so sweet all your teeth should drop out! I’ll be doing my best to avoid that in future. Having said that, the whole breakfast for three of us cost the equivalent of £2.50.

The rest of the day we took the train into KLCC (Kuala Lumpur City Center) and wandered around the mall there which is right next to the Petronas Towers. I’m not a particularly big fan of shopping but there are so many Malls in KL and they all offer respite from the heat and humidity outside. It seems to me that if the weather outside was nothing like so hot, the footfall and general level of custom in the malls would probably drop radically! After this short visit to KLCC we decided we needed to ramp up the excitement a little so we got a taxi to Ikea! Yes! you read it correctly, IKEA!😡 Lynne had decided we need more coat hangers and it doesn’t get more exciting than that! If there’s anyone reading this who thinks “why on earth does this guy think we want to know about a trip to Ikea?” I’d like to remind you that this whole blog is primarily meant as a diary of events for our benefit but this whole published format serves as my motivation to get it done every day!🧐

So, after our first day in KL I was tired and leg-weary. I do think the heat has a way of sapping your strength and I was really feeling it. I’ve never been a big believer in jet lag but this time I was definitely feeling the effects. That night we had takeout and stayed in.

Which brings us to Lynne’s birthday, Sunday January 27. I was up at 8.00am in spite of the fact that Daniel and I had stayed up until 1.00am watching football. Villa struggling to beat bottom of the table Ipswich town 2-1, not the most exciting match. Lynne didn’t surface until 10.30am and immediately berated me for not waking her up. You can’t win can you, if I’d gone and woken her she would have berated me for that too! Dan only appeared just after Lynne and suggested we go out for breakfast which given the time turned out to be brunch. We took a taxi to a place called Bangsar Village. A quite affluent area judging by some of the cars we saw parked on the street. When you realise how much it costs to import a car into Malaysia its quite surprising to see Ferrari’s and the like cruising around. The cost of buying a European car is apparently unbelievably prohibitive but there are still lots of them about. Parking in the Bangsar area looked like a nightmare though and we were happy with the taxi service that dropped us at the door of the restaurant. Daniel had chosen a place called Antipodean which obviously had an Australian touch about it. After brunch which we finished at roughly 1.30pm (you could hardly class that as breakfast) we wandered through the area taking in a street food market and even popping into the local guitar shop. It certainly made a change from the big shopping malls we’d frequented so far on this trip, but hey, I spoke too soon because then we found ourselves in the ubiquitous mall. We didn’t stay long though and soon made our way back to Dans apartment to get ready to go out for the evening.

Dan had booked a table for 7.30 in a new Chinese restaurant called Yen in the W Hotel close to the Petronas Towers. Once again we arrived by taxi. It seems the best way to get around is by car. There’s a company called Grab, you have their app and set up an account and just call for a car anytime. No money changes hands in the car and there’s no need ever to tip. It’s all very civilised and makes you wonder why anyone living in or near KL would ever have a car of their own. Anyway, when we got to Yen there was only one other table occupied. We sat down and it quickly became obvious that this was a fine dining establishment. However, the young people serving appeared to be trainees which didn’t bode well. So the service wasn’t exactly on the ball and I could see Daniel starting to get irritated with them. I think its safe to say he doesn’t suffer fools gladly. Still, we were presented with menus and ordered a bottle of Cloudy Bay Sauvignon. We’d been sat down for 20 minutes or so when Dans girlfriend, Shanthya turned up which came as a total surprise to Lynne and I as he hadn’t said anything to either of us about her coming. It turned out that he hadn’t known if she would make it or not. She is a paediatric surgeon and had been on a 24 hour shift the previous day only getting home at 3.00am but still being on call till 8.00am. You couldn’t have blamed her for not making it but having now met her we were glad she did as she was an absolute delight.

We ordered all kinds of food with the intention of having it in the middle of the table and everyone share keeping in mind that Lynne is vegetarian. I was actually surprised she agreed to stay after seeing foie gras on the menu but she managed to contain her dislike of the dish having previously sworn never to eat anywhere that serves it! Unfortunately  Daniel ordered Dim Sum without realising it would include foie gras. Consequently Lynne and I ended up swapping so that she wouldn’t have foie gras on her plate and I had to eat two lots instead. I’d rather not have eaten it but I managed to put my own principles to one side and must admit it was delicious! There were certain things on the table I was slightly unsure about and the following picture shows one. I could see why this little fella might have been pissed off but with a face like that he was only ever going to be at the bottom of the food chain! The only other thing I didn’t like was that any time you order chicken in Malaysia it all comes on the bone. Trying to eat bony chicken with chopsticks is gonna take a lot of practice I’m thinking.

