After yesterday post we moved on to Ipoh hoping our Malaysia experience would get better.

Well…

We arrived at 8am this morning after a 12 hour bus journey. Kat was getting straight on another bus to go to Kuala Lumpa to get some souvenirs she’d seen when we’d been there a couple of weeks ago. (She’d tried to get them before we left but the shop was closed.) Everything went according to plan. Kat got the bus and Emily and I headed off into Ipoh.

We got to the hotel, apparently one of the best budge hotels in the area, and were disconcerted to find it was yet another scabby establishment above a Chinese restaurant! I stayed with the bags whilst Emily went off in search of somewhere better. She ended up in a hostel (recommended by the guide book) down a side street with old drunk men leering at her. She was shown a room that had a man lieing on a bed and told they would clean the room for us and kick him out! Not likeing the hostel, despite it being cheap, and seeing a sign asking guests to refrain from drilling peep holes in the walls and to leave their firearms at reception she politely declined. After walking for 40 minutes in the blistering heat Emily reappeared and we checked into the first hotel.

We walked around Ipoh and weren’t surprised to discover everything was closed. Including the tourist information.

The guidebook mentioned a nearby hot spring cost 5 Ringett (less than 1GBP) and was open Tuesday to Sunday. This seemed like a good way to spend the afternoon. We walked for about 40 minutes to the local bus station where we got a bus that dropped us off in the middle of nowhere and told us to walk down the road to the springs. We eventually found it and discovered…. You guessed it. IT WAS CLOSED! Emily spotted a boat ride nearby and asked the attendant: “Can we go on the boat ride?” His response: “Closed!” By now there was nothing to do but laugh. We trundled off back to the main road to catch the bus and ended up on the return trip of the bus that had dropped us off.

With nothing else to do we came to the Internet cafe where I sit now. But more bad news was to follow! Kat had emailed us from Kuala Lumpa tourist police station. She’d fallen asleep on the bus and had her wallet stolen from her bag. She was in Kuala Lumpa, alone, with no money and no visa card. Luckily she had her mums ’emergency’ credit card separate – although the only hotel that would take credit cost 150 Ringett a night, we usually pay 10 Ringett and she can’t draw cash on it. Luckily she also had some spare Thai Baht in her bag and has managed to change it for enough Ringett to pay for her bus ticket back to Ipoh and some food.

The irony of this being we were chatting to a man on a bus the other day who was saying how safe Malaysia is because it is a Muslim country. He was telling us we’d have to be careful in Thailand because they have no religion and steel from peoples bags!

So all in all things couldn’t get much more crappy. Kat will arrive back here tomorrow and we are getting the night bus to the ferry port to go over to Langkawi. We are due to arrive in Langkawi about 9am on my birthday after spending all night travelling. The island had better be nice because otherwise we will leave with a very bad impression of Malaysia.

It’s such a shame that I am writing this post because I’d heard people say that Malaysia was a bit shit, but I desperately wanted to like it. I guess another time of year and it would have been completely different. But it really is a case of not much to do and not much to see, everything just seems to disappoint. It’s a real shame that this is the first country any of us have actually wanted to leave! But never mind Langkawi is supposed to be amazing and Thailand will be good. Plus we’ll be home in rainy cold England three weeks tomorrow!

* Posted by j150vsc on 27/01/2008.