As we prepare to tear off another page of the calendar, we find ourselves on an 8 hour bus sojourn from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to a small town in southern Thailand called Hat Yai. We will likely have to overnight there before we can catch a bus and ferry to the island of Ko Phi Phi (pronounced pee pee).

The past few days have been a whirlwind of activity. We spent our last day in Singapore trying to figure out the best method to get to Kuala Lumpur and had fully intended to then head for the north-east corner of Malaysia to do some diving. We had settled on taking the train, but as we were walking back to our room, we came across a bus company that had an air-conditioned bus leaving from near our place for S$25 ($15) at 8:30 the next morning. At the last minute we changed our minds and decided to take the bus. The woman said it would be better if we bought our ticket that night since it's very busy in the morning. We didn't have enough cash, so we went off to find an ATM machine. We returned 10 minutes later to find she had closed shop for the night. When we asked at the booth next door, they told us they could sell us tickets, but their bus costs S$45. We told them thanks, but no thanks. They told us the other bus was not running the next day. At this point we decided to just head off and come back in the morning and try to get the bus then.

We arrived the next morning and the same woman that tried to sell us the S$45 ticket was there, but not the woman who worked at the bus line we wanted to take. Again she told us the other bus wasn't running today and then she elaborated a little and told us it had broken down in KL the day before. She then offered to sell us tickets on another bus that was S$29 but we would need to take a taxi to get to the station, but the cost of that was included in the ticket. At this point we were a little distrustful, but decided if it was a scam, we would deal with it.

Turns out everything was cool! We got the cab to the bus and had an easy bus ride to KL. Now KL was a different story!!! Once we arrived, we tried to figure out the 'integrated' public transportation system, which is not! They have light rail, heavy rail, monorail and buses, few of which are located at the same place. The maps show 'interchange' locations, but when you read further, the fine print indicates that they are not at the same station, but rather at 'places within walking distance'. Yes, 'integrated' is a stretch for this place.

We ditched the idea of heading to the northeast corner for diving in exchange for more time in Thailand. We are frankly not impressed with this place and want to spend more time in Thailand. Part of this may be that Singapore is such a modern clean city and KL is not.

So, we started looking at our options for getting to Thailand. This turned out to be a bit of a chore. Even with unlimited internet access, information is hard to come by and when you get it, it is either unclear or incomplete. Many of the websites have pages missing. Pages with things like schedules and costs. We finally decided to go to the central train station and buy tickets. Unfortunately this is a holiday weekend and nothing was available for several days. We then headed off to the central bus station and found almost the same thing. We wanted to leave yesterday, but this morning was the earliest we could get out. So here we are a few hours into the bus trip and already it feels better.

KL does have some cool things about it. The Petronas Towers are the two tallest buildings in the world, and are amazing to see, but not so easy to photograph. We went on a tour of the skybridge that connects the two towers at the 41st and 42nd floors. We also found a 5 story shopping mall that is almost exclusively electronics. It was amazing! Pirated software everywhere. You could buy CD's with any program for RM5 (about $1.40). I saw Windows XP, Microsoft Office, Macromedia Studio, etc. All the big names and they had hundreds of copies of it right out in the open. Clearly there is no attempt being made to stop this, or if it is, its not very serious.

We found several great places to eat, but did break down and had some western food one afternoon at a Chili's. I had been craving chicken wings so we got some and a great margarita. Sometimes you just break down and have to go with it. We also had great Indian food and fresh hot pork buns from vendor carts on the street that were delicious!

So now we are heading into Thailand and some great food and diving await. Plans for the time there are starting to come together, but we're staying flexible. If we find someplace we really like, something else will just have to wait.

Until next time, go with the flow.

Eric and Val