garyandlinda – Page 10 – saskatoonie.com

January 21, 2020January 21, 2020

Old Town

January 21

Update on our room. We did get upgraded to a new room which is very nice. We are beside the swimming pool with a shady patio, 2 chairs and a small table. Our room has a good air conditioner, which is a must in the climate of heat and humidity here. We have a fridge, kitchen sink, microwave and a few dishes. We have used the kitchen to cut up watermelon and passion fruit. There’s no real way to cook anything significant with just a microwave but that suits us just fine.

We arrived here in Koh Lanta Saturday and it’s now Tuesday. Without a calendar we have lost all track of time. Memories of yesterday are fading fast as we do more nothing each day.

Some observations from yesterday. We ate breakfast about 7:15 am. The table behind us had a Chinese family sitting there. Keep in mind we don’t know if he is from Wuhan, but none the less we understand why diseases spread in China. The guy worked up a huge hunk of phlegm and spit it over the railing. FFS. The same guy uses his hands at the buffet line. More reason to be early to breakfast and carry hand sanitizer.

Yesterday we took our beach umbrella and 2 beach chairs purchased after the umbrella, to the beach. While the umbrella sounds good on paper, it is more like a parachute at the beach. It seems the wind blows in all directions but mostly toward the sun. We even tried tying the umbrella to the chair. The first wind gust brought Mary Poppins to mind. We may just ditch the umbrella unless we have a day with no ocean breeze which doesn’t seem likely. The chairs we bought are very cheap.They’re constructed of steel pipe with black paint. We had to unwrap plastic from every inch of pipe. The chairs were built with pipe that was pre-encased with plastic. Another Chinese invention. It took us 45 minutes of hard sweating to unwrap 2 chairs. Now when we touch the pipe our hands get small pieces of black paint on it. You can’t win with the Chinese. They sell you shit or cough on you, or spit over the railing at breakfast. We are enabling a whole new breed! Did I forget to mention the chairs are held together with rivets, except on 2 spots, there are bolts and nuts. No lock washers, just loose nuts. We also fixed that with my handy skills, nail polish and Lindas’ pliers style tweezers. The chairs work great now.

After a few hours on the beach yesterday we came back to the room about 1 pm and asked at the front desk how to get to Old Town Koh Lanta. Just our luck there were 2 girls from Lithuania by the name of Agla and Justina asking the same thing. We talked with them about sharing a taxi, which was a bit pricey otherwise. We made arrangements to leave at 3:30 pm and return around 8 pm, the round trip by taxi cost a total of 1500 Baht which is $65. CAD.

We arrived in Old Town and went for a beer with Justina and Agla, who we later learned were sisters. We took some pictures at our restaurant where we had a beer. There’s a swing at the end of a pier. After sitting a while we parted ways and went exploring.

We bough some t-shirts for Gary, a coverup / dress for Linda and the best smelling bar of mango soap.

We walked around town, out on the long jetty, took some pictures and finally went for supper around 6 pm. We ate at Pinto Restaurant. It was good, although salty. Gary had his first passion fruit smoothie and it was delicious. Linda had a mango smoothie which wasn’t quite as good as the ones we have been buying at our hotel.

We arrived back at the hotel around 8:30 pm. It was a good evening and we gained some insight on life in Vilnius, Lithuania.

January 18, 2020January 18, 2020

Travelling to Ko Lanta

January 18, 2020

Today we had our usual breakfast at the Maneetel and then we made phone calls to home. We checked out of our hotel at 11:15 am and waited in the open air cafe downstairs until to shuttle came to pick us up at noon.

Off to Ko Lanta in a Toyota 4 runner with 450,000 km on it and it looked like new. The temp outside was 34º, inside was 23.5º. It seemed cold for a while. Most of our trip was south on a 4 lane road until we turned west onto a 2 lane road for a short distance. Shortly after we arrived at the ferry. The ferry crossing took about 25 minutes including the wait. There are 5 ferries continually crossing to the Island.

