Sri Lanka and Malaysia

Almost two months ago now, we went to Sri Lanka for Christmas and Malaysia for New Years.  Jaime’s dad selected Sri Lanka because he likes to write articles for his local newspaper and he was looking for something somewhat exotic.  We decided to add on another country since we had some extra time.  We looked into India and the Maldives, but Malaysia won out for cheapest flight and no visa required.  Here is the journal I created from my daily notes.

Day 1

This was actually more like a couple of days but I’m combining all of our travel there into a single, long, day.  We got off to a rough start.  At soon as we get to the airport, we found ourselves standing in line behind two very large abandoned suitcases.  About two minutes go by when a lady asks if they are ours, and when we said “no,” she practically tackled the bags.  Right as backup was arriving, the owner comes back with two more large bags looking confused by all the commotion.  Crisis averted.  Next, when we were getting our boarding passes, we overhear a guy that skipped his Milwaukee to Chicago leg and thought he could just continue his trip as is.  He was as confused as the first guy when told that the rest of his trip had been cancelled.  Is this a heavy time of year for first-time fliers?!  Next, we get to security and Jaime and I made a pact to opt-out of the backscatter x-ray scanners, but after watching 30 people in front of us get redirected through the good ole metal detectors we thought we would be scot-free.  Jaime gets the silent point to the metal detector, but then I get the hand wave over to the dreaded x-ray machine.  I ask if I can opt-out and the guy’s response was “if you insist.”  I quickly say “I insist” and he radios for a “male opt-out”.  The new “enhanced” pat-down wasn’t as bad as I was expecting, but it was certainly much more thorough than the old pat-down/wand method.

Our itinerary was Chicago-Paris-Bahrain-Colombo, Sri Lanka.  The first flight went off without a hitch, but that trend didn’t continue.  London had been having weather delays, but we hoped that Paris wasn’t affected.  While we got on the plane right away, we were stuck on the runway for a total of 2.5 hours.  We only had a 55 minute layover in Bahrain, so we knew our chances of catching the connecting flight were slim to none.  I’ve never missed a connection before but I assumed that they would just put you on the next available flight.  Well when we get to Bahrain at around 10:30pm, we were told there were no more flights to Sri Lanka for two days!  They had no idea what to do with us and just said to come back in two hours.  We went to the lounge area and found a free internet kiosk (where gmail was blocked).  I looked up possible flights and saw a flight going through Doha, Qatar within the next hour.  We head back to the transfer desk and find that there are five others in the same situation; three from France, and two Canadians of Sri Lankan descent.  They refused to give us a time or a flight and just had us wait off to the side.  After about an hour and a half, the French woman is visibly upset and tracks down the last person we heard from.  He gave us all a free dinner in the lounge to shut us up.  While eating dinner, I notice a 1:45am flight to Doha and tell Jaime we should go for it.  It’s around 1:15am when we sneak out of dinner and race to the transfer desk.  We get a new person who quickly agrees to put us on that flight and prints our boarding passes just as the rest of the group arrives.  We let him know that they also needed to get to Doha, but his boss shows up and says we were all supposed to get on a 5am flight and not to give out any more boarding passes.  We run to the gate, which looked more like a crowded office full of cubicles where I tell Jaime “don’t pay attention to the fact that we’re in some crappy terminal going to the wrong country.”

We make it to Doha on a quick 50 minute flight.  Since we had to switch airlines, the transfer desk that got us there couldn’t give us the boarding passes for the final leg of the trip, but he said there was a note in the computer that we were supposed to get them.  We go to the transfer desk in Doha and tell the woman that we needed to get to Colombo.  She asks for our tickets and our hearts sank, we didn’t have any.  She looks us up in the computer and sure enough, the note was there, and she checked the next flight out at 8:50am, found us seats, and printed out our boarding passes.  Because we had checked in more than five hours early, we also got vouchers for free drinks from the airport restaurant.  The airport was a ghost town until around 6am.  We see that the 5am flight from Bahrain arrived and waited for the rest of our group to get off the airport shuttle and join us.  We see them at 6:45am in the now massive line at the transfer desk, but they never made the flight.  We can only assume that the Doha-Colombo flight ran out of space in between our two flights.  While it was really stressful at the time, we look back on it now as an Amazing Race moment that made the trip possible.  It would have been a much different trip if we were any later than we were.