We had a wonderful meal and the wine and conversation flowed in equally enjoyable measures. By the time we finished there were 3 or 4 other tables occupied but it was still quiet and I think our laughter must have been quite disturbing for them especially when the waiter came up with a strange kind of birthday cake and we all sang happy birthday!

After we finished and Dan picked up the bill (phew😉) we went up to the 11th floor to the WET Deck. When we walked in we were taken to a table with an ok view of the city and I could see Shanthya and Dan asking for a better one at the side of the swimming pool which had a centre section with what I can only assume was dry ice pouring out of it like a permanent fog. Initially all the better tables were reserved but strangely as soon as we ordered a bottle of gin at a rough cost equivalent of £120 one became magically available. So we were finally sat looking out at the Petronas Towers. Its difficult to imagine having a better city view and we had a great time taking in the atmosphere.

All in all a magical night which I’m sure will live on in our memories for a long time to come. A fitting celebration of the birthday of my lovely wife who is as beautiful now as the day we met more than 30 years ago!😍😘

Lynne and I spent the whole day of Wednesday January 23 racing around in between bouts of packing in preparation for our 3 month trip to Kuala Lumpur. For me, this is the least enjoyable and most stressful part of traveling. The problems begin, trying to comply with the weight restrictions imposed by the airline. Check in luggage isn’t such a huge problem but carry on bags have to be kept to a maximum of 7kg. For someone like myself who carries a lot of camera gear this is a major pain in the butt! My camera bag with half of what I would ideally take with me weighs nearer 8/9kg. Then you have to add in an iPad Pro and a laptop. The airlines are getting a lot stricter these days so for the first time ever I put one of my lenses in one of the check in bags. That’s something most photographers would never do and I often wonder what on earth the professionals do when they carry far more equipment than me.

Anyway, after an exhausting day of last-minute preparations which included making the house as secure as is humanly possible we decided to leave the last few chores until the next morning. Our flight to KL was at 2.05pm so we needed to be at the airport not long after 11.00am. Obviously with so little time left, Lynne had booked an appointment to have her hair done that morning. While she was away I finished off my packing and ran round with the vacuum so that in theory at least the place should be quite respectable for when we return in May. Lynne returned from the hairdresser looking lovely as usual and by 10.45 I thought we were ready to go. At that moment she decided that the pair of shoes (flatties) that she planned to travel in needed repairing! The sole was flapping off at the front. Her idea was to use Gorilla glue (seems to think that’ll work with anything). The only problem as I advised her was that Gorilla glue takes about 10 hours to cure so I grabbed a tube of superglue and tried that, getting it all over my fingers as usual. So now I have dried superglue on two of my fingers which I just managed to pry apart and Lynne has gone to plan B which is simply a different pair of shoes! Half way to the airport Lynne realised that she hadn’t picked up the Malaysian currency which amounted to the equivalent of £70. This is totally par for the course where we are concerned, a bit like spending countless hours poring over a map of Norway marking off destinations to visit and then forgetting to take the bloody thing to Norway with you which is exactly what we did last year!🤨

