Next stop: Malaysia! :) (Day 124 of the world trip)

06.01.2020

Fortunately, the roommate with the incense sticks had checked out, so the night went pretty well^^

As always in Siem Reap, we got up at 7:00 am and went out to the pool. For the past few days, we have always sat on a sun lounger in the shade and done our research.

But today the day started directly with breakfast - toast with chocolate nut cream ;-) Then Jonas and I watched YouTube videos (I'm currently really into Poetry Slam TV^^) and played two rounds of billiards. The first time I was really good and only lost by a small margin. The second round was terrible for both of us - probably a sign that it was time to leave :p

We packed up the last things and around 11:30 am we ordered a tuk-tuk to the airport via the "Grab" app. This time it worked out great and while I quickly went to the toilet, Jonas could already greet our driver. Not bad! ;-)

It was about 10 km from the hostel to the airport, mainly passing through undeveloped land, and then at some point the airport came, which is built in a similar style to, for example, the National Museum or the ticket office for Angkor Wat - so simply beautiful <3

So we were there around 12:00 pm, but our flight didn't depart until 3:05 pm. Since we were so close last time in Delhi, even Jonas agreed that we should be at the airport a little earlier. After all, there is WiFi there and you can just as well watch videos there :D

While we were waiting for check-in, I took some photos of the decoration and the cute airport itself, and then we finished the rest of the chocolate cream with toast. Bye bye! :(

Now, in our chocolate-cookie abstinence, the chocolate cream wasn't as great as it was at the beginning of our trip. Maybe I just missed the banana^^

The flight to Kuala Lumpur lasted just under 2 hours and was quite pleasant. There was WiFi on board and you could play selected games or watch videos on your mobile phone, which was quite nice^^

Shortly before landing, we flew over really beautiful fields of clouds <3 Yes, I know, they're almost always there, but somehow they looked particularly beautiful today :D :D

With the landing, the runway was wet, a first harbinger of the even more humid climate down here. We are getting closer to the equator ;-) But when we arrived, it was already dry again and it stayed that way for the rest of the evening.

Oh yeah. And funny enough, it's an hour later here than in the other four countries (Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia), even though we are now further west (or are we not? :D ). Well, the division of time zones is a tricky thing. In any case, we are now 7 hours ahead of Germany, not just 6 hours :p

Entering Malaysia was super uncomplicated. First, you had to line up in a super long queue, but considering the number of people, it actually went surprisingly fast. Once we gave our fingerprints and voila - there was the stamp in our passports :)

So we picked up our luggage and then looked for the Internet tip - the Skybus. The airport is located 60 km outside the city, so there is a wide range of options, from trains and buses to private shuttle providers, to get to the city center^^

We had read that the Skybus is cheap and comfortable, so we decided to look for it ;-)

Before that, however, we had to withdraw cash and then got change with a snack purchase in the supermarket. And voila! There are coins here again! :O There were none in the last three countries :D

By the way, the Kuala Lumpur airport is huge and spans several floors, including a mall... With the elevator, we finally made it to the bus ticket counter and were able to board the next bus directly. Yay!

The journey took just under an hour and cost only about 3€/person. You can't really complain about that ;-)

Already when leaving the airport, it became clear that we are in a pretty wealthy city. There are proper highways, all with at least six lanes, and the roads from the city center are multi-level, so despite the many cars, it doesn't look like a traffic chaos :D

They drive on the left here again, but no honking! Later on the way to the hostel, a driver even stopped to let us cross the street without a traffic light or pedestrian crossing :O Totally crazy :p

The city center consists mainly of malls and huge skyscrapers, which looked pretty nice in the darkness of the evening <3

The bus dropped us off at KL Sentral, where we had to find the level where the street is first :D :D This big station also includes a mall, but after a bit of back and forth, we actually made it to the street, which even has an intact, wide sidewalk. Very impressive ;-)

With Maps.Me, Jonas navigated us the nearly 2 km to our hostel, passing countless Indian restaurants, shops, and hotels^^

As we already knew from our research, Malaysia has a large Indian and Chinese population, which apparently is due to the country's history. We could already see the Indian part tonight - just when we drove through "Little India". Every larger city now has a Chinatown, and this was the equivalent, but in an Indian way^^

When we arrived at the hostel, it was already 9:30 pm, and after check-in, there was only a shower. We have hardly any/no WiFi in the room, but tomorrow at breakfast, we should be able to upload the blog post because there is supposedly good internet at the reception.

And then tomorrow is a typical sightseeing day, which I'm already really excited about after the first impression tonight, even though it's "only" a city :D