Saturday - wandering aimlessly my first day in Kuala Lumpur

Saturday morning I meandered out of my guesthouse to see KL. My thoughts were to figure out where the monorail picked up and take it around. A taxi driver was waiting at the bottom of the street and he asked where I wanted to go. I told him I would probably take the monorail and go site seeing, perhaps to Batu Caves. He said, Come on, I’ll take you there and then I’ll bring you back to the monorail station. I was easy to convince. He proceeded to give me the landmarks I would need to get home later, the monorail information, etc. He waited for me at the caves and brought me back as promised. All for about $20. (The tours that you can sign up for online to take you out to Batu Caves are more than that.) We had a wonderful conversation about the country and his life and my children and his daughter and the value of money and what is important in various religions. He and I both decided that Christians and Muslims have more in common than they have in difference. He wasn’t pitching – I doubt it had occurred to him to compare before. We were just chatting. The economy everywhere, the US President, the weather in Florida v. the weather in KL. Oh, and the Indians are lazy drunks. They just want to come here and they don’t want to work. (Does this sound familiar?)

The caves themselves are a giant Hindu temple. And monkeys! Everywhere! The taxi driver said that the minute you have a space with a few trees in the city, you are going to have monkeys. I don’t think I had really equated the word “jungle” with this place as firmly in my mind as I should have. It is incredibly hot and muggy and jungle-like. The minute I stepped out of the cab I witnessed a monkey jumping into the arms of a toddler with a popsicle – and then taking off with the popsicle. The child laughed. I witnessed the monkeys doing lots of things. Pretty much everything you can imagine. I took pictures (see Facebook album) but the ones where you could see a whole wall full of monkeys climbing around didn’t come out well. The cave was large and amazing – and then temples have been built inside. Literally buildings inside. The whole cave has a concrete floor. The Hindus have their shoes off (everyone must take their shoes off to go inside the temples themselves – I did not go). One woman that I saw was clearly of Chinese decent but dressed in Hindu style garments complete with the “dot”. I saw three catholic nuns wandering around. The stairs were quite a hike up – but the view was nice looking back out over KL.

My new best friend the taxi driver dropped me in China town after much discussion about how I should spend my day. I wandered through China town but I’m going to be honest with you, it was no different from any China town anywhere and there were moments when I could have sworn I was on Canal St. in New York. I bought nothing. Then I wandered over to the central market – but similarly did not remain interested for long because I’m not in the buying mode. So I bought a ticket to the hop-on/hop-off bus and hopped on.

My malaria tablets make me nauseous, so after about a 1/3 of the circuit I got out and walked for awhile. Just a business district part of town, no tourists. I got a slurpee at 7-11 (yep, you read that right) and it was just the refreshment I needed. After my no-agenda wandering for a couple of miles I flagged a cab and asked him to take me to Petronas towers.

Petronas towers are the twin towers that are the icon of KL. You can go up an elevator and walk across the glass skybridge between the two buildings. It’s free but there is a line. I couldn’t be bothered. But the bottom few stories of the tower buildings are a fabulous modern mall. I was feeling quite hungry by then but was intimidated by the food places in the non-touristy areas, so eating at a restaurant in the mall felt like the right compromise – stick my toe in the water. The girl who waited on me was amused by my (pantomimed) questions – and everyone in the little eating area seemed to enjoy watching the steam coming out of my ears while I ate the spicy soup. When you order something here, you always say how many, even if it is only one. So I am learning to say “one more” about cold drinks when I am eating, here!

Even in the most touristy sections of this city you don’t see very many Westerners. When you do, they are more often non-native-English speakers. I’ve met Danish, German, French and others. English is the common language even among the natives sometimes (between Malaysian, Arabic and Indian) – but you hear it with every accent imaginable. When your ear does pick up a native English speaker, the accent will be Australian/New Zealand or British. I have picked up the American or Canadian accent one time in the entire time I have been here.

After wandering the shopping mall and having my dinner/lunch, I caught back up with the hop-on/hop-off bus. I watched in fascination out the window and listened to the commentary. Finally exiting at my home stop. I knew my home stop because of the words that my first taxi-driver had made me repeat until I had memorized.

