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After being in Singapore I decided to take a bus to Melaka, and then head up to KL to take my airplane to Jakarta....Didn't know what was going to happen with this airplane...just read....

(day45 to 55 )

Melaka, Malaysia - While in Melaka I visited the People's Museum, a unique museum dedicated to a wide variety of bizarre "beautification" practices. These range from tattooing, piercing and scarrring to body stretching, headshaping, modern cosmetic surgery and footbinding. I found the detailed exhibit on footbinding to be the most intriguing and followed up our tour of the museum with another visit to the hand made bound foot shoemaker's shop. This time I was lucky to be able to speak to Mr. Yeo Sing Guat, the proprieter of the shop who has been making these shoes for over 30 years. Mr. Guat's grandfather came to Malaysia in the early 1900's where he learned his craft from an old Chinese Hokkien man and passed his knowledge down through the generations. Now Mr. Guat is the only person in Malaysia practincing this ancient artform. Mr. Guat was a friendly and generous man who told me a very sad story. His shop had been located on the main street of Chinatown for 30 years in an old, historic Perenakan building. Mr. Guat was recently forced from his location to the outskirts of Chinatown (little visisted by tourists) to make way for a modern hotel. I signed a petition to stop the destruction of his original shop but I think this may be too late, for as I later saw, the destruction (some might say construction) was well under way. The city of Melaka is currently trying to attain UNESCO World Heritage status for the historic district of Chinatown. Being listed with UNESCO would stop the future destruction of other historic buildings in Chinatown.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - Arriving at the bus station of another Chinatown, in the center of KL (Kuala Lumpur), I immediately noticed the hectic life of Malaysia's capital city, in stark contrast to Melaka's laid back atmosphere. My first worry was to find accomodation which proved to be very difficult. I first looked into a number of guesthouses in Chinatown which were dark, windowless boxes with extremely thin walls, not to mention the oppressive heat and the lack of fans. I overnighted at a friend's house here, a guy who works as stewart for SIA AIRLINES. It was  Saturday night so  we went to KL's Little India in search of good, cheap Indian food. We soon found ourselves in the midst of thousands of people gathering for Little India's night market.God thanks my friend lives here so he knew the places to go.hahahah.You can purchase almost anything in this market, from saree's (Indian women's clothing), music,  software  watches and  sunglasses. Enveloping the entire market is the enticing aroma of various Indian cuisine,which I guess not so many people might like,cos it is very strong. This is when I realized that KL is truly an amazing city. Facing Merdeka Square is the impressive Sultan Abdul Samud Building, a wonderful blend of Victorian and Moorish architecture. At night, this building and the square are lit with thousands of white lights providing a very romantic atmosphere. Well, it wasn't for me, as I was alone then...
The next day I spent the next day being amused by everything that KL has to offer. I started with a walk through Chinatown, teeming with its variety of signs, shops, activity and temples. I visited three Chinese temples, and Indian Hindu Temple and then to make the day complete, the National Mosque (Masjid Negara). Although Malaysia is made up of different ethnic communities, Islam is the national religion and the National Mosque is one of the largest in South East Asia, accomodating over 8,000 people. Non-muslims can only visit the mosque outside of prayer times and must be properly attired. All visitors must remove their shoes, men must not wear hats and women must wear a scarf over their head and a robe so as not to reveal any flesh. The National Mosque is a modern building inspired by the Grand Mosque in Mecca and includes a 73 metre high minaret standing in the center of a pool. Travelling in a predominately muslim country (as with Indonesia) has a number of effects on the Western tourist. I also visited the man made wonder of the Petronas Towers (see pictures below). Standing at 451.9 metres above KL, the Petronas Towers are the tallest buildings in the world. The design of these ultra-modern buildings is based on an eight-sided star pattern which echoes the arabesque patterns of Islamic art. The Malaysian government spared no expense in contructing these immense towers which house the offices of Petronas, the state oil company. Behind the towers lies a beautifully manicured park, perfect for admiring these monuments to the new Malaysia. This side of KL looks more like Singapore anyways, I prefer actually the "more Malaysian" part.

****AIRPORT/AIRPLANE ADVENTURE****
As soon as I got to the airport I felt really reliefed as I thought!WOW this is such a modern building, certainly everything is working out:)"...but I was wrong actually...I had some problems at the Gulf Air check-in cos they said I had no reservation..but on my ticket it appeared OK, which means confirmed...They were so rude to me and it seemed like I could have never got to Jakarta...cos Gulf Air flies just a couple of days a week and I had another airplane waiting for me the next mornign from Jakarta to Denpasar, so I got a bit paniced.. the following lines are just what I wrote, I just want to show you my emotions then:"I am now on this Gulf Air plane, after a lot of complains ...they said there was overbooking...but how comes the airplane is almost empty?...There is a very bad smell on it and people are very unkind, mostly from the Middle east and some maids  from Indonesia. There's just me and a man from the Netherlands from the west.It is one of the most fucked up planes I have ever taken..but I hope I will get to destination... hahaha I am just tired and overstressed....I only hope I will get my backpack in Bali, as I have nothing here with me.After a very shaky taking off and flying not so high through  very bad clouds and rain, the plane started to fly half twisted and the shaking got stronger. the emergency lights lit up and the pilot started to say something in Arabic and people were looking a bit paniced and talked a lot...then he talked in Indonesian and finally in English.... the Dutch guy and me  from a side of a plane to the other just stared at each other and looked frightened...one of the two engines was broken and stopped working...we were just half way to Jakarta... and the pilot didn't know if he should make an emergency landing in Singapore or keep on  to Jakarta... this was the first time I was actually seeing like a flash of my life in my mind, I saw all the people I care of and I started regretting not having done this and that, that I had been to horrible in some situations ...like you see in movies such as "TURBULENCE"...The airplane finally got to destination, but about 20 meters in the sky from the ground before landing the airplane almost crashed on a nearby motorway, whose street was banked. Finally I got to Jakarta... I feel as If I had fighted against a giant...and I have to stay here at this fucking airport all alone the whole night..."

The above lines are just taken from my travel-journal. That night I stayed at the airport, which was almost desert, it was very chilling cos of the airconditioning and too humid outside, then some shady guys were hanging around me, so I had to keep my eyes wide open... God thanks I met a Japanese guy who had my same problem and had a plane to Yogyakarta the next morning, so we decided to talk together.. And finally the next morning  I succeeded in taking a plane of Garuda to Denpasar. The plane was very very nice, clean and the service was very good.

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