Our flight arrives in Colombo, Sri Lanka at 4:05pm, about 12 hours behind our original schedule.  Not bad considering all we had been through.  Jaime’s parents had arrived two days earlier and met us at the airport.  They were at the Abans Tours booth, one of many different agencies vying for tourists’ business.  The presumed owner had gone through my rough itinerary and made a few changes to route us through two new cities where he had hotels already planned for us.  The Lonely Planet guidebook had warned me several times that people like to change your itinerary as soon as you arrive to send you to places where they get a cut of your bill.  Our first hotel had even called me before we left and told me not to let anyone change our plans.  I was very wary of the proposed changes, and made him change it a bit so only one of our days was affected.  He called the hotel I had booked for two nights in Galle and changed it to one night.  Then he booked us a night at a hotel in Tissamaharama because he said it was too far to drive from Kandy to Galle in one day.  Sounded reasonable at the time, but it would come back to bite us later.  We also booked a driver of his for $60/day, but that ended up being great, so it all evened out in the end.

We set off for Kandy in the center of the country, stopping at a roadside restaurant along the way.  Once we get to Kandy, it took a good 30 minutes to find our hotel.  The roads zig-zag a lot in the hills and the numbers don’t always make sense.  After stopping for directions a handful of times and calling the hotel twice, we finally arrive at Blinkbonnie Tourist Inn.  A guest had decided to extend his stay in our rooms, so we got free upgrades to the rooms on the main level, rather than two floors down.  The rooms were very nice, and they all had balconies overlooking the surrounding hills.  We had grand plans to go out to dinner but we were all exhausted so we just went to sleep.

Day 2

Breakfast at the hotel was 370 rupees (~$3.50), and it consisted of a huge pile of toast, a tub of jam, a scrambled egg, tea, and some mango-like juice.  The open-air restaurant was three floors down, and the views were much more stunning in the daylight.  We ate slowly and soaked it all in, while enjoying the free wifi to check our email with our smartphones.  At 9am, we went to meet our driver for the rest of the trip, but he was a no-show.  We called Abans Tours and they said he was on the way but couldn’t give us an ETA.  After about 40 minutes, he arrived, and luckily he was on time for the rest of the trip.

Our first destination was the Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage about an hour west of Kandy.  We arrive and buy the $20 “foreign adult” ticket.  Jaime had read that you can watch the elephants bath in the river between 10am and 12pm, so we get inside and look at the map.  We follow the path to the river, which quickly leads us to an exit.  We ask one of the guards where the river is, and sure enough he points down the local pedestrian street outside the orphanage.  We walk through the market to the river’s edge.  There are elephants everywhere!  There are at least 50 of them in several large groups or wandering around individually in the distance.  There were no fences, barriers, or guidelines of any kind, so it really felt like we stumbled upon a watering hole, with 200 of our closest friends also mingling along the riverfront.  The number of people did not detract from its beauty.  You felt totally immersed with the elephants as they drank and splashed around.  We even went up to touch a few of them, and they seemed to love it.  After a while, we headed back to the orphanage to see the rest of it.  It was deserted.  The only elephants remaining there were a seemingly aggressive one with large tusks, and a handful chained up around some food.  We left soon afterward, and just then, all of the elephants from the river were herded back in to fill the park.  Oh well, we had seen enough of them already.  We can only hope that our relatively unused admission fee is going to good use helping the elephants.

Next stop was the Peradeniya Botanical Gardens closer to downtown Kandy.  The gardens were massive and there were a lot of local families wandering around and enjoying the day.  They are really well done, and sectioned into 30-40 different main sights.  We went straight for the large fig tree, the most known attraction, and it was gigantic.  We then wandered some of the main paths and ran across about 10-15 of the sights.  Our last big sight was the spice garden near the entrance.  It was interesting and educational to see how everyday spices look in the wild.  On the way back, we attempted to stop at the Ceylon Tea Museum south of the city, but they had just closed and wouldn’t let us in.

We head back to the hotel for a quick break before heading into town.  Jaime’s parents were planning to join us, but they passed out.  Jaime and I walked into town in the drizzling rain.  There’s a great overlook of Kandy Lake and Temple of the Tooth on the way down, where we took one of our favorite pictures.  Once in town, our first stop was the White House restaurant that someone had recommended.  It was a place where the food was already prepared, you just picked it out from the glass case and they heated it up for you.  After a couple snacks there, we wandered around downtown Kandy a bit.  We stopped at the Bake House for some sweets, that ended up being enjoyed by ants overnight, and then stopped at the guidebook-recommended Kandy Muslim Hotel for a real dinner.  We got delegated to the “family” area in the back, as is common when women go out to eat in Muslim countries, but the food was amazing and dirt cheap.  We then wandered some more, looking for temples, but the Temple Road was closed.  We walked past the famous Queens Hotel and into the Template of the Tooth for the evening ceremony.  The guards thought I was Paskistani (must be the beard), but once I corrected them, they laughed and waved me through.  The Temple of the Tooth building and grounds are stunning.  The crows in the trees were insanely loud and made the overall experience very memorable.  We wandered the ground for a while, and upon finding out there was a $10 entrance fee, plus shoe-holding cost, we turned back.  We took our first Sri Lankan tuk-tuk back to the hotel and had about three near-death experiences.  Note: Do not sit on the right side if you are afraid of cars driving into you…