The walk back was when I began to realize why all the reviews on Trip Advisor raved about the location of my guesthouse. Tucked on a quiet cul-de-sac it is short blocks away from the most happening parts of the city. Best of both worlds! I took a few pictures of the walk home and the street outside the guest house. See Facebook album “A random day in KL”.

It wasn’t very late but I was tired. I had been fighting the nausea all day and everything was so foreign and just a little scary. I was ready for some quiet relaxation. Unfortunately – while I did remain in my room – it was some time before I had quiet relaxation because while I was wandering around this day a life-changing drama was unfolding back home. But I got to spend some time Skyping with family.

Thursday - a ride and a musical



Start: bridge and a small ship



My bike ride through Sydney was interesting on Thursday – traveled through lots of different sections of the city. It is a city full of character and areas with completely different “feeling”.

You see a lot of fit, happy, social people. Well dressed and out having fun or marching swiftly on their commute.On my outward journey I stayed as close to the water as I could – which meant for a lot of up and down. For this Florida-based cyclist that was a new and grueling experience! Then on the way back I looped wider into the city and came back through China town and the business district. It was a gorgeous warm day and although it was Thursday there was a Friday vibe. Everyone seemed to be out in the street – some dressed in suits and walking fast, tourists in flip-flops. Street performers every time there was a wide section in the sidewalk. I gave up and walked the bike the last mile back. I was walking along grinning like an idiot because everyone was happy, having fun. What a beautiful, energetic city! I wanted to take a couple of pictures of this stretch but I honestly couldn’t stop… the mass of people flowed like a current and you must allow yourself to be swept along or swept away!

I showered and dressed up as much as I could and walked around darling harbor to the Star City Casino. Got my ticket and then grabbed a veggie sandwich and an ice cream bar as dinner. Last time I was at the casino there was this whole mall of shops including food places, and that was where I had planned to get dinner – but they are renovating and that whole section is closed up and boarded off.

I had heard good things about the musical Dr. Zhivago. It has a new score and the director from Jersey Boys. But I know the story as dark and painful, so I wasn’t sure how much I would enjoy it. The score was incredible and the voices of the cast were splendid. It was like when I saw Phantom for the first time. That good. That spellbinding. I didn’t want it to be over. This is the latest I’ve stayed up since getting here but I wasn’t sleepy. I would have sat there and watched the whole thing again if it were an option. I cannot recommend this musical highly enough. It had all the traditional things, a bit of newer things like mixed media and modern choreographic elements and the most stunning original score that I’ve heard in ages. If I had another night in Sydney I’m pretty sure I would see it again.

Today’s plan is to get organized, go for a last bike ride. If I leave soon I can get a couple of hours in. Then get back here to shower, change, pack in time to checkout at 11a. Leave the luggage here, take the bicycle back, walk over to the train station and get my ticket. Then I may just wander a bit until I need to get back to the hotel to grab my bags and catch the train to the airport. I fly to Malaysia at 3:30p. It’s an 8 1/2 hour flight with a 3 hour time difference – so I get there at almost 9p local time. There is a cool monorail but also everything is very inexpensive so I think coming in late like that I will just get a taxi from the airport.

Mission #1 Accomplished

U2U Australia draws to a close.  I got out of there about 3:30p and took a bike ride.  Possibly the most beautiful day ever on Earth and I have lots if observations to make.  But I have to get going to see Dr. Zhivago the musical... more later.  But here's the ride.  Check the map, I had no idea where I was going.  But I had a great time!

http://www.endomondo.com/workouts/s916qTvnSf8

An American Cyclist in Sydney

Thinking to outrun the traffic, I left a few minutes before dawn. I didn’t witness much of the sunrise because I was in the bowels of the city, but it was still nice to be out in the dawn air. There was less traffic but there were still a lot of busses. I’d really like to meet the never-rode-a-bicycle nitwit who decided that bicycles and busses could share lanes here in Sydney. It’s true that sometimes I get a good stretch where the lane is all mine, but often enough a bus pulls into my way and those suckers are way, way, WAY bigger than me!

