Want Some Mayo With That Corn?

Over breakfast we said our good-byes to, and exchanged email addresses with, Nancie and Liz & Esmond. Nancie and Kenny, and later the cab driver, recommended that we use the bus service called Transnational, so when the cab dropped us off at the bus station, we went straight to the Transnational counter. It was about 9:30 am, and the next Transnational bus didn't leave until 12:00, but we decided to stick with the recommendations and just wait instead of taking a different bus service. Phyl continued to be worried about a life ending bus crash, but Nancie had endorsed the tire treads on this particular bus line. The bus tickets were about $6.50 each and the ride would take about 3 hours. We found some seats and hunkered down for some people watching.


G- Have you noticed the chickens in the atrium area behind us?

P- What?! That's a strange place for chickens.

G- Maybe they lay the eggs served at one of these stands.

P- I'm hungry. Give me some money and let me go see what I can find to eat. (After a few minutes she returned with 2 containers of popcorn.) We are having popcorn for breakfast. It appears to be our safest option in this bus terminal. Some kernals are covered in caramel and some are not, which is strange because she did not pour caramel on them, so I'm not quite sure how you get a mixed bucket like this.

G- Whatever. I'm happy whenever I can have popcorn of any kind.

P- The stand next to the popcorn stand was a corn stand. They sold little cups of corn kernals and you could choose which “flavor” you wanted. The corn wasn't flavored, she actually poured the topping over the corn. Blech! Some of them were absolutely disgusting............ mayo, milk, chicken, & ice cream, and the others were pretty normal..... butter & black pepper.

G- Very bizarre! I know Miche & Christine would have been salivating over the corn with mayo. I'm glad you settled on the caramel popcorn. I'm going to find the bathroom; hand me the bag of pinky and toilet paper.

P- I'll sit with the stuff and go when you come back.

G- (Upon my return) Here, there is no toilet paper and they're all squat toilets, so take the bag. And you need 20 cents. If the call to prayer sounds while you're waiting to use the toilet, there are prayer rooms, but be sure to go into the women's prayer room.

P- What the hell?

G- Yes, and if you need a headscarf for the prayer room, you can buy one at the shop on the way to the bathroom.

P- What did you do, walk all over the terminal?

G- The bathroom is on the other side, so I had to walk past all the shops. If you want another snack, there is a shop with a display of dates from all over the world. They look fantastic!!

P- You're a little freak. That's why I love you.

G- Shut up and go to the bathroom with your plastic pink penis and 20 cents!!

At 11:45 a large pink bus with the word NICE written on the side pulled into our bay. We guessed that it was our bus because it matched the picture on the ticket. We joined the group of people giving their luggage to the driver and were glad that we had brought large black bags, that could be locked, to put our backpacks into. It was another great idea gleaned from reading others' blogs. The bus was very comfortable and we were surprised to learn that there was a bus attendant who served hot and cold beverages. We each got a box of cold tea and Phyl proceeded to squirt tea on herself as she stuck in the straw.

G- Hmmm. How many times are you going to squirt yourself before you learn not to squeeze the box when you push in the straw.

P- Shut up! I'm not use to drinking out of a box! How do kids do this without squirting themselves?

G- Makes you wonder doesn't it? Makes me wonder why kids can do it and you can't.

P- Shut the hell up before I squirt YOU with my tea box!!!!!

G- Hee hee.

Time passed quickly and we were soon in the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur. Multistoried apartment buildings lined the freeway and dotted the skyline. After 15 minutes, The Petronas Towers and the KL Tower came into view. It was a very large city of approximately 7 million. The bus finally stopped in front of KL Sentral and some of the people started to disembark.

G- Do you think we're supposed to get off here or you think it's just the first of many stops?

P- Well, it was supposed to be a direct bus to the center of KL without other stops.

G- That was the deal with the bus to Melaka too, but we made several other stops anyway.

We looked at some of the other riders and they looked at us. I asked a woman if this is where we were supposed to get off, but she just shrugged her shoulders at me and looked around as though she also had no idea whether to get off or not.

G- I'm going to get off and ask the bus driver. (I was met at the door by the bus attendant.) We get off here? Can we get a train or metro to other parts of the city from here?

Bus attendant – Yes. You get off here.

G- (to the bus driver) Is this where we get off? (It was then that I noticed our bags were already out of the baggage compartment and on the ground. Poking my head back into the bus.....) Phyl! Come on. This is where we're getting off.

P- Where are we?

G- I have no idea.

P- Can we catch the metro inside?

G- Gladys, I've never been here before. Let's go inside and ask.

We soon discovered that we could catch the metro from that location, but we had to walk around the building, through the construction, across the street, and down into the metro station. Nothing about that sounded good, espcially without a sherpa, so we went back outside and hailed a taxi. The driver told us it would be 15 ringgits and although we had no idea if that was good or not, it was only $5.00 USD, so we agreed.

The ride was a short one, and we were delighted when we pulled up in front of the Olympic Hotel. The lobby looked very nice and as we checked in, Phyl asked for a room with a view of the Petronas Towers. Once in the room, we were thrilled with our special Christmas accommodation. The view was fantastic!!! We had a king size bed with 4 fluffy pillows, a flat screen TV, and best of all, a bathroom with a large counter top (by Asian standards) and a glassed in shower that we shared with no one. Yippee!!!!!

G- OMG! I can't wait to take a shower and not have to straddle the toilet or hold the nozzle to keep it from spraying all over the bathroom!!!

P- I'm looking forward to not having to walk through and stand in water when I get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom.

G- Amen to that!!! Let's go see some of the city.