Day 3

Today was our big adventure day.  I had read about two World Heritage Sites near each other a few hours from Kandy, and squeezed them into the schedule.  Our first stop was the Dambulla Rock Temples, built in the 1st century BC, about two hours north.  At the base of the mountain, there is a huge modern gold Buddha sitting on a museum, which looked pretty cliche.  It was called the Golden Temple, and there were monks everywhere, which didn’t seem to think it was as tacky as I did.  The tickets to the Rock Temples were 1200 rupees each.  There were a seemingly endless number of stairs to the top.  Jaime’s mom opted out after looking at the first steep climb, and there were several other steep climbs at every turn.  The final ascent also had a ramp path, but it looked even steeper so we continued up the stairs.  We finally get to the top and find out you’re required to check your shoes (25 rupees) and cover your knees to go inside.  Jaime’s dad decides against walking barefoot, so he stayed outside.  I hiked down my shorts a bit to cover my knees and we went to the entrance.  At the gate, we overhear a guy being turned away because he didn’t have his receipt.  Turns out his wife had opted out and just gave him the ticket without the stapled receipt.  Jaime tells him to go ask her dad for his ticket since he wasn’t coming inside.  We later see him inside, find out his name is Alan, and exchange some picture-taking.  Once inside, we see the Rock Temples and they are simply amazing.  The buildings have a colonial look and feel to them. There are five separate temples full of huge Buddhas in different positions, and all the walls and ceilings are very ornately painted.  We started at the back and worked our way forward.  There are monkeys everywhere also enjoying the temples and surrounding views from the top.  We start our trip back down and decide to take the ramp until we see an eight foot snake going down right in front of us.  Back down the long staircases we go!

Our next World Heritage Site was Sigiriya (Lion’s Rock), a sort of Machu Picchu of Southeast Asia built in the 4th century, about 30 minutes away.  The “roads” there were horrible; I’ve never been on worse roads before.  The area is heavily forested so we couldn’t see it until we were very close.  I had seen pictures of Sigirya online, but it was so much more intimidating first-hand.  In fact, when it first appeared through the trees, Jaime took one look at it, then back at me, and said “not a chance!”  I somehow convinced her to climb partway up to the must-see lion’s paws, the only remaining ruins of the giant lion’s mouth that you have to walk through to get to the top.  Jaime’s parents opt for a nap in the van as we begin our journey down the large boulevards leading to the base of the mountain.  It was very reminiscent of Cambodia’s Ankgor Wat with intricate walkways, large rectangle pools of water, and old building foundations.  We reach the first of many staircases and begin our ascent.  There is a level platform every 15-20 stairs, so the climb isn’t as bad as we expected.  There are also signs warning of wasp attacks that get increasingly dire the higher we climb.  By the top we reach the top, it says they are imminent!  Luckily we never saw any though.

About halfway up, we see the inside of the 8th century Mirror Wall, but before we can get up close, we go up a tight spiral staircase to a ledge covered with a couple dozen well-preserved frescoes.  We go down a different spiral staircase and walk along the Mirror Wall before climbing the final staircase to the lion’s paws.  It’s located on a large outcropping, so there are a lot of families taking a break there.  We take a few obligatory pictures, ask a couple to take ours, and then I sit down to take a break.  Jaime looks at me and says “let’s do it!”.  I tried to delay a couple minutes, but she said it was now or never, so off we went between the paws!  The stairs were no longer made of brick, but rather it was a very rickety metal staircase, literally cut in half, with the rough side balancing on the mountain.  Jaime was terrified.  Every time she thought about giving up, another pregnant mom with kids strolls past us, giving us the motivation to go on.  After a few more twists and turns, we finally make it to the top.  It was absolutely amazing.  There were beautiful views all around us, and it was just the beginning.  The top of Sigiriya is laid out in several tiers, so there’s no one location where you can see everything.  Every few steps is another great view of things you couldn’t see before.  At the very top was a foundation labeled “palace” which Jaime and I stood in and wished it was a helipad to get us back down!  We continue exploring the top where there are ruins everywhere.  There’s a very large perfectly square pool of water, which was just water storage for the original inhabitants.  The climb down was even more terrifying for Jaime, but I was taking it all in and snapping pictures left and right.  Jaime ended up tripping on the very last step at the bottom.

We head back to Kandy for the night and after a quick refresher at the hotel, we all take tuk-tuks into town.  Since Jaime’s parents missed out on dinner the night before, we head back to the Kandy Muslim Hotel and enjoy a large meal for a total bill of $5.  Jaime’s parents head back to the hotel while Jaime and I track down a place she read about called Bombay Sweet City.  On the way there, I bought a bag of hot chickpeas and coconut from a street vendor.  We find the shop, get some sweets, and then go back to the downtown area to stroll around.  After another stop at the Bake House to actually try the sweets this time, we hop in a tuk-tuk back to the hotel and call it a night.