Arriving at the airport brings us back to the problem of weight. We joined the queue for check in which thankfully didn’t take too long. Whilst waiting we could see people having their hand luggage weighed and having to open check in bags and swap things around to comply with the restrictions. I already had my camera with quite a hefty lens hanging on its strap over my shoulder as I’d read that this is acceptable but I knew my bag was still overweight. I took out my iPad Pro and put it under my jacket tucked into my armpit! I was now confident my bag would be within the limit. When they called us forward I managed to heave the check in bags (30kg) onto the scale without dropping the iPad clamped firmly under my armpit! Everything was weighed including carry on and we walked through to departures. So having put the camera and iPad back in the bag we then had to empty them all out to go through the X-ray checks. Belts, watches, phone, laptops and tablets all have to go through. None of this is anything people who have flown won’t already know about but what a pain in the arse! Lynne and I then go through the metal detector and out the other way to be reunited with our stuff except that Lynne’s handbag and our watches didn’t reappear. Momentary panic ensued until I realised they had been shoved sideways onto a different conveyor to be manually inspected. We then had to wait while a woman who could best be described as grumpy (yes I know, pot, kettle, black!) inspected someone else’s bag. When she got to ours it turned out Lynne had left a tub of one of her anti ageing creams in there. (Not working are they). Having established what the problem was, the whole bag then has to go through X-ray again. Mrs Grump told us we would have to wait a couple of minutes. After something nearer 10 minutes I was beginning to lose patience. It was then that I looked at the X-ray unit about 20 yards further on only to see Lynnes bag sitting there. No one had told us to go to a different unit and we were left wondering whether they actually enjoy winding people up. Maybe that’s the only way they can get through the day.

Long story short, we didn’t have to wait long in the departure lounge before boarding our Qatar Airlines flight to Doha which took off smack on time at 2.05pm. The flight was pleasant enough partly due to the plane being half empty so that we had 3 seats to ourselves which was nice. Arriving in Doha after just 6 hours 15 minutes we then had a wait of 2.5 hours for our flight to Kuala Lumpur but not before we’d gone through the whole X-ray ritual again. Equally as tedious as the one in Birmingham but ultimately necessary I suppose.

Doha airport was quite impressive with various huge artworks to admire. The following photo is of a rather large wooden boy, I have no idea what significance it has but there I am just to give a sense of scale.

The flight to KL was only half full just like the first one. This time we were flying through the night and we both tried to sleep. Like a proper sad sack I decided to watch It’s a Wonderful Life starring James Stewart. For the first time in years it hadn’t been on at Christmas so I took this opportunity to see it now. It’s an old favourite I never tire of! The rest of the time I spent sleeping on and off. This flight lasted just under 7 hours. After we’d been in the air for about 2.5 hours we hit the worst turbulence I’ve ever experienced. This went on for at least an hour and for the first time in all the years I’ve flown we experienced momentary weightlessness, as in, bum’s briefly left seat! Twice😳. Landing in Kuala Lumpur at 2.45pm we were 45 minutes early. It took roughly 15 minutes to get through immigration and then onto baggage reclaim. As soon as we got there, our bags were already on the carousel. This is in stark contrast to our usual experience in Birmingham where it’s not unheard of to have to wait an hour or more for bags to appear! Passing with our bags through customs we wandered out to look for our prearranged driver. Daniel had arranged for a car to pick us up and all we had to do was find someone holding my name up. It took about 5 minutes to get to the car and an hour or so to reach Daniels apartment after a tortuous drive into the city and out again. Kuala Lumpur has masses of construction going on which seems to affect the roads and routes around the city and I think its fair to say that the drivers really earn their money.

So, that was our journey to Kuala Lumpur. Ultimately uneventful but with all the usual irritations and a period of turbulence that left you wondering how the plane didn’t fall apart!

That evening we hung on and went out to eat just to stop ourselves falling asleep. Returning to the apartment we watched the latest episode of the Grand Tour with the 3 Top Gear idiots. I boldly predicted that Lynne would fall asleep within two minutes and then proceeded to do so myself!😴

 

On our third day in Edinburgh we took a walk down by the sea. The grey and murky day was perfectly reflected by the equally murky sea. The wind was blowing off the water adding to the windchill factor. To put it mildly, it was bloody freezing! Needless to say the walk didn’t last long and we were soon back at the motorhome. The walk had been a minor interruption to what had so far been a very lazy day. At about 3.30 pm we decided to head into town again. Lynne wanted to buy some pyjama bottoms because of being cold in bed. In the end she bought some leggings from Primark for the princely sum of £2.50.

