05 Oct - 15 Oct 2011 Kuala Lumpur

Downtown
Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman 316
Tune Hotel +60379625888 enquiry@tunehotel.com
Adequate and clean double room for a pre-booked MYR 38.- or US$ 12.30 per night. Crappy wifi (provided by Colubris Networks) as add-on for MYR 12.- per 24 hours; if you need a smooth internet connectivity, you better avoid this Tune Hotel in downtown KL...

Click below for an interactive road map of the Tune Hotel in downtown Kuala Lumpur and for directions:
N 03° 09.62' E 101° 41.80'









Re-adjusting to Cooler Lumpur’s vibrant big-city life (after we had spent a few weeks off the beaten track on remote Sulawesi [1], [2], [3]), catching up on long overdue admin chores, meeting up with our close friends Christina & Liau, Tilo & Herry and Sophie from Red Palm Lodge, scrutinising the maps for our upcoming tour to India and satisfying our carnevoyeuristic needs at some newly discovered and highly recommendable food joints for vegans and vegetarians: (i) Mr. Khorana’s Sentral Chappati House +60322604210 with most delicious Punjabi veggie curries, (ii) the Al-Zahir Food Court with very cheap and tasty meatless versions of nasi kandar and (iii) Mr. Low’s fantastic mock-meat Le Tian Vegetarian Restaurant (sign: “Makanan Sayur Sayuran”) +60162777515 in the 4th-floor-hawker centre at Sungei Wang Plaza in Bukit Bintang (noticing the many overweight and pear-shaped patrons in the non-veg sections of these eateries and coming to the conclusion: eating meat is probably just a clumsy, expensive and not-so-creative way of committing suicide).
“If only we correct our eating habits than not only we would have perfect body weight but also we can get rid of most of the diseases."


Applying for Indian tourist visas at the brave new Indian High Commission in Kuala Lumpur (via the Grand Lotus India Visa Centre +60326922692), already only half-assed and with mixed feelings about India (earlier this year, during our first tour to the world's biggest democrazy, we had witnessed at three different occasions how members of the Indian police used their batons on innocent citizens: (i) during a minor traffic incident in Srinagar/Kashmir when the cops molested our bus driver, (ii) during a religious rally in Madurai/Tamilnadu when the cops socked, for no visible reason, well-behaving youngsters during a religious parade, and (iii) during a sports contest in Leh/Ladakh when the cops used their batons haphazardly against the spectators in order to direct them into the right direction), learning from the visa centre's bobblehead in charge five days later that our visa applications were declined due to the fact that they wanted us to apply from our country of birth, and deciding to change our travel plans: bye-bye and may you do well “Incredible India”, a cocky, failing but still big-talking nuclear-weapons state which appears to be in the greedy hands of a bureaucratic and corrupt political class who is unable to provide clean drinking water and uninterrupted electrical power for millions of oppressed people, and thank you very much Air Asia (“Now Everyone Can Fly”) for converting our pre-paid air fares in a flexible credit shell.
Five surgeons from five big Indian cities are discussing who makes the best patients to operate on.
The first surgeon, from Mumbai, says: "I like to see accountants on my table because when you open them up, everything inside is only numbered." The second, from Chennai, wobbles: "But you should try electricians; everything inside them is colour coded." The third surgeon, from Bangalore, bobbles: "No, I really think librarians are the best, everything inside them is in alphabetical order." The fourth surgeon, from Kolkata bubbles: "You know, I like assembly-line workers. Those guys always understand when you have a few parts left over."
The fifth surgeon, from Delhi, shut them all up when he shakes his head: "You're all wrong. Indian civil servants are the easiest to operate on. They have no guts, no heart, no balls, no brains, and no spine. Plus, the head and the arse are fully interchangeable..."

Being interviewed by Backpacking Malaysia, an excellent internet resource for the independent traveller and one of the best web sites about travelling both Peninsular Malaysia and East Malaysia aka Borneo (Sarawak and Sabah), and sharing our experience of ten plus years of perpetual travelling with their more than 50,000 readers per month.



Taking the comfortable Konsortium Bas Express bus +60320264088 from Kuala Lumpur’s Puduraya Bus Terminal to Ipoh (210 km, 3 hours, MYR 17.40 per person) thus travelling throughout on the smooth and well-maintained six-lane North-South Expressway aka Lebuhraya through a mixed landscape of impenetrable secondary rainforest and vast palm-oil plantations.


2011 Map Konni & Matt

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Facing Malaysia
© Konni & Matt


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