We arrived at our hotel and things went downhill from there. We checked in, got into the room and the air conditioning didn’t work. We waited a few minutes, then we knew for sure. We went to the front desk and asked for help. No one speaks any English here. We did get a guy looking at the air conditioning, playing with the remote but the air was still hot. We were both looking green behind the gills because it was 34 outside and much warmer in the bungalow style sweat house. Gary used google translate to convey the message “we are staying here 22 nights and this is unacceptable”. Finally Gary phoned Agoda, the company we booked with. Things started happening soon after. Agoda lit the fire and we soon had a different room where the a/c works. Things were looking up.

We cooled off the room, did some unpacking but not too much. We read an email from Agoda in which they said they had tried calling and there was no answer. Gary’s phone was on mute, like it usually is on holidays. We were offered the chance to cancel because of the problem. Only thing is we needed a place to stay and everything else is booked in the area. We decided to stay put since our room was getting cool.

We walked to the Walmart of Ko Lanta (similar to a cattle shelter with a tin roof) and bought a beach umbrella for 390 baht about $17 CAD. We calculated $17 worked out to 81 cents a day. We then walked to the meat and produce market and bought a watermelon, a dozen passion fruit and a mango. We were so hot by then that we forgot how much we paid, but the fresh and juicy passion fruit were a few dollars which is a steal when considering the price at home.

Back to the room again to rest and cool off. We waited until just before sunset to head down to the beach and find a spot to eat. The reason we returned here this year is the amazing Khlong Dao beach. We ate at the Royal Lanta hotel restaurant on the beach. It was the first one and we liked their menu.

We had 3 Chang beer, 2 bbq cobs of corn and 2 chicken kabob skewers. Life was good. Keep in mind this is a more expensive restaurant, the cost was just under $30 including the tip. Even more important, it tasted great! The scenery was beautiful and we ate with our feet in the sand watching the sun set over the straight of Malacca. Did I mention the water temperature is 27.7º C. Gary ran out to walk in the surf while we waited for our meal to arrive.

After supper we went to the store and bought some Kleenex and beer. For some reason they expect you to use toilet paper here on both ends. We had a hard time finding Kleenex but beer was an easy find. We got 4 large cold beer, like a 6 pack at home for 224 baht, only $9.63 CAD. That price is slightly higher than Pilsner at Costco in Alberta. There is no Costco here. And it’s not Pilsner, it’s Leo beer which is very nice.

The day really turned around when Gary went to the front desk to ask for extra glasses and some hand towels. He talked to the manager and she has offered to upgrade us to a better room in the morning. Ok, that sounds fine, tomorrow we should be moving and the new room will be closer to the pool. Stay tuned for tomorrows update!

January 17, 2020January 17, 2020

Ao Nang boat trip

January 17, 2020

Today we took a boat tour to 5 places, Railay beach, Phranang Cave, Chicken Island, Tup Island and Poda Island. Our boat was a traditional long tail boat our drivers name was Ahmed, he was 24 years old. The total price for the trip including the 800 baht ($35 CAD) national park pass for 2 was $128 CAD.

Railay beach is just south of Ao Nang. It is only accessible by boat. There are a few resorts on this beach and the scenery is amazing. Gary went for a swim here too, the water was so calm and warm.

Our second stop was Phranang Cave, another beach on the mainland. Its claim to fame besides it’s beautiful beach are a few caves. The main caves have statues of penises. Apparently it’s the location of a princess spirit house that is respected and worshiped by the local people. Some tourist women were also respecting and worshipping.

Our third stop was at Tup Island. It’s essentially two islands connected by a strip of sand. It was very scenic but the sand was full of shells and coral and extremely hard on our while soft feet. There were strong currents around this island and we saw several beached jellyfish. Some people swam here disregarding the signs warning of the perils of strong current and jellyfish. Maybe they can’t read.

Our fourth stop was at Chicken Island, of course it looks like a chicken. We stopped and had some great snorkelling here. There were lots of tourists, mostly from larger groups, we all had our own space to swim around. We were quite grateful to be on a small boat, just the two of us.