I’d said the other day that it would be interesting to see the Christmas market at the weekend to see how busy it would be. Well, it was absolutely packed with all the ensuing chaos that comes from huge crowds of people channeled into narrow walkways lined with market stalls. We walked up to the Royal Mile looking for somewhere to eat. At the top of the Royal Mile close to the castle there’s a restaurant called the Witchery. We’d seen it a couple of days previously and because of Lynne’s natural affinity with all things witch related we quite fancied eating there. Having looked at the menu however, it turned out that it would cost at least £80 before drinks. That seemed a bit rich for us and ultimately we decided against it. As I’m writing this I’ve just looked at the Witchery online and it looks amazing. I kind of wish we’d tried it now but maybe we wouldn’t  have fitted in all that well in jeans and walking boots. Having made our way back down the hill and back towards the Christmas market we came across a restaurant called Whiski Rooms on North Bank Street. We’d noticed this place on the way up and thought it looked nice. When we walked in and asked for a table for two they said they would see what they could do. A minute later the guy came back to say there would be a table but they had to prepare it. Within two minutes the table was ready and we were led through to the next room. I find it almost comical when they go to all that trouble to look busy and you walk to your rocking horse shit rare table, only to find it sitting alongside about ten other empty tables. I’m sorry to sound cynical but it makes no sense to me!

That little rant over I have to say that the restaurant was very nice. Looking at the menu it seemed like every dish was accompanied by a whiskey recommended to compliment the food. We had Hummus and Flatbreads for starters. Lynne had Haddock and chips and I ordered Haggis which came with bashed neeps. I had absolutely no idea what bashed neeps were. They turned out to be mashed turnip and although I’m not a lover of turnip, these turned out to be delicious! Also we both ordered the accompanying whiskeys. Lynne’s was a 12 year old Glenkinchie while mine was called Ardbeg Uigedail pronounced Oog-a-dal. The waiter warned me it was a smokey one and he wasn’t kidding. I’m not a big whiskey drinker but this stuff was fantastic. Along with the whiskey was a glass of water and a pipette to apply drops of water in the spirit. The waiter advised us to try the whiskey neat and then add five drops of water which he said released the flavour. Long story short, the food was great, the whiskey was beautiful and the service brilliant. Lynne and I both agreed that our time in Scotland had confounded all our preconceived ideas about the Scottish people. The waiter whose name was David was just confirmation of this as his service was probably the best we’ve had in years! On leaving the restaurant I wanted to go and find a bottle of Ardbeg Uigedail to see how much it would cost. The shot I had in the restaurant was £9.50. There was a shop on the Royal Mile selling all kinds of whiskeys but we couldn’t find the one I’d had. What we did find however were some incredibly expensive bottles. The first one I saw was £3800 but by the time we’d had a good look around the shop we’d found a bottle of Glenfiddich which was a snip at £25000. Who on earth pays £25000 for a bottle of whiskey?

Before fighting our way through the Christmas market crowds to get to the bus stop Lynne bought a cashmere scarf for £45 from a shop on the Royal Mile which was quite expensive enough for my tastes. We timed our bus ride perfectly as it started to rain almost as soon as we were on our way.

The following day (Sunday) it rained pretty much the whole day so Lynne and I spent the whole day lazing around in the motorhome. Great!

Monday morning we set off for home. We left the Caravan and Motorhome Club Edinburgh site at about 10.15 am. By way of a slight detour we headed for the Forth Bridge which was only about 20 minutes away. We were there for all of five minutes while I jumped out and took photos of the Bridge.

As we drove away we were struck by the pretty little village of South Queensferry. Edinburgh and the surrounding areas are definitely penciled in for a visit in the summer next year. Next location en route was Falkirk where I wanted to see the Kelpies. Kelpies are mythological shape changers. According to the artist, Andy Scott, they represent the lineage of Scottish industry and economy, pulling the wagons, ploughs, barges and coal ships that shaped the geographical layout of the Falkirk area. Whatever they represent you can’t help but be impressed by the sheer size of them and they really do seem to evoke a very palpable equine spirit. Leaving the Kelpies behind and back on the M9 we started to see signs for the Falkirk Wheel so having decided we would most likely stay in Gretna tonight rather than try to make it home in one day, we did another detour to see it too. Unfortunately we found it only opens Wednesday to Sunday so we could only see the wheel from afar and, once again it was raining so we didn’t hang about.

