Malaysia Road Trip- Epidose 2

Life is getting funner day by day, and I am obliged to blog ever so often so that I may share my joy with the rest of the world... though the feeling that most of you are probably experiencing right now, hearing our exploits, could be more aptly described as misery!!! (c'mon guys admit it, you are jealous. It happens la, "Life's unfair, deal with it"). Okay okay, enough with it.

What's struck me the last few days is the irony of life and the brilliance of its unpredictability. Being an Indian, cricket runs in my arteries... or is it capillaries, or wait... isn't it veins, oh screw it, let's just say blood shall we, I have never gone to a stadium to watch a match, and on the other hand, if there's one sport whose world following and economic power, baffles me its F1, and on the third front, during our last visit to Malaysia, while we were leaving Kuala Lampur, we kept looking back at the Petronas Towers thinking, "Pata nahin abhi kab mauka milega, vaapis dekhne ka". It's hardly been 3 weeks now, we're going back to Malaysia again on a road trip and to watch the Malaysian Grand Prix. Awesome right? Fine, so if green stands for envy, you must right now be preparing your own food.. you know, green..uhh. photosynthesis. Yeah, really bad joke, but lite.

Last time, we were driving out of Malacca, on our way to Kuala Lampur. There wasn't a lot of getting lost this time, as the roads were pretty much our guide. One thing that strikes you in Malaysia, is the scale of things. Everything is just 10-15 times bigger than in Singapore. The housing areas, the forested areas, the cities and even the hills. The speed limit was 90kmph, and everyone, in every lane, obediently stayed above it. When you keep moving for so long at such speeds, your frame of reference gets altered. So when you do eventually get down, you half expect every bus, to whizz past you.

The thing about a road trip to a foreign country is that, when you arrive, you spend hours and days trying to get to know the roads, and just when you get the hang of it, it's time to leave, and the point is lost.

But I can tell you this for sure, there's no joy, like driving around in circles in a foreign country, where no two passers-by seem to agree on the right road to take to a landmark(Petronas Towers) that can be seen from everywhere, where no turn is right(as in wrong, for those of you who are slow and didn't get the intended pun), where you get so hopelessly lost-you start to get what that guy meant by, "It's the journey, not the destination" with a digicam having full battery and a carton full of pringles!! We did eventually find the place, and predictably, it was a street that we had passed half a dozen times.

About the Petronas Towers and KL tower, we went, we got lost, we reached, we climbed(or rather were 'lift'ed), we clicked.. boy did we click, we got dazzled, mystified and amazed, we lazed around(it was raining), we ate, we went to the loo, we got tired, we clicked some more, got lost some more, and finally reached our accommodation.

Later into the night, we walked along Petaling Street, Little India and Chinatown Street, all within walking distance of each other and our acco. At night, we went to the Beach Club Cafe and we ....this part of the post has been censored for the continuance of innocencen of our younger viewers ..... it was awesome, you just had to be there.

And there ends day2.

PS: There is no PS.

Malaysian trip-Epidose 1

I've read many travelblogs, and they are usually the stereotype, went there, saw this, did that, took pics sort of crap. Now that's fine, as long as YOU KEEP IT TO YOURSELF!! I mean seriously guys, nobody reads you blog to know how you felt when you touched the Petronas Towers for the first time, how brilliant the view was from KL Towers, how unwordly the Beach Club Cafe was and how adrenaline pumping driving at over a 100 miles/hour was. Okay, am getting lost here. So is this post going to do any of the above, OF COURSE. So why did I give you so much bullshit? Just to prepare you for what's in store. Also a warning. In case life hasn't been good to you lately, you've been getting bad grades while your sidey is av+av, or you've just had a breakup(if you're a girl, in or just out of your teens, smart and pretty... call me!! :P, I give great get-over-that-breakup-I'll-take-you-to-coffee-talk), don't read any further. You wouldn't be able to handle the jealousy!! :P

I'm going to try and make this entertaining for all. Waise the link to my picasa album is to the right, so if you're not in a mood to read, go ahead.

Ours was a roadtrip. We went to and through Malacca(the town is so sleepy, Goa seems like a vibrant metropolis in comparison), then to Kuala Lampur(where no road ever goes to where you want) and later to Genting Highlands(where though we missed the casino... go on go on, laugh your heart out, you won't get another chance till I finish all episodes, we experienced indoor skydiving, which for an hour later became my latest ambition)

In total, we were 9. Me, Ashokey, Abhishek, Kattu bastard drunkard driver, Babu brothers(who love each other so much, that they can't keep their hands off each other... either they're gonna love this line or I'm in for a beating the next time I see them), Item, Jula and SRK.