Day 4

Today was a very long travel day.  After a final breakfast at Blinkbonnie Tourist Inn, we hit the road and begin the drive through the central highlands.  The drive consisted of an endless number of hairpins turns as we slowly went up and down mountain after mountain.  In between the mountains were waterfalls of varying sizes and we stopped briefly at a couple of the larger ones.  Most of the hilltops were covered in tea plants and the occasional groups of workers in the fields.  Around the central city of Nuwara Eilya, there was a lot of road construction.  The roads were insanely bad and we couldn’t go any faster than idling speed for a solid two hours.  The area was gorgeous though and near the city the tea plantations were replaced with tiers of various crops growing.  We stopped in nearby Ella for lunch at a somewhat fancy hotel (driver’s choice).  The hotel had an amazing view of the surrounding mountains and was well worth the inflated prices.  After a few more hours on the road, we make a pitstop at the Mackwoods Tea Plantation.  They had some of the best tea fields we’d seen.  We took a quick tour of the tea process and then were given a free pot of tea in their restaurant.  We all purchased some tea and then continued the drive.

Finally, after nine excruciating hours, we arrive in Tissamaharama (aka Tissa), the stop added by the tour agency at the airport.  It’s a dirty little town and our hotel, also from the tour agency, is down an unmarked road next to a large lake.  We pull in and a gate is closed behind us.  There’s another gate on the lake side of the hotel, so we were literally locked in.  It felt like a prison complete with a guard tower, which was actually the hotel’s water supply.  There were no other guests and no signs anywhere, not even to even indicate the name of the hotel itself.  I asked the person at the hotel what the address was, and he was confused.  I said we wanted to go into town and needed to know how to get back, and he wondered why we would want to leave.  I said we might get dinner and he was visibly offended at the suggestion that we wouldn’t eat at the hotel.  He still wouldn’t give me the address.  We decided to do the only activity around Tissa, a safari, and since it started at 5am, we would just eat at the hotel to make it easier.  There were no menus or prices, the guy just asked us what we wanted in broken English.  The only words I said that he understood were chicken and vegetables.  We get served and the meal was delicious, a little too delicious for what we’ve been accustomed to in Sri Lanka.  There was also a lot of it.  After dinner, we waited quite a while for the man to return so we could ask for the check.  He tried to refuse and said he’d give us the bill after breakfast tomorrow.  I said we needed it now and he left for another 10 minutes.  The bill just says “2400 x 4 = 9600”.  Yes, the meal was almost $100!  This was 20 times more than the cost of our last dinner.  We had been scammed.  We paid the bill and went to bed knowing they wouldn’t get another penny from us.  The lesson here is to never let anyone change your itinerary or hotels upon arrival, no matter what.

Day 5

We got up early for the safari and the Jeep picks us up at the “hotel” at 5:30am.  In the dark it looks like a glorified pick-up truck with seats bolted on, but once the sun came up, it actually turned out to be a nice vehicle.  We race to Yala National Park in the open-air raised seats and arrive just as the sun is coming up.  There are maybe a dozen other Jeeps full of tourists already there waiting for the entrance tickets.  It was a bit expensive with all of the park fees, but totally worth it.  The park is divided into several large swaths of land and tourists are allowed in one of them.  The park is criss-crossed with well-worn roads of red clay.  Many of them were very bumpy, but after our drive yesterday it was child’s play to us.  We saw a lot of different animals throughout the day, including water buffalo, wild deer, peacocks, small birds, cranes, wild boar, dragon lizards, and crocodiles.  Sri Lanka is known for elephants and leopards too.  The first two elephants we saw were in the trees looking away from us so we just saw their butts.  A bit later in the day, we finally saw one strolling across a field, and then another couple at a watering hole.  I always picture them in herds, but they were always alone here.  The leopards are the main reason people go on this safari and our first attempt at seeing some on the rock hills failed.  After a short beach break next to a bungalow tsunami memorial, we try again.  This time Jaime spots a couple sprinting across a short distance on top of the rock.  Jaime’s mom also saw them briefly but they eluded me and Jaime’s dad.

We get back to the hotel and quickly throw our luggage into the van.  The man from the hotel and our driver are telling us that breakfast is ready and waiting for us.  HA!  We tell the driver we want to leave and he says “don’t you want breakfast?!” to which Jaime’s dad replies “not here!” and away we go.  The driver said it would only take an hour to get to Galle, so we figured we could wait and eat lunch there.  The drive ended up taking just over four hours but luckily we had stopped at a roadside stand for some cashews, another thing Sri Lanka is known for.  Also along the drive we were able to witness a lot of tsunami damage that still littered the southern coastline.  Shortly before arriving in Galle our driver got a speeding ticket, a whopping 200 rupees (less than $2)!

