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pre-trip... Trip

a travel blog by haveyouseenmypassport


So this is the trip before the trip that is next after this one.
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Culture Vulture... I only eat culture that's already dead

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia


WOW! Ok, say this to yourself (don't feel silly, just say it) "Putra Jaya". Now, if you sat there and said anything like "Poo-tra-jai-ya" you're half way there. I'm now making fun of the extremely Occa and Aussie way that I mis-pronounced what is actually this really amazing and almost surreal place where Kimboss' Aunt took us this week. It's where the government have their offices and where the national Mosque is. Here are some photos:


So you can see that it is rather a beautiful place to spend some time. It's kinda spooky that you forget about the large amount of poverty and the wage of RM1000 (about 350 AUD) that people earn here as a norm. But still, popping to see this was rather interesting. I've not been a huge fan of mosques until recently, the architechture is so different to anything at home that it's very refreshing to see and stand near. People take their shoes off to go in these (I think not in all places, but some) So that's pretty cooll. The large man made lake around the Putra Jaya area was pretty cool too! We saw some rather large fish in it, although they were not convinced by my promises of a swift and honourable death should they wish for me to eat them, hence they stayed in the water and did not leap into the net that I found in my pocket.

We were lucky enough to be treated to lunch by Kim's aunt, which was lovely of her. Kim, Sarah and I were so full of satay, fried chicken and udon noodles that we simply had to smash some beers.

My favourite photo that I have taken on this pre-trip trip so far occured that evening of beer smashing.


That's it! Yeah, it is low resolution and blah blah, but read the words! PILLS AND POTIONS! Now, that is the kind of place that you would not expect to have gypsy ears... and they didn't. So lucky Borat already has some. But anyways, this place that we were in is called "Sri Hartamas" The brilliant thing about Malay places is that they are all spelled how they sound. So I only mis-spell the words that I should already know. But we had some beers and I had a nice big beef pepperoni pizza, followed up with some more beer smashing! Not really very cultural I know, but I have had many noodles this pre-trip, so I gave in... I know.

This blog is getting a bit long, I know, but this is the last paragraph. This picture is me in a car at the golf course where we had lunch. Do you think I should keep the beard?


permalink written by  haveyouseenmypassport on March 1, 2007 from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
from the travel blog: pre-trip... Trip
tagged KL, Malaysia, Putra and Jaya

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Return jaunt, air-sick-bag please

Melbourne, Australia


Now, back in Melbourne, it's kinda hard to not feel lucky. Now it could be that I simply feel lucky to be alive because the turbulence on the place was horrific, or it could really be that now I've seen KL three or four times it's finally sunk in how lucky we are here.

Stop panicking, I'm not going to go on a high horse rant about how no one appreciates anything that we have here!!! Comparing KL to Melbourne is like comparing uhmm... One thing that you think isn't as good as another and the thing that you think is better... But SO much better. Better beyond words even. The photos from KL that I've got on here are pretty typical tourist type photos, and not really representative of KL as a whole, but they're pretty fun.

As I was getting on the plane at KLIA I had to have a chuckle to myself, the adverts for "Visit Malaysia 2007" were all on the screens everywhere, but I didn't manage to experience half of the culture that was depicted. Let alone the beaches and tourists type places like Penang and Langkawi. But hey thems the breaks I guess. Now just looking forwards to getting to Vancouver!!! Sarah has unfortunately suffered a delay getting home, but the nice people from the airline fixed her up with a hotel, so that's all good!

Well, time for a few last beers and good byes I suppose. Here's a few of my favourite Melbourne sites anyways. Well.... Two.




permalink written by  haveyouseenmypassport on March 6, 2007 from Melbourne, Australia
from the travel blog: pre-trip... Trip
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My friend's got three kidneys.

Niagara Falls, Canada


From Toronto, the bus ride to Niagara Falls is actually only two hours. There are lots of ways to get there, you can pay for any number of tours etc etc. We opted for the cheap way, left our hostel in the morning and headed to the Greyhound station with all of hour stuff. Sarah had no faith that we would arrive on time, but with a few shouts of "MUSH" from me we arrived with two minutes to spare. Having planned on storing our stuff in lockers at the Toronto Greyhound station, we didn't have enough time, so we legged it to the bus and had our un-friendly driver begrudgingly allow us on the bus. Poor guy really. My bag is nearly 30kg and he had to load in ito the hold. Sucker. That's what you get for being a miserable bastard if you ask me. I better look out. Although we slept for more or less the entire bus ride there, we woke up in time to see the "whirlpool" out the bus window and started getting excited.

Now, to be perfectly honest, I was skeptical about going to this place. Being so close to the US border I was prepared for the ignorance army and loud voices declaring "WOW, HARV YOUUU EVERRR SEEN ANYTHANG LIAKE THAT MAVIS WHOOOOOWWEEEEEE!!!". It was going to end up that I was not surprised. The falls themseves are impressive, sure. What the photos don't show though are what was directly behind us, including, but not limited to: Casinos, Planet Hollywood (possibly the most rude building in the landscape), any number of giant hotels and general unpleasant tourist traps. Now, I don't want to be one of those "Holier than though art" backpackers who thinks they're the bees knees cause they've been somewhere that doesn't have a McDonalds, but the city-scape really did take away from the natural beauty of the falls. It was rather amusing to see all the lemmings in their ponchos go out on the boats into the mist, and the scale of the falls compared to the boats was INSANE, but we didn't make it out onto the water. Looked too dangerous for me. Sarah was encouraging me, which means that there was probably a high risk of death anyways.
We had our lunch in the park and got harrassed by local seagulls, but that was alright. Heading to the whirlpool for a closer look found us stopping and looking at some Artisant glass blowing thing. Sarah was impressed, but to be honest I was bored. They just kept rolling it backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards. Not much blowing involved really. The Niagara whirlpool was an anti-climax. To say the least. If you have the time, don't waste it by going there.

Montreal Next WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

permalink written by  haveyouseenmypassport on June 25, 2007 from Niagara Falls, Canada
from the travel blog: pre-trip... Trip
tagged Niagara

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