Kuala Lumpur to Sri Lanka

Note: I apologize for the lack of pictures in this post...I got only one uploaded.  The rest wouldn't survive the unbelievably slow internet.  I'm about to take a long trek through the Himalayas and once I return, I'll put up a big post with the pictures that belonged on this blog post.  I'll also obviously upload another post about my Himalayan trek (complete with pictures!).




It's been a pretty wild few days.  I spent 5 days in Malaysia and somehow ended up in Sri Lanka.  The twists and turns the adventure takes is sometimes strange and always keeps you on your toes.  

I arrived at the airport in Sydney nice and early, two hours before my flight to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.  When I arrived I was notified that my flight would be delayed by 5 hours.  That meant that I had to kill seven hours at the airport.  I was so irritated.  The flight had already been given a 5-hour delay before I even arrived.  If I had been notified in any way I could have spent another day in Sydney, enjoying the city and possibly hanging out with a few of my friends.  Instead I had to kill seven hours in a terminal that you could walk from one end to another in about five minutes with very little to interest me in between.

That was only a minor inconvenience I suppose.  The real problem was that I arrived in Kuala Lumpur at 2am rather than 8pm.  Moreover, the airport is a good hour plus away from the city center.  I landed at 2, it took an hour to get my bag (an hour which I spent nervously anticipating an "oops, we lost your luggage.  Sorry!  Enjoy your stay in Malaysia!"), and over an hour to get to the hotel.  I arrived at about 4:30am and promptly fell asleep and slept through much of my first day.  I awoke in the afternoon and had a good wander around, saw the famous Petronas Towers--formally the tallest buildings in the world--and got some 'authentic' Malaysian food.  That night, I went to meet a Belgian fellow named Wim, who I was put in contact with through my friend Colin who I met and traveled with in Peru/New Zealand.

Wim was staying down in Chinatown, which was a cool part of the city and one I had wanted to go see and explore.  I got more than I bargained for, as I spent a considerable amount of time trying to navigate the tiny crowded street markets and hawker stands while searching for this Hostel called the Bird's Nest or something like that.  Everyone I asked pointed in different directions and nobody seemed to have a clue or had even heard of a place called Bird's Nest.  I was lost; crouching under low awnings and squeezing past excited and drunk "gwai-los" (white devils) while searching for some unknown location and simultaneously warding off shop owners hounding me for my cash and intentionally misdirecting me rather than spend energy explaining the way to Bird's Nest gave me the distinct feeling that I was back in Bangkok.  I eventually made my way out of the market and found myself on a dark and deserted street.

I walked up to a one-toothed man leaning against his motorbike pleading, "please can you tell me where Bird's Nest hostel is?"

"I sorry.  No Engrish."  

Ah.  What a lovely and completely unexpected response.  Now What?  I'm lost in Chinatown on a dark and deserted street and I can't find this damn place.  Mr. Miagi over on his motorbike wasn't any help, and there wasn't a soul on that street.  I saw a street sign that confirmed I was in the right place, so I decided to brave the darkness and proceed down this street that appeared as though it had sheet-metal armor on every door and entrance, complete with the graffiti that seems to magically appear whenever a piece of sheet-metal goes up.  But, as luck would have it, I found Bird's Nest.

I met and got to know Wim and his Argentinean girlfriend, Crystal, while we went out for some food.  Crystal was pleased to meet someone that had traveled to her home country and she loved conversing in Spanish with me, as limited as my Spanish-speaking skills are.  Wim seemed like a very nice guy and decided to travel to Nepal with me and Colin (who I was meeting in Kathmandu in a few days time).  We enjoyed a fun outdoor meal of some kind of curry/rice/chili that was prepared in clay pots.

After dinner we went to a bar and had a few beers and talked about what to do in Kuala Lumpur, as they had been there for a few days time.  We had fun for a few hours and then split ways and went home.  I woke up the next morning and my t-shirt that had been so fresh and clean the day before reeked of cigarettes.  That'll happen in a bar with a ton of second-hand smoke, I guess.  The upsetting part was the t-shirt only got one day of use before it got rotated to the laundry bag.  Such a shame.  It could have been reused several times.  You never know when you're gonna be able to do laundry when you're traveling, and now I was prematurely down a t-shirt.  

My time in KL was unfortunately a bit frantic and I didn't really get the full experience.  My plans went haywire and I spent a lot of time trying to figure out exactly what to do.  I had originally planned to fly to Borneo and meet up with some friends to do a jungle trek and some diving.  After that I was going to go back to KL and then fly from there to Kathmandu.

First, my cheap and direct flight KL > Kathmandu disappeared.  What was left in its place were limited options, all of which were miserable and usually entailed long layovers in multiple countries.  I found a flight that would have only one stop, in New Delhi, but that would be a 21-hour layover.  I figured I could do that, drive the 4 or so hours from Delhi to see the famous Taj Mahal, drive back, then catch my flight to Kathmandu.  NOPE, you need a visa to enter India, which I did not have.

I looked into flights to what seemed like dozens of cities, all of which were too expensive or else required long layovers in Delhi or Chennai, layovers which I'd have to sit out at the airport.  At the same time, my plans to go to Borneo were falling through.  My friends in Kota Kinabalu said it was constant monsoon-like rains, and they had sped up their itinerary to get out of the storm areas.  I was looking into all kinds of alternatives to try to get to Borneo: fly to K. Kinabalu and bus transfer a few hours somewhere, fly into any other Borneo airports and bus transfer or take a turboprop somewhere, blah, blah blah.  At the end of it all, it was just too much of a hassle.  I was upset I wouldn't get to see Borneo, but I had to figure out some kind of solution for my current predicament.