We arrive at our hotel, the New Old Dutch House, and discover that they had cancelled both nights instead of the one that the tour agency had requested.  Yet another reason not to let someone change your plans!  We drove around to a few other hotels inside Galle’s fortified walls but they were all full.  We asked for a recommendation outside the city walls and one hotel suggested we try The Lighthouse a few miles down the road.  We pulled in and asked the hotel manager that greeted us at the door.  He told us it would be $500 per room!  Jaime wanted to try a few other hotels inside the fort, and then it hit me.  I had originally reserved two rooms at a different place called Khalid’s Guesthouse, but they canceled it and kept my reservation fee.  I complained to the booking site hostelworld.com, and they said that Khalid’s would guarantee a room elsewhere in lieu of returning the booking fee.  I then found the New Old Dutch House on my own and ate the fee.  Well now that we were desperate for a room, I figured it was worth a shot to ask them.  We showed up at Khalid’s and the owner’s son remembered my emails and said they had room for us!  He admitted that they cancel all reservations in the high season because they have so many no-shows.  The guesthouse is a gorgeous building and we had nice-sized room across a rooftop terrace with our own private balcony.  The views across Galle were amazing too.  It reminded me of the red roofs in Dubrovnik where we were 8 months earlier.

Once we were settled, we walked to the guidebook-recommended Aruna’s Restaurant.  Galle was very hot and muggy but so beautiful.  It’s full of old buildings, colonial architecture, and more abandoned ruins than you’d expect for a small fort area full of tourists.  At Aruna’s we have some great pizza before heading back towards the hotel.  One building down from the hotel was a short staircase to the top of the fort walls, which are free to walk.  The walls are disjointed in a few places so you have to zig-zag around.  It’s also not entirely walkable as a portion is within a military base.  The walk along the walls is a nice break from the rushing around.  We walk towards and around the lighthouse enjoying the city and water views as we go.  You can see the clock tower on the opposite side, but we never made it that far.  There was a single snake charmer working for tips and I can imagine the whole stretch lined with touts in the high season.  We then hit the town again and found a groovy place called Pedlar’s Inn Cafe behind a jewelry store.  We had some milkshakes and drinks under the black lights and projected stars.  The ambiance is just great, and a lot of other tourists joined us as the night went on.  We walked a bit more, but Galle really rolls up its sidewalks after sundown so it was deserted.  Back at the hotel, I stood on the balcony for a while listening to the noises of the nearby cricket game, looking at the lit up clock tower, and watching the lighthouse do its job spinning around and around.

Day 6

The next morning I discovered that I was eaten alive by mosquitoes overnight.  I remember tossing and turning but did not expect the 50+ bug bites all over my back and calves.  I guess the mosquito net was over the bed for a reason; we should have actually used it.  Oops!  We ate breakfast at Khalid’s, which was similar to our daily breakfasts in Kandy.  A couple comprised of a Western man and a Muslim woman joined us.  We chatted a bit and the woman was surprised to learn that Jaime’s parents are from the South.  She said Southerns typically watch Fox News and shoot guns.  We bit our lips about Muslim women stereotypes.  After breakfast, we wandered around the city some more.  It’s full of jewelry stores and art galleries, catering to tourists of course.  We went out the original entrance and walked around the outside of the walls into the area of town just north of the fort.  Along the water, we saw fisherman pulling their boats up and immediately putting their catch of the day on a table for sale.  These stands were quite popular with the locals.  In town, we found a street market and bought some spices, notably cinnamon, Sri Lanka’s last speciality we had yet to find.

We then met our driver and set off for Colombo, the country’s capital, about three hours away.  We arrived at the Galle Face Hotel, built in 1864, in the afternoon, and instantly fell in love with the place.  So much so that we immediately booked a room for our last night in Sri Lanka after Malaysia and ate the cost of our other hotel across town.  It’s such a picturesque hotel, and is a destination in itself.  There are several restaurants, a Verandah along the oceanfront, a lovely courtyard, and it’s next to Galle Face Green, a long promenade lined with food carts that the locals stroll in the evenings.  It’s so big that it’s sort of split into two hotels.  The more modern side is called the Regency Wing and was completely refurbished in 2004.  We stayed on that side this night, and in the Classic Wing on our way back.  They both are great in their own right; the modern room’s bathroom wins, but the classic room was much larger.