I found my way to Centennial park with only about four near-death experiences at intersections. Once on the park grounds I felt as though I had entered the holy land. Here they all were, the bicyclists. Beautiful paved bicycle lanes and no cars at all. Absolutely beautiful park with every kind of park-like activity you can imagine. Dogs and people and horses and bicycles and runners and a yoga class and a track club and a rugby team and … everything. I took the cirucuit three times. I used endomondo (an application I loaded onto my blackberry to track my rides, distance, speed, etc.) but I did a lot of things wrong. I’m not sure it counted distance where I went around the same circle three times. Then it got turned off in my bag – I don’t have any kind of mount for my phone – and the map shows a crow-flies route which is not much like the route I took. So – it says I went 17 km, which would be about 11 miles. I routinely ride 16 miles and I'm pretty sure I rode more than 11 today. I guess I’ll never know but I reckon it was .. oh 14.

On the way back I tried a different route and it was actually much better.  A few places with actual bike lanes.  Less busses in the bus lanes. The commuter cyclists were out so that felt reassuring. Still, every intersection is like a game of chicken with people in their cars.

As I pulled around to the final lap, from the outside of the opera house, when the buildings opened up to the dock a new and interesting site met my gaze! The Queen Elizabeth, docked right here at Circular Quay. It is huge and sort of shocking to see it there. I took pictures but I used the regular camera and I can’t upload that until I get home.

Off to the conference!

Breached and battered

Day three of the big adventure and now my main credit card has been breached.  So on day one in the first city I injured myself enough to have to modify my plans and on the second day my credit card had to be closed.  They are overnighting me a new one, so it may be okay.  And my foot injury will keep me from running for awhile, but I have the bicycle.  So certainly things could be worse.  But those were actually the two things I was most concerned about and they both happened right away.  I like to think this makes me "pre-disastered".


It’s early (really early) on Wednesday morning here in Sydney. Marching around in high heels all day long wasn’t good for my foot sprain. By the end of the night it was comically swollen and I was limping around in bare feet. It feels a little better now and I am hoping that I can still bicycle without having much impact on it. Other than a foot-status-report, there is not a lot to report today. Not in the context of this blog, anyway! Yesterday was the first day of the conference so there were several general sessions and then several break-out sessions. Three “free” meals that were all very nice.

Today will be much the same – an early bike ride then sessions (including mine), free lunch and later a vendor/sponsor event with free food and drink. I do like the stuff that includes free food. 

Yawn,

To Sydney

Monday, 22 Feb 2011

Waited a couple of hours at the airport in LA (LAX). The gate area was very crowed, no open power outlets, too cheap to spend $45 for the club room. Yawn. Broke down and had a Frappuccino (the kind with no coffee). Plane (Boeing 777)  has 3/3/3 seat configuration and I was on the aisle of a middle three. Full flight. Couple next to me argued and snored. Ugh.

Flight arrived on schedule. I didn’t sleep much but I wasn’t entirely miserable either. V Australia doesn’t bring around as many snacks and doesn’t give you the little goodies (like mints, etc.) but then again the flight was hundreds of dollars less, so I can go along with that. The food wasn’t ghastly and it was plenty. I was able to finally watch the movie "Eat, Pray, Love". I have wanted to see it anyway, but I especially wanted to see it at the start of this journey!

The shuttle company was kind of a disaster – (Note: use Sydney Shuttle, not Airport Connection). But I met a nice young woman from France (actually from Reunion Island) that was also waiting for the same bus. She arrived today to spend a year as a nurse here. As she pointed out, it was too early for most things to be open anyway, so by the time we did get to our respective accommodation we could take care of business.  We would have been waiting somewhere, for something.  I guess.