Our car was brilliant, it was local Malaysian Proton Waja, which supposedly even the women in Malaysia know how to repair(that's saying a lot!!), it has a stick shift and a pseudo clutch(it exists only in your mind as you desperately try to prevent your left foot from kicking air). Basically its a woman's a very simple car to drive. But boring too, you can start the car from stationary position being in the 4th gear. Ahhhhh!!!

After 3 hours, of driving along expressways, losing our way, taking u-turns, getting misdirections from uninterested passers-by, we came back to where we started. We then opened the luggage compartment, flung in all the maps, and were on our way... the right way. Information overload is such a PITA.

Malacca is one place which is first on the list of places not to visit of most people. On telling one taxi driver, back in Singapore, our itinerary we were met with, 'You look like nice, healthy young men, why are you going to Malacca?' Yeah, I'm still trying to figure out what he reallly meant!

But all prejudicial images were shattered. It was an awesome place. Have you ever been to a place, where nobody seems to be 'working' to earn a living, where you find people having lunchinner, and where the quickest walking speed if half a stroll? If no, come to Malacca. Time has no meaning for these simple people. Every weekend they have a colourful vibrant street market called Jonker Walk, where you get chocolate-dipped grape kebabs, caramel encrusted kiwis, cheap made-in-china electronics, weird puzzles and most things that you never thought existed or the world had any use for.

Malacca along with Alleppey(Kerala), Suzhou(China), Thai Klong(Thailand) is also called 'The Venice of the East'. Yeah it's funny and paradoxical, but its marketing baby! So they had a river cruise which we managed to get onto.

Plenty of museums-there was one that was painted betel-spit-red because the governor was tired of getting the clock tower repainted after everyone kept using it as a spitting post, another within a pirate ship, and a couple of churches of which all that has remained are three walls.

PS1: The title is a serendipitious. Go ahead, don't stop yourself from scrolling up.

PS2: Next epidose on KL. But beware if you're already green with envy, don't read it.

PS3: If you don't pass on this post to your friends, neither will you have bad luck, nor will your eyes pop out, nor will you have bad sex for life, but if you do pass it on to-
1-2 person(s): I will smile
3-7 persons: I will jump for joy
8-15 persons: I will personally thank you and sing praises for you.
16-30 persons: I will take you out to dinner(provided of course you're smart and sexy, else it's be a dutch)

The fun part of a road trip is the time on the road... so boy, did we have fun!!

I know, I know the title is long, but I think you get the message. The Malaysia Road trip was my first experience of a 'real' road trip. So what do you need for a 'real' road trip? Let me list them down:-

1. A car(preferably a local one, keeping in mind that the bribes needed to get out of a speeding ticket is a function of the current diplomatic relations between the country of birth of the policeman and the numberplate of the speeding vehicle)


2. Not more than 2 drivers per car(this is a specific requirement to Malaysia, because 2 people can anyways adjust but if more, then they'd be big fights for the steering wheel)


3. Maps(naturally they are useless, the only maps we found really useful were, one, the political map of the whole of Malaysia and two, the map of the rides inside the Genting theme park)


4. Very importantly, absolutely no knowledge of the local roads and very little knowledge of the local language, implying that, if there's one guy who's been there, done that, leave him at the airport or rather push him off the nearest tall building, and talk to locals with Yes and No or even better with sign language.


5. Clothes, take proper backpacker type, shorts, rugged t-shirts, and get one of those large vertical backpacks. So even if you stay in a posh hotel, the locals and people who later view your photos on picasa, will think that you went on this big near-death adventure.


6. Plans: Do plan your trip to the minutest detail. This is only so you can bear the pre-trip goosebumps. Anyways nothing is going to go as planned, so might as weel feel good while you can.


7. A rubik's cube, or better that book you always wanted to read. Yeah you guessed it, you're definitely not gonna read it, but the idea of it being there, relieves you.


8. One dutiful guy, who keeps the financial records, wakes people up on time, and never complains when stuff is flung at him, does the pre-trip planning, also drives pretty well, is great with girls, has a digicam and knows how to use it, and is overall the bestest guy on the trip. ME!!!

PS1: A special mention has to be made of the INSEAD printer. It's contribution to our trip rivals Ashok's and Abhishek's. LOL.

PS2: Don't be disappointed, there's more to come. Just that I don't feel in the 'real' blogging mood yet. So to all my fans and aircons(it's been some time, since I made a PJ) please keep patience.