We ate lunch at the Galle Face Hotel, where everything is buffet-style, and then went to walk to the other fancy hotel in Colombo, the Cinnamon Grand.  On the way there, I see a White House-style building emblazoned with the Great Seal of the United States and flying the stars and stripes outside.  I quickly snap a couple pictures, as I do every 100 feet anyway, and continue walking.  I get about five steps when I hear someone calling out to me.  I turn around and see a Sri Lankan military officer standing outside of a security booth I failed to notice earlier.  He waves me inside as Jaime and her father continue walking, not seeing any of this take place.  Turns out that this was the American Center for US Aid.  They make me delete the pictures and take down my information.  They demand to see my passport, but Jaime has it and she’s now out of sight.  Just when things appeared to be escalating, Jaime comes back over the hill and I wave her inside.  As soon as the officers see that I’m an American, they began laughing and asking what I was thinking.  I said I just got excited by the American flag.  They told me that the American Embassy was 500m down the street and warned me not to take any pictures there (which was fine since Jaime banned me from taking any more pictures today).  We all shook hands and then they let me go and we continued to the mall at the Cinnamon Grand.  After browsing for a little while, we walked back and as we passed the American Center the security guards all smiled and waved at us.  The Sri Lankans are very friendly people, and we saw this great hospitality everywhere we went.  We ended the night sampling some local beers on the Verandah, listening to the ocean and imagining we were in a different time.

Day 7

First thing in the morning, at 5am, we all hop in a cab for the long trek to the airport.  Jaime’s parents head back to Memphis and we continued onto Malaysia to celebrate the new year.  We arrived in Kuala Lumpur at 2pm, caught a bus to the main city hub (KL Sentral), and took the monorail to the Imbi station next to the Berjaya Times Sqaure mall.  The directions to the hotel are through the mall and we follow the detailed steps to the letter, exit out the back, and walk through a parking lot before finding the Classic Inn.  The hotel is great.  The people are very friendly and helpful, the rooms are ice cold, and the location can’t get much better.

We go out for dinner at a Japanese sushi place nearby and discover glorious mango beer.  It was soo good, and we’ve yet to find anything as good since then.  We then walk a mile or two to Chinatown and stroll through a large street market along Petaling St.  We have a couple drinks in the market and then grab a taxi back to Times Square (RM10/$3.25).  Malaysia is a very hot country, but they know it, so everything is air conditioned well.  We watched a movie in the hotel room to cool down and then went out with other guests near midnight to celebrate.  The front desk lady took us all down to a crowded corner a few blocks away.  People were everywhere and the streets were nearly grid-locked.  We were right on the edge of the madness, so it wasn’t crushing right around us.  We did have the pleasure of standing next to one of several large riot buses full of police.  We’d occasionally see a strange spray going off in the crowds who would then disburse for a few minutes.  We guessed it might be tear gas or something similar, but when midnight hit and the entire crowd was covered in the spray, we quickly realized it was some local type of silly string that everyone was using to celebrate.  The fireworks started off in the distance and while our host was explaining that they normally have them closer, they started right over our heads!  Apparently, they have fireworks in each of the major neighborhoods across Kuala Lumpur.  It was definitely an experience we won’t soon forget.

Day 8

We slept in after the late night partying.  We ate breakfast at the hotel (included), confirmed that the main bus station was still closed, and took a taxi to the “temporary” bus station in the Bukit Jalil National Stadium parking lot about 20km south of downtown.  It was a semi-permanent tent city with tons of booths all vying for your business.  We went with the least aggressive company and got our bus tickets to Melaka for RM12.20.  Melaka is another World Heritage Site because of its importance and history as a popular port city.  We arrive at the Melaka Sentral station after a couple hours and take the local bus into town.  The bus dropped us off in the middle of the road between two large malls.  We had no idea where we were, so we grabbed lunch in one of the malls to get our bearings.  From the windows in the restaurant I thought I could see the ruined fort in the distance.  I asked our waiter to confirm but he said it was far away in the other direction.  We went with our instincts and walked to where I saw them, and luckily we were right.

We stumbled into the Porta de Santiago, the only remaining gate of what was once a full fort built around the hill in front of us.  It looked very old and was still covered in fine detailed work.  It’s kind of sad that the rest was willingly taken down before the construction was stopped to preserve this final piece.  The guidebook said the staircase to the top was a “steep, sweaty climb,” but after our adventures in Sri Lanka, this was nothing to us.  At the top was the ruined St. Paul’s Church.  It was just a shell of a building but it was filled with old carved announcements and headstones from the 1600s.  There were also great views of the surrounding areas.  We could have done without the hawkers setting up banquet tables of tourist junk in the middle of the church though.

Walking down the other side and into the Old Town Square, we see the oldest Dutch building in the East, the Stadthuys, built in 1650.  It’s a large, four-story red brick building with a clocktower in front of it and an old church next to it.  All around this small town square there were colorful tuk-tuks decorated in mostly vibrate flowers but also included everything you can imagine.  About half of them were also playing loud thumping music just to make you look in their general direction.  We then strolled up and down the streets of Chinatown across the river from the square.  There were small temples tucked between buildings and a couple larger ones that we went into.  After a quick boba tea, we went back to the river and hailed a cab back to Melaka Sentral (RM15) and then hopped on the first bus back to Kuala Lumpur, which was mostly empty.