We made our last stop at Poda Island. This island has a lovely white sandy beach, ideal for swimming and sun bathing. By now we were staring to fear for our skin, as we had been outside in the sun for almost 4 hours. While we did have gobs of sunscreen on every exposed piece of flesh, it just didn’t seem like enough. We did swim a couple of times and walked around the beach with our towels over our shoulders. The sand there is so white and the sun intensity is stronger than anything you would ever encounter at home.

We headed back to the boat and our boatman took us to the beach in front of our hotel. We walked barefoot across the road and to the hotel’s outdoor shower to wash off the sand.

We had a beer in our room, relaxed in the shade and went for supper around 5:30pm. We had our first mango smoothie since our arrival in Thailand. It was amazing, it also helped cool off the pakora and tikka chicken. The green dipping sauce was very tasty and hot as hell. We picked up our laundry next door to the restaurant. The whole bag full cost of laundry cost less than $7 CAD. It’s clean and we didn’t have to do it.

Tomorrow we leave for Ko Lanta. We have a car hired to take us. It will cost slightly less than our boat trip today. We leave at noon.

January 16, 2020January 16, 2020

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to Krabi, Thailand

January 14, 15 & 16

January 14 we travelled from Kuala Lumpur Malaysia to Krabi Thailand. We checked out and called for a Grab about 9:30 am. We arrived at the airport well 10:30 am. It’s a good 40 minute ride depending on traffic. We had relatively good traffic conditions and we were heading out of downtown which helped. Our driver held the speed at 120 km/h on the110 km/h posted highway. The amount of construction of new highways and sky scrapers is unbelievable. The picture at the top of this post shows some of the overpass construction we passed.

AirAsia has self check in counters like everyone else. Of course Linda’s boarding pass didn’t print. We had an AirAsia rep help us out. Our bags were tagged and we dropped them off at the belt.

We proceeded to our gate K14 which was nowhere nearby. We went through one set of security scanners which seemed a bit lax. We then went through passport control, which was quick. A long ways down the terminal we finally hit the final security check point. We had to drink our water and once again get ready to open up every thing. It usually helps if Gary takes his wallet and wrist watch and puts them in his carry on bag. They both set off scanners. We both walked through with no glitches. We got to our gate so early we could have gone to Manila which was just starting to board. We had a drink and sat and read for 2 hours. Better being early than late. As we found out later the couple sitting beside us missed their flight earlier. The inconvenience and cost of doing that far outweighs the the time we spent reading and waiting.

When we arrived at Krabi we had to pass through customs before picking up our luggage. The passport control there is thorough to say the least. Since we had applied and received Visas in advance we got the fast track line. Thailand not only takes your picture but they also scan all your finger and thumb prints. This is getting more widespread. Malaysia only does your pointer finger on each hand same as Hong Kong.

We had pre arranged a shuttle through Krabi Shuttle and we were upgraded to a Toyota 4 runner for our ride. That was considered the Luxury SUV, we had paid for a Camry style vehicle. We liked the ride and thought our chances would be better in a crash, considering the way they drive here.

We checked into our hotel and went for a walk. We hit a place nearby and had a beer and fries. We came back to the hotel for a quick rest and then went out to find a place for supper. We missed happy hour which increased the cost of beer by nearly double. A large Leo beer went from 65 to 120 baht, about $5.15 CAD. Keep in mind a large is 2 beer in one bottle that we share. We shared an order of stir fried chicken with cashew nuts and a steamed rice. It was good. We got back to the hotel and went to bed.

Jan 15 we were up early and down for breakfast by about 7:30 am. It is a huge spread of everything you could imagine. Gary ate watermelon until he sloshed. There was dragon fruit, pineapple, guava and salads, tomatoes, breads and hot foods as well as the omelette bar where you could order eggs any way you liked

Coffee, espresso, tea and 3 juice selections. Later in the morning we went to the pool for the day. They have lounge chairs with padded mattresses and pillows under umbrellas that kept us comfortable. We alternated from sweating and reading to swimming and repeat. That evening we made sure we got to happy hour on time. We tried an Indian place and it was excellent. Not only do they have Indian but also Thai and Western dishes so lots to choose from.