The Russell Hotel - The Rocks - Sydney  The hotel is a welcome pleasure. Yes it is older and the rooms are small. No, there is no central air. But we are right on the harbor near the bridge and the breeze is cool. The view is nice and the furnishings in the room are quite cozy. Clean and comfortable. The bathroom down the hall is spacious, modern and clean and has, so far, been mine when I needed it. The white terry bathrobe for those trips down the hall?  Priceless!  When you consider that this hotel costs about 1/3 of the others around it and has an interesting history and is located right in The Rocks at Circular Quay, it’s a heckuva deal. $5/day for high speed internet, too.

My room at the Russell

Happily they said I could have my room in about ½ hour. It was still only about 9:30a. So I left my bags and I took a wander about. I found a ghost tour company with a tour that had stories I have not yet heard. Stunning price - $42. When I first started doing these they were always about $10. So I found out the details but decided not to do it tonight. I got a coffee and a sandwich – yes it was only 10:00a but I had breakfast on the plane at 5:00a and didn’t want breakfast again! My next mission was to find a place to rent a bicycle. I looked up from the table where I was finishing my coffee and my gaze fell on – yes, the bicycle tour/rental store. Right there and just around the corner from the hotel. I went to have a chat with them and got lots of good information and route ideas. I didn’t want to get the bike without checking that I had a place to keep it, so I went back to the hotel to get checked in. They said no problem with keeping the bike in the room. I got settled in to the room, took a much-craved shower, checked email , set my alarm and catnapped, My plan was to sleep for two hours but I actually only slept for an hour. Got dressed for bicycling and cheerily headed back to the bike shop.

Everything was going so well! I suppose that explains why I jauntily stepped badly onto the old, uneven cobbled walkway of The Rocks and really twisted my ankle! Ouch! I sat for a bit until it felt a little better, then limped on over to the bike shop. Got the bike anyway. Spent a long time talking to Pat about the various routes I may take this week. Rented a girl bike – I’ve never ridden one before this. Well, not since I was about 9 years old.  It’s fine, the only time I hate it is when I need to walk the bike up or down stairs – not as easy to hoist up without that boy bar. The bike is a fairly decent, quite new Trek mountain bike. The young man who worked there, Pat, fixed me up with helmet, lock and bag. No odometer, though. I’m trying to install the sport gps ap on my blackberry. So far no luck, but I’ll figure it out.

I started out by riding over ‘the bridge’, just because, you know. There it is. It has separate, car, train, pedestrian and bicycle roadways. I mostly just went over and back because there is not much different on that side of the bridge as far as any less traffic or better bike paths. But I wanted to ride over and back and so I did. Said hello to the security woman standing at the center, both times. She has a lovely view but I would guess that most of the time it is a very boring occupation. She was very alert to my approach and looked me over like it was her job (yuk, yuk – see that’s funny because it IS her job). I only saw one other bicyclist on the bridge on my way over and back. You run into security people standing around up in the bridge work itself when you do a bridge climb, too.



Harry's Cafe de Wheels





Dinner: Veggie Tiger from Harry's




Dinner spot




Dinner view



One of the things that Pat raved the most about is ‘real Aussie food’ which he says is a meat pie and that not only is the best ‘real Aussie food’ to be found at this shack called Harry’s but that they have a unique offering that is called a “Tiger”. It is a meat pie in a regular mini-pie-shell, loaded with mashed potatoes and mashed peas and then topped with gravy. So eventually on my deathly terrifying ride around Sydney I found my way to this place and took a break to try one. I compromised on the vegetarian version and didn’t eat much of the pie crust. But I do say that it was yummy. I sat on a bench like all the other locals and, like all the other locals, battled the pigeons for my meal.

From there I ventured through the sort of sex-district of Sydney (King’s Cross) and nicer suburbs (Darlinghurst, Pott’s something) and ultimately made my way to the far side of the Botanical Gardens. I rode the nice, tree-lined CAR-FREE trail around the outside, down by Mrs. MacGuire’s Chair. After that you enter the Gardens themselves and you have to walk your bike. This is when I found out that my ankle really is still bothering me. But the walk through the gardens was gorgeous and it was a lovely afternoon. I took my time and limped through. It sprinkled ever so lightly a couple of times, but mostly it was pleasantly warm without being hot and pleasantly overcast without being gloomy.