Back in Kuala Lumpur at the makeshift bus station we knew we would have a hard time getting back downtown for a reasonable price.  After some heavy haggling, we still paid 50% more than the ride out there.  We took the cab to Merdeka Square in the middle of the colonial district.  The police were shutting down the square just as the cab pulled up, but our cabbie rolled down the window and started yelling “one more, one more!” before driving around the barricade.  The colonial district is gorgeous!  There were beautiful old huge buildings all around the square.  In the center of the square, which used to be a British cricket stadium, there was a huge flagpole that was used when they declared independence.  We then walked north/north-east and stumbled into an Arab market where I haggled for a new wallet.  We continued walking to a weekly night market in Little India.  The street markets have such a great vibe and you feel culturally immersed.  We ate with the locals at an alley “restaurant” and had some amazing fried rice with a local speciality drink known as ABC.  The ABC is hard to describe.  The top half is like sweet milk over shaved ice, while the bottom half contains beans, nuts, gelatin, syrup, and more.  By the time you get to the bottom, it’s just a weird mush of leftovers.  The night market was huge and we took our time going the full length of it, buying small snacks along the way.  Afterward, we took a taxi back to Times Square and called it a night (RM15).

Day 9

We ate breakfast at the Classic Inn again.  This time we hung around a little bit longer and discovered that there’s a second course of bread cooked with an egg.  We totally missed it yesterday, oops!  Today was the day to see the sights around Kuala Lumpur.  We started off early hoping for a chance to get into the Petronas Towers.  The guidebook said there were only 1,200 tickets to the Skybridge and that the office opened at 8:30am.  We hopped on the monorail to get us as close as possible and then walked the last mile there.  We arrived at 8:40am and were turned away!  There were barely 50 people around, so there must be some way to pre-order tickets these days.  Oh well, we still enjoyed seeing the towers up close and taking lots of pictures from the surrounding areas.  We then walked over to the Menara KL Tower about 1.5 miles west.  There was a free shuttle from the bottom of the hill to the base of the tower and then we went up to the observation desk, which has a better/higher view of the city than the Petronas Towers.  They have a nice included audio tour so you can pick out things in the distance from each set of windows.

Our next stop was the Batu Caves about 8km north of the city.  From the taxi stand at the KL Tower, they wanted RM70 (~$25)!  Not a chance!  We decided to walk away from the tourist traps and try again, but then I remembered seeing a sign for the caves in KL Sentral, the main transportation hub.  We took the monorail to KL Sentral and found the sign again.  It was a brand new extension of the KTM Komuter train line for less than 50 cents!  The KTM Komuter train was the only place in Malaysia where we saw any kind of Muslim influence on society; it had a strictly enforced ladies-only car, which was full of covered women.  We figured for 50 cents, the train would be horribly inconvenient but it actually worked out really well and dropped us off at literally the base of the caves.  You could tell it was a new stop because the entrance to the caves area from the train was walking through a fence’s locked gate that was bent open.

We were greeted by a large colorful statue and a seemingly abandoned small temple.  Continuing down the sidewalk, there was a gauntlet of shop stalls with souvenirs, snacks, and drinks for the trek to the top.  The last stop on the mountain side of the walkway was a cave-like opening with an engraved sign that said Entrance and a ticket booth.  Luckily I had read that the caves were free so we walked passed it and found the main open entrance to the stairs.  The fake entrance was for “Cave Villas” and included walking through a small Hindu temple that we could clearly see from the other side for free.  Next to the 272-step staircase was a huge 140 foot gold statue of the Hindu god Murugan.  The stairs looked intimidating but after all of our activities so far this trip, it was a piece of cake.  There were monkeys all over the steps, but the guidebook said that they bite so we didn’t get too close.  There is a “dark cave” about 2/3rds the way up where you used to be able to go in with a headlamp, but it was closed when we were there.  Finally, at the top we reach the massive entrance to the cave.  It is a huge hollowed-out mountain with probably 100 feet of clearance above our heads and there were several small openings in the ceiling.  At the far end, there was a big courtyard with a huge opening to the sky.  Inside the cave and in the courtyard were a few small Hindu temples with active rituals going on inside them.  Definitely a great experience and even better that it was free in a city with quickly rising prices.

The same train ride back cost double the price (65 cents, oh my!) because their computer system had been updated.  On the way there, the computers didn’t include the new extension so we just paid the price to just the old end of the line.  Our next stop was to be the Genting Highlands, which people recommended to me as the Vegas of Malaysia.  We couldn’t care less about the hotel or casino, but what attracted us was the cable car ride to get there!  We found the booth at KL Sentral at 1:45pm and hoped to get on the 2:00pm bus-to-cable-car transfer.  Unfortunately, it was sold out until 5pm.  By the time we’d get there and back, it would be much too late for anything else, so we had to pass.

