Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Asia

I woke up today and packed up the rest of my stuff and headed off for the bus station. I wasn’t exactly sure how long it was going to take to get there so I headed there with tons of time and got there over an hour early (as usual). There were a few empty seats on the 10am bus so they put me on that one instead of the 11:30am, lucky me! This was probably the nicest bus I have ever been on. It was only three seats wide, but the seats were the size of the giant first class seats on planes. I was all the way in the back so I didn’t feel bad about reclining my seat and watching some tv shows and reading my travel guide book.

The six hour journey went by very quickly, with just a few stops for Singapore immigration, then Malaysian immigration and then a quick bathroom break. Unfortunately the bus didn’t bring us to Kuala Lumpur Sentral station like most busses, so I had to make my way from Berjaya Times Square to KL Sentral. I hopped on the monorail and got to Sentral and then walked around to the other train station to get to Pasar Seni where my hostel is. It felt like that took as long as the bus journey itself, but that’s only because I was lugging around two backpacks and it’s about 90 degrees and muggy.

I finally made it to Suzie’s Guest House in Chinatown and was very surprised to see how nice the hostel is for not a great area. I think I was probably just spoiled by how nice Singapore is, so KL looks a bit more run down. I paid for a six person shared dorm, but they had overbooked them so I was put into a two person dorm. I met my new Canadian roommate Jesse just as he was contemplating going to see Liverpool play against the Malaysian national team in a friendly. I didn’t have anything else planned so I took him up on the offer and we headed out. Jesse is an Arsenal supporter and had been at the same stadium a couple of days ago to see them play against Malaysia, so he knew where we were going.

We got to the stadium and bought tickets from a scalper for 40RM ($13) and headed into the ground. This 100,000 person stadium was overfilled and there were people sitting in the concourses watching the action from the floor and sitting on the steps all the way up to the top of the stands. We spotted a few seats in the top corner behind a goal and made our way up there. The atmosphere in the stands was incredible! We missed the first 20 minutes of the game but didn’t miss any goals. The final score was Liverpool 6, Malaysia 3, and we saw some incredible goals! Seriously, a few of these deserved to make it onto a highlight reel, so keep an eye on ESPN’s top ten!

After the match we caught the train back into town and grabbed some food (stewed noodles) at a hawker’s stall near Suzie’s. It was absolutely the best meal I’ve had in Asia and it cost 9RM($3) for the noodles and a Pepsi. I loved how cheap Singapore seemed compared to Australia, but Malaysia is so much cheaper than that! I think I’m gonna like it here, and I can see why people end up staying for so long, because you could live here like a king for so little money.

We walked through Chinatown and the markets after dinner to take a look at what was being sold. We got some papaya chunks for dessert and I ended up buying a fake Liverpool jersey (fully embroidered) for 25RM($8), not a bad deal! So now I’m back in the hostel and we’re just chilling here swapping movies and TV shows. I’m not sure exactly what I’m going to get up to tomorrow, but I need a good night’s sleep tonight, I’m exhausted!