Finally the last bit of death-defying Sydney traffic – mostly pedestrian this time, around the Opera House and Circular Quay and then up through The Rocks to my hotel. All in all about a four hour ride, but I really have no idea how far and it wasn’t as much exercise as I would have liked because there was so much stop and go with the traffic along with stairs that had to be climbed and sections that had to be walked. Possibly 10 or 15 miles. Next ride I am definitely going to take the fairy to Manly Beach and ride up the beach. There is also one park where there is a bike trail about 4 miles around – but it is still a deadly ride to get there. Still with so few places to “open it up” I may resort to that.

The hotel staff were very nice about digging me up a tea-towel, plastic bag and ice for my ankle. I hauled the bike to the room, took a shower and iced my foot while catching up on email. Sacked out and woke up to discard the melted bag of ice and went right back to sleep. I was probably asleep by 8p, so getting up at 2:30a is not that bad. My rule on jet lag is to always try to get used to the time zone I’m on, but also not to fight it. Sleep when I’m sleepy, get up when I’m awake. So that explains why I am posting this blog at about 4a Tuesday morning, Sydney time.

The woman from the Sydney hash club (“Low Profile” is her hash name) that I’ve been emailing with is very nice. She has offered to take the bus with me from the city to wherever the hash is being held on Wednesday. There is also a hash with another club tonight that she invited me to go with her - it is a ferry ride over to the Queens - the QE2 and the Queen Mary are historically in Sydney together for the first time.( http://purecruises.com.au/queen-elizabeth-queen-mary-2) I’m not clear on where the hash run will take us, just that it starts with a ferry ride from Luna Park, which is an easy walk from here. http://www.lunaparksydney.com// I’m worried about my ankle and I think I’m obliged to stay at the conference for opening night festivities – but I’d really like to go on this. Maybe I’ll see if I can take the bicycle if my ankle is still bothering me. That would be good, too, because if most of these hash clubs tend to run 6 miles I will have a lot of trouble with that even when my ankle is not bothering me.

~S

So it begins.

Getting up at 4:30 in the morning is one of my least favorite activities. I guess I should be happy that for this one last day I was even aware of what time of day it was. That my internal clock and the one at the bedside table were actually aligned.


Tony dropped me off in plenty of time and it’s a good thing because after I checked my bag I realized that I had left my sweater in the van. He wasn’t tooooo far away and was willing to come back and bring it to me. So first problem occurred … and solved. I am sure there will be more problems.

What wasn’t a problem was my Virgin Atlantic flight. A pleasure – Facebook access for free, open a tab for food and a movie. Empty middle seat between myself and another nice lady. All good.

Then the next small snag – Steve’s leg problems will keep him from bicycling today. We already knew the weather might stop us anyway. So it’s okay – he’s coming down anyway and we’ll just maybe hang out at the beach, get something to eat. It’s only 10:15a, my flight was early. But it works out so I can recharge the laptop and then we will kill some time and then I’ll head back over to LAX to wait for my flight to Sydney at 8p. I knew this would be a day of waiting – but I’d still rather have a comfortable, non-stop flight and a longer wait than a more difficult flight with less layover. And this flight was a bargain, to boot!

It turns out that we had a museum day instead of a bicycle day. It was lovely. The new Getty museum is fantastic. Then we had a meal at this place called Café Brasil – yes, Brazilian food. Something about the owner was murdered by her husband – who is now serving a prison sentence for the crime. Not sure who is running the restaurant now, but it was very good. We both had Snapper. Then we went to this zany museum called the Museum of Jurassic Technology. It can’t even be described.  I can tell you this, though - the blog is about to be renamed "In honor of the Lower Jurassic".

So I'm back at LAX awaiting my flight to Sydney.

More painful calculations

So we figured that for the 12 international flights there are probably about 4 hours of associated getting to the airport, getting through security, getting through customs.  So that's another 48 hours of travel.  Just in case anyone is keeping score.  Ouch.