In Malaysia, food courts in malls are known for having great food, so we thought we’d give it a shot.  We went to the Taste of Asia food court in the Times Square mall.  You had to pre-pay for a type of debit card that could be used at any of the vendors.  It was set up in a huge circle with vendors on both sides of you as you walked around.  They had all types of food from around Asia, often with countries listed in the restaurant names.  We tried a variety of different things and enjoyed it all.  After getting a refund for the leftover money on the card, we decided to join the thousands of youths wandering the mall.  To say it was overwhelming would be an understatement.  The mall is massive — it has two towers of 15 floors and about 4-5 stories in between them.  There were people everywhere and every open space was filled with a small shop.  ATMs were scattered throughout and each one had a long line from 10-20 people.  It was pure madness.  I had read about fish spas becoming a trend in Malaysia so we figured the mall had to have one.  We found one in the huge directory, went looking for it, and discovered it was closed.  I asked at the information desk and they told me that another one was also in the mall, called Footmaster.  Fish spas are when you put your feet into a tank full of Garra rufa fish and they nibble off the dead skin.  We had done it for the first time in a Cambodian Night Market, but this place was completely different.  It looked like a modern day spa with multiple tanks, nice wooden benches, towels, etc.  We thoroughly enjoyed our 30 minutes there and then went to dinner feeling refreshed.  We chose a Malaysian restaurant called Sakura for our last meal.  There was nothing vegetarian, as Jaime had become during the trip, but it was still good.  We went back and had a beer at the hotel before retiring early for the night.

Day 10

Our flight back to Sri Lanka was at the crack of down, so we had arranged a taxi to pick us up from the hotel at 3am.  It took us to KL Sentral where we caught a bus to the airport.  We were on the budget airline Air Asia, where on the way to Malaysia they made us pay extra to check Jaime’s bag because it was over an extremely low carry-on weight limit.  On the way back, Jaime pre-emptively checked her bag, and sure enough when we go through security they had old school scales weighing everything and forcing people to check bags.  Definitely a moneymaker for them.  We arrive in Colombo at 7:30am and I asked how much a taxi to Galle Face Hotel should cost — 2500 rupees.  We get outside to the 15 cabbies waiting for easy targets and the first one says 3000 rupees.  I start walking away and he lowers it to 2800.  I counter with 2500 and he says no, gas cost too much.  I basically announced that I would give 2500 rupees to the first person that accepted, and within a split-second a volunteer asked us to follow him.  As we’re pulling away, he says we can just pay him 2800 instead!  Frustrated by this, we reaffirmed our 2500 price and he lost his tip!

After an hour and 15 minutes of rough traffic, we arrive at the fabulous Galle Face Hotel again.  We have breakfast at the hotel and then strolled the length of neighboring Galle Face Green to the Colombo Fort area of town.  The walk had the occasional food cart and every bench had a local couple sitting there and enjoying the day.  It was a nice walk along the coastline.  We get to the Fort area and quickly notice that there are very few old buildings for a supposedly historic part of town.  There was a heavy military presence and several roads and intersections were closed off as High Security Zones, a clear reminder that the long civil war had only recently ended.  It was very different from the rest of the country where there were occasional checkpoints but they were abandoned.  We went to the jewelry mall inside the World Trade Centre for Jaime’s quest to find a charm for her bracelet, a trip tradition for her.  It was mostly deserted and full of gems rather than charms.  We gave up and walked to a local bazaar where I picked up a couple of shirts, my traditional souvenirs.  After some more jewelry store searching, Jaime decided that a gem would work since that’s what Sri Lanka was known for, so we went back to the World Trade Centre and picked one out.

We had pretty much seen everything we wanted to in Colombo, so we took a tuk tuk back to the hotel just in time for the late afternoon High Tea.  The food spread was quite impressive, so much so that we ended up skipping dinner.  A few more drinks on the Verandah while enjoying the sunset was the perfect way to end the trip.  We left it at that and went to bed.

Day 11

Our flight out was in the afternoon.  Colombo was so hot and muggy, we decided to just relax at the hotel for the day rather than get all sweaty right before the long trip home.  We had breakfast at the hotel again, checked our email, read newspapers, and drank lots of ginger beer to exhaust the rest of our rupees.  The Galle Face Hotel also has a small museum inside it, so we went there and toured around a bit.  It’s in an area of the hotel with a few shops but no customers, very strange since the rest of the hotel was full of guests.  I had arranged for a taxi to pick us up from the hotel, and we made it to the airport with plenty of time.  The trip back was a full 36 hours of time in transit but luckily it was completely uneventful this time.