101 Challenges:

Location: KL

Since the 'Ass To The Wind' Challenge has been re-scheduled for reasons out with our control, all we have to do now is kill time in KL. So, naturally, we decided to monkey (Orangutangy) around (we’ll add some pictures soon).

Oh, we forgot to mention. A few days ago we decided to go on a little sight seeing adventure. A couple of hours out of KL is where millions and millions of fireflies come out to play at night time. We were over spending on our daily budget by at least 180% a day anyway so why not fork out another £45 each for the pleasure of seeing some beasties with light bulbs as asses?

What a complete and utter waste of cash this was. A 3 hour taxi ride out of the city led us to what could only be described as (other than simply listing 42 profound words) crap.

Here we are, £90 lighter and searching and searching and searching for these little bugs – we saw about 112 – we think we did. You get taken out on a little boat along a little smelly river for 30 minutes. This is where posters, leaflets and staff tell you that billions of fireflies are all around you – whizzing past your face in all their little glow-bum glory:

What we saw (apart from pitch black night) was a few pathetically flickering lights amidst some trees along the edges of the river bank. Seriously, this could have been a flashing Christmas tree and, if we had known this, we could have saved £82 of our 90 by getting out Mum to go to Woolworths, buy one and post it out to us.

Anyhoo, there’s nothing more to add here other than a little sum-up of Malaysia by our standards. Beer’s expensive… oh, you want more detail?

Malaysia’s a beautiful country and the people are fantastic – all you need to learn is “Tarima Kasi” (or however you spell it) which means “thank you”, and “Abba Kabba” (again, however you spell it) which means “how are you?” Another good one is “Soma Soma” (we’re giving up on spelling now) which means something like “don’t mention it”. The people appreciate these token gestures and you’ll be guaranteed a fantastic rapport with no matter what. The other great thing we noticed was, everyone says hello to you and asks how you are. It’s just so, so friendly.

But (there’s always a but) the cost of surviving here is a bit high and more importantly, beer (when it can be found) is rather expensive – which, we’ve come to reason, makes it taste so much better.