After the Falkirk Wheel fail, we headed directly to Gretna. Arriving at 3.30 pm we checked in at the Braids Caravan Park which is where we stayed the first night we were away. This time when we walked into the small shed which passes for a reception it absolutely reeked of cigarettes. The guy at the desk was friendly enough but jeez what a stink. As soon as we were settled in we walked down the road to the designer outlet for another dose of terminal boredom around the shops! So a relatively short trip over and back home tomorrow before the weather takes a turn for the worst as predicted by the forecasters. Apart from my solo trip a couple of weeks previously this was only the second time Lynne and I had spent any time in Scotland. I think it’s fair to say that it blew all our preconceptions about Scotland and it’s people out of the water! Literally everyone we’ve had dealings with or spoken to have been extremely friendly and helpful, and I’m not only talking of people in the service industry’s. That impression we always have of the Scottish people not liking us seems from our experience to be wholly unfounded! Speaking for myself, I can’t wait to go back!

 

Lynne and I have spent two days so far in Edinburgh and thoroughly enjoyed it. Initially we were booked in for three nights with us having to move to another pitch for the third night because at the time of booking that was the only way we could get three nights. On the first morning we spoke to the young lady at reception and she promised to try to work it so that we wouldn’t have to move after the second night. We caught a bus and for our first visit to the city. First impressions were of a vibrant, big bustling city and walking around, it only got better. The first thing we saw was that there is a large Christmas market. We’ve been to a few Christmas markets in our time including ones in Germany and we agreed this was the nicest one we’d been to. It’s really well organised and not too crowded. Having said that it would be interesting to see at the weekend. We actually ended up buying three different cheeses from a stall called the Cheshire Cheese Company, yeah, I know, not really classic Christmas fayre! Lynne wanted to see the Royal Mile so we set off to find it. It wasn’t hard to see what was the best-selling product on the Royal Mile. There was wall to wall Cashmere everywhere. To be fair it is wonderful stuff but hellishly expensive. We walked up and down the Royal Mile and came across a gents outfitters where a Harris Tweed Jacket in the window caught my eye. I decided to go in and try one on. The lady in the shop was very helpful and it wasn’t long until I agreed to buy the jacket. I don’t know where the idea came from but I was expecting it to cost about £140 but the she rang it up on the till and it came up £275! I almost fell over! I seriously wasn’t expecting that. Lesson learnt, ASK! For a millisecond I considered saying I’d changed my mind but a nod from Lynne suggested I just carry on and buy it! Well at least there will be a day in the near future where I (the lifelong scruff) will look smart for a change. 

Back at the campsite we paid for our first two nights with cash and asked if there was any chance of an extra couple of nights including Saturday. At that time they had no vacancies but the following morning (Friday) we went to reception and we were told there had been a cancellation which meant we at least didn’t have to move pitches. Not long afterwards they rang to say there had been another cancellation and that we could have the same pitch for Saturday and Sunday nights if we still wanted. Hence we are staying in Edinburgh until Monday. Later in the day we returned to the city. This time I carried a camera and tripod and the first thing we did was to walk up Calton Hill which gives wonderful views all over the city. Once more I found myself photographing a subject that’s been done many times before. The weather looks pretty bleak although the day was a huge improvement on the previous day when it rained almost continuously.

Afterwards we wandered back down to the Christmas market where I had a German sausage to stave off hunger pangs after the exertion of climbing Calton Hill. Lynne had a veggie burger which they cooked fresh while we waited. Later we walked to the other end of town to an area called Dean Village which has a river running through it called Water of Leith. It’s a pretty place with lots of old 19th century buildings. I like to think the following couple of photo’s capture the atmosphere of the place. It’s a good job there’s no sound though as while I was setting up to take this photo there was someone with a petrol leaf blower making a fair old racket which was just a little bit irritating!

Returning to Princes Street which seems to be the heart of the city, we went back to a shop where Lynne had seen a woolen coat that she liked. After a little toing and froing (?) and trying different styles she eventually bought the one she’d liked in the first place. As it was now getting dark we decided to make our way back to the campsite. It took a while getting a bus because we’re never quite sure which one to get. Also at rush hour the area around the bus stops was more than slightly chaotic! On the bus with no clear idea of exactly where it would drop us, I followed our progress on Google maps looking for clues where to get off. In the end the bus driver was really helpful and told us exactly where to get off for the most direct walk back to camp.

Later that evening we decided to take a walk to the local Morrisons which turned out to be a good 25 minutes away. Life on the edge eh!