“Travel Temperatures”?

               Right now we’re having a serious heat wave here in Vancouver, where today we set the all-time heat record, beating the previous champion, which was yesterday.  Before this week, we hadn’t had temperatures like this since the 60’s.  Granted, what we call an unbearable heat wave is what most cities call “summer”, but that’s just not how we roll here on the wet coast    Daily life has become a chore and all anyone talks about is how hot it is outside, or how you can’t sleep at night in your un-airconditoned apartment.    The thing that gets me, though, is how much the heat here flattens me, but I know I’ve recently been in weather just as hot (if not hotter) in Southeast Asia, and don’t remember it being this big a deal.   Does my body react differently to the same weather depending on what continent or time zone I’m in?  Is there such a thing as “Travel temperature” versus actual temperature?

              Last night I once again couldn’t sleep, pacing the living room at four in the morning to generate some motion in the air around me for relief.  And to avoid rolling over and accidentally touching the bf,who generates too much body heat and feels like cuddling a heated rock.  I know I’m not alone in walking around 24/7 at home in nothing but my underwear.  In Singapore, where they didn’t even bother giving weather reports on the news because it was always 32 degrees and humid as hell with a chance of thunderstorms, sure, I remember it being too hot to wear sunscreen (because you just sweat it off anyway) but I don’t remember it impacting my daily plans.  Of course I stuck to the shade as much as possible, everyone did, but standing out in the sun when you needed to, was just something you did.  Here it’s something you do and complain about it.  One day in Kuala Lumpur I even put up my umbrella to shield me from the sun (I know this is a good idea, but it just seems so… cheesy.  At home only Asians – who do have lovely skin well into their eighties for a reason- and seniors do that.  I need to get over that stigma, but that’s neither here nor there). What I mean is that it was so scorching that I had to get over myself and put up the umbrella, but that’s not what I remember about the day.

            Some of it could come down to hot countries having better air conditioning because they need to, or the fact that I knew in advance it was going to be hot and mentally prepared myself for that,  but I think the big difference is that when I’m on vacation, I have a checklist of things to do and a limited amount of time to do it in.  Nothing, particularly something as insignificant as the weather, is going to stop that.  I can collapse from heat exhaustion once, and only once, I’m at the top of the stairs at the Batu Caves.  Conversely, here at home, it’s the daily grind.  I’m doing similar things today as I do every other day, so the one really bitch-about-able standout is the freaking heat.  

        So maybe it’s not “travel temperatures” as much as it’s “travel attention span”.  I have to stay focused on the sightseeing goal, I didn’t fly fourteen hours next to that screaming baby for nothing!  Keep going!  Back in the real world, if I move too fast it means I sweat through my work clothes and have to greet clients all day with a shirt smelling like a gym sock, so the motivation to run and catch that bus is gone.  

          So the secret is to go on vacation.  Immediately.  Like leave now.  That way I can wake up tomorrow just as sweaty and uncomfortable and not notice as I’m too busy checking to make sure I have my camera in my pocket as I run out the door.

Tags: Heat, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, travel, weather

Not problems, “Adventures”

                There are certainties in life.  Death.  Taxes.  Travel problems.  If you’re talking to someone who claims to travel frequently and everything always runs perfectly smoothly, they’re either a liar or in complete denial.   Shit happens, the trick is to just roll with it and remember that one day you’ll be looking back at this and laughing.  Not everything on your vacation is going to be particularly memorable, but if something gets messed up/goes wrong/is not what you expected, I guarantee you’ll still be talking about it years from now.

             This I know from personal experience.  Being an agent means nothing when I’m standing on a curb in Kuala Lumpur for two hours, waiting for my airport transfers which never showed up.  The phone conversation with the company rep went something like this: 

Rep: “Are you sure you have arranged transfers?”  

Me: “Of course I’m sure, I’m the one who freakin’ booked them!”

Rep: “Oh.”

       And I still had to make my own way to my hotel.  But on the flip side, if I hadn’t been stuck there for so long, I never would have met some of the nicest people, complete strangers who went way out of their ways to help me out, or seen an incredible lightning storm.

            Over the years all sorts of crap has happened to me.  One time I was staying at a hotel in London, and one of the beds only had three legs, so it tilted at an interesting angle.  When maintenance was called they went all high-tech and brought phone books to prop it up with.  This same room had no less than 6 lights in a five by five room (well, it felt that small, anyway), but only three light bulbs, so half the time you tried to turn something on and got nothing.  Maintenance was creative with their solution to this one, too, answering our request for more light by, while we were out sightseeing, moving those three bulbs to the other lamps.    This was the only available room in the hotel, so changing rooms wasn’t an option, and, as it was a non-refundable, prepaid reservation, I didn’t have the funds to pay out of pocket to move to a new hotel in pricey London.  But the location was great, steps from Paddington Station and Hyde Park, across from a cute little square that had live music some evenings for free, and surrounded by pubs and restaurants.  Even knowing how crappy the hotel was, I would stay there again if it was the only one available in that area (and they could guarantee me light bulbs)!

