Kuala Lumpur

The KING and I

After the wedding, we chose to stay for two more days in Penang.  Everyone in the group had different flights out, with Alex and I being the last to leave.  Mabel’s father Patrick asked us to stay for one more evening so we could all have one final dinner.  That’s why he’s the King.  Seriously, you couldn’t find a nicer man or a more gracious host.  He was incredible. 

Everyone was really.  But for the amount of ridiculousness that was surrounding us at all times during this wedding, Patrick always kept it cool and went with the flow, you have to respect that.  As a final gift of sorts, at dinner that evening he provided Alex and I with the next mornings bus schedules and some suggestive hotels to stay in when we got to KL (Kuala Lumpur). 

Not the easiest place to walk into

So the remaining members of the wedding party group (Mabel, Kennon, her friend Tricia, Kennon’s mom, Wendy; Alex, and myself) chose to drive around and go to the Snake Temple.  I don’t do snakes PERIOD, but I do enjoy temples, so I was torn.  I did not participate in the snake touching however, that was ALL Wendy. 

It didn't stop them from throwing a fake snake on me when we left to grab some coconut juice though.    That was a treat...I didn't so much scream like a little girl.  Maybe a budding prepubescent lady.  I don't know.  I do know however, that you would not have been able to time me on quickness in that instance! 

Wendy wore "the balls" this day, not I

We went to dinner that night at the Penang Surf Club and had a “traditionally western” meal.  Patrick said he thought we could use a meal more familiar to our tastes.  He was totally right.  Not that the food we had during our stay was bad (far from it actually)…but I’ve been eating only Asian cuisine for about 2 weeks straight now.  The stomach was aching…I needed a steak.  Or something that didn't involve noodles at least.  

We woke up early the next morning bright and early and went straight to the bus station.  Patrick told us to look out for 2 buses in particular because they were quote “safe”.  Wait.  Why aren’t these buses safe? 

Believe it or not until he said that word I never considered that safety was an issue for some reason.

These are their trees...with snakes...and this is okay

Be it that I look like a hobo with my beard and long hair and have since assumed that others (potential muggers mainly) look at me and deem me unworthy because I don't look like I have any money, or just my general  congenial demeanor which provides me with a nifty security blanket in its own rights.    

Now however, it’s all I can think about.  This is the make or break moment when I either continue my journey or get sold into slavery...either way, we had arrived and it was time to say our goodbyes.  I thank Patrick and don’t exactly say goodbye…only “until we meet again”.  I like to keep my relationships with royalty open.  I did that on purpose because in truth, I don't know when or if I'll ever be in Malaysia again but I do know that I respect that man a whole lot and would like to see him and his family again either on his turf or mine.  

The last thing I hear Kennon say before he got back in the car was “Go upstairs”.  

Meaning, that’s where you go to get a ticket.  I literally turn my head to walk into the bus station and we are bombarded by non-English speaking Malaysians.  

What did they want???  I have no idea.  They kept asking us where we were going…”Don’t worry about it”, I exclaim.  But those cats were persistently annoying. 

I’m now a little worried about getting sold into slavery if we hop on the “wrong bus”.  One guy is telling us to just get on his bus.  That he will provide us with a ticket.  Yeah….right.  I've never heard of anyone just putting us on a bus and worrying about payment later, we pass.  

We push our way past all these people to go upstairs.  Only to find a new set of annoying Malaysians trying to sell us bus tickets.  There were at least 30 kiosks of bus tours and not one of them were the ones we were looking for. 

We finally choose one because it was leaving right at that moment, it was $35RM which is basically $13/person in American currency.  

Funny thing is, we go downstairs and it is the exact same bus that the other guy was trying to put us on...for free....to "worry about later" guy.  Great.

We get onto the bus, luckily for us, it’s nowhere near full so we get to pick our own seat.  The bus driver doesn’t speak English however, which is a problem because we don’t know where to get off. 

All we know is that the trip takes about 4 hours and Patrick told us to make sure and get off in Kuala Lumpur because if we get off in one of the smaller towns or suburbs, we’re basically screwed.  Good to know, bad for us though.

So Alex sleeps the whole way somehow and I read my book, all the while checking the time and other street signs to make sure we’re actually going to Kuala Lumpur and not to the farm or slave house.  

Downtown KL

We reach a major city.  We assume it’s KL but the bus driver just yells something in Mandarin.  People get off.  We don’t know what to do.  This usually leads to a fight between Alex and I...this is no different.  We're both quite stubborn in that respect and we don't like to follow the others lead, generally ever...it just amplifies when neither one of us want to take that lead or knows what is going on however.  

We’re in a bit of a panic but we don’t overreact, except towards each other obviously.  We decide that couldn’t have been our stop because it wasn’t at a station.  The bus takes us further into the city and literally pulls over on the side of the road.  