I pulled up google maps to see if there was anything I was missing.  Embarrassingly, I don't think I could have pointed out Sri Lanka on a map before last week.  It was a war-torn country that I knew little about.  But hey, it was on the map in my neck of the woods.  Found a flight to Colombo, the capital.  Hey, it's cheap!  Found a connecting flight from Colombo to Kathmandu two days later…I think I have something going here.

I knew the civil war in Sri Lanka had ended in 2009, but knew little else.  I did some basic research and decided I'd rather book my ticket to Sri Lanka and chill on the beach for two days rather than spend over 24 hours flying to Kathmandu, the majority of it spent sitting in a Delhi airport.

Sri Lanka it is!

I emailed Colin to tell him of my change of plans and to inform him that I'd be arriving in Kathmandu at 2:45pm on April 14th.  Just as I was about to take off, I got an email back:

"Haha I'm in Sri Lanka!  Come to Kandy, get a train.  Me and Meredith can meet you there."

Well this was a surprise.  Here I was traveling to this small island nation on the other side of the planet and not only was Colin there, Meredith (who I had met in New Zealand and had joined us for three weeks in our Homer van) was there as well.  

Still, I had one night left in KL.  On my last night there I got a chance to have dinner with Florence Sloan's sister Winnie and husband, Joe.  I got in touch with them on my last day and they very generously offered to take me out to dinner for some authentic Malaysian food.  It was absolutely delicious.  I can't remember what any of it was called (and probably couldn't spell it anyway), but there was a chicken curry dish, a dish of I believe fish tails, and a dish with some kind of bright-green colored veggie that was supposed to be very good for you.  I ate it all and loved it.  It was a real privilege to eat a proper meal and I really appreciated the time Florence, Winnie, and Joe all took to make me feel welcome in this foreign part of the world.

The next day, I took the short flight to Colombo, got off the plane, and got a transfer to Kandy, which was about three hours away.  I went to the hotel Colin and Meredith had advised me to meet them at and got some food and some advice on Kandy from the exceptionally sweet woman running the hostel.

While I was a bit stand-offish when I first arrived (I didn't know the culture or how likely I was to get conned or robbed), I quickly discovered two things:  Sri Lanka is awesome and Sri Lankans are some of the nicest people I've met in my travels.  Sri Lanka had a type of tropical jungle/mountain mystique that fit my preconceptions of what Vietnam would look like more than Vietnam did, if that makes sense.  It was like being on the set of Apocalypse Now.  All I needed was a couple of Hueys, Valkyrie blasting through a speaker, and Robert Duvall with his surfboard to complete the picture.

Monkeys, giant lizards, chameleons, elephants, geckos, all manner of bird life, and giant beetle-like insects are some of the incredible wildlife I saw in only a day and a half in Sri Lanka.  It was one of those places where you arrive and like it so much that you want to stay.  One general thing I've tried to avoid in traveling is making strict plans; it always messes things up.  I would have spent two weeks in Sri Lanka easily, but I had a flight to catch and only had one full day there.  Such a shame.  I don't think I'll probably ever return.  I know people say, "well why not?  If you liked it you can go back."  Duh, it's possible.  But let's be reasonable here.  What were the odds of me ending up in Sri Lanka in the first place, let alone going back?

I awoke my first morning in Sri Lanka because my father called me at 6am not realizing the time difference.  He and I needed to discuss law school plans in the event I didn't hear back from GW before the deposit deadline for AU.  While on the phone, I figured I'd check my email one more time and lo and behold there was the subject line "Congratulations!" right there in the inbox.  I was so excited about my acceptance to GW I couldn't go back to sleep.

I went upstairs instead where there was a common area and spent some time enjoying the view.  The entire valley was covered in a thick mist that slowly burned off over the course of the morning.

The woman running the hostel made me some eggs, toast, and tea, and I relaxed in the warm morning air reading my book, All Elevations Unknown, which was given to me by my aunt.  It's about a jungle trek in Borneo so naturally I was again disappointed I never made it there, but it's still a good book.

Eventually I got tired of sitting around and woke Colin and Meredith up.  We wandered into the city and met a very nice Sri Lankan tuktuk driver who called himself Laxman.  He made us a very good deal and he spent the day giving us a tour of Kandy.

We saw tea fields and factories (they produce 12 million pounds per month for export), a temple supposedly containing one of Buddha's teeth, and all sorts of beautiful scenery.

At the end of the day he dropped us off and we signed his book so other travelers could read it and know that he's a nice guy and a good tour guide and not one of those people you meet who are simply trying to con you out of a few dollars.

We had some dinner and enjoyed an absolutely incredible sunset.  It was one of those kinds that seems to  keep getting better and better before the sun finally disappears over the horizon.

Early the next morning (3am), one of the owners of the hostel very generously offered to drive us the 3 hours back to Colombo airport (he got a biiiiiiiig tip).  Colin and I boarded our plane and took off for Kathmandu as Meredith caught her flight to Australia.

More from Kathmandu...