Mainland Lame-aysia.

I flew into a small airport in Kuala Lumpur (from Koh Samui), and they didn't have easy transport into town. I got a cab to Chinatown, and a local lady ended up sharing with me at no discount to either of us. She worked at a hotel on Lankawi island, and her English was superb. She gave me some tips about Malaysia, and I eventually got to Reggae Mansion Hostel and reunited with Joyce, whom I had missed terribly. We have a great time together as we think the exact same way and have the same attitudes towards the same things. 

Reggae Mansion KL Dorm.

She did some touristy things with me that she had already done before - some malls, the Petronas Towers, other popular parts of town, etc. You could pretty much get KL covered in one day. We also encountered a couple issues in Bukit Bintang - we just wanted to sit. Apparently, you are not allowed to sit on the sidewalk or anywhere. We didn't accept this well. Check out Joyce's blog here for more on our adventures. 

The next couple days were pretty boring. We decided to go up to Cameron Highlands - Tenah Rata - to visit the BOH Tea Plantation and strawberry farms. We had some rainy weather and spent an evening writing blogs in Starbucks instead of exploring. However, we managed to get some fabulous Indian food dinner sets for less than $3. The tea plantation was really beautiful, but of all the strawberry farms we could have gone to, we were taken to one that was grown by hydroponics, and we only saw a few rows of it. Needless to say, it was unimpressive. 

BOH Tea Plantation 

But Cameron Highlands was good for delicious, cheap Indian food - $2.50 

After a night there, we went further north to Penang. It's supposed to be famous for food, but we found nothing notable. We spent the whole day visiting all of the landmarks and tourist sites as marked on the tourist map. We wanted to sleep at Reggae Penang because we loved the one in KL, but they only had one cubby bed left. We were determined to stay there anyway, and we agreed to share one bed in a small room full of 15 smelly boys - what were we thinking? Well, it wasn't the worst place I've ever stayed. 


We covered Penang in 24 hours and headed back to the luxurious comforts of Reggae Mansion KL. Of course, there still wasn't anything to do in KL, but at least we had a comfortable place to sleep with breakfast included. We still found plenty of ways to entertain ourselves - we laid out on the roof, and I finished the last 50% of Shantaram which had taken me two months to get through the first half. 


Unfortunately, there was nothing impressive or worthwhile about mainland Malaysia, which is why it earned the very appropriate name "Lame-aysia." There was nothing particularly interesting to see, the people weren't friendly or helpful, and it was way too expensive for what it was. If it wasn't to have more time with Joyce, I would have left sooner than I did, but when the company is good, you can enjoy yourself anywhere; just better if it is cheaper!