No station, that’s it.  The bus driver gets out to smoke a cigarette and everyone else on the bus seems just as confused as us, and they speak the damn language so what does that tell you?

We try to ask the bus driver where our hostel is, or at least a general direction of the surrounding streets, he has no clue. 

Cool.  We grab a taxi, he has no idea either.  Fan-f***ing-tastic. 

KL is getting better and better by the second.  It’s scorching hot and we’re walking around trying to find Chinatown.  A taxi guy bombards us and tells us where we need to go.  He also wants charge us 45RM to take us there.  We tell him no and try to leave but he won’t let us.  He decides that 20RM is acceptable.

Of course it’s acceptable.  The place was 2 blocks away.  We could have easily walked there, we knew we were in the right area but it was blazing hot at midday and we just wanted to be out of the sun.  So we took him up on his offer.  We got screwed but not as bad as it could have been and considering the guy didn't listen to a word we said, he's lucky he got paid at all.  

Mini-Apartments

Whatever, we’re here now at “The Reggae House”.  Very chill hostel, one of the nicer ones I’ve ever seen.  The rooms themselves are like mini-apartments, they had a restaurant and its own rooftop bar.  Plus air-conditioning, which was the main point for us at the time, we were just happy to be indoors. 

(And as a side note, it has a book exchange.  Most hostels do and this wouldn’t be a big deal, except that when I left my hostel in Sydney I found the first book of the “Game of Thrones” series.  I figured, "What the hell" I have a 9 hour flight to Singapore, I'm going to need something to read and plus some of my Aussie co-workers had been talking the series up for awhile.  

The weird thing is, I found the 4^th installment at this hostel! That’s so wild, same series, different countries. Random.  I snatched the book from the shelf immediately. Guess I'm reading that series now in full, can't just skip editions.  Luckily everything in Malaysia is cheap so I grabbed books 2 & 3 for about $9AUS (Aussie Dollar))

The "KL Crew"

We grabbed some food first and then we met up in the common room with some people staying in our quad.  2 Kiwi’s, 1 Pomei (English), 1 American (at least 1 everywhere I stay), and 1 Central American; they’re all heading out to go to a light show in at the Towers.  We didn’t really want to participate because the light show didn't sound all that great but we did want to get out and meet some new people so we went. 

It was terrible.  Worst light show ever and on top of that in the middle of the show they just randomly stop and observe a Muslim silence period of 30 minutes.  The Towers themselves were very impressive however but from what I’ve been told they’re about the only thing worth checking out in KL.  That and the mall with the rollercoaster inside.  

But guess what the Towers place is?  Oh, nothing...just A MALL!!!  Another mall!?  That's all they do in these Asian countries I'm convinced is shop and wear glasses without frames.  That’s it, we’re out of here.  Bring on the booze. 

We find out that the American girl, Sierra and the 2 Kiwi guys, Joel and James are all heading to Bali also!  

Which just happens to be our next destination after KL, we learn this information over a game of “The King’s Cup”.  Once 11pm hits and the hostel gets quite, we all decide to head down to the other Reggae Guest House, they too have a bar. 

We go in and drink tequila, meet some new people from the other hostel.  I end up challenging these Asian guys to a dance off when “Party Rock” by LMFAO comes on.  I don’t know what’s gotten into me in these trips but I literally just kicked my sandals off and went to the dance floor. 

The Two Towers

Turned out that one of the guys dancing with us actually OWNS all the Reggae House Hostels!

Now my new endearing nickname is “Caveman” dubbed by our new buddy “The owner”.  We have a couple of drinks with them and head off back to the hostel at a time I’m not comfortable with sharing.  I’m not comfortable because well, I don’t remember. 

The next day was a lot of the same.  Relaxing, making plans for Bali, catching up on my writing; just a nice, chill, hungover sort of day.  The nighttime was supposed to be much of the same.  

We had some pretty wild German guys move into our room.  Then the cards got broken out and what went from a few quite drinks at the hostel turned into the most intense game of “The Kings Cup” I’ve ever played in my life. 

So basically, we subtracted 2 Kiwi's for 2 Germans and raised the stakes at the "game of drink".

There was so much going on and so many drinks being passed out that you were almost afraid to do or say anything.  “The Kings Cup” has many rule variations, ours looked like this.