The next day we repeated breakfast and pool till about 3 pm. We showered off and went for a walk to look around town. We are staying on Aonang beach (pronounced ow-nahng). We are on the North side of the big rock or cliff that separates the two sides of town. You have to walk inland of the big rock/cliff to get to the south. Today we took the 15 minute walk south to see what was there. It appears the beach is way nicer on the south side. We will find out more tomorrow when we have a boat trip to Railay Beach, a cave and some other beaches. About 6 hours total costing us 2200 baht for the two of us on a private tour. Including the national park fees of 400 baht each, our cost for the day is $130 CAD.

We are very sorry to hear about all the terrible cold weather at home. Hope everyone is surviving ok. This is what we are so thankful to be missing at home in Saskatoon.

January 13, 2020January 13, 2020

KLCC Park & Aquarium

January 13, 2020

We enjoyed breakfast at our hotel again this morning. The platter of fruit this morning had some different varieties and while it was good it has been better on other days. We basically have our fill of watermelon, pineapple, melon, dragon fruit and whatever else they decide to put out. There is cereal, lots of pastries, an omelet station and a number of hot dishes available. We’ve never left hungry!

After breakfast we made a couple of calls home and then headed out. We walked to the Kuala Lumpur convention centre that is just past the Petronas Towers and is on the other side of the KLCC gardens. The Aquaria KLCC is located beneath the convention centre. We spent a couple of hours looking at the various exhibits and tanks. The coolest part was the tunnel where you walk thru and watch the manta rays, sting rays, sharks, fish and turtles swim over and around you. The fish are actually 30% larger than they appear, which means some of them are huge! For both of us, that was the best part of the Aquarium. The fish are actually 30% larger than they appear, which means some of them are huge! There was also a column in the one area that had a number of fish that are found in the fresh water lake Kenyir that Malaysia created for electricity generation.

From the Aquaria we headed back through the convention centre to the KLCC gardens. We walked around for a bit and got some more photos of the Petronas towers and gardens. While wandering around we met a couple from Switzerland who have taken a year off from their jobs and are travelling. We chatted with them for a bit. It’s always interesting the people you meet along your travels. After we thought we could maybe get back to hotel from the one end of the park. After hiking all the way down there we decided that with all the construction and barriers we’d never find a way through so had to walk all the way back and head back our normal route. The construction here is unreal. There was lots last year but I think there is even more this year! There are cranes everywhere and buildings going up, new overpasses and detours and barricades everywhere!

We finally made it back to the hotel. We’d picked up some beer at the 7-11 on our walk back so we enjoyed that in our room and relaxed and cooled off. For supper we hiked down to the night market food area again and enjoyed supper there. We couldn’t get a Grab to get there as it was peak rush hour so we caught one back to the hotel after as we’d both had enough walking for the day. Today we managed 10.8 km of walking.

We are organizing our stuff and packing up as we head to Krabi, Thailand tomorrow!

January 12, 2020January 12, 2020

Little India

January 12, 2020

We have been going hard lately, so today we were slow moving out of our hotel. After breakfast and talking to grandkids, we booked our airport transfer to our hotel in Krabi (Ao Nang Beach area). We headed to the hotel lobby and ordered a Grab to Little India. Little India was as hot as the BIG India in the heat of summer. We looked in shops and sampled some sweets that vendors were selling. We saw lots of cut flowers in one area of the market. Women making “Mala” garlands. Down one side of the street and crossing an overpass to get to the other side we walked back to where we started. Like I said, it was uncomfortably warm and humid with full sunshine today. We slipped into The Gem Restaurant, a very nice Indian restaurant. We each ordered ice water, a mango lasi and one order of onion padoka to share. Padoka or pakora, not sure what the difference is, but it tasted great. If it wasn’t such a long distance from our hotel it would be a great place to go for supper. We still might do that when we return here in March on the way back to Saskaroon. We are still unsure but plan to spend a week in KL before heading home March 19. Planning is underway.

