Chapter Seven: Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur

Chill time, from the desert to Beijing. I just stood 2 days ago on The Great Wall. Now I am sitting on a rooftop with swimming pool. Not that bad, not that bad at all. The weather is just great, 35 degrees Celsius, ideal weather to do nothing. Just preparing a bit for the F1. Max just called, if I could gave him some instructions. I am not a bad person, of course I will...

I have 3 days before the Formula one starts, it's a whole weekend from Friday to Sunday. There are several races, GP2, GP3, Porsches etc, the event starts around 09.00 till 18.00. 
It is a good backpacker habit to arrange things in the most cheapest way. Buy a ticket for the monorail instead of taking a cap to Sepang International Circuit, saves me around 200 euro's. But also for example laundry, even here they (hotels) charge you 3 euro for a blouse and 1 euro for one sock, I had a similar thing in Beijing. This goes simple against my nature. But with the app 'maps.me' you can easily find a laundry and hopla, this is saving me each time roughly 25/35 euro's. Btw maps.me is unmistakable a must-have for everyone, even if you don't travel, check the App Store!! It is also a good way to see something of the city.
But how hot can a city be. I heard from locals that it is seriously hot in KL. 2 to 3 shirts/tank tops per day. This also has its effect on some parts of the city. The city of smells, but in other parts it is oke. Due to humidity it is difficult to go out for a walk. I went to a wonderful park, but appears to me that I was the only one, it could have been that I was walking there on the hottest moment of the day. I never realized how much I can sweat, so back to the swimming pool on my roof top, talking about must-haves.
At night KL comes to life, many little shops and eating areas, I am near a backpackers hotel/bar, so every night a fun chat and drink.
I also start planning for my trip to Tioman Island, I take the bus on Sunday night around 23.30, right after the race. But the ferry will be a problem, I can't book a round trip on the dates I want and an one way trip is not possible. This will be a challenge, because the tickets are quickly sold out. In hindsight I should have booked my flight to Bali on a later date. Will see how this will end, otherwise I hire a local fisherman.

My hotel is located near Chinatown, see it as a massive black market. I packed for cold nights (Gobi desert), now I need only something that covers me. The best way to dress for a climate like this, is to wear nothing at all. I like to wear head scarves when the sun is shining, but they only have the latest fashion in moslima head scarves. They have it everywhere, I walked into a store to see if they had some 'man' scarves. This turned out to be a short conversation, they thought I was messing with them. "European..bald..protection against the sun..any advice...", they looked at me if I was the antichrist. "Boerka perhaps.."...time to move on.

Kuala Lumpur is a business city, full of skyscrapers. It is fun for a couple of days, but that's more than enough. Chinatown is the place where you can see small parts of how it was, but is also being threatened by the many construction sites. Overall a good city to stay for one or two days and the perfect base to see Formula 1.