2-you

3-me

4-floor (last to touch the floor)

5-snake eyes (can’t look at that person in the eyes until the next 5 is drawn)

6-bitch card (you can make anyone do anything you want at anytime, until the next 6 is drawn)

7-heaven (last to put their hand up drinks)

8-never have I ever (everyone puts 3 fingers up and names things they haven’t done, you drop a finger if you’ve done what is said.  First one out drinks)

9-rhyme time

10-categories

J-make a rule

Q-Question master (whoever is the question master asks questions and if you answer that question you have to drink, you keep asking questions until someone loses; you keep the title until the next Queen card is chosen)

K-Put whatever your drinking in the Kings cup (doesn’t matter if it’s beer & vodka & rum & whiskey….like ours turned out to be)

A-waterfall (the person who pulls the card starts and the person to his left can’t stop until they’re through, so on and so forth until everyone is finished)

Okay, now add on to that the rules of:

“Not being able to hold your drink in your right hand”

“Not being able to say yes or anything resembling a word of agreement”

“Not being able to cross your legs”

“You have to stand up every time you take a drink”

“No pointing”

“No swearing”

“Every time James (the pomei guy) tells someone to do something he has to take 5 drinks”.

Some of my more creative commands included, making Nicolai hump the wall, a few other participants had to stroke a nearby plant in a seductive manner (i.e. “jerk-off”; I like to keep things simple) and lick peanut butter off the wall.  Just to name a few.  

There was way too much going on at all times and nearly impossible to keep up.  

Now you could have just skipped all that monotonous drinking game details and realized the end result was us all being smash-shwasted.  But it was complete madness....the 1 game itself took probably 2 hours, where there were times when we didn't have time to grab or play cards. 

So we decided to take our carny show of inebriated travelers up to the roof bar and see what kind of mischief was in store. 

   

On the roof of “Reggae Mansion” they had built a bar with a lounge area overlooking KL.  It was really nice up there but hardly ever busy.  That night was different.  Our new friend, "The Owner" came up with what can only be described as 4 tall blonde girls who will hang out if you pay them the right amount (hmm…what’s the word, oh yes…hookers) and decided to get a party going up there.

He grabbed a microphone and started having people participate in various games.  Not drinking games mind you.  Things like “Limbo” and “Musical Chairs”. 

It was as if we were at a small child’s birthday party.  Except there were no kids and all the parents were already drunk.  The games were fun though.  I managed to finish in the top 4 in the limbo contest, much to my back’s dismay but I got a free drink out of it, so I think I was worth it.  At least, that’s what I tell myself. 

We met a lot of cool people up there, all of which knew me as “Caveman” or “THE American”.  Which I’m totally okay with, “THE American” makes me sound like a super hero…or…a super villain, I guess depending on what country you’re from while reading this.

I finished my night smoking some Shessha (flavored tobacco) with 2 guys travelling from Morocco, a guy from Holland, an Aussie girl, and another Indian doctor guy (who would’ve thought?  The Indian guy was a doctor!).  

The 2 Moroccan guys just carried their own hooka pipe everywhere they went.  It was small, so they took it out, put it together and it was good to go.  Where did they carry it?  I don’t know, all I do know is I looked away for a few minutes and looked back to a hooka invitation.  Very very sneaky, like John Tuturro’s character in “Mr. Deeds” type deceptiveness here. 

This made the Holland guy decide how he was going to become a millionaire...he had this “great” idea…or maybe it was misunderstanding…about how his Iphone could play music, take pictures and video, call and text people, access the Internet, play games, etc etc….but he couldn’t use it as a smoking device…

So basically, he wants to invent the Ibong.  Classy?  Brilliant?  Innovative?  All of the above?  These are the people I meet in my travels.  I’ll probably see Mr. Holland again one day, except it will probably be on the cover of High Times magazine. 

I wished him luck and decided it was time that I went to bed.  We've all been there, at least the guys reading this have.  Not sure if girls play...but....

The night is winding down...and you're at the table with 6 random dudes (friends or strangers, doesn't matter) and the 1 girl that's left (for whatever reason) and it's just turning into a terrible drunken game show.  

Filled with questions to and from strangers that no one really cares about and answers that are even more pointless...because everyone there has the same goal and are only fighting back sleep for one purpose

....and the most important part of the game show, the stamina.  

Who is willing wait up the longest for their chance at baggin' the last remaining female.  

It's quite an amusing game actually, if you're not in it.  I used to sit around with friends and make bets about who would drop out first in sequential order.  It's good fun, as long as you're not one of the last remaining.

I've had my fair share of the "Wait-around" game to be fair.  I've been the guy to wait up all night to no avail, I've been the guy to wait up all night and been rewarded for my "patience" as well.  But more times than not, I'm one of the guys that ducks out early.  Happily by the way, not from defeat.

I just don't have the patience for that shit anymore.  It's either happening or it ain't....and if it ain't, I'm going to bed.  Easy.  

Besides, if it's reached that point...well, it should never have reached that point in the first place but if it has...

A) it should've already happened and you should realize that

B) you should at least know it's going to happen or that their is a chance, hell, you've been there ALL NIGHT

C) test your luck with the drunk girl at 6-8am...

Easy decision if you ask me.   

Is it a dirty game?  Yes.  Have we all played it?  Yes.  

I had no time for it that evening.  Some things are more important.  

Bali was calling.

Why? Why do you need a warning for this?