Once we left the Indian Restaurant we walked to the Royal Museum. It took about 40 minutes to walk to the Museum. A pedestrian overpass took us across a narrow river and wide highway. Then up some stone steps into a path through the jungle. It was a bit of a jungle trek. Thank god we didn’t run into any monkeys. Linda’s scared 💩- less of the little beasts and Gary isn’t a fan either after a couple run ins last year. I wasn’t kidding when I said jungle walk. We came out of the jungle on a little back street in a residential area and it opened onto a large parking lot where the locals were enjoying street food and merchandise for sale. It was almost like a small flea market. Once we passed the crowd we turned up a lane towards the palace. Unfortunately we came up to the palace from the back side. The freeway was along the front side. We virtually walked around the whole museum to get to the entrance. The tickets were only 10 ringgits each for foreigners. Up the driveway about 800 metres we came to the building entrance. We showed our tickets and had to remove our shoes. Bare feet on the beautiful marble and tile floors felt good. There was also some carpet in the building upstairs. Unfortunately, they do not permit pictures in the museum. That was disappointing.

We got back to the hotel in a Grab then spent some time by the infinity outdoor pool on the 11th floor of our hotel.

Walking around Kuala Lumpur is fairly quick, many locations are 1 to 5 km from our hotel. There are many high rise buildings with residential housing. We started wondering what is the area of KL city. Turns out google says 93.8 square miles with a population of 1.73 million (greater Kuala Lumpur 7.25 million). Compare that to Saskatoon, 88.1 square miles with a population of 273,000. (greater Saskatoon area 325,000). We can walk most places here in an hour or less. Little India is quite a bit farther from our hotel, about 6 km which would have taken 90 minutes to walk. We took the Grab for 13 ringgit, $4.20 CAD. The economical price for Grab is likely influenced by cheap gas here, approximately 76 cents CAD. Gas in KL is about 25% less than Costco’s price for gas in Saskatoon.

Tonight we ate supper across the street at the Indian restaurant Spice Garden. Tikka chicken, vegetable kabobs and garlic naan. We’re ready for bed by 9pm here which is only 7am at home when most people are getting up. We are pretty much accustomed to the time zone here after 4 or 5 days. Tomorrow, Monday Jan 13, will be our last full day in Kuala Lumpur.

January 11, 2020January 12, 2020

Chinatown Kuala Lumpur

January 11, 2020

We hiked (today’s total) 13.1 km and up 8 floors in elevation hiking across Kuala Lumpur. We went to Chinatown and the Petaling Street Market. We looked at t-shirts, shoes and fabric; we bought nothing. Actually we got so hot that we did buy 2 soft ice cream cones and one Fanta slurpee at McDonalds for a total cost of 3 ringgit. The unbelievable total of 96 Canadian cents. We desperately needed a place to sit down and cool off and our McDonalds stop filled the need.

We walked from Chinatown in the general direction of Jalan Alor street food night market where we ate last night. We stopped at a bar on the street Changkat Bukit Bintang and had a drink of beer at the Loco Mexican Bar and Restaurant. Our lunch at Loco consisted of 2 glasses of ice water and one small beer each combined with an order of tortilla chips, salsa and guacamole to share. Once we got our energy back we wandered down the street and ended up at a massage place where we each had a one hour massage for less than $20 CAD each. We had a good deal and it went a long way to unknot our muscles. Our massages were generous on time we ended up with well over the full hour. They also do a one hour foot massage for the same price, or less. Foot massages may be next on our list. We wore flip flops the first day in KL but Gary soon developed raw spots on his tender feet. It’s been too long since we have worn sandals or flip flops. We’ll have to ease into it, so today we donned our running shoes. As hot as they are, they are are definitely safer and more comfortable. Just very hot.

We walked down the night food market street as vendors were setting up their tables. No rain today, or tonight. We looked at menus along the way and we were offered a large beer for 15 ringgit, the equivalent of $4.80 CAD (regular price 20 ringgit) The large beer was 660 ml equivalent to 2 regular sized beer. The beer was served in frosty glasses by our waitress! We visited with the waiter who was originally from Myanmar (formerly Burma). He has been in Malaysia for 20 years. His English was hard to understand, but he told us the waitress is from Phnom Penh, Cambodia. She later told us she had one child and the papa was Malaysian. The F&B (food and beverage) industry is predominantly foreign workers. Actually Gary’s masseuse is from Bali. Her English was not that great either. She said Australia, England and Canada all good people. That much we could understand.