                  Another time British Airways accidentally misprinted my boarding pass, sending me to gate 25, which was down this long gray hallway and felt like I was hiking to the middle of nowhere.  Ten minutes before my flight closed, I discovered that gate 25 went to Cairo and my flight back to Vancouver actually left from gate 5.  Ten Minutes, twenty gates, and this was at London Heathrow Airport, where each terminal is roughly the size of Luxembourg.  It was very Amazing Race, running screaming through the crowded airport, dodging fellow travellers and hurdling luggage.  I was the last person on the plane, and I smelled like a gym sock for the next nine and a half hours (I’m sure my seat mates appreciated that), but I made it.   I’m actually pretty proud of this, I didn’t think I could run that fast!

                Then there’s the time I was in Bangkok and we got the great idea to take the water taxis down the Chao Phraya river after dark to get a great view of Wat Arun, the Temple of the Dawn from the water.  It started off swimmingly, water taxiing up, and stopping for a drink as we waited for darkness to fall.   Finally the conditions were perfect and we go to board the water taxi, only to have people shaking their heads and saying “no” repeatedly.  By now we had a fairly good idea of how the water taxi system operated, so we knew we hadn’t done anything wrong, but we couldn’t figure out why they wouldn’t let us on.  Turns out that after the evening rush hour, all the water taxis only ran upriver, so we were stuck, on the wrong side of the river from our hotel, with no way of getting back.  A taxi was looking like our only option (and not a good one at that, as our hotel was a very long – and expensive – distance away, and bartering with Bangkok taxis, especially for two women alone at night, was not a particularly appealing or safe thing to do). 

            The water taxi operators pointed us to a cross-river ferry that would, at the very least, get us back onto the correct side, so we hopped on that, the only passengers at this time of night.  The view wasn’t the one we had been going for, but you could still see Wat Arun, and it was spectacular.  This dropped us off in the midst of a night market, not a big, nice one like Chatuchak, but a clutch-your-purse-to-your-chest-and-look-around-furtively one.  Fantastic.  And it only got better, as when we reached the street there were no taxis to be seen, only Tuk Tuks.  Every guidebook harps on how dangerous these little riding lawnmower taxis can be, but we were desperate, so we climbed in and agreed on a price to Hua Lamphong, the closest subway station I could remember the name of.   Oh my God, this was a blast.  Screw the guidebooks, zipping through the dark streets in little more than a pop can with an engine was exhilarating.    We took them as often as possible after that.

             It had started off as a big, stupid mistake, but it ended up being a really fun, incredible night that still makes me smile when I think about it.  Murphy’s Law states “anything that can go wrong will go wrong”, but I prefer Holly’s Law, “Anything that can go wrong could go wrong, and if it does, roll wth it and laugh about it later”.   At the time it may really, really suck, but everything, good or bad, only makes your vacation into more of an adventure, and isn’t that why you’re traveling in the first place?

Tags: airport transfers, Bangkok, BlogSherpa, Kuala Lumpur, London Heathrow, memories, travel problems, tuk tuks

Kuala Lumpur – Totally cool

        As I stood barefoot on the warm bricks, in the middle of a lightning storm, staring up at the crystaline masterpieces that are the Petronas Towers, I couldn’t help thinking that this was the most incredible thing I’d ever experienced.   At that second, I knew I was in love with Kuala Lumpur.

       This is a city that welcomes you with open arms, beginning right at the airport when our pre-arranged transfer didn’t arrive and not one but three complete strangers went out of their ways to help us out, making calls, translating, and one man even squeezed us in with the group of tourists he was transporting to deliver us right to our hotel.  Whoever you are, thank you, you’re awesome.  And our hotel, the Trader’s, was equally amazing.  I’d booked it because the location was good, the rooms were great and the price was right, but after seeing the location in person, I’d go back, regardless of the price.   Connected to the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre (home of the great new Aquaria aquarium) and linked to the Suria KLCC 6-story megamall (woo hoo!) by a tunnel, everything you could want is at your fingertips.  Oh, and did I mention it’s directly facing the Petronas Towers (which are atop the mall), separated only by a gorgeous landsacped park, complete with Las-Vegas  style dancing fountains?   The views from the rooftop bar and the business centre are unbelievable.  I kept taking more pictures.  When I got home I think I had nearly thirty pics of the towers alone, taking from every possible angle in every possible lighting condition.   It was like an addiction, really.  I need Petronas Towers rehab (and if it involves going back to KL, I’m okay with that)!

