Malaysia - Part 2
Spending the night on the streets/at the railway station
It was a long long night and I don’t want to elaborate. We were in KL and missed our bus back to our hotel in Genting (Genting is an hour away and there was no other way to get to there except for that one bus, because the alternate mode of transport, the skyway, was closed).
What followed was a whole night of hotel lobby-hopping, lounging on the steps outside the Petronas at dawn, sleeping at the railway station until finally we caught the bus back at 8 am in the morning. We nearly cried tears of joy when we finally lay on the soft mattresses and clean sheets.
Hard Rock Café & DB8
Another of my wishes was fulfilled in KL – going to a Hard Rock Café. Ok so this one was miles away from the original American ones but it’s a Hard Rock Café nevertheless. And I sat under an INXS guitar! The night we went there, there was a band from Philippines performing. Kickass band called DB8. They played Greenday, U2, No Doubt, Hoobastank’s new single… and they were damn good! I have never enjoyed covers so much!
Artificial beauty can be stunning:
There’s this Oasis song Little by Little which has this line that goes “True perfection has to be imperfect”. Every time I hear the song I think to myself how true that line is and how strongly I believe in it. But in KL I realized that perfection can be fascinating too. Pretty much all of Kuala Lumpur’s beauty is man-made. The Petronas, the lake gardens, the insanely massive malls, perfectly landscaped patches everywhere, trees of the exact same height planted in absolute straight lines……it was all so artificial, yet so stunning. While I’m all for natural beauty, I think artificial beauty has its own charm too. All that perfection does get scary, or seems to be too good to be true… but yet, it is quite captivating. And coming from an absolutely imperfect city where even one meter of decent road does not exist, KL’s flawless infrastructure was a refreshing change.
Shopping for size:
Getting stuff in my size was a bitch in KL. Everything was so miniature! The average shoe size was 3 or 4 so obviously when I walked in with my giant feet asking for a size 7 or 8 they all just stared at me for a minute and then went in to check (for courtesy sake) and came out saying “no size no size”. I did manage two pairs of shoes with great difficulty, but neither was among my first choice. I did have better luck with clothes though. Luckily I’m of the average universal size… but I did have to dig through piles of XXS tops and 23-waist jeans to get to the ‘larger’ section which had clothes for me. This is the first time I have bought clothes that only belonged to the L and above categories. I can’t imagine the ordeal that the actual large size women (by Indian standards) would have to face while shopping there.
Getting home:
The journey from Bombay airport to my home in Pune was one of the worst experiences of my life. My advice to everyone – NEVER ever take the KK Travels airport transfer. However fancy their website seems and however much they try & impress you on the phone, do not fall for it. It is absolutely the worst and most torturous journey ever. I usually don’t lose my temper very much, especially not at strangers, but this journey made me go ballistic.
With that out of the way, homecoming is always bittersweet – I love coming back to my house, my family, my friends and my bed. But I hate the feeling of the end of a vacation and getting back to grind.
Spending the night on the streets/at the railway station
It was a long long night and I don’t want to elaborate. We were in KL and missed our bus back to our hotel in Genting (Genting is an hour away and there was no other way to get to there except for that one bus, because the alternate mode of transport, the skyway, was closed).
What followed was a whole night of hotel lobby-hopping, lounging on the steps outside the Petronas at dawn, sleeping at the railway station until finally we caught the bus back at 8 am in the morning. We nearly cried tears of joy when we finally lay on the soft mattresses and clean sheets.
Hard Rock Café & DB8
Another of my wishes was fulfilled in KL – going to a Hard Rock Café. Ok so this one was miles away from the original American ones but it’s a Hard Rock Café nevertheless. And I sat under an INXS guitar! The night we went there, there was a band from Philippines performing. Kickass band called DB8. They played Greenday, U2, No Doubt, Hoobastank’s new single… and they were damn good! I have never enjoyed covers so much!