After our beer we walked around the market area and looked in some of the stores. Once again we found nothing that we wanted or needed.

Around 6 pm we headed back to Loco’s Mexican Bar for supper. We once again had ice water, beer and shared one order of fajitas. They were very good. Our waiter at Loco is from Bangladesh. He is a university student taking Business Administration. He has made enough money working here to pay for his tuition without taking money from his parents.

Our walk back to G Tower hotel took about 40 minutes. Rather than walking around the Petronas Towers we have learned to take the short cut through the Suria KLCC mall at the base of the towers. It is likely equivalent to a city block or two through the mall in air conditioned comfort. The mall covers 35 acres and has 6 floors/levels. We walked past stores like Dior, Louis Vuitton, Guess, Versace, Rolex, Kate Spade, Gucci, Prada, and Salvatore Ferragamo just to name a few. All places we have no desire to shop and not enough money for either.

Back at the hotel we showered off all the massage oil and did a bit of laundry in the bathroom sink. The bath mat is great to wring out the t-shirts etc!

January 10, 2020January 11, 2020

Kuala Lumpur

We Arrived!

Yawn, 3 am and it was time to get up as we planned to leave for the airport around 4:30 am. Our flight departed Saskatoon on time at 7:10 am. Upon arrival in Vancouver two hours later we were disappointed to learn our flight to Hong Kong was delayed one and a half hours. We only had one hour and 55 minutes to make our connection in Hong Kong to Kuala Lumpur. Definitely not looking good. By the time we left Vancouver we were 2 hours behind schedule. We actually landed 3 minutes after our scheduled connecting flight to Kuala Lumpur had departed. We got off the plane around 8:30 and were greeted by several agents waving signs above their heads showing passenger names. Probable half of the flight missed connecting flights to places like New Delhi, Singapore and Bangkok. We got ushered off to Cathay Pacific’s transfer desk by our respective agent. We had the option of leaving our bags checked or taking them to our designated hotel – the rep strongly recommended leaving them checked. We decided to leave our bags checked to simplify check in that was less than 12 hours later. We eventually got booked into the Marriott near the Hong Kong airport. We had a nice room with a king bed. The foods voucher was worthless, the options being spaghetti with tomato sauce or vegetable fried rice. The rice was dry, salty and very low on vegetables. Nonetheless, it was something to get us through the short night.

We took the 6am shuttle back to the airport. Passport control and security screening was busy. Gary had to empty his carryon because of medication. We had breezed through security in Saskatoon over 24 hours earlier. Not in Hong Kong. Once past security we immediately found a fast food place for a quick breakfast, then off to our gate. We got reacquainted with some of fellow travellers from the Vancouver flight. One guy in particular, from Preeceville, is a chef at a family owned Indian Restaurant. He, unfortunately had not booked all of his flights on the same ticket through Air Canada and ended up staying in the terminal overnight.

Our flight to Kuala Lumpur took off and within a few minutes into the flight we needed blankets to keep warm. The flight was otherwise great, taking about 4 hours. The airport was a mob scene at immigration, we waited almost an hour to get through. When we got to the luggage carousel all the bags were up and we found Gary’s quickly. After waiting on Linda’s bag for quite some time, in near panic, we went looking for it. It had mysteriously been set near the lost and found. Breathing a sigh of relief we headed to the exit in search of an ATM and SIM cards for the phones. We bough Digi Sim cards. They work but the internet is SLOW.

We checked in to the G Tower hotel we thought one day late. In reality if we had arrived when we should have, we would not have had a room. With the confusion of international date line and time changes it turns out we actually didn’t have a room booked for January 8 which we would have needed to check in at 3 am January 9. If things went according to schedule, we would have been screwed! We would have arrived at the hotel at 3 or 4 am with no room. We dodged a bullet there! Thank You Air Canada, you provided us a flight and room and board!