                 For a quick meal we spent a lot of time at the Suria KLCC food halls, where they had a huge selection of cuisines, from Malay, Thai and Indian to Itallian, Lebanese and McDonald’s.  The food was excellent, the portions huge, and you could get nearly any meal you wanted for RMB$10 (approx. CAD$3).  Plus, there was a perfect viewing window out to the dancing fountains.  Prices were consistantly good throughout the city, too.  One night we went to a movie (sadly, the animated Sunshine Barry and the Disco Worms – I love that! – was not out yet, but I would have totally paid to see it!), and got dinner, the movie, caramel corn (they didn’t offer any un-caramel corn anywhere) and drinks for about CAD$10 per person!  Plus, they let you preassign seats at the movie theatre, just like on airplanes, so there’s no worry about rushing in to get the perfect seat, it’s already printed on your ticket.  Are you listening, Cineplex?  This rocked.

              Taxis are plentiful, and unless you get an official metered one, remember to agree on the fare beforehand to prevent being taken for a financial ride.  But I much preferred the monorail or underground systems, as they were dirt cheap, well marked and super-efficient.  On hot days, escaping into a nice airconditioned station was the best way to travel.  Regardless of how far it looked on a map, we discovered that nothing in central KL is that far away.  It didn’t take us more than twenty minutes to get anywhere by taxi, and quite often, though it looked to be a huge distance away on paper, attractions were only a (maximum) ten minute walk away.   A few stops on the train and  a short walk got us to the KL Tower (think CN Tower, but slightly lower), with it’s great 360-degree views of the city.  It only cost RMB$7 to enter, and we chose it over the Petronas Towers’ free viewing deck as it’s higher  and you don’t have to line up at 8am to get one of the limited tickets they hand out each day.  Well worth the expense.  A few more stops from there took us right into the heart of the shopping district, with mall after mall, from low end market-style to shiny exclusive high-end Guccis and Pradas, all ready to part you from your Ringitt.  Sweet.

               The one attraction that’s definately taxi-distance away (though at max it should only cost RMB$30 – CAD$10 - each way) is the Batu caves, a massive Hindu shrine in a (you guessed it) cave.  You’re greeted by a giant 140 foot tall golden statue of Lord Murugan, and behind him are the 272 stairs that you must climb to enter.  They’re conveniently numbered to let you know how much farther you have to go.  The view from the top looking back at KL is spectacular.  This place is really, really cool.  But not literally.  I recommend going early, as we were there at 9am and it was already “Oh-my-God-you-want-me-to-exercise-now?” hot.  No wonder at the top there’s a souvenir stand stocking little more than cold drinks.  And I was dressed for the exercise in shorts, a tank and trainers.  All around me the faithful were climbing barefoot or in ornate, layered saris.  I don’t know how they did it.  But the stars of the caves are the wild monkeys.  They’re everywhere, totally unafraid of humans and so freaking adorable.  You can get within a foot of them, and all they do is yawn and look bored.  We had been warned by our taxi driver that the monkeys won’t bother you unless you were carrying a plastic grocery bag, as they know that offerings of food for the Gods were carried in those bags, and they’re always looking for a free snack, and they weren’t concerned with us at all.  There are some great souvenir shops at the bottom, too.
       The central market was another favorite haunt, also just a few train stops away from our hotel and a short walk from the huge Chinatown night market.  It housed some of the best handicrafts, some good clothing and nice bathrooms (though they were squat toilets, it cost you RMB$0.50 to enter and you have to bring your own toilet paper).  I did some serious shopping there.  It also housed the Cute Fish Spa.  The first time I saw “fish spa” on a sign I thought it was where you take your fish if they need to de-stress, but upon closer inspection I discovered they’re actually these pools filled with six-inch long, toothless black fish, and when you put your feet in they “kissed” you, sucking off all the dead skin.  Seriously.  I kind of liked my first option better.  Why would anyone do this?  But then the lady said it was RMB$5 for 20 minutes, so for that price, what the hell.   Oh my God it tickles.  You never quite get used to that feeling.  By the time it was over my sides hurt from laughing so hard, but wow, my feet were softer than ever and stayed that way for the next two weeks.  If you ever come across a fish spa (especially one that says it’s Cute), do it, it’s worth it.  Just google “fish spa” you get some good videos.

            Between the attractions, the incredibly friendly people (oh, and did I mention almost everybody speaks English?  They learn it in school.  Most of the signs and billboard ads are in English, too) and the ease of exploration, Kuala Lumpur is awesome.  Honestly, if you go to see the towers alone (and take the prerequisite thousand pictures of them) it’s worth it, but when you add in all the rest that the city has to offer, it’s spectacular.  So go.  Now.  You’ll love it.  And if you can, grab a bootleg copy of Sunshine Barry and the Disco Worms for me.

Tags: Batu Caves, BlogSherpa, fish spa, friendly people, Kuala Lumpur, lightning, movies, night market, Petronas Towers, public transportation, shopping