Artificial beauty can be stunning:
There’s this Oasis song Little by Little which has this line that goes “True perfection has to be imperfect”. Every time I hear the song I think to myself how true that line is and how strongly I believe in it. But in KL I realized that perfection can be fascinating too. Pretty much all of Kuala Lumpur’s beauty is man-made. The Petronas, the lake gardens, the insanely massive malls, perfectly landscaped patches everywhere, trees of the exact same height planted in absolute straight lines……it was all so artificial, yet so stunning. While I’m all for natural beauty, I think artificial beauty has its own charm too. All that perfection does get scary, or seems to be too good to be true… but yet, it is quite captivating. And coming from an absolutely imperfect city where even one meter of decent road does not exist, KL’s flawless infrastructure was a refreshing change.
Shopping for size:
Getting stuff in my size was a bitch in KL. Everything was so miniature! The average shoe size was 3 or 4 so obviously when I walked in with my giant feet asking for a size 7 or 8 they all just stared at me for a minute and then went in to check (for courtesy sake) and came out saying “no size no size”. I did manage two pairs of shoes with great difficulty, but neither was among my first choice. I did have better luck with clothes though. Luckily I’m of the average universal size… but I did have to dig through piles of XXS tops and 23-waist jeans to get to the ‘larger’ section which had clothes for me. This is the first time I have bought clothes that only belonged to the L and above categories. I can’t imagine the ordeal that the actual large size women (by Indian standards) would have to face while shopping there.
Getting home:
The journey from Bombay airport to my home in Pune was one of the worst experiences of my life. My advice to everyone – NEVER ever take the KK Travels airport transfer. However fancy their website seems and however much they try & impress you on the phone, do not fall for it. It is absolutely the worst and most torturous journey ever. I usually don’t lose my temper very much, especially not at strangers, but this journey made me go ballistic.
With that out of the way, homecoming is always bittersweet – I love coming back to my house, my family, my friends and my bed. But I hate the feeling of the end of a vacation and getting back to grind.
posted by HawaHawaii at 1:10 PM
7 Comments:
i would second the KK travel saga...i never realised mozzies could suck blood and buzz around you, when the window is open and the bus is travelling at 100km/h...this happened three yrs back thou...
How'd it feel to be homeless for a night...? about cab drivers...watch 'night on earth'..brilliant movie..spans across 5 cities...and 4 different languages...take care...
This post has been removed by a blog administrator.
@mo - your bus went at 100kmh!? mine was at 1 km/h.. that too when it was speeding.
anyways.. had a great time inspite of this. don't u regret ditching us now? :-)
well i do...i really do...but i shdnt worry a trip to 'a' is due soon..when shd i expect u...?
we would like to hear more abt the 'going ballistic' experience...especially wen strangers are involved...yes, we are annoyingly curious rnt we?
You mean the horrible KK travels journey...fuck don't ask.
Basically, the triggers for me going ballistic involved
1) phone out of battery
2) 2 crying kids
3) most uncomfortable seat
4) faaltu air conditioning
5) horribly bumpy ride
6) driver insisting that I will be dropped last because the "route" is such. My emotional plea of "bhaiyya mein akeli ladki hun, raat ke 2 baj gaye hai, mere mummy-papa mere liye ruke honge..please aap kuch kadar kijiye" was also met with absolute indifference.
As if this wasn't bad enough, by the time it was 4 am (I was in the bus since 9.30 pm), we were still bumping along the roads in the far off corners of paud road.
My house is a good 45 minutes (or by the bus' speed, around 90 minutes) away, in kalyani nagar. And then the driver decides to go all the way to Market Yard and THEN to my place. Which means it would take me another two hours to reach home!!
That's when I began to go ballistic. Remember, I had been in the bus since 9.30 pm the previous night.
So I went in to the driver's cabin, yelled that I will publish his crap in the newspaper, banged his cabin door, went back in and told him to just drop me to my office NOW (NOW NOW RIGHT NOW), banged his cabin door, went back in and told him to give me his phone to call my parents, he said it's out of battery, banged his cabin door, took a phone offered to me by a very sweet man, called my parents and whined and then realised that they were going even crazier than i was so attempted to calm them down by shouting even more, dropped my bags while tryong to carry them, said a million sorrys to the phone-lending guy.... and finally, 7 hours after I boarded that dreadful bus, I finally got off on FC road (which is still half an hour away from my place), got picked up by my parents and went home.
wow.
Post a Comment
<< Home