After we `unpacked we rested a bit. Shortly after 5 pm we headed out and ordered a Grab (like Uber). The Grab app initially showed a 10 minute wait, then 6 and eventually a 10 minute wait. After 20 minutes we cancelled our ride and walked across the street to the “Spicy Garden” Indian restaurant. Beers, pakora, tikka masala chicken and naan bread. We could barely finish. It was great. Sitting outside in the humid heat was beneficial for our dry flaky skin. By the time we returned to or room our skin felt totally different. In a good way. Soft and moist.

January 10, our first full day touring in Kuala Lumpur. We walked around the Petronas twin towers and through the mall at the base of the towers.

Out behind the towers is the beautiful KLCC Park. We wandered around the gardens, pool and fountain in the park. We walked to the Banyan Tree Hotel and took an elevated walkway to the Pavilion Mall. From there we walked to a pharmacy to get some bandaids. Gary’s feel are getting raw from his flip flops. Our feet, and the rest of us, are not acclimatized to the +32 º weather yet. We ate lunch at Lot 10 which is a huge indoor food court in the basement of a building. It is all Chinese, Malay and other are ethnic food. We shared a sweet and sour chicken with pineapple and rice for 11.30 MYR (Malaysian Ringgit) equalling about $3.61CAD. Our lime and sour plum drinks, a local favourite totalled 9.10 ringgit equalling $2.91 CAD. We didn’t drink beer because of the cost, one bottle of beer was 17 ringgit or $5.45 CAD.

Traffic was terrible so when it came time to get a Grab (Asian Uber) we walked to the Westin hotel to designate our pickup spot. It took at least 10 minutes for the Uber to arrive and when he did he actually dropped off people at the Westin, then we got in. Our ride to G Tower took at least 15 minutes. Friday afternoon is Muslim prayer time, and I guess every Muslim was heading for the Mosque. Grid lock again.

After a cool down in the hotel room, we made a trip to Jalan Alor night food court. The Grab wait time wasn’t too bad tonight!! It had rained a bit while we were in the hotel room and after we got seated at a Thai restaurant food stall there was some thunder and a cloud burst. It eventually cleared up and turned out to be a nice evening. After sharing a Thai cashew chicken dish with beer, we walked around and eventually got sucked in to by ice cream vendor where we shared a small ice cream. We walked by all the foot massage places on the next street until we came down to part of the street lined with bars and restaurants. We stopped at the Brix Union Gastreo Pub where we each enjoyed a glass of beer as we people watched. After our beer we walked back to our hotel which was about 3 km. Along the way we stopped at the Petronas Towers and went through to the KLCC Park where we sat and watched the pool jet light show that was timed with music. There were hundreds of people surrounding the large pool. We weren’t at the hotel long before we crashed for the night.

Supper tonight was 67 ringgit total for rice, cashew chicken and 2 beer each. Total meal $21.45 CAD. Ice cream was 10 ringgit, $3.20 CAD. More beer at the pub, 34.80 ringgit, $11.13 CAD. Grand total, $35.78. It felt like we spent too much and ate too much, so we walked home and saved the $4.50 the Grab ride back to the hotel would have cost. All together we walked 12 km today. Economical food, drink and taxi fares with excellent weather. We love Malaysia.

Signs along the streets of Kuala Lumpur say: Selamat Datang 2020, which means welcome 2020. There are Christmas decorations and Chinese lanterns along the streets. After all Chinese New Year is coming January 25. There are Mosques everywhere that have call to prayer. The locals wear lots of clothing, Muslim women wear head scarves, even a few wear Burkas, Maybe they are tourists from Arab countries, not really sure. All that clothing in such humid heat well over 30º. Meanwhile we are wearing shorts, t-shirts and dripping sweat. Still loving it!

November 25, 2019November 25, 2019

Coimbra

We spend October 8 to October 11 in Coimbra. We stayed at the NS Hostel in a private room with ensuite bathroom. It was a great location being very close to restaurants, pubs and tourist attractions. The steps to the University were a couple of blocks away. The university is built on a huge hill and was originally surrounded by a wall